Episodes

  • FOCUS In Sound #37: Jennifer Brophy

    FOCUS In Sound #37: Jennifer Brophy
    Nov 6 2023
    FOCUS In Sound #37: Jennifer Brophy ERNIE: Welcome to FOCUS In Sound, the podcast series from the FOCUS newsletter published by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. I’m your host, science writer Ernie Hood. In this edition of FOCUS In Sound, we welcome a young investigator who is pioneering in the field of plant tissue engineering—a remarkable emerging technology that just might eventually save the human race. Jennifer Brophy received one of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Career Awards at the Scientific Interface, or CASI, in 2019. She is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University, and is a Noyce Family Faculty Fellow and a Chan Zuckerburg Biohub Investigator. Jenn received her BS in bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2009 and her PhD in biological engineering from MIT in 2016. She did her postdoc work at Stanford, where she started looking at plants. Today in her lab, she and her colleagues are developing technologies that
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    17 mins
  • FOCUS In Sound #36: Leenoy Meshulam

    FOCUS In Sound #36: Leenoy Meshulam
    Aug 29 2023
    FOCUS In Sound #36: Leenoy Meshulam Octopus during active sleep video: https://www.oist.jp/video/octopus-during-active-sleep Welcome to FOCUS In Sound, the podcast series from the FOCUS newsletter published by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. I’m your host, science writer Ernie Hood. In this edition of FOCUS In Sound, we get to know a young researcher who in 2022 was the recipient of a Burroughs Wellcome Fund CASI award, the Career Awards at the Scientific Interface. Those awards recognize outstanding scientists who have made significant contributions at the interface of biology and quantitative sciences, bridging the gap between disciplines, and fostering innovation. It’s a five-year grant totaling $500,000. Leenoy Meshulam is a theoretical physicist who is also interested in biological phenomena, especially nervous systems and the brain. She explores the interface between physics and neuroscience. She received her PhD from Princeton University, after completing her maste
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    28 mins
  • FOCUS In Sound #35: Michael Ferdig

    FOCUS In Sound #35: Michael Ferdig
    Aug 25 2023
    FOCUS In Sound #35: Michael Ferdig Welcome to FOCUS In Sound, the podcast series from the FOCUS newsletter published by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. I’m your host, science writer Ernie Hood. In this edition of FOCUS In Sound, we welcome a biomedical scientist who in 2022 was the Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s first Resident Faculty Scholar. Michael Ferdig is a Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, where he has been on the faculty since 2001. He specializes in the genetics and genomics of drug resistance and virulence in the malaria parasite. Malaria is a parasitic infection transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito. Malaria drug resistance is an ongoing topic of major importance in global public health, where the disease is still a significant worldwide contributor to mortality, with nearly a half-million deaths annually. Mike received his BS and MS degrees from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wh
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    30 mins
  • FOCUS In Sound #34: Lisa Hara Levin

    FOCUS In Sound #34: Lisa Hara Levin
    Feb 7 2023
    FOCUS In Sound #34: Lisa Hara Levin Welcome to FOCUS In Sound, the podcast series from the FOCUS newsletter published by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. I’m your host, science writer Ernie Hood. In this edition of FOCUS In Sound, we meet a veterinarian who has become one of the leading voices in the movement to reduce, refine, or replace the use of animals in research and product development testing, also known as the 3Rs. As we will hear, she recently teamed up with Burroughs Wellcome Fund president Dr. Lou Muglia to publish a highly influential paper called Alternative Thinking about Animals in Research. Lisa Hara Levin is a graduate of Cornell University, received her veterinary degree from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University, and completed her postdoctoral research training at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her professional career has been spent in the animal protection and research environments, notably occupying position
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    23 mins
  • Tammy Collins, Innovation in Regulatory Science Awards (IRSA) Program

    Tammy Collins, Innovation in Regulatory Science Awards (IRSA) Program
    Jan 6 2023
    FOCUS In Sound #33: Tammy Collins, Innovation in Regulatory Science Awards (IRSA) Program Welcome to FOCUS In Sound, the podcast series from the FOCUS newsletter published by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. I’m your host, science writer Ernie Hood. In this edition of FOCUS In Sound, we meet one of the newest members of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund family, Program Officer Dr. Tammy Collins, who joined the Fund in October 2022. Tammy leads the Fund’s efforts in interdisciplinary science, including the Career Awards at the Scientific Interface and the Innovation in Regulatory Science Awards, which we will focus on for this edition of Focus in Sound. Tammy spent the past decade at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences as its director of the NIEHS Office of Fellows’ Career Development. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from Appalachian State University and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Duke University. After a brief postdoc at Duke, she joined NIEHS in 2009, where she dev
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    10 mins
  • Interview with Dr. Dudley Flood

    Interview with Dr. Dudley Flood
    Oct 4 2022
    FOCUS In Sound #32: Alfred Mays, Dr. Dudley Flood, Dr. Deanna Townsend-Smith Welcome to FOCUS In Sound, the podcast series from the FOCUS newsletter published by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. I’m your host, science writer Ernie Hood. In this edition of FOCUS In Sound, we meet a civil rights and education pioneer, Dr. Dudley Flood, and learn about the center named in his honor that is working to advance educational opportunities in North Carolina. To get us started, we will first hear from Burroughs Wellcome Fund Chief Diversity Officer and Strategist, Alfred Mays. Alfred also serves as a Senior Program Officer for the Fund and oversees a variety of significant programs addressing education and diversity. He is going to provide us with some background information about the Dudley Flood Center for Educational Equity and Opportunity, which is within the Public School Forum of North Carolina. Alfred, take it away… ALFRED: Thanks, Ernie. I am actually a board member of the Public School Fo
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    43 mins
  • Interview with Dr. Florence Bourgeois

    Interview with Dr. Florence Bourgeois
    Jul 6 2021
    FOCUS In Sound #31: Florence Bourgeois Welcome to FOCUS In Sound, the podcast series from the FOCUS newsletter published by the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. I’m your host, science writer Ernie Hood. In this edition of FOCUS In Sound, we meet a Burroughs Wellcome Fund grantee who is researching issues related to the inclusion of children and adolescents in clinical trials. She has also recently published an important international study of pediatric COVID-19 patients. Dr. Florence Bourgeois is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a faculty member in the Division of Emergency Medicine and the Computational Health Informatics Program, or CHIP, at Boston Children’s Hospital. She is a graduate of Yale University and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. She was an NRSA research fellow and earned her Master in Public Health degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. In 2017, Florence received an Innovation
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    16 mins
  • Science Education in North Carolina and Beyond

    Science Education in North Carolina and Beyond
    May 14 2021
    This edition of FOCUS In Sound is a family affair, as we connect with two members of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, gentlemen who are primary practitioners of the Fund’s profound commitment to supporting science education. I will mercilessly pick their brains to gather their thoughts about the Fund’s activities and the larger importance of science education in our society. Alfred Mays is a senior program officer at the Fund, and serves as the Director and Chief Strategist for Diversity and STEM Education. He began his tenure at the Fund in 2015, and is responsible for strategic program development and diversity in science. He directs a portfolio of competitive and strategic grants and serves on a number of nonprofit educational and civic boards. And Dr. Samuel Houston, Jr., is President and Chief Executive Officer of the North Carolina Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education Center, better known as the SMT Center. He has held that position since 2003. The Center is housed at the
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    30 mins