Episodes
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Historian Beverly Gage on Her Rare Disease Diagnosis
Beverly Gage, Yale professor of American History and author, is more likely to be found on podcasts discussing her new (and wildly acclaimed) biography, “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century". But in 2019 her life took an unexpected turn, as a chance encounter with a…
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Deven McGraw on Health Data Sharing and Privacy
Deven McGraw, lead for Data Stewardship and Data Sharing at Invitae, joins Laura to discuss how government and industry can best secure your right to access your own health data while keeping it secure from unwanted exposures. Deven's broad range of experience makes her the person to answer those...
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Adam Rutherford on His Latest Book about Eugenics
Today’s podcast features Adam Rutherford, a geneticist trained at University College London who has spent much of his career as a science communicator: as an editor at Nature, as a radio and television commentator for the BBC, and as the author of such books with delightful titles, including...
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Bringing Genomic Medicine to the Whole World: Sharon Terry of the Genetic Alliance
In a field full of amazing people, no one --- no one -- is more remarkable than Sharon Terry. And this is despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that she is not, technically, in the field at all: Sharon Terry is, as her bio describes her, “just a mom with a master’s degree in theology.”…
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Noura Abul Husn on Translational Genomics
Noura Abul-Husn got her MD and PhD from Mt Sinai in NYC, where she later served as the first clinical director of the Institute for Genomic Health and Chief of Genomic Medicine. Today, she is Vice President for Genomic Health at 23andMe. She joins us here on the Beagle today to discuss the state…
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Why Has PGx Testing Been So Hard? with Kristine Ashcraft
Pharmacogenetics testing: where are we today? Kristine Ashcraft, CEO, and founder of YouScript, a translational PGX start-up that Invitae recently acquired, joins us on the Beagle to discuss why it has been so hard to get the ball rolling on PGX testing. Kristine, who was called one of the 25...
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Michelle Mello on Abortion, Privacy, and Genetic Counseling after Dobbs
The dismantling of the right to abortion established under Roe v Wade has left many clinicians angry, uncertain, and in dire need of legal advice. If that describes you – speak to a lawyer! Don’t get your legal advice from a podcast, you silly goose. But first: you might want to listen to this...
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Daniel Navon on Genetics and Patient Identity
A conversation with Dan Navon, associate professor of sociology at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of Mobilizing Mutations: Human Genetics in the Age of Patient Advocacy. Dan’s book encourages us to pay attention to the subtle way in which defining conditions according to...
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Allison Kurian on Cancer Testing
Allison Kurian is Director of the Stanford Women’s Clinical Cancer Genetics Program, with a practice that centers on women at high risk of breast and gynecologic cancers. Trained in internal medicine, oncology, and epidemiology, Allison has embraced genetics (a fourth specialty!) as a tool for...
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Illumina’s Phil Febbo on Early Cancer Detection and Launch of Galleri
What if, someday, your doctor could order a single test able to screen for over 50 types of cancer? What if, someday, you had an effective screening option to offer patients identified with cancer susceptibility syndromes? What if, someday, we had a way to catch killers like lung, pancreatic and...
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Is Luna Genetics a Game Changer? Ron Wapner on Prenatal Genetics
Ten years ago, prenatal testing was revolutionized by the introduction of non-invasive testing, which improved the positive predictive value of testing while reanimating concerns that have dogged reproductive genetics from the get-go: what should we test for and who should decide? Now, start-up...
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Jehannine Austin on Psychiatric Genetics and Counseling
Today on The Beagle, one of the rock stars of the genetic counseling field, Jehannine Austin, Professor of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia. Jehannine has pioneered the field of psychiatric genetic counseling and, more broadly, they have worked energetically for decades to...
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Anya Prince on Genetic Discrimination and Privacy
Increasingly, algorithms and computing power are combining to turn us into both the sources and the subjects of big data. Professor Anya Prince from the University of Iowa College of Law, an expert in genetics and the law, joins us to explore the twin threats of genetic discrimination and loss of...
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Donna McDonald-McGinn on 22Q11
22Q11 Deletion Syndrome – the most common version of a rare thing, affecting close to 1 in 1000 births – is no picnic for genetic counselors. Presentation is complex and unpredictable and can include structural, developmental, and behavioral manifestations. This is a public episode. If you would...
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Sex, Gender, and NIPT with Hannah Llorin and Kim Zayhowski
Hannah Llorin is a reproductive genetic counselor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and Kim Zayhowski is a cancer genetic counselor at Boston Medical Center and a faculty member at the Boston University Genetic Counseling Program. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss…
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Amy McGuire on Newborn Sequencing
Today the Beagle welcomes Amy McGuire, Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. Amy, a nationally-recognized expert in the legal and ethical issues associated with genomic medicine, joins Laura to discuss BabySeq...
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Kathryn Paige Harden on Behavioral Genetics
Kathryn Paige Harden is a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, where she leads the Developmental Behavior Lab and co-directs the Texas twin project. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...
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Colleen Caleshu on GC Burnout
Colleen Caleshu, Senior Director of Research at GeneMatters, received the Jane Engleberg Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 2019 for a randomized controlled trial of meditation to improve genetic counselor professional well-being. She received the best abstract award at the 2021 NSGC Annual...
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New ACMG Guidelines for Expanded Carrier Screening with Barbara Harrison and Katie Stoll
Today, Laura speaks with Barbara Harrison, Assistant Professor at Howard University (and 2020 NSGC Natalie Weissberger Paul National Achievement Award winner) and Katie Stoll, executive director of Genetic Support Foundation, about the new guidelines from ACMG on expanded carrier screening: how...
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Kiran Musunuru Has Good News about Gene Therapy for Common Diseases
A cardiologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, Kiran Musunuru is a clinician and a researcher whose important work has moved the ball forward on gene therapy. As co-founder and scientific advisor to Verve Therapeutics, Kiran has a special...
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Laura and Jordan Brown on New Challenges to Abortion Law and What they Mean for Prenatal Diagnostics
The legal landscape for abortion is changing rapidly, and in ways that will inevitably affect genetic counseling practice in many states. Joining Laura to discuss the new laws and the role that NSGC can play – if the organization decides that protecting reproductive rights is a priority for its...
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Jodie Ingles on Cardio Genetics
Today we reach out across closed borders to Australia for a chat with Jodie Ingles, one of the first people anywhere in the world to focus on cardiogenetic counseling. Jodie talks to us about how the field has changed in the last 17 years, and where we are headed next. This is a public episode.…
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Euan Ashley on The Genome Odyssey
Euan Ashley has had a front row seat at the genomic revolution, and in his new book The Genome Odyssey he invites us to sit alongside him and watch the show. Even if you lived through it, you won’t believe how quickly things have changed! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss…
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Kyle Brothers and Mildred Cho: How to Talk about Race in Designing Genetic Research
If you are a clinician, researcher, or editor working in genetics, you are probably aware of the toxic history of our field with regard to race. And (JAMA editors aside, apparently) you are probably aware that this is not just a historical problem, but something affecting medical practice today....
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Walter Isaacson, "The Code Breaker"
Walter Isaacson, who has written biographies that explore the birth of the atomic age (Einstein) and the digital age (Jobs), now turns his attention to the biotech revolution, as embodied by CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna with his new book, This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss...
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Hank Greely: CRISPR People
I can hardly believe I’ve been doing this podcast for more than 2 years and never had Hank Greely on before. Hank Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law at Stanford University, and Director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences. When you want an opinion on anything…
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Eimear Kenny and Noura Abul-Husn: Translational Genomics Incarnate
There’s no overstating how far we have come since 2000 in the fledgling science of genomics, but at times it has seemed that our ability to amass information has far outstripped our ability to make that information matter by improving healthcare. As extraordinary as the technology is, it cannot…
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Diana Bianchi on Prenatal Testing
Diana Bianchi began her career in genetics so long ago that she needed to make one thing clear: “I’m not that old. I just started young.” And it’s true! Diana fell in love with the study of chromosomes back in high school and returned to it as a pediatrician and a specialist in neonatal medicine....
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Difference or Disability? with Rosemarie Garland Thomson
Rosemarie Garland Thompson is a professor of English and Bioethics at Emory University. She has been called a “thought leader” in disability studies. She is co-editor of About Us: Essays from the New York Times about Disability by People with Disabilities. She is here today to discuss disability...
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Heather Hampel on the State of Cancer Testing
Heather Hampel, one of the pioneer genetic counselors in the realm of cancer counseling, has been leading the charge on Lynch syndrome screening for over 20 years. Whatever your leadership metrics, Heather ticks them: multiple publications, past president of ABGC, PI of the Ohio Colorectal Cancer...
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Adam Rutherford on Science Communication
Today’s podcast features Adam Rutherford, a geneticist trained at University College London who has spent much of his career as a science communicator: as an editor at Nature, as a radio and television commentator for the BBC, and as the author such books with delightful titles, including...
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Racism and Genetic Counseling with Aishwarya Arjunan and Carrie Haverty
Aishwarya Arjunan of Myriad’s Women’s Health and Carrie Haverty of the biotech start-up Miroculus join Laura to discuss dialogues that have cropped up recently on Twitter and in other places against the backdrop of a moment of national reckoning on how racism past and present shapes our society....
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John Greally on Epigenomics
Laura talks today with John Greally, a pediatrician and epigenomicist with appointments in Medicine, Pediatrics and Genetics at Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx. John is the founding director of Einstein’s Center for Epigenomics, and an innovator who has looked hard at how to improve the...
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David Goldstein
David Goldstein is a self-described “geneticist for hire.” It’s been five years since he arrived in New York as the inaugural director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center, and despite his California roots, the city has adopted David as a native son (no,...
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Author Libby Copeland on the Impact of Ancestry Testing
Libby Copeland is a prize-winning science journalist who has written for the Washington Post, New York Magazine, the NY Times Magazine and, the Atlantic, among others. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit...
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Heidi Rehm
Geneticist Heidi Rehm of Harvard Medical School and the Broad Institute has helped develop many of the tools that are fundamental to our ability to harness genomic variation for medical care: ClinGen, ClinVar, Matchmaker and others. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with...
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Ethan Weiss and the Story of Ruthie Weiss
Prenatal testing was a normal part of life for UCSF cardiologist Ethan Weiss and his wife when they were expecting their second child, something you did without a second thought. But thirteen years after the birth of Ruthie Weiss, Ethan has plenty of second thoughts about assumptions people make…
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Gillian Hooker on HR3235
“It’s been a crazy time,” says Gillian Hooker, of the first 5 weeks of her year as President of the National Society of Genetic Counselors. NSGC is attempting to rally support around HR3235, a long-discussed and long-promised federal bill that would permit CMS to recognize genetic counselors as...
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Ambry Genetics on New RNA Testing
Laura starts out the decade chatting with genetic counselor Holly LaDuca and Rachid Karam, Director of Ambry Translational Genomics Lab, about Ambry’s paired DNA/RNA cancer susceptibility test, which was introduced in 2019. What can RNA testing do to improve detection and interpretation of…
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Alicia Zhou
Color Genomics burst on the scene in 2015, offering breast cancer susceptibility testing at a fraction of the price of other laboratories. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit beaglelanded.substack.com
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Louise Bier
As we get underway with All of Us, the huge tax-payer funded project to assemble a database or genomic and medical information on 1 million Americans, there are people working hard to make sure it fulfills two founding principles. First, to treat participants like partners (and this means giving...
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Rayna Rapp
Rayna Rapp is Professor of anthropology and an affiliate at the center for disability studies at NYU. Laura welcomes Rayna Rapp, feminist, medical anthropologist and all-around sage, who has worked for decades in the study of the social impact of prenatal genetic testing. Her 1999 book, "Testing...
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Jordan Smoller
Families and individuals dealing with mental illness have lots of questions about genetic testing. Does it work? Can it help doctors choose the right course of treatment? Can it predict who is likely to get sick? Are the tests they are selling on line today the real deal? This is a public…
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Kif Augustine-Adams
Kif Augustine-Adams is the Ivan Meitus Chair and a professor the Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark School of Law whose work has focused on protecting immigrant women and children. A feminist and advocate with an interest in history, Kif was well aware of the threats that women face in the...
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Kevin Mitchell
Kevin Mitchell (AKA “Wiring the Brain”) joins us on The Beagle to discuss the use of so-called polygenic risk scores to select for “the smartest embryos,” as a recent Guardian article put it. Can we, and should we, do any such thing? Kevin Mitchell is Associate Professor in the Smurfit Institute…
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Kiran Musunuru, Verve Therapeutics
Kiran Musunuru, Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, is back on The Beagle to talk about Verve Therapeutics, a company that announced its arrival earlier this month, with the modest goal of protecting the world from heart disease (honestly, “protect…
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Eric Topol
As the Gary and Mary West Professor of Innovative Medicine and Founder/Director of the Scripps Translational Institute, Eric Topol is in the visionary business, trying to imagine what medicine will look like in the future. His current book, Deep Medicine, explores how artificial intelligence will...
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Elissa Levin
Elissa Levin was one of the first genetic counselors to work in the direct-to-consumer sector, starting at DNA Direct (remember that?); she’s been at Illumina-spinoff Helix for about 3 years. Helix runs a DTC marketplace, offering an the all-purpose DNA test (exome plus microarray) that can be...
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Amy Sturm
Amy Sturm is the head of cardiovascular genomic counseling at the Genomic Medicine Institute at Geisinger, that surprisingly cutting edge in the middle of nowhere (I’ve been there; trust me). Amy, a cardiogen pioneer for almost 20 year (cue Amy, gasping) is also the current President of the...
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Wendy Chung
Wendy Chung (MD, PhD) is the Kennedy Family Professor of Pediatrics in Medicine at Columbia University… and the Director of the Pediatric Neuromuscular Network Molecular Core, the New York Obesity Center Molecular Genetics Core, Columbia’s Clinical Cancer Program and DISCOVER program and…really…
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