Radiobio

Vaccines and drugs to mitigate sickness have become a central part of modern life, and they have become a central topic right now as the COVID 19 pandemic has progressed. But how are vaccines developed? What is the difference between a vaccine and therapeutic drugs? And could we actually one day treat coronavirus with a pill? Today, we talk to Dr. Robert Davey, a professor of microbiology from Boston University, who is currently working on ways to find treatments for dangerous viruses. This is chapter 1 of our COVID interview series, in which we interview a series of professionals on different topics related to the pandemic. Tune in for our next chapter, an interview with Dr. Gaeta, a pediatric resident, on his experiences with the pandemic!

Life is complicated. Breaking down the living world into understandable pieces requires good experiments AND good theories. Science thrives on the feedback between theory and data. Our guest today specializes in connecting theories and models to empirical data from experiments. Join us for a fascinating discussion of ecological models, ecological experiments, and everything in between!

It can be hard to make decisions, but do you know that your cells makes decisions too? What is even more amazing is that we can actually watch cells do this. This week we discuss cells and how they communicate and understand each other with Dr. Orion Weiner from the UCSF Cardiovascular Research Institute.

Have you ever wondered what's the difference between a bug and an insect? Are spiders even an insect? Wait are lobsters and crabs related to bugs? Why do we even care about these insects and parasites? Well, we all know that bees are important for our food because they pollinate many of our plants that produce food for us, but insects have lead to many other discoveries. Did you know that many human genes that have been shaped by Darwinian evolution are genes that are involved with dealing with viruses and large parasites? Crazy right? Well today, we dive into Dr. Whiteman's work that follows Darwin and Wallace discoveries which is focused on evolution of new traits that are shaped though interactions between organisms.   This is Radio Bio!

Have you ever wondered why pregnant women shouldn't change the litter box? How about why your meat should always be well cooked? Well, one of those reasons is Toxoplasma gondii. Over 2 billion people are infected with this brain parasite. However, our understanding of the effects of Toxoplasma on humans, especially on their brain are small. Almost as small as the parasite itself. This week on RadioBio, we discuss who gets this parasite, what we can do to prevent or treat it and an introduction into the research taking place to discover the role of this parasite in the body with Dr. Rema McLeod from the University of Chicago. This is RadioBio.

Humans might be the worlds greatest evolutionary force. From pollution to deforestation, human induced changes have a huge impact on the environment around us. But how are animals adapting to the changes in their environment? This week on RadioBio, we talk with Dr. Rachel Bay from the University of California, Davis about her work investigating evolutionary genomics in an ever-changing world.

Achoo! Ah, allergies, the first sign of spring or also a sign that the barista accidentally did make your coffee with whole milk instead of soy. But what is your body doing during an immune response? Particularly, an allergy immune response. And why are your cells causing you so much misery? Well, join us this week as we dive into the fascinating roles that our immune system plays during allergic responses with Dr. Richard Locksley.

DNA is all over the place. It sheds from everything, everywhere, throughout time. What if you could just scoop it up and figure out what it is... well, we can! Environmental DNA, or eDNA, is DNA that's left over in the environment and is an important tool we can use to understand life as we know it. This week on RadioBio, we talk with Dr. Rachel Meyer from UC Santa Cruz all about eDNA-- how you collect it and what you can do with it, and even how you can get involved. This is RadioBio.

Spring and Fall are often accompanied by a chorus of sneezes-- allergies are the bane of this beautiful time! Allergies, our immune system’s response to foreign substances, can be more than uncomfortable-- long term exposure to allergens can be linked to chronic pain. This week on RadioBio We talk with Dr. Devavani Chatterjea from McAlaster College about her work investigating the link between allergies and chronic pain.

Ever wonder what it takes for a forest to regenerate after a devastating wildfire? Turns out microscopic fungi in soils play a big role in that recovery. These fungi partner up with all kinds of plants, helping out in many environments and industries, from helping crops to flourish to restoring plant biodiversity. Join us as we discuss these topics and more with Dr. Sydney Glassman. This is RadioBio.

From gummy bears to cars we learn the importance of adhesion and lubricants for everyday life. Whether you're a muscle on a rock trying to hold on during high tide, or you're a runner and relying on the lubricants to keep your knees moving. The research that is conducted to understand these phenomenon can help us fix issues in health care that many of us suffer from, such as arthritis or joint damage from injuries. Today, we will explore the concepts of adhesion and lubricants that are all around us with this weeks guest  Dr. R. A. Eguiluz. This is Radio Bio!

The immune system is complex, full of lairs of communication and strict regulation, all to keep us healthy and alive. But what happens when those checkpoints break down? In this weeks episode, we learn about how B-cells can turn against us and what that means. We talk to Dr. Roberta Polenda from University Colorado, Denver about her research on this subject.

Have you ever thought about brains? Our brains are seriously important, that's not news, but how do they actually work? There is a delicate balance between order and chaos. RadioBio this week is all about stability in the brain. Hopefully by the end you'll know a little bit more about how your brain works!

CRISPR. You may have heard about it in the news. It's arguably the biggest discovery of the 21st century, and could possibly be a cure for some of the genetic disorders that have plagued humans throughout our history. It was initially identified in the early 1990s and more recently it was discovered to be the immune system used by bacteria to fight off viral infections. Until recently there were no known mechanism for inhibiting the infections caused by these bacteria-infecting viruses. Dr. Joe Bondy-Denomy is a leader in the CRISPR field and discovered anti-CRISPRS, the system used by viruses to hide out from the bacterial CRISPR system. We talk with him about his discoveries in the field and the ethics of gene editing in humans.

Have you ever been curious about how our brains "learn" and why only somethings seem to "stick" and others seem to fade away as time goes on? I know I have. How are memories stored? Today we are going to explore the brain's amazing ability to learn and store information over a lifetime, as well as a recently discovered mechanism of neuronal communication that resembles the life-cycle of retroviruses.

You and I .... are completely different.... Not just because we like different music or have different parents, but because we are more than individuals. We contains multitudes of microbial communities and, believe it or not, my community is different than yours. Today, we are talking with Dr. Kathryn Milligan-Mhyre about her research into how microbes associate with hosts and how those microbes change over time

Do you grow your own food or butcher your own meat? Many of us don't. We get our food from a lot of different places in our modern society and we have a global network of food import and export. But what happens when there is contamination in our food supply? How do we know where the contamination is coming from when our food is coming from all over the place? Join us as we find out how we can use genomic data to explore this issue in this episode of RadioBio.

Have you ever thought about how weird hybrids actually are? Some hybrids seem to be a contradiction: they can't reproduce! How could nature allow this? Today we discuss the evolutionary conflict of speciation, hybrids, and sterility.

Have you ever thought about how light affects your behavior on a day to day basis? Now think about how light would affect you on a molecular scale? Molecules have a direct influence on behavior from sleep cycles to depression and motivation. Today we discuss molecules, how they affect animal behavior, and the origins of such an intimate relationship in molecular biology.

It's getting warmer and drier, but there may be an untapped natural resource that can offer fresh water: fog! Fog is more than just one way your beach day can be ruined-- Coastal fog has the potential to be a major contributor to future sustainable agricultural practices. Today we discuss fog and its impact on crops in California.