The External Medicine Podcast

In this conversation, Daniel Belkin and Mitch Belkin interview Paul Offit, MD about his book You Bet Your Life, how banning DDT caused increased deaths from malaria, and the data regarding the bivalent booster as of October 2022. They discuss the human price paid for medical advances, sins of commission versus sins of omission, which populations should get bivalent boosters, short versus long incubation period viruses, and vaccine-related myocarditis.

Who is Paul Offit?

Dr. Offit is the Director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He is on the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. In addition, he was the co-inventor of the RotaTeq vaccine for rotavirus, has published over 130 papers in medical and scientific journals, and is the author of many books on vaccines, antibiotics, medical overuse, and medical history. including You Bet Your Life.

If you didn’t see our initial episode with Dr. Paul Offit, check it out.

What is the External Medicine Podcast?

The External Medicine Podcast explores some of the most exciting ideas in medicine. Co-hosted by Daniel Belkin, MD, and Mitch Belkin, MD.

Support the show

Follow us at @ExMedPod
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Consider supporting us on Patreon

In this conversation, Daniel Belkin and Mitch Belkin speak with Sekar Kathiresan, MD, about using gene editing medications to treat cardiovascular disease. We discuss Dr. Kathiresan’s company Verve Therapeutics, which has pioneered a lipid nanoparticle delivery system of a CRISPR-based gene editing technology. We delve into the pathophysiology of cardiovascular disease, the role played by LDL and the LDL receptor in atherosclerosis, the genetics underlying monogenic and polygenic risk for myocardial infarction, CRISPR and the future of gene editing technologies, and Verve’s ongoing phase I trial of a PCSK9 gene editing medication (VERVE-101) in humans.
Who is Sekar Kathiresan?

Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, a cardiologist, geneticist, and the CEO and co-founder of Verve Therapeutics. Verve Therapeutics is a company pioneering a new approach to the treatment of cardiovascular disease with single-dose gene editing medications. Prior to co-founding Verve, he served as the director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Genomic Medicine and was a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
References:

• Sekar Kathiresan’s Twitter
• Verve Therapeutics website
• Tirzepatide for the treatment of obesity (NEJM, 2022)

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What is the External Medicine Podcast?
The External Medicine Podcast explores some of the most exciting ideas in medicine. Co-hosted by Daniel Belkin, MD, and Mitch Belkin, MD.

Support the show

Follow us at @ExMedPod
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Consider supporting us on Patreon

In this conversation, Daniel Belkin and Mitch Belkin speak with Professor John Cochrane about the economics of the American healthcare system. We discuss the lack of clarity around US healthcare pricing, as well as how employer-sponsored health insurance and the persistence of massive cross subsidies contribute to dysfunction in the US healthcare market. Professor Cochrane argues that the best way to solve these problems is to simplify regulation and remove regulatory hurdles which prevent innovative entrants from improving healthcare and making it more affordable.

Who is John Cochrane?

Professor John Cochrane is an economist specializing in finance and macroeconomics. Formerly a professor at the University of Chicago, Cochrane is now the Rose-Marie and Jack Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He blogs regularly as The Grumpy Economist at https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/.

References:

• After the ACA: Freeing the Market for Healthcare
• John Cochrane’s Blog, The Grumpy Economist
• Twitter @JohnHCochrane

______________________
What is the External Medicine Podcast?
The External Medicine Podcast explores some of the most exciting ideas in medicine. Co-hosted by Daniel Belkin, MD, and Mitch Belkin, MD.

Support the show

Follow us at @ExMedPod
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Consider supporting us on Patreon

In this exciting episode, Mitch Belkin and Daniel Belkin speak with Professor Michael Levin about bioelectricity, the electrical potentials that cells use to communicate with one another. Professor Levin argues that bioelectricity is the software of cellular communication and is the medium through which we can control top-down modular programs for cancer prevention, limb regeneration, and birth defect repair. This interview covers how he co-created Xenobots; how somatic cells function like neurons; how his work incorporates insights from Karl Friston on collective intelligence and the free energy principle; and his dream of building an anatomic compiler, a theoretical biological-design program that would allow users to produce any anatomic configuration of any organism using bioelectricity.

Who is Michael Levin?

Professor Michael Levin is a biologist at Tufts University, where he investigates informational storage and processing in biological systems. He received a dual Bachelor’s in computer science and biology at Tufts. He then received his PhD in Genetics from Harvard where he characterized the molecular-genetic mechanisms of embryologic left-right asymmetry. Nature lists this discovery on its 100 milestones of developmental biology of the century. Currently, he is the director of the Tufts Center for Regenerative and Developmental Biology and the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts University. He is the co-editor in chief of the journal Bioelectricity, the founding associate editor of Collective Intelligence, and he sits on the editorial advisory board of Laterality. He has published more than 350 papers.
References:

• Professor Michael Levin’s lab website
• “Molecular bioelectricity: how endogenous voltage potentials control cell behavior and instruct pattern regulation in vivo”
• Review of Left-Right Asymmetry
• Xenobots
• Ion flows and regeneration
• Paper on Harold Burr’s work on Bioelectricity in the 1930s
• Bioelectric controls of cell proliferation: Ion channels, membrane voltage and the cell cycle
• Twitter: @DrMichaelLevin

______________________
What is the External Medicine Podcast?
The External Medicine Podcast explores some of the most exciting ideas in medicine. Co-hosted by Daniel Belkin, MD, and

Support the show

Follow us at @ExMedPod
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Consider supporting us on Patreon

In this episode, Mitch Belkin and Daniel Belkin speak with Daniel Burka about his work at Resolve to Save Lives and the project Simple.org, a hypertension reduction application. They discuss the importance of iterative building processes that trial various ideas and then quantifiably measure success. Daniel Burka stresses the importance of understanding the goals of all users--physicians, patients, public healthcare experts--when designing successful healthcare applications.
Who is Daniel Burka?

Daniel Burka is the director of product and design at Resolve To Save Lives, where he works on the web-based, open-source hypertension reduction application Simple.org. Previously, he was a Design Partner at Google Ventures, the Creative Director for Digg.com, and the Director of Design for Tiny Speck which later became Slack. Among many notable projects, he designed the Firefox logo and Mozilla’s website.

What is Resolve to Save Lives?

Resolve to Save Lives is an initiative to prevent 100 million cardiovascular deaths over the next 30 years. The initiative is funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gates Philanthropy Partners, and the Chan Zuckerberg Foundation. Methods to reduce deaths include hypertension reduction, trans fat elimination, and sodium reduction initiatives. In addition, Resolve to Save Lives aims to increase epidemic preparedness.

What is Simple.org?

Simple.org is a project of Resolve to Save Lives. It is an ultralight weight electronic health record system designed to manage patients with hypertension and diabetes. As of January 2022, 1.4 million patients in India, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia use the application.

References:

• Daniel Burka's website
• Twitter: @dburka
• Simple.org
• Medium article on ultralight weight EHRs
• Daniel Burka's book recommendations for designers

______________________
What is the External Medicine Podcast?
The External Medicine Podcast explores some of the most exciting ideas in medicine. Co-hosted by Daniel Belkin, MD, and Mitch Belkin, MD.

Support the show

Follow us at @ExMedPod
Subscribe to our Youtube channel
Consider supporting us on Patreon