TechNation Radio Podcast

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Stanford Business School Lecturer, Matt Abrahams, about his book, “THINK FASTER, TALK SMARTER: How To Speak Successfully When You’re Put on the Spot”. Then, Dr. Steffen-Sebastian Bolz from Aphaia Pharma talks about their new drug, currently in phase 3 trial, that may provide the benefits of Ozempic and Wegovy - without the injection.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Harvard professor experimental cognitive scientist Steven Pinker about “Rationality … What it is, Why it seems scarce, and Why it matters”. Then Lemony Snicket – the one and only. You know him from his children’s book series, “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. He’s here with “Poison for Breakfast”. You will start bewildered and leave bewildered, but feeling much better about it.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Journalist Alex Kantrowitz about his 2020 book, “Always Day One: How the Tech Titans Plan to Stay on Top Forever” which has spawned his work, as Founder and Editor of Big Technology. Then, Dr. Mark Sumeray, Chief Medical Officer of Amolyt Pharma, talks about their innovative approach to treating hormonal conditions.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Andrew Allen, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of Gritstone Bio, about Cancer and Covid, and what next-generation treatments mean today. Then, Futurist Alex Pang describes Continuous Partial Attention,  thanks to the constant presence of our personal technologies.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Infection AI, about “The Coming Wave … Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma”. Then, Bloomberg columnist Adam Minter talks about his 2019 book, “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale.” You dropped it off at the thrift store … where does it go from there?

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Jeremy Utley, the Director of Executive Education at Stanford University’s d.school, joins Moira to talk about his book “IdeaFlow.” You have no idea how important ideas are in your life, and just how many you’ll need! Then in biotech, human clinical trials have begun to treat a particular type of Epilepsy called Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Dr. Cory Nicholas from Neurona Therapeutics tells us about their big idea and how they have developed an unprecedented cell therapy.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Stanford Professor Robert Sapolsky about “Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will”.   Then, Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent Dr. Daniel Kraft talks about how Medical Schools decide what to teach.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with
Virginia Tech Professor Ashley Shew about “Against Technoableism … Rethinking Who Needs Improvement”. Then, Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent Dr. Daniel Kraft talks about your digital twin, and Dr. Anthony Japour, President and CEO of iTolerance, tells us about a new approach to treating diabetes.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In recognition of Google’s 25th anniversary this year 2000 Tech Nation interview is the first radio interview they ever did. But first, cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf and her book: “Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World”. Then, Dr. Daniel Kraft, Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent, tells us about the explosion of digital health

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Sir Ian Wilmut, the Scottish embryologist and the leader for the team that cloned Dolly the sheep. This 2007 BioTech Nation interview marked the 10th anniversary of Dolly’s birth. Then, Michael Shermer talks about his book, “Heavens on Earth – The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia.” We’ll find out who believes – or does not believe – in immortality

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with
Tom Ireland, Science Journalist and Author, “The Good Virus: The Amazing Story and Forgotten Promise of the Phage”. Then Dr. Robert Ladner, CEO & Founder of CV6 Therapeutics, tells us about their work to improve a cornerstone cancer chemotherapy.

On this week’s Tech Nation, developing antidepressants along with a test so when you take them, you know they will work. Dr. Amit Etkin, the founder and CEO Alto Neuroscience, explains how looking at each patient’s underlying biology is essential. Then Sir Rory Collins, the Principal Investigator of the UK BioBank. With data from half a million people, it has served 30,000 scientists around the world, giving special support to young researchers and scientists in emergent countries.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with CEO Dr. Ben Thomas and Chief Commercial Officer Dermot Tierney from Amply Discovery talks about how their novel approach to AI in drug discovery. Then, Dr. Daniel Kraft, the founder and chair of NextMed Health tells us about ChatGPT and Healthcare. And Dr. Alex Pang’s still relevant 2013 interview on smartphones and social media – it’s "The Distraction Addiction."

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan, the Director of the National Science Foundation talks about how they had to pivot during Covid to act fast. Then, in Biotech, with today’s cannabis concentrations, acute cannabis intoxication is on the rise. Dr. Ken Cundy, CSO at Anebulo Pharma is working to create an antidote.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks on the ability to monitor both our health … and our illnesses. Even the ability to see if our medical condition is changing or that last update in prescription really worked. And what about when you travel? Dr. Kal Patel is the Co-Founder and CEO of BrightInsight. He tells us about the challenges and BrightInsight’s solutions. Then speaking of all this new tech, where are we going with all this? David Ewing Duncan’s insights from his 2019 book, “Talking to Robots: Tales from Our Human Robot Future”, are more relevant than ever.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with journalist Jason Del Rey about Amazon and Walmart - how they are different and their designs on your attention. His book is “Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets”.
Then in biotech, breakthrough science which changes the name of the game on how to make a medicine. Dr. Sanjay Shukla, the President and CEO of ATyr Pharma, takes this unprecedented approach and ATyr’s first drug candidate which treats pulmonary sarcoidosis.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dan Levitt, Award-winning documentary producer and Author, “What’s Gotten Into You … The Story of Your Body’s Atoms, from the Big Bang Through Last Night’s Dinner.” Then, in Biotech, we look at progress in Gliobastoma, the most aggressive form of brain cancer. Dr. Fahar Merchant, the President & CEO of Medicenna Therapeutics, joins me to talk about their unprecedented approach to clinical trials.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Gene Kinney, the President and CEO of Prothena Biosciences, about a 1-2-3 punch for Alzheimer’s - fighting amyloids, fighting tau, and their work on a vaccine that just might prevent Alzheimer’s altogether. Then Daniel Pink talks about Regret. Research shows you can begin to ease the pain by writing 15 minutes a day for 3 days. His book is “The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward”.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Bloomberg and BusinessWeek journalist Mark Bergen about the challenge of keeping up with the 100’s of hours of video uploaded every minute. His book is “Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination”. Then an excerpt from Wired Science Editor Kara Platoni’s original interview about her 2015 book: “We Have the Technology: How Biohackers, Foodies, and Physicians are Transforming Human Perception.” It’s even more relevant today.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Cody Cassidy, Wired contributor, “How to Survive History … How to Outrun a Tyrannosaurus, Escape Pompeii, Get Off the Titanic, and Survive the Rest of History’s Deadliest Catastrophes”. Then, Wharton Professor, Dr. Jonah Berger, follow his earlier books, “Contagious” and “Invisible Influence”. His latest is “The Catalyst – How to Change Anyone’s Mind”.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Melissa Sevigny (Sev-inn-nee), Science Journalist and Author, “Brave the Wild River: The Untold Story of Two Women Who Mapped the Botany of the Grand Canyon”. Then, Emory University Professor Dr. Cassandra Quave is in search of plants for medical botany. Her book is, “The Plant Hunter: A Scientist’s Quest for Nature’s Next Medicines”

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Bloomberg BusinessWeek investigative journalist Kit Chellel (“Shell-lel”) talks about “Dead in the Water … A True Story of Hijacking, Murder, and a Global Maritime Conspiracy.” It makes the movie “Captain Philips” look pretty tame. Then if you thought that all the new vaccines would be mRNA vaccines – you’d be wrong. Dr. Robert Coleman, the Co-Founder and CEO of Codagenix, shows us how to precisely engineer viruses to be effective vaccines. Even better, these can be delivered nasally – there’s no need for a needle.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Ed Humes. His latest is “The Forever Witness … How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder.” We get an object lesson in the Three Ages of DNA, and while it reads like a fast-paced Cold Case on steroids – it provides details no fiction writer would dare to make up, like the unexpected involvement of the famous true crimes writer, Ann Rule, and a person whose DNA skills are familiar to fans of the PBS documentary series, “Finding your roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.”

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Jamie Susskind about his book, “The Digital Republic … On Freedom and Democracy in the 21st Century”. Then, in Biotech, a potential successor to stem cells - fibroblasts? Yes, fibroblasts. Dr. Hamid Khoja, Chief Scientific Officer of FibroBiologics in Houston, describes their fibroblast programs in such diverse conditions as Degenerative Disk Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and Diabetic Foot Ulcers.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Journalists Dade Hayes & Dawn Chmielewski about “Binge Times: Inside Hollywood’s Furious Billion-Dollar Battle to Take Down Netflix”. From the stock plunge of Netflix to the rise of Bridgerton, it’s a streaming war for our attention. Then in Biotech, could “sticky proteins” lead to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS and more? Dr. Maria Maccecchini, Founder, President and CEO of Annovis Bio, tells us about their approach.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Bruce Schoenfeld, journalist and author of “Game of Edges …The Analytics Revolution and the Future of Professional Sports.”, about the data revolution in professional sports.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Francois Vigneault, Co-Founder and CEO of Shape Therapeutics, talks about how they’re engineering mRNA to address Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Then, Dr. Pail Peter Tak, CEO of Candel Therapeutics is using immuno-oncology treatments to go after solid tumors as well as cancers which have metastasized.

Founding Executive Editor at Wired magazine Kevin Kelly is here with “Excellent Advice for Living … Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier.” Then two different efforts from the front lines of fighting cancer. Dr. Paul Lammers from Triumvira Immunologics tells us about their approach, both as a complement to such existing treatments as Keytruda, and as a standalone cancer drug in its own. Then Dr. Philip Kantoff from Convergent Therapeutics tells about their efforts in the most advanced, intractable prostate cancer.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Pomona College Professor Gary Smith about his book, “Distrust … Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science”.” Then, technology to keep your genes working at their best. Moira speaks with Dr. Noah Davidsohn, the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Rejuvenate Bio.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Kirk Wallace Johnson talking about fishermen, immigrants, bigotry, justice and environmental pollution. It’s all in “The Fishermen and the Dragon … Fear, Greed, and a Fight for Justice on the Gulf Coast”. Then on BioTech Nation, Dr. Hernan Bazan, the Co-Founder & CEO of South Rampart Pharma in New Orleans. They’re working on the next generation of pain relief – non-opioid pain relief. The goal is to be equally powerful without the addiction.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Leroy Hood and Dr. Nathan Price about focusing on wellness with the help of science and their book, “The Age of Scientific Wellness … Why the Future of Medicine is Personalized, Predictive, Data-Rich, and in Your Hands”.

On this week's Tech Nation, Moira speaks with
John Markoff, the former New York Times journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, to talk about someone we would call today an influencer only he has been influencing now for decades. Markoff's book is Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand.
Then in biotech, Dr. James Mackey, the President & CEO, Aristea Therapeutics, tells about a painful disease which affects the palms of hand and soles of feet in post-menopausal women - Palmoplantar pustulosis or PPP - and how it may relate to other diseases.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Robert Foster, CEO of Hepion Pharmaceuticals, about some surprising information about your liver – like the one you have right now, is pretty much not the one you had just a few years ago. Then combining science and the humanities, MIT Professor Dr. Alan Lightman, talks about his book, “The Transcendent Brain: Spirituality in the Age of Science”.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Duke University Professor Nita Farahany about her book, “The Battle for Your Brain … Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology.” Then recovering from the devastation of war, Conservation X Lab’s Dr. Alex Dehgan talks about his book, “The Snow Leopard Project … and other Adventures in Warzone Conservation”.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Columbia professors Chris Wiggins and Matthew Jones about their book, “How Data Happened … A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms.” Then it’s all about glucose at Rezolute – too much and too little. Nevan Charles Elam tells us about their work to treat the “diabetic eye condition”, DME, and a pediatric condition called Congenital hyperinsulinism.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Sidarta Ribeiro, Deputy Director of the Brain Institute at the Unversidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil. His book is “The Oracle of Night … The History and Science of Dreams”. Then, a potential new treatment for a side effect of chemotherapy: Hand-Foot Skin Reaction and Hand-Foot Syndrome. Dr. Michael McCullar, the CEO of OnQuality Pharmaceuticals talks about their new drug candidate which has just finished Phase II clinical trials.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice President of the European Commission for “A Europe Fit for the Digital Age”.  Commissioner Vestager describes why the EU imposed fines on such digital giants as Google and Amazon, and the impact on the EU’s digital space since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Then, University of the South Professor David George Haskell talks about sound – from the beginning of time on planet earth to the sounds in our teeming cities. His book is “Sounds Wild and Broken … Sonic Marvels, Evolution’s Creativity and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction”.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Soren Kaplan talks about taking a look at your life experience to gain insight and action into your personal and business life. His book is “Experiential Intelligence: Harness the Power of Experience for Personal and Business Breakthroughs.” Then to a place in Alaska where no human has gone, much less conquered. Climber and rescuer, Michael Wejchert talks about “Hidden Mountains … Survival and Reckoning After a Climb Gone Wrong.”

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dan Egan takes us on a world tour of phosphates – or would that be phosphorus? It’s best to pay attention. His book is “The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance.” Then, Dr. Darren Kelly, the Founder and CEO of Certa Therapeutics in Melbourne, Australia, tells us about his many-decade scientific research which has led to a treatment for Schleroderma, now in advanced clinical trials. The results are worth noting.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Andrew Steele in a FOLLOW-ON science-focused interview on the latest science behind ageing. His book is “Ageless … The New Science of Getting Older without Getting Old.” And then, an excerpt from Dr. Thomas Rando’s 2020 interview. A co-founder of Fountain Therapeutics, he tells us about their science and their efforts to potentially reverse the ageing process.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Gabriella Kellerman joins me to talk about “TomorrowMind – Thriving at Work with Resilience, Creativity and Connection – Now and in an Uncertain Future”. The cover everything from Rapid Rapport to Psychological Safety in our work environment. Then … what is AI doing in biotech? Dr Vimal Mehta tells us how his company, BioXcel, used AT in drug discovery. One drug has already been approved, and there are more in the pipeline.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Katherine Corcoran, the former Associate Press Bureau Chief for Mexico, talks about “In the Mouth of the Wolf: A Murder, a Coverup, and the True Cost of Silencing the Press”. She talks about the danger of being a journalist in Mexico, and one woman who paid the ultimate price. And following news of one biotech firm trying to bring back the dodo bird, we hear from Joe Hernandez from Blue Water Vaccines. His quest to develop a universal flu vaccine led him face-to-face – so to speak - with the Oxford dodo.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Andrew Steele about “Ageless … The New Science of Getting Older without Getting Old.” Then, Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent Dr. Daniel Kraft brings us uptodate on treating kidney disease and with heart transplants from genetically modified pigs in the news, kidneys are also being examined. Finally, with the West Coast of the United States under tsunami warning, former USGS scientist, Dr. Lucy Jones talks about “The Big Ones: How Natural Disasters Have Shaped Us”, and how we need to approach the aftermath.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Chris Bailey about “How to Calm Your Mind … Finding Presence and Productivity in Anxious Times”. Science tells us that humans love dopamine, caffeine is essentially liquid stress, and burnout is more than being exhausted. Then, teaching our immune systems to recognize tumors in our own bodies and then eliminating them. Bolt Biotherapeutics’ CEO, Dr. Randy Schatzman, talks about the role of myeloid cells, and Bolt is studying nearly two dozen forms of HER2-related cancers.

On this week’s Tech Nation, developing antidepressants along with a test so when you take them, you know they will work. Dr. Amit Etkin, the founder and CEO Alto Neuroscience, explains how looking at each patient’s underlying biology is essential. Then Sir Rory Collins, the Principal Investigator of the UK BioBank. With data from half a million people, it has served 30,000 scientists around the world, giving special support to young researchers and scientists in emergent countries.

On this week’s Tech Nation, James Vincent about his book, “Beyond Measure: The Hidden History of Measurement from Cubits to Quantum Constants”, and our age-old propensity as humans … to measure things. Then Dr. Rob Ross from Surface Oncology tells us why the first generation of immuno-oncology drugs only worked on 15% of cancer patients, and how Surface Oncology is tackling the other 85%. Their Phase 2 trials in lung cancer and liver cancer are recruiting now.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Ohio State University professor Angus Fletcher connects neuroscience and literature, and why stories can be so compelling – from Greek tragedy to modern times. His book is “Wonderworks … the 25 Most Powerful Inventions in the History of Literature”. Then a ten-minute primer with David Peterson, best known for creating alien languages for HBO’s Game of Thrones, Netflix's The Witcher, and Marvel's Doctor Strange.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Columbia University professor Eric Johnson about “The Elements of Choice: Why the Way We Decide Matters”. Then insight into rare genetic diseases with Dr. Dietrich Stephan, CEO of NeuBase Therapeutics. He talks us through rare genetic diseases, as well as NeuBase’s approach. And Tech Nation Health Chief Correspondent Dr. Daniel Kraft talks about the challenges of Telehealth.

On this week’s Tech Nation, Moira speaks with Dr. Cathy O’Neil about “The Shame Machine … Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation”. They talk about how encouraging shame figures into the algorithms of social media. Then Dr. Daniel Bloomfield, the Chief Medical Officer of Anthos Therapeutics, describes the current challenge of preventing bleeding while avoiding the specter of clotting. Anthos may have a solution.