Raising Health

After his own health scare, Jeffrey got obsessed with how MRIs work—and decided that they were too unscientific to really track human health over time. In response, he built a new kind of imaging, creating a “digital twin” that can be tracked over time. And if health can be tracked over time, in theory it could eventually become as forecastable as the weather.Join Jeffrey and Vijay as they talk about human imaging, health forecasting, and how a digital twin could change healthcare. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

AI has the potential to save the world — that’s the thesis of Marc’s most recent article, linked below. This episode was recorded right after Marc published his article, live from a16z Bio + Health’s first summit.Join Marc and Vijay as they talk about how AI can save the world, and where it can go wrong.Additional reading:Why AI Will Save the World Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

AI is not just a sci-fi concept anymore; it's being woven into the fabric of healthcare, revolutionizing everything from research to patient care. It has the potential to create more streamlined and efficient processes. The challenge now is how we adapt and regulate this ever-evolving technology, while ensuring safety and trust.Amy Abernethy, former Principal Deputy Commissioner at the FDA and now the President of Product Development and Chief Medical Officer at Verily Life Sciences, joins Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z Bio + Health, to discuss. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, taken from a live a16z event, Bio + Health general partner Vineeta Agarwala moderates a panel of UCSF faculty founders, including Michelle Arkin, Jimmie Ye, and Natalia Jura (full bios below). Together, they discuss fundraising, the decision to stay in or leave academia after founding a company, and their tips for managing the IP process. Michelle Arkin is a professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF, chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and a co-director of the Small Molecule Discovery Center at UCSF. Professor Arkin is also a cofounder of both Elgin Therapeutics and Ambagon Therapeutics.Jimmie Ye is an associate professor of medicine at the Institute for Human Genetics at UCSF and an affiliate investigator at Gladstone Institutes. He is also the cofounder of Dropprint Genomics and Survey Genomics.Natalia Jura is a professor in the Department of Cell and Molecular Pharmacology and an investigator at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at UCSF. Professor Jura is also an associate director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute. She is a cofounder of Rezo Therapeutics. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s episode is with Mark Cuban, founder of multiple businesses, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, one of the sharks on Shark Tank, and cofounder of the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company. He is joined by Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z Bio + Health. Together, they talk market forces in healthcare, the importance of trust to patients, and Mark’s ideas to tackle the Gordian knot that is American healthcare. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s episode is a cross-post with the a16z podcast. It features founders—Chris Severn, Florian Otto, Andrew Adams, Jade Chan, Jimmy Chen, and Fay Rotenberg—chatting with a16z podcast host Steph Smith, about how they're trying to reinvent the healthcare system, using fintech.Additional reading:https://a16z.com/healthcare-meets-fintech/https://a16z.com/2023/02/07/healthtech-x-fintechs-biggest-prize/https://a16z.com/2022/06/01/payvidors-unbundled-opportunities-in-healthcare-fintech/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s episode is with Greg Meyers, EVP and Chief Digital and Technology Officer at Bristol Myers Squibb (or BMS). He is joined by a16z Bio + Health general partner Jorge Conde.Together, they talk about how AI could transform drug discovery and development at a large biopharma company—and how a company might have to adapt to harness AI; modalities they’re excited about; and Greg’s do’s and don’ts for startups looking to partner with a company like BMS. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Healthcare payments are difficult, confusing, and opaque. But Julie and David discuss the ways that technology could change that for the better, and where they see the greatest opportunity for founders to solve big challenges.Additional reading:https://a16z.com/healthcare-meets-fintech/https://a16z.com/2023/02/07/healthtech-x-fintechs-biggest-prize/https://a16z.com/2022/06/01/payvidors-unbundled-opportunities-in-healthcare-fintech/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, a16z Bio + Health investment partner Becky Pferdehirt chats with Robbie Majzner, an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Stanford, and co-founder of Link Cell Therapies.Together, they discuss Robbie's recent paper published in Nature. The paper outlines a new approach to develop logic gated intracellular network, or LINK CAR T cells, as a means to simultaneously enhance both the safety and efficacy of these novel cell therapies.Additional reading:Co-opting signalling molecules enables logic-gated control of CAR T cells, Nature Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s episode is with Magi Richani, founder and CEO of Nobell Foods. She is joined by a16z Bio + Health general partner Vijay Pande.Together, they talk about the details of engineering plants to create the future of food, why Nobell started with soybeans to produce their cheese, and her dream of finding a cheese pizza—with Nobell cheese—at any pizza shop across the country. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a crossover episode with The Bioverge Podcast, hosted by Neil Littman. Neil is joined by Vineeta Agarwala, general partner at a16z Bio + Health. Together, they chat about Vineeta's dual role as a clinician and investor, the adoption curve of digital therapeutics, how Vineeta thinks about platforms and a modular, engineering-driven approach to biotech, and much more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s episode is with a16z’s American Dynamism team: Katherine Boyle and David Ulevitch. Katherine is a general partner focused on national security, aerospace and defense, public safety, housing, education, and industrials. David is a general partner focused on companies promoting American dynamism, as well as enterprise and SaaS companies. They are joined by a16z Bio + Health general partner Vijay Pande, and editorial lead Olivia Webb.Together, we talk about the idea behind American Dynamism, how the American Dynamism team thinks about building within highly regulated industries, how trust is key to the procurement process, and how the team thinks about the regulation of AI. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s episode is with Sean Duffy, cofounder and CEO of Omada Health. He is joined by a16z Bio + Health general partner Julie Yoo and investment partner Jay Rughani. Together, they talk about Sean’s three rules of partnerships, how Omada plans for large-scale implementation, and how Sean thinks about structuring the economic model of the partnership.This episode was recorded as part of our research into our forthcoming Go to Market Playbook, focused on channel partnerships. Stay tuned for that, which we’ll be releasing in the coming days at a16z.com/digital-health-builders. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week, we’re releasing two episodes about all things channel partnerships. Today’s episode is with Florian Otto, cofounder and CEO of Cedar. He is joined by a16z Bio + Health general partner Julie Yoo. In today’s episode, Florian and Julie talk about how Cedar began engaging with channel partners, what happens when things go wrong, and how the Cedar team is structured to implement and nurture these partnerships.This episode was recorded as part of our research into our forthcoming Go to Market Playbook, focused on these partnerships. Stay tuned for that, which we’ll be releasing in the coming days at a16z.com/digital-health-builders. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Daphne Koller, founder and CEO of insitro—as well as the co-founder of Coursera, a MacArthur Award winner, and a former professor in the department of computer science at Stanford University—chats with a16z Bio + Health founding partner Vijay Pande. Together, they talk about Daphne’s career journey, how Daphne thinks about the last few decades of progress in AI, and how insitro leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to explore biology through new models of discovery. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today marks the reboot of our journal club series, so you can look forward to seeing these episodes as part of our regular feed. This episode is a scientific deep dive on recent research published by Ben Cravatt, Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute and co-founder of a diverse suite of chemoproteomic companies such as Vividion and Belharra Therapeutics, and Gene Yeo, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California, San Diego and co-founder of Locana Bio, Eclipse Bio, and Trotana Therapeutics. Ben and Gene are joined by Vineeta Agarwala, general partner at a16z Bio + Health, and bio deal team member Bryan Faust. Together, they’ll discuss some unexpected mechanistic results of finding covalent binders to a class of proteins that we are just starting to understand — RNA binding proteins — and the subsequent translational implications that they described in a recent paper published by the Cravatt and Yeo labs in Nature Chemical Biology. The paper outlines a potentially new therapeutic approach that uses small molecules to fundamentally rewire transcriptional networks in cancer cells.Additional reading:Remodeling oncogenic transcriptomes by small molecules targeting NONO Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, a16z Bio + Health general partner Julie Yoo chats with Bassett Healthcare Network president and CEO Tommy Ibrahim. Together, they talk about Tommy's journey from practicing physician to health system leader, the challenges facing rural healthcare today, and how Tommy thinks about partnering and integrating with digital health entrepreneurs as a hospital executive. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode from the archives, originally published in February 2021, Jennifer Doudna, who won the 2020 Nobel Prize for the co-discovery of CRISPR-Cas9 with Emmanuelle Charpentier, chats with Vijay Pande, general partner at a16z Bio + Health. Together, they discuss the future of biology, whether discovery itself can be engineered and industrialized, and how biology can shape our future. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Jorge Conde, general partner at a16z Bio + Health, talks with Josh Mandel-Brehm, founding CEO of CAMP4. Together, they talk about how CAMP4 focuses on regulatory RNA (and what that means), how Josh thinks about platform companies, and what he’s learned as the founding CEO of the company. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In today's episode, Sam Corcos, CEO and cofounder of Levels Health, chats with Vijay Pande, general partner at a16z Bio + Health, about how Sam cofounded Levels, how to decide who becomes CEO if you have multiple cofounders, Levels’ approach to company culture and meetings, and how Sam thinks about the complicated world of healthcare regulations.Additional reading:Levels' public investor updates, as mentioned by Sam in the episode Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Kurt Adams, CEO of Optum Financial, chats with Daisy Wolf, investment partner for a16z Bio + Health, and Marc Andrusko, investment partner for a16z focused on fintech, about Optum Financial, how consumers might interact with fintech while seeking care or participating in healthy behaviors, and what a fintech-integrated version of the healthcare experience could look like.Additional reading from us:Payvidors, Unbundled: Opportunities in Healthcare FintechHealthtech x Fintech’s Biggest Prize: The Financial Operating System for Healthcare Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Joe Lonsdale, founder and managing partner at 8VC, joins Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z Bio + Health, and Olivia Webb, editorial lead. Together, we talk about what factors lead to innovation vs stagnation, monopoly power in healthcare, and policy ideas to incentivize change, growth, and dynamism. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Julie Yoo, general partner, and Jay Rughani, investment partner at a16z Bio + Health, talk to Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven; Amanda Rees, cofounder and CEO of Bold Health; and Bill Porter, VP and GM, International, of Butterfly Network, about their B2C2B go-to-market motion.This episode was originally recorded in late 2021, but it's still really relevant to builders, especially those exploring the B2C2B go-to-market motion. We talked about B2C2B in-depth in the second chapter of our Digital Health Builders Founder's Playbooks, also available at: https://a16z.com/digital-health-builders/And finally, our last chapter of the Founder's Playbooks is coming soon, so hit subscribe and stay tuned! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Kevin Parker, cofounder and CEO of Cartography Biosciences, joins Jorge Conde, general partner at a16z Bio + Health, and Olivia Webb, editorial lead, to discuss immuno-oncology, current challenges in drug targeting, and the mechanisms Cartography and others are using to advance the field of immunotherapeutics. This episode dives deep into the science behind immuno-oncology — but you don't necessarily have to be a scientist to follow along. You'll never look at a smoothie the same way again. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Kristen Fortney, cofounder and CEO of BioAge, joins Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z Bio + Health, and Olivia Webb, editorial lead, to discuss the biology of aging, how she started a company, and some fun things — like how long a hypothetical venture capitalist can expect to live. Additional reading:Greg Egan, whose writing inspired Kristen, has a list of his books on his website Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Paul Keckley, the managing editor of the Keckley Report and a health policy expert, joins Julie Yoo, general partner at a16z, and Olivia Webb, editorial lead at a16z. Together, they talk about how payors and providers are reacting to changing tailwinds, how employers are demanding more in today's market, the opportunities and challenges for startups in a consolidated industry, and what the next few years of health policy might bring. Additional reading:The Keckley Report Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jakob Uszkoreit and Vijay Pande discuss all things AI — from Jakob's time at Google Brain, to how humans (and computers) process language, to Inceptive’s belief in the promise of RNA, and how Jakob believes we’re entering inflection point territory. You can also find a full transcript of this episode on our website.Additional reading:Attention is All You NeedA Decomposable Attention Model for Natural Language Inference Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The last few months have seen dramatic—almost magical—applications of expert generative AI released to the public. (One of those applications, incidentally, was in editing the sound mix of this episode.)But what does this mean for healthcare and bio? Vijay Pande, founding partner of a16z Bio + Health, and Marc Andreessen, cofounder of a16z, sat down for a wide-ranging discussion on AI as an additive superpower…for healthcare as well as screenplays, music, and more.You can also watch the full episode on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@a16z. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

From initial inspiration in a sci-fi novel to the current state of “designing biology” in cultivated meat, SCiFi Foods cofounder and CEO Joshua March chats with Bio + Health general partner Vijay Pande and editorial lead Olivia Webb about company building, developing and iterating in biology, and what the future of cultivated meat could be. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

AI is here...so why isn't it in every clinic? Eric Topol talks with a16z Bio + Health general partners Vijay Pande and Vineeta Agarwala and editorial lead Olivia Webb about what's taking so long, where AI can help patients and providers the most, what needs to happen to speed up adoption, and whether data or policy is more likely to be an obstacle. Eric has written extensively about AI in healthcare, including in his most recent book Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again. He also writes a Substack focused on Covid research, called Ground Truths, linked below. Finally, as a marker of how AI and AI adoption has (and hasn't) changed over the last few years, check out Eric's 2019 interview with Vijay on the a16z Podcast, also linked below.Ground Truths - https://erictopol.substack.com/a16z Podcast: AI and Your Doctor, Today and Tomorrow - https://a16z.com/2019/06/13/ai-doctor-deep-medicine-topol/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Perhaps no area of healthcare has undergone such a rapid shift as telehealth during the Covid pandemic. But as the world emerges from the public health emergency, it's an open question what will happen with the regulatory aspects of telehealth. Daisy Wolf, deal partner at a16z Bio + Health, talked to Sarah Thomas, general counsel at Sameday Health, about asynchronous telehealth, working with regulators, how counsel thinks about inducements, and more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, a16z Bio+Health general partner Vineeta Agarwala spoke with Bobby Franklin, the president and CEO of the National Venture Capital Association, about whether healthcare can be a bipartisan topic, how regulation can potentially enable care models at scale, and the opportunities for collaboration between DC and startups. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What’s up with the drug channel? Julie Yoo, a general partner at a16z Bio+Health, joins Adam Fein, the CEO of Drug Channels Institute, and Olivia Webb, the editorial lead for a16z Bio+Health, to discuss this question. We talk about PBMs, the 340B drug program, some of the startups working within and around the primary drug channel, and whether there’s room for entrepreneurs to build in such a consolidated space.For additional reading, see some of Adam’s work on his blog, Drug Channels:https://www.drugchannels.net/2022/08/the-340b-program-climbed-to-44-billion.htmlhttps://www.drugchannels.net/2022/04/the-top-pharmacy-benefit-managers-of.htmlhttps://www.drugchannels.net/2020/05/insurers-pbms-specialty-pharmacies.htmlhttps://www.drugchannels.net/2020/08/how-goodrx-profits-from-our-broken.htmlhttps://www.drugchannels.net/2022/10/five-surprising-facts-about-goodrx-and.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Can a game be both fun and therapeutic? Vijay Pande, the first employee at Naughty Dog Software and a current Bio+Health general partner at a16z, joins Jon Lai, a Games general partner, and Olivia Webb, the editorial lead for Bio+Health at a16z, to discuss this question. We talk about what constitutes a game, how games and bio can intersect, and what we called the “healthy dessert” problem — the challenge of building a game that’s both fun and therapeutic.Additional reading discussed during the episode:a16z general partner Chris Dixon’s essay “Strong and weak technologies” Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In Bio Eats World's Journal Club episodes, we discuss groundbreaking research articles, why they matter, what new opportunities they present, and how to take these findings from paper to practice. In this episode, Stanford Professor Carolyn Bertozzi and former Bio Eats World host Lauren Richardson discuss the article "Lysosome-targeting chimaeras for degradation of extracellular proteins" by Steven M. Banik, Kayvon Pedram, Simon Wisnovsky, Green Ahn, Nicholas M. Riley & Carolyn R. Bertozzi, published in Nature 584, 291–297 (2020).Many diseases are caused by proteins that have gone haywire in some fashion. There could be too much of the protein, it could be mutated, or it could be present in the wrong place or time. So how do you get rid of these problematic proteins? Dr. Bertozzi and her lab developed a class of drugs -- or modality -- that in essence, tosses the disease-related proteins into the cellular trash can. While there are other drugs that work through targeted protein degradation, the drugs created by the Bertozzi team (called LYTACs) are able to attack a set of critical proteins, some of which have never been touched by any kind of drug before. Our conversation covers how they engineered these new drugs, their benefits, and how they can be further optimized and specialized in the future. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On this episode, we discuss three recent papers out in Nature Medicine this week, all examining the deployment of Bayesian Health's AI platform in a clinical setting: Two prospective studies focused on clinician adoption and patient outcomes, and one interview-based study focused on clinical experiences with Bayesian’s AI platform, TREWS. First, we get into detail about the design and results of the prospective studies, then we talk about TREWS in context with other clinical decision support tools. Finally, we talk about clinicians’ attitudes toward adoption. Featuring Dr. Suchi Saria, PhD, and the CEO of Bayesian Health; Dr. Neri Cohen, MD, PhD, as well as a collaborator with Bayesian Health; and Dr. Vineeta Agarwala, MD, PhD, and a16z general partner. Hosted by Olivia Webb. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On this episode, we are taking a pulse-check on the state of the intersection between biology, healthcare, and technology with two scientists that sit at another intersection, that of academia and industry: Alexander Marson and Patrick Hsu, who are professors at UC San Francisco and UC Berkeley, respectively, who both use cutting edge gene editing technology to create next generation therapies, and are prolific biotech founders. Patrick also recently co-wrote an article on Fast Grants, one of the speediest sources of emergency science funding during the pandemic, which you can read about on our media site Future.com. But in this conversation, Patrick and Alex discuss — with a16z bio general partner Jorge Conde — what is different about this moment in bio. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today’s episode we are discussing the results and implications of a recent study that describes the creation of a new set of tools to turn off or on any region in the genome with high specificity. Host Lauren Richardson and a16z general partner Vijay Pande are joined by the senior author of the article, “Genome-wide programmable transcriptional memory by CRISPR-based epigenome editing”, Jonathan Weissman, Professor of Biology at the Whitehead Institute at MIT. Jonathan talks about how they developed these tools using the CRISPR gene editor as a backbone, the advantages of modulating the epigenome as opposed to the genome, and the various applications — both in the lab and in the clinic — for these epigenome editors. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On today’s episode, we are making the full arc from the theoretical and borderline philosophical to the applied. Let’s start with the theory: embodied intelligence posits that the body, or the physical form, plays an active and significant role in shaping an agent's mind and cognitive capacities. For example, human intelligence is not just the function of our brain, but a combination of our brain, our body, and the environment in which we exist. But when it comes to designing artificial intelligence (AI), a physical form and an environment are typically not part of the equation. It’s a disembodied cognition. Our guests, Li Fei-Fei and Surya Ganguli of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, set out to develop what they call an “evolutionary playground” to explore the development of embodied intelligence in AI and its connection with the environment and with learning using in silico experiments. They discuss with a16z general partner Vijay Pande and host Lauren Richardson how they created a suite of virtual environments in which agents evolve through a process that mimics aspects of Darwinian evolution. These agents, called the unimal, or universal animal, start off as a central node, and with each generation can add or subtract limbs and change various properties of their physical forms, like how flexible their joints are. Just like in real evolution, different forms arose based on the particularities of the environment, but what is really exciting is what Fei-Fei, Surya, and colleagues discovered about the intelligence encoded in some of these forms, such as an increased ability to learn a novel task. Which brings us to the applied section of our discussion. These results provide new insights for how we think about designing robots capable of performing unique tasks, and for understanding the possible limitations of disembodied AI models, like GTP-3. The results are described in the pre-print "Embodied Intelligence via Learning and Evolution" posted on arXiv.org. And watch the unimal evolve here! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today’s episode is all about the history and future of infusing tech into healthcare with the goals of improving outcomes and lowering costs, and features one of the leading voices in this field, Jonathan Bush. Jonathan, aka JB, started his career in healthcare as an ambulance driver and army medic, and then met Todd Park, another Bio Eats World guest, while at Booz Allen. Together they founded Athena Women’s Health Clinic, which evolved from a clinic specializing in maternity care to one of the original digital health companies providing cloud-based services and point-of-care clinical and back office tools for providers, later called Athenahealth. In this conversation with a16z general partner Julie Yoo — who is also a digital health builder — JB discusses this evolution, how it mirrors the bigger trend shifts in healthcare, and how it has informed the mission of his new company, Zus, which he compares to a Github for healthtech. JB and Julie cover what’s changed since the launch of Athena, 25 years ago, how to disrupt an entrenched system like healthcare, the role regulation plays in the space, and the under appreciated importance of bottom-up sales. Please note there is some colorful language used in this episode, in case you have young children listening. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Genetic testing is on the cusp of a major revolution, which has the potential to shift not just how we understand our risk for disease, but how we practice healthcare. In the clinic today, genetic testing is used only in cases where we know that mutations have big impact on physiology (BRCA mutations in breast cancer, for example). But our knowledge of how our genetics influences our risk for disease has evolved, and we now know that many (tens of thousands to even millions) small changes in our genes, each of which individually has a tiny effect, combine to influence our risk profile. This new appreciation — coupled with powerful statistical methods and massive datasets — has fueled the creation of a new tool to quantify the risk of a broad range of common diseases: the polygenic risk score. On this episode, which originally aired on January 18, 2021, host Lauren Richardson (@lr_bio) is joined by Peter Donnelly, (@genemodeller Professor of Statistical Science at the University of Oxford and the CEO of Genomics PLC,) and Vineeta Agarwala, (@vintweeta physician-scientist and general partner at a16z), to discuss these scores and how they can reshape healthcare, away from a paradigm of treating illness and towards prevention and maintenance of health. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

When it comes to healthcare, the topic of how expensive it is and what we can do to lower costs is always top of mind. One area with particularly steep costs is the emergency department. These are hospital departments that can take care of pretty much anything from a cut to a car wreck. But going to an emergency department for something as simple as a cut can result in a high bill for both the patient and the insurer. This is where the urgent care center comes in. Urgent care centers are walk-in clinics focused on caring for minor illnesses and injuries — or in medical speak — low acuity conditions. They are way less expensive than a trip to the emergency department, so funneling these low acuity visits from the emergency department to urgent care centers should result in lower healthcare costs… right? On today’s episode, host Lauren Richardson is joined by a16z general partner Vineeta Agawala and bio deal team member Justin Larkin (who are both medical doctors and experts in healthcare), to discuss new research published in the journal Health Affairs, examining this key assumption. The conversation covers the issues with care utilization and care navigation, how urgent care centers impact healthcare costs, and the implications of these results for builders in the digital health space. The article at the center of today's episode is: "Urgent Care Centers Deter Some Emergency Department Visits But, On Net, Increase Spending" by Bill Wang, Ateev Mehrotra, and Ari B. Friedman, published in Health Affairs. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

If there is one rule in biology, it is that there is an exception to every rule. This includes even the basic biochemistry of DNA, which was once thought to be universal. On this episode, host Lauren Richardson and Judy Savitskaya (a16z bio deal team member and synthetic biology expert), discuss the results and implications three related articles co-published in Science, which all advance our understanding of a very unique kind of DNA. If you open any biology text book, it will say that the genetic code is made up of 4 bases: Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, and Guanine, or ATCG. But, back in 1977, scientists discovered a phage — the technical term a virus that infects bacteria — that encodes its genome in ZTCG. Z is a derivative of A that has an extra amino group tagged on, and while that may sound minor, it changes some of the key properties of DNA. These three new articles seek to understand how Z is made and how it is incorporated into DNA. This is essential information for taking Z from a weird, wild bio story into a practical application. The conversation covers what makes Z different than other bases, what these three articles reveal about the synthesis and polymerization of Z, and how we can use use Z in a wide range of applications, from bio-containment to new therapeutics to DNA storage.The three articles discussed are:"A widespread pathway for substitution of adenine by diaminopurine in phage genomes" by Yan Zhou, Xuexia Xu, Yifeng Wei, Yu Cheng, Yu Guo, Ivan Khudyakov, Fuli Liu, Ping He, Zhangyue Song, Zhi Li, Yan Gao, Ee Lui Ang, Huimin Zhao, Yan Zhang, and Suwen Zhao"A third purine biosynthetic pathway encoded by aminoadenine-based viral DNA genomes" by Dona Sleiman, Pierre Simon Garcia, Marion Lagune, Jerome Loc’h, Ahmed Haouz, Najwa Taib, Pascal Röthlisberger, Simonetta Gribaldo, Philippe Marlière, and Pierre Alexandre Kaminski"Noncanonical DNA polymerization by aminoadenine-based siphoviruses" by Valerie Pezo, Faten Jaziri, Pierre-Yves Bourguignon, Dominique Louis, Deborah Jacobs-Sera, Jef Rozenski, Sylvie Pochet, Piet Herdewijn, Graham F. Hatfull, Pierre-Alexandre Kaminski, and Philippe Marliere Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This episode was recorded in March of 2019 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Folding at Home, the distributed computing project for simulating protein dynamics, and originally aired on The a16z Podcast. Folding at Home is run on millions of devices, is the world’s largest supercomputer, and tackles some of biology’s toughest problems, including COVID-19.Proteins are molecular machines that must first assemble themselves to function. But how does a protein, which is produced as a linear string of amino acids, assume the complex three-dimensional structure needed to carry out its job? That's where Folding at Home comes in. Folding at Home is a sophisticated computer program that simulates the way atoms push and pull on each other, applied to the problem of protein dynamics, aka "folding". These simulations help researchers understand protein function and to design drugs and antibodies to target them. Given the extreme complexity of these simulations, they require an astronomical amount of compute power. Folding at Hold solves this problem with a distributed computing framework: it breaks up the calculations in the smaller pieces that can be run on independent computers. Users of Folding at Home — millions of them today — donate the spare compute power on their PCs to help run these simulations. This aggregate compute power represents the largest super computer in the world: currently 2.4 exaFLOPS!Folding at Home was launched in the lab of Vijay Pande at Stanford. In this episode, Vijay (now a general partner at a16z) is joined by his former student and current director of Folding at Home, Greg Bowman, an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and host Lauren Richardson. The conversation covers the origins of the Folding at Home project and the scientific and technical advances needed to solve the complex protein folding and distributed computing problems.To find out more about how Folding at Home is contributing to the COVID-19 pandemic, check out the recenty published article from the Bowman lab, "SARS-CoV-2 simulations go exascale to predict dramatic spike opening and cryptic pockets across the proteome", published in Nature Chemistry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On the path from scientific discovery to new drug, the clinical trial is a huge — and critical — hurdle. Clinical trials are themselves experiments, and to make sure that they are doing the best possible job at determining the safety and efficacy of the new drug, we need to be able to do experiments on those experiments. But how do you do that in such a highly regulated space? Host Lauren Richardson talks to James Zou, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University, and a16z general partner Vineeta Agarwala, physician and expert on real world data in healthcare, about new research from the Zou lab that uses AI-powered simulations of clinical trials and real world patient data to understand how different designs influence trial outcomes. In particular, looking for designs that can make trials more inclusive, which is key for getting patients access to potentially life-saving care and for running trials efficiently. The conversation covers the inherited rules and assumptions governing which patients can participate in trials, how Dr. Zou, lead author Ruishan Liu, and colleagues combined real world data and computer simulations to challenge these assumptions via a data-driven approach, and how this can inform smarter trial design. The article at the center of today's episode is: "Evaluating eligibility criteria of oncology trials using real-world data and AI" by Ruishan Liu, Shemra Rizzo, Samuel Whipple, Navdeep Pal, Arturo Lopez Pineda, Michael Lu, Brandon Arnieri, Ying Lu, William Capra, Ryan Copping & James Zou, published in Nature. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

They say you should never judge a book by its cover, but can you judge a cell by its shape? On this episode, host Lauren Richardson is joined by Maddison Masaeli (CEO and cofounder of Deepcell), and a16z general partner Vijay Pande (whose lab at Stanford focused on the development of novel computational methods for simulating biology), to discuss what we can learn by characterizing a cell's shape — also known as its morphology. We've long appreciated that morphology can be used to discriminate cells, for example, cancer cells look very different than the surrounding tissue and can be spotted in a biopsy, and the various classes of immune cells all have distinct appearances. But characterization of cell shape — and what it can tell us about the underlying biology of those cells and the health of the organism that they came from — has been stuck in the low-tech, manual, qualitative era. To unlock the potential of cell morphology, Maddison and her colleagues are leveraging the power of artificial intelligence to assess and learn from cell images to create a quantitative, scaleable technology. The conversation covers the untapped potential of studying cells and their shape, how Maddison and her team at Deepcell are building an AI with seemingly limitless applications, and where this technology could take us. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Neuroscientists have long been trying to determine what happens in the brain during sleep, but to date, they have overlooked a key player: astrocytes. These star-shaped cells were once thought to be the glue that held the brain together, but we are now beginning to appreciate their importance in a variety of brain functions. In this episode, host Lauren Richardson talks to Kira Poskanzer, Assistant Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, about her group's work showing that neurons are only one piece of the larger sleep puzzle. The conversation covers the complexity of sleep, how astrocytes control two key attributes of sleep (depth and duration), the technology and methods employed to uncover this novel mode of regulation, and how appreciating the role of astrocytes in governing sleep could lead to new insights into neuropsychiatric conditions and how to treat them. The article at the center of today's episode is: “Cortical astrocytes independently regulate sleep depth and duration via separate GPCR pathways” by Trisha V Vaidyanathan, Max Collard, Sae Yokoyama, Michael E Reitman, and Kira E Poskanzer, published in eLife. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today we are re-running an episode exploring a question that seems super straightforward, but that on closer examination reveals incredible complexity, and that is "how do we put the patient at the center of the healthcare system?” It almost seems counterintuitive, since aren’t patients always the center of healthcare? But healthcare is a strange industry, in that it is built with the fundamental goal of serving patients, but in many ways, the patient isn’t always the end customer of the system. In fact, the patient — and the patient’s voice — can often be lost or overlooked in the enormous, complex, convoluted business flows between a huge system of providers, in elaborate clinical work flows, in insurance coverage and reimbursements, and in high level policy debates. In this episode, a16z general partner Julie Yoo and deal team partner Jay Rughani talk with Freda Lewis Hall — a physician who was formerly Pfizer’s Chief Patient Officer and Chief Medical Officer; and who among many other roles was appointed by the Obama Administration to the Board of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. They discuss what happens when you rethink the entire healthcare system from the patient’s point of view, from drug development to clinical trials to care delivery. What tools and new approaches can we use to truly put the patient at the center of the healthcare system? And how do we update our Flintstones healthcare system to match our Star Wars medicines? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1994, 29 bald eagles were found dead at DeGray Lake in Arkansas. This mass mortality event kicked off a search for the culprit which has last over 25 years. On this episode of the Bio Eats World Journal Club, host Lauren Richardson talks to Susan B. Wilde of the University of Georgia about her group's work finally identifying the eagle killer, and revealing a complex web of ecosystem dysfunction. Solving this mystery required a fresh point of view, a wide range of techniques and technologies, and an international collaborative effort. Susan B. Wilde, Ph.D, Associate Professor of Aquatic Science at the University of Georgia, joins host Lauren Richardson to discuss the results and implications of the article "Hunting the eagle killer: A cyanobacterial neurotoxin causes vacuolar myelinopathy" by Steffen Breinlinger, Tabitha J. Phillips, Brigette N. Haram, Jan Mareš, José A. Martínez Yerena, Pavel Hrouzek, Roman Sobotka, W. Matthew Henderson, Peter Schmieder, Susan M. Williams, James D. Lauderdale, H. Dayton Wilde, Wesley Gerrin, Andreja Kust, John W. Washington, Christoph Wagner, Benedikt Geier, Manuel Liebeke, Heike Enke, Timo H. J. Niedermeyer and Susan B. Wilde, published in Science. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Understanding how plants have adapted to natural climate change over millions of years provides a playbook of evolutionary strategies to help us prepare for and respond to man-made climate change. On this episode, host Lauren Richardson talks to Thomas Juenger, Associate Professor at the University of Texas in Austin and co-senior author of the recent article “Genomic mechanisms of climate adaptation in polyploid bioenergy switchgrass”, published in Nature. They discuss how studying native plants — like switchgrass — can inform crop improvement strategies, the import role of switchgrass as a possible future source of biofuels, how advances in sequencing technology have unlocked the secrets hidden in plant genomes, and more. Thomas Juenger, Ph.D, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas at Austin, joins host Lauren Richardson (@lr_bio) to discuss the results and implications of the article “Genomic mechanisms of climate adaptation in polyploid bioenergy switchgrass”, by John T. Lovell, Alice H. MacQueen, Sujan Mamidi, Jason Bonnette, Jerry Jenkins, Joseph D. Napier, Avinash Sreedasyam, Adam Healey, Adam Session, Shengqiang Shu, Kerrie Barry, Stacy Bonos, LoriBeth Boston, Christopher Daum, Shweta Deshpande, Aren Ewing, Paul P. Grabowski, Taslima Haque, Melanie Harrison, Jiming Jiang, Dave Kudrna, Anna Lipzen, Thomas H. Pendergast IV, Chris Plott, Peng Qi, Christopher A. Saski1, Eugene V. Shakirov, David Sims, Manoj Sharma, Rita Sharma, Ada Stewart, Vasanth R. Singan, Yuhong Tang, Sandra Thibivillier, Jenell Webber, Xiaoyu Weng, Melissa Williams, Guohong Albert Wu, Yuko Yoshinaga, Matthew Zane, Li Zhang, Jiyi Zhang, Kathrine D. Behrman, Arvid R. Boe, Philip A. Fay, Felix B. Fritschi, Julie D. Jastrow, John Lloyd-Reilley, Juan Manuel Martínez-Reyna, Roser Matamala, Robert B. Mitchell, Francis M. Rouquette Jr, Pamela Ronald, Malay Saha, Christian M. Tobias, Michael Udvardi, Rod A. Wing, Yanqi Wu, Laura E. Bartley, Michael Casler, Katrien M. Devos, David B. Lowry, Daniel S. Rokhsar, Jane Grimwood, Thomas E. Juenger & Jeremy Schmutz published in Nature. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.