Mendelspod Podcast

Episod

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  Agilent and Oxford Nanopore Discuss Bringing Long Reads to the Clinic with a Customer 09.07.2026 29min

  Acute leukemia patients often wait days or even weeks for the full battery of molecular tests needed to guide treatment decisions. Dr. Parth Shah from Dartmouth believes long read sequencing can dramatically shorten that timeline. In this episode, Shah joins Agilent's Rita Shaknovich and Oxford Nanopore's Claire Attwooll to discuss some details of how long reads are beginning to move from research applications into routine clinical testing.Along the way, we explore the role of targeted enrichment, quality control, automation, and informatics in making these workflows practical for real-world laboratories.For Shah, the field has reached an inflection point. After more than a decade of development, he argues that long reads are finally positioned to make the leap into clinical genomics. “As we ask more complex questions of human biology, long read is probably going to be the best ammunition that we have,” he says. His team at Dartmouth has already demonstrated the potential in acute myeloid leukemia, where a long-read workflow can now generate a comprehensive molecular profile within 24 hours rather than the weeks often required by conventional testing.Shaknovich emphasizes that the opportunity is not simply generating more data, but generating better data. Long reads, she notes, can simultaneously capture mutations, structural variants, and epigenetic information, creating a richer biological picture than many existing approaches. Attwooll highlights the flexibility that has emerged in the long-read ecosystem. Researchers can now choose among whole-genome sequencing, targeted enrichment, and Oxford Nanopore’s adaptive sampling approaches depending on the clinical question. She argues that the field is moving from a niche technology toward a mainstream platform for translational and clinical applications.A recurring theme throughout the conversation is that no single technology will dominate every application. Whole-genome long reads, targeted enrichment, and adaptive approaches each have a role to play. As these methods move from research into routine testing, success will depend on more than sequencing alone. Agilent's established customer base, automation capabilities, quality-control tools, and experience supporting laboratories help provide the infrastructure needed to bring Oxford Nanopore's rapidly advancing long-read technology into practical clinical workflows. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Liquid Biopsy for the Tumor Microenvironment: with Vince Miller and Mirna Jarosz 30.06.2026 4min

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comWe’ve become remarkably good at reading cancer cells. Spatial biology enabled us to read them in context. Today we discuss a new Nature study suggesting that the tumor microenvironment—the immune cells, stromal cells, and surrounding biology that often determines whether a therapy succeeds or fails—can be measured from a simple blood draw, or liquid biopsy. To do that we’re joined by Dr. Vincent Miller, an oncologist and former founding Chief Medical Officer of Foundation Medicine, and Dr. Mirna Jarosz, CEO of LiquidCell Dx.The work introduces a striking idea. Rather than focusing only on mutations inside tumor cells, it identifies recurring spatial ecosystems within tumors and then shows that their signatures can be recovered from plasma cell-free DNA using methylation patterns. The implication is that liquid biopsy may soon reveal not only what mutations a tumor carries, but how its surrounding biology is organized before treatment ever begins.But wait. How can blood possibly contain information about spatial organization inside a tumor? That answer unfolds gradually on today’s show, making the final portion of the discussion particularly rewarding.As Jarosz explains, “We’ve condensed spatial biology to really critical and recurring biological programs. And then we can measure those in blood. So now we have that spatial insight of the tumor microenvironment in a liquid biopsy.”For Miller, the significance is ultimately clinical. “The tumor is almost like an organ,” he says. “The ability to understand how that organ is constructed and what structures are near one another and how they’re functioning... is really the underpinning” of why patients with seemingly similar cancers can have dramatically different responses to therapy.If this approach continues to hold up in larger clinical studies, liquid biopsy may expand from reading the genetics of cancer to reading its ecosystem. This shift could improve immunotherapy selection, longitudinal monitoring, and our understanding of cancer biology itself.
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  Can Liquid Biopsy Transform Chronic Disease? Hamed Amini and Soheil Damangir of Hepta 25.06.2026 4min

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comFor the past decade, liquid biopsy has largely been defined by oncology. Tumors shed DNA carrying mutations and epigenetic changes which allows researchers to detect cancer and monitor response. With this physicians are increasingly able to guide treatment. But chronic diseases are different. There is no tumor. Biological signals are subtle and quite d…
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  The UAE’s Big Bet on Genomic Medicine with Mohamed Alameri and Albarah El-Khani 23.06.2026 46min

  The future of genomics has arrived in Abu Dhabi.On today’s show, Dr. Mohamed Alameri of the UAE Department of Health and Albarah El-Khani of M42 describe one of the most ambitious precision medicine efforts underway anywhere in the world: the Emirati Genome Program, which has already sequenced more than 900,000 genomes and is rapidly integrating that data into everyday healthcare.The UAE program is not only a large sequencing effort and database—soon to be made available for research anywhere—but a coordinated national strategy built on prevention, diagnosis, and long-term population health. Particularly striking is the UAE’s focus on inherited and autosomal recessive diseases, which occur at significantly higher prevalence in the region than in many Western populations. Rather than treating genomics as an isolated research exercise, the program has pushed aggressively into premarital screening, newborn genomic screening, pharmacogenomics, hereditary cancer risk assessment, and rare disease diagnosis. “We truly believe in the philosophy of ‘sequence once, analyze for life,’” says El-Khani. “Imagine a society where every individual from birth holds a whole genome sequence throughout their life. How powerful is that tool at every intersection of public health, clinical care, and screening?”The scale of the project is already yielding discoveries difficult to achieve elsewhere. According to Alameri, roughly 12% of the variants identified in the Emirati population are not represented in existing global databases, underscoring just how underrepresented Middle Eastern populations remain in genomics research. In some cases, variants previously considered pathogenic in European populations appear to behave differently in Emirati patients, opening entirely new biological questions.Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the program is the degree to which genomics has been operationalized across the healthcare system. The UAE has invested heavily in physician education and public engagement to move genomics from bench to bedside. Our guests describe a healthcare ecosystem where genomic reports, pharmacogenomic guidance, and hereditary risk assessments are increasingly available directly within clinical workflows.“The vision was not sequencing everyone for its own sake,” says Dr. Alameri. “It was to build a national asset that could support more predictive, preventative, personalized healthcare for our population and for future generations.”There is always hype in genomics, as with other emerging technologies. But the UAE effort is already very comprehensive and clinically grounded. This is genomics functioning as healthcare infrastructure in real time. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Ryan Flynn of Harvard on Non-Coding RNA 18.06.2026 41min

  On today’s show, Dr. Ryan Flynn of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital takes us into a newly emerging layer of biology: the architecture of the cell surface itself. Flynn first gained attention for the discovery of glycoRNA — RNA molecules displayed on the outside of cells — a finding that challenged the traditional picture of the cell surface as a world composed primarily of proteins and glycans. RNA has long been understood mainly as a carrier of genetic information (messenger RNA), but Flynn’s work has show that it has other functions critical to basic processes in the cell. As we’ve been hearing on the program, biology has largely been a science of inventory. Throughout today’s conversation, Flynn argues that molecular organization itself may be a fundamental biological variable. Not simply whether a molecule exists, but where it exists, what it is adjacent to. Using technologies such as Pixelgen’s Proximity Network Assay, his lab is beginning to map the “cell surface architecture,” or the arrangement of proteins, glycans, and nucleic acids that together govern signaling and cellular behavior.The implications stretch across biology. Flynn describes early evidence that extracellular RNA can tune classical signaling pathways such as VEGF-mediated angiogenesis by physically modulating how growth factors engage receptors on endothelial cells. Remove the RNA, and growth factor binding changes dramatically. Rather than acting as a simple on/off switch, the RNA appears to function as a finely tuned regulatory layer controlling signaling strength.In cancer, where cell-surface signaling drives growth, invasion, and immune escape, looking at the organization of the cell surface may determine whether therapies can physically access their targets. Flynn points to bispecific antibodies and T-cell engagers as examples of drugs whose function already depends on proximity and molecular arrangement, even if work in biology has not fully measured those variables before. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Gary Schroth on Connecting Cellular Behavior to the Transcriptome 11.06.2026 32min

  For decades, biology has been driven by the powerful notion that if we could sequence enough genomes, transcriptomes, epigenomes, then we could finally explain the cell. On today’s show, Gary Schroth, the Chief Scientific Officer at Cellanome, argues that something essential was still missing.Schroth spent nearly two decades at Illumina helping build the sequencing revolution. He has now joined Cellanome to pursue an expanded vision of biology that connects transcriptomics with live-cell imaging. Our conversation centers around two newly released preprints describing the company’s platform and its application to CRISPR screening, where imaging and transcriptomic data are explicitly linked in the very same cells.“What we show in a few examples in both papers,” Schroth explains, “is that it’s the combination of transcriptome information and imaging information that really gives us the complete story of what that cell is doing.”That idea—linking what researchers literally see under the microscope with the molecular state of the exact same cell—emerges as the core concept of the interview. Rather than treating imaging and transcriptomics as separate measurements, Cellanome brings them together in a longitudinal workflow where cells can be observed alive over time and then profiled at the transcriptomic level. “Sequencing has certainly taught us a lot about cells and sort of the parts list inside cells,” he says. “But it doesn’t really explain biology.”Will this be the next phase of post-genomic biology where the field moves beyond static snapshots toward directly observing cellular function as it unfolds? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Two-Thirds of High-Risk Breast Cancer Patients May Avoid Chemotherapy According to Veracyte Data Presented at ASCO 09.06.2026 27min

  Today on the show, we’re discussing a new study just presented at ASCO 2026 that could change how chemotherapy decisions are made for a large group of breast cancer patients.During ASCO we spoke with Phil Febbo, Chief Scientific and Medical Officer at Veracyte, and John Leite, the company’s Chief Commercial Officer, looking at the results from the OPTIMA study, a large prospective trial involving roughly 4,500 patients with clinically high-risk ER-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. The study found that about two-thirds of these patients could safely avoid chemotherapy when treatment decisions were guided by the Prosigna test. “What the Optima study shows definitively is that those women with low Prosigna score do not benefit from chemotherapy,” Febbo explains. “They get all the side effects… without any benefit.”The data generated favorable attention at ASCO. The study produced prospective level 1A evidence, the highest standard for predictive testing, and addressed one of the central problems in breast cancer care: determining which patients actually benefit from chemotherapy and which patients may be exposed to toxic treatment unnecessarily. Our show also looks at the broader evolution of molecular diagnostics in oncology. Prosigna runs on whole transcriptome sequencing, creating opportunities not only for current clinical decision-making, but also for future translational research into tumor biology and treatment response. “We need the full complement of the transcriptome to understand what is the faulty circuitry and how do we shut it off therapeutically,” Leite says.Veracyte has moved quickly from clinical validation to rollout. The company already has the assay prepared for U.S. launch immediately following the ASCO presentation. If only it worked out this way every time. It’s the kind of direct through-line between biology, clinical evidence, and improvement of human life that molecular diagnostics companies strive for each year.Note: For more in-depth discussion on the OPTIMA study and the launch of Prosigna, sign up for an upcoming webinar at GenomeWeb here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Building the Diagnostic Layer of Modern Cancer Care with Rita Shaknovich and Karina Kulangara of Agilent 29.05.2026 31min

  For years, precision oncology has largely been discussed through the lens of breakthrough drugs. But there’s another story running underneath modern cancer care: the quiet rise of companion diagnostics. These tests are increasingly deciding who receives those therapies in the first place. In many cases, the real bottleneck is no longer discovering a drug target. It’s building a reliable system for identifying the right patient at the right moment in the disease. That challenge sits at the center of this conversation with Rita Shaknovich, Chief Medical Officer for Life Sciences and Diagnostis, and Karina Kulangara, Associate Vice President of R&D in Companion Diagnostics at Agilent Technologies.Agilent has always had a major role in this field. Rita and Karina explain how companion diagnostics evolved from the original Herceptin test into a vision for a much broader ecosystem spanning pathology, automation, regulation, and global clinical deployment.We dive into Agilent’s recent FDA approval expanding PD-L1 IHC 22C3 PharmDx into ovarian cancer, a development both guests describe as particularly meaningful given the historically poor outcomes associated with the disease. As Rita puts it: “Precision medicine is based fundamentally on scientific truth . . . it brought real results for patients. It brings better survival for patients, fewer side effects from the medication.”Karina offers one of the clearest explanations we’ve heard for why immunohistochemistry or IHC has endured so long in modern oncology. “It’s the ability to detect protein biomarker in the spatial context of the tissue,” she explains, emphasizing that location and cellular context can fundamentally shape how therapies work.What emerges is a picture of precision oncology that is becoming less exotic and more routine. We’re talking not just new drugs, but an entire clinical and technological infrastructure which is designed to match therapies to biology more effectively and over time. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Mapping the Multi-Omic Era with Eric Green of Illumina 28.05.2026 44min

  Dr. Eric Green returns to Mendelspod in a new role: Chief Medical Officer of Illumina. After more than three decades at the National Human Genome Research Institute, where he helped guide genomics from research initiatives to clinical reality, he now joins one of the industry’s most influential companies at a moment when the field is expanding beyond DNA alone.Green takes us on a tour around the world of multi-omics, which he says is not a branding exercise but a practical response to the limits of sequence data by itself. Genomics remains foundational, but many clinical questions require additional layers of biology, including RNA, epigenomics, proteomics, and single-cell analysis. As he puts it, “DNA sequence alone may not reveal it.”The discussion highlights rare disease as one of the clearest examples. Genome sequencing can solve roughly half of suspected cases, Green notes, but many patients remain undiagnosed because the relevant signal may lie in RNA splicing, epigenetic regulation, structural variation, or downstream protein effects. In those settings, multi-omic approaches can provide the missing evidence needed to move from uncertainty to diagnosis.In oncology, the challenge is different. Cancer genomes can be highly complex and heterogeneous, making it difficult to distinguish driver events from background noise. That is one reason why researchers and clinicians are increasingly incorporating methylation markers, transcriptomic data, and proteomic signals into early detection, disease sub typing, and monitoring strategies.Green also emphasizes that the next bottleneck may be less about generating data than interpreting it. “The human brain is not going to be the thing that’s going to crack this nut,” he says. “It’s going to be AI and computational biology.”The result is an overall picture of where the field may be headed as we go from genomic medicine to a broader molecular medicine with multiple data types that will improve diagnosis, stratify disease, and guide care worldwide. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Inside Proteomics at Thermo Fisher with Yan Zhang 21.05.2026 4min

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comFor years, proteomics was described as the missing layer of biology. Why missing? Because measuring proteins at scale turned out to be vastly harder than sequencing DNA.That may finally be changing.In today’s episode Theral speaks with Dr. Yan Zhang, President of Proteomic Sciences at Thermo Fisher Scientific, about the rapid evolution of large-scale p…
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  Separating Epigenetic Signals Improves Early Cancer Detection with Rob Osborne, Biomodal 19.05.2026 23min

  We’ve gotten very good at reading DNA. We’re just beginning to understand how to read its state.On today’s show, Rob Osborne, Senior Vice President of R&D at Biomodal, discusses new evidence that separating two epigenetic marks—5-methylcytosine and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine—can improve early cancer detection from liquid biopsy. In a recent Nature Communications Medicine study, his team showed that analyzing these signals independently in circulating DNA significantly enhanced detection of Stage I colorectal cancer compared with approaches that combine them.The advance does not require new sequencing hardware. Biomodal’s approach uses a sample preparation kit compatible with existing platforms, paired with bioinformatics tools, potentially lowering the barrier to adoption while expanding the information content of standard sequencing workflows.The underlying insight is biological as much as technical. Most methylation assays collapse 5mC and 5hmC into a single signal, masking early transitions in gene regulation. Osborne describes this as “squishing them into one output,” a simplification that can obscure meaningful changes in disease onset and progression.By separating the signals, the study identified patterns that emerge earlier in tumor development, offering a more sensitive window into disease biology.But the deeper message of the interview is that this work may only scratch the surface. “I think that we’re just at the beginnings of really understanding this biology,” Osborne says. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Digital Controls for Cancer Drug Trials? Irina Babina, Concr 15.05.2026 4min

  This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.mendelspod.comOn today’s show, a fascinating discussion about digital twins for medical research— leading to the 64 million dollar question of how much of the current AI wave in healthcare may eventually prove real.Drawing on her background in cancer research and now as CEO of Concr, Dr. Irina Babina joins us to argue that the future of oncology may depend less on g…
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  Solexa Co-Inventor Shankar Balasubramanian on Six-Base Sequencing and What's Next in Genomics 07.05.2026 37min

  An inventor of Solexa sequencing by synthesis has a new idea.On today’s show, Sir Shankar Balasubramanian revisits the accidental origins of Solexa sequencing, born not from a sequencing project at all, but from curiosity-driven experiments watching DNA polymerase at work. What followed helped transform DNA sequencing from a specialized pursuit into a routine engine of modern biology. But as Shankar makes clear, the biggest surprise may not have been genomics itself—it was how next-generation sequencing became a universal readout for biology, powering everything from single-cell and spatial biology to entirely new ways of probing molecules and mechanisms.Our conversation then turns to his latest venture, Biomodal, and the emerging world of 6-base sequencing. Shankar explains why distinguishing 5mC and 5hmC matters, and how six-base sequencing may improve early cancer detection. 6-base sequencing could also aid researchers in the exciting frontier of neurobiology.As always with great scientists, the story widens beyond any single technology. Shankar closes by reminding us that discovery follows better measurement. As our tools improve, biology will continue to surprise us. “That is what research is. It’s stepping into the unknown,” he says. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  The Next Frontier in Biology: Physics? Erdinc Sezgin of the Karolinska Institute 30.04.2026 32min

  There’s a famous line attributed to Ernest Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics: “All science is either physics or stamp collecting.” It’s still provocative. But it’s unfair to biology. Long before today’s omics era, biologists were uncovering causality everywhere from evolution and natural selection to Mendelian inheritance. They have never merely catalogued life. They have explained it. But modern biology has also generated extraordinary inventories of genes, proteins, and pathways, and those inventories now invite a deeper systems-level question: how do the parts behave together in living cells? Could new precise physical measurements aid biology and medicine?Todays’ guest, Erdinc Sezgin, is an Associate Professor at Karolinska Institute and recipient of the Biophysical Society Early Independent Career Award. His lab is bringing physics to biology. For example, Sezgin studies the cell membrane not as a passive wrapper, but as an active, dynamic system whose physical properties of fluidity, viscosity, charge, and organization help determine how cells signal and survive. His hope is to improve ways to measure these biophysical properties.Sezgin discusses his recent collaboration with Pixelgen Technologies, where Molecular Pixelation was used to study how changing membrane charge reshapes the cell surface. By knocking out a lipid-regulating complex, Sezgin and his colleagues showed that living cells can adopt surface features that alter immune recognition and may help explain how cancer cells evade destruction. It’s a reminder that major biological insights often arrive hand-in-hand with new tools that make previously hidden phenomena measurable.The conversation closes on a broader point about scientific boundaries. Biology is not separate from physics or chemistry, but an expression of them in living systems.“Cells don’t have physics, chemistry, biology. . . It is life,” he says. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  The Case for a 6-Base Genome with Peter Fromen, CEO of Biomodal 28.04.2026 35min

  You’ve heard of 5-base genomics. How about 6-base? It turns out that separating 5-methylcytosine (mC) and 5-hydroxymethylcytosine (hmC) is pretty important.Peter Fromen has had a front-row seat to the evolution of sequencing, from the rise of high-throughput genomics at Illumina to long-read technologies at PacBio. Now, as CEO of Biomodal, he’s focused on integrating genetics and epigenetics into a single workflow—and showing that the regulatory layer of the genome may be where the next breakthroughs lie.Chapters:0:00: Why epigenetics needed a reset12:07 The colorectal cancer study and early detection signal16:41 Building the 6-base ecosystem21:23 Commercial traction and the road to the clinicIn today’s program, Fromen explains why distinguishing between mC and hmC changes how we read biology. Biomodal’s recent colorectal cancer study begins to demonstrate that value in practice. “We ultimately ended up generating an AUC of 95%,” he says, describing early-stage detection results that point to the power of combining both signals. More broadly, he frames hydroxymethylation as an early indicator of disease.“hmC is essentially the canary in the coal mine for early disease detection.”We also discuss the practical side—what a 6-base workflow looks like in the lab and where the company sits commercially as it pushes toward clinical validation. Will this be the new standard for how we read biology? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  The Eligible But Under-Tested: Genomic Medicine in 2026 with Damon Hostin, Illumina 14.04.2026 39min

  What is the value of someone’s genome over their life? Is a genome today what it was 10 years ago? How does the adoption of genomic testing compare to other areas in medicine, such as imaging or electronic health records?Today we take a pretty comprehensive look at genomic testing in practice with Damon Hostin, Head of Market Access, Clinical Solutions at Illumina. Damon brings a rare perspective to this conversation. He’s been in the field since the Celera era, when sequencing was helping define modern genomics, and he’s also worked on the front lines in a large community health system, CommonSpirit Health. At Illumina, he speaks regularly with payers and other stakeholders.Across oncology, rare disease, reproductive health, and pharmacogenomics, Damon describes a field that has clearly moved into standard of care in key areas—but is still very much in the phase of identifying the “eligible but under-tested.” Adoption is real, but it’s incomplete.Chapters:0:00 Genomic medicine arrives4:51 Genomics, imaging, and the EMR11:23 Oncology—from diagnostics to decision-making18:16 Rare disease and reproductive genetics28:51 The lifetime value of a genome36:03 Cost, quality, and what a genome isA central idea running through the podcast is that the genome is no longer a one-time diagnostic. Its value compounds over time as databases grow, variants are reinterpreted, and new therapies emerge. At the same time, even the basic notion of what a “genome” is, is beginning to shift. With the rise of multi-omic data—transcriptomics, proteomics, methylation—the question is no longer just cost per genome, but what kind of biological insight we’re actually measuring. “A genome isn’t a genome isn’t a genome,” Damon says.He ends with a line that neatly reframes the entire debate around cost: “When you look at the cost of healthcare . . . the cost of the genomics is almost nothing.”Genomic medicine is here. We’re now wrestling with how to scale it, how to use it earlier, and how to make it part of the everyday infrastructure of care. Note: For more discussion and analysis on this topic, check out this upcoming Virtual Roundtable Discussion at GenomeWeb. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Spatial Transcriptomics Is Changing How We Do Biology: Fei Chen, The Broad Institute 09.04.2026 31min

  Fei Chen of the Broad Institute describes the original problem simply: genomics gave us powerful inventories of gene expression, while microscopy gave us structure—yet the two lived in separate worlds. “You could either have your structure or you could have gene expression, but you couldn’t have both.”In this conversation, Fei walks us through how Slide-tags—now commercialized as Takara Bio Trekker technology—set out to close that gap. Instead of mapping gene expression onto a grid, his team flipped the problem: barcoding the cells in place, then reading them out with single-cell sequencing. The result is something closer to a GPS system for cells.What this unlocks is not just better maps, but better biology. Better questions. In cancer, Fei describes the discovery of local immune “circuits” that determine whether tumors respond to immunotherapy. And more broadly, spatial data turns tissue itself into a kind of experiment itself. Is this the biology of the future? “The spatial context is a natural experiment that has happened.”Chapters:0:00 The problem: structure vs gene expression1:36 A GPS for cells8:59 Immune circuits and cancer response20:04 Tissue as experiment26:24 New questions for biologyAcross applications, Fei emphasizes that the real shift is conceptual. Spatial biology is not just about adding location to sequencing. It’s about learning how to ask new questions—ones that treat cells not as isolated units, but as participants in research. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Beyond GLP-1: Why Peptides Are Back at the Center of Drug Discovery with Charlie Johannes and Tomi Sawyer 07.04.2026 44min

  Peptides are having a moment. But beneath the market excitement and the GLP-1 headlines, something more interesting is going on. A field that for years seemed technically promising but perpetually constrained is becoming wide open.To see into that open terrain, we’re joined by Charlie Johannes, founder of EPOC Scientific and president of the Peptide Drug Hunting Consortium, along with Tomi Sawyer, a founder of the Consortium and founder of Maestro Therapeutics. We asked them for a high-level look at a field being reshaped by advances in chemistry, screening, delivery, and by a growing sense that peptides may be uniquely positioned to open up biology that other modalities have only partly been able to reach.And yet both are clear: the field is not mature. AI is accelerating biology, which still depends on existing knowledge. Prediction remains limited, especially with non-natural chemistry. And the core challenge may now be human—how to turn an overwhelming amount of data into real innovation. As Johannes puts it, “Turning knowledge into innovation is the real challenge.”Chapters:1:31 Why peptides are suddenly hot again6:10 Between small molecules and biologics10:14 Oral delivery, screening15:45 AI, automation, and the limits of prediction32:17 The Consortium and where the field is headingThis is not a finished revolution—it’s a launch. The field, Sawyer says, is “in the Artemis II rocket right now heading towards the moon.” The peptide story is now much bigger than obesity drugs. Where does the field stand today? What has changed, and what remains difficult? This episode is the first in a new partnership between Mendelspod and Peptide and Protein News, a media platform covering peptide and protein drug development. You can see what they’re up to at peptideandprotein.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  From the Archives: Inventor Mark Kokoris Debuts Roche’s New SBX Sequencer 02.04.2026 35min

  It was the biggest story in sequencing last year: Mark Kokoris, head of SBX sequencing at Roche and inventor of the technology, joins Mendelspod to talk about how Sequencing by Expansion (SBX) works and why it may redefine the limits of genomics.* 0:00 A long journey inspired by PCR* 7:20 What is sequencing by expansion?* 14:00 On scale and accuracy* 19:40 Multi-omics vision?* 24:40 What will be the killer app?* 30:00 Biggest challenge for launchKokoris recounts the long path from co-founding Stratos Genomics in 2007 to Roche’s acquisition in 2020, when his team’s “wildly ambitious chemistry” finally found its match in Genia’s high-density nanopore platform. “Our approach to efficiently sequencing DNA,” he explains, “is to not sequence DNA. We rescale the problem—expand the molecule about 50-fold—so we can read it with much higher signal-to-noise.”The result is astonishing speed. Working with the Broad Institute and Boston Children’s Hospital, SBX delivered whole-genome results in under four hours, with the sequencing step itself taking only about 15 minutes. Kokoris attributes the achievement to a confluence of chemistry and compute.SBX’s duplex mode achieves Illumina-level accuracy (F1 > 99.8 %) while maintaining single-molecule simplicity. Its tunable flexibility lets small labs run a handful of samples in hours or large centers run thousands per day. Kokoris describes it as a technology built on impatience and rule-breaking, designed to give scientists options they’ve never had.Looking ahead to the 2026 research-use launch, he’s characteristically bold:“For me, success means SBX becoming the new standard in sequencing. Innovation can’t stop—it has to keep evolving, because biology is complex and we’ve got a lot more to do.”This show was originally published Nov 11, 2025. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe
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  Why Do Some Animals Live Ten Times Longer? Pursuing the Science of Aging with Steve Austad 17.03.2026 38min

  Why do some animals live ten times longer than others?That question opens today’s interview with Steve Austad, Distinguished Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and one of the leading thinkers in the biology of aging. It quickly becomes clear why he’s been such an important voice in bringing aging research from the margins into the center of science. As he puts it, the field was once “where scientists went to die,” but with modern genetic and molecular tools, it has become one of the most active areas in biomedicine.Steve’s approach, laid out in his book for the empiricist (I’m an amateur), Methuselah’s Zoo, is deceptively simple: look at the animals. From birds and bats to clams that live for centuries, he shows that lifespan follows a clear evolutionary logic. Safer, more stable environments favor slower aging. “If it’s unstable and unsafe… it makes sense… to reproduce fast,” he explains, while protected environments allow organisms to invest in long-term maintenance. It’s a framework that turns curiosity into theory—and theory into something testable.Chapters:1:31 Where scientists went to die4:11 The opossum problem8:00 Air, land, sea14:23 The longevity quotient33:30 Not forever, just longerWhat makes Steve such a compelling guide is his tone. He’s low-key, almost amused at times, but unwavering on the science. Aging, he reminds us, isn’t programmed for our benefit—“evolution does not care how long you live.” That doesn’t mean we can’t intervene. The field is now moving into human trials, even if key tools like aging clocks are still imperfect. He has little patience for talk of immortality—calling it “completely delusional.” Still, he’s optimistic. Adding a decade or two of healthy life—not forever—is the goal today. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mendelspod.com/subscribe