Touching Base

Novartis has agreed to license and develop Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals’ preclinical stage small interfering RNA (siRNA) therapy ARO-SNCA, a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease and other synucle…

This week’s episode explores two frontiers: space travel and artificial intelligence. First, we discuss a study testing whether mouse sperm cryopreserved and stored in the International Space Station…

This episode of GEN's Touching Base spotlights the unexpected relationship between breathing low oxygen and restoration of neuron function in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease. In addition, a sing…

Sarepta has temporarily paused shipments of Elevidys, its FDA-approved treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In this episode of GEN's Touching Base, we discuss the company’s response to the trag…

Merck & Co. has acquired Verona Pharma for $10 billion in a deal designed to expand the pharma giant’s portfolio of cardio-pulmonary disease treatments. In a step toward virtual cell benchmarking, th…

Acast

BIO 2025, Huge Virtual Cell Dataset, AI-Designed De Novo Proteins

BIO 2025 is off and running. GEN editors discuss the size and scope of the bustling conference hall and share excitement about th…

A gene therapy clinical trial for Danon disease run by Rocket Pharmaceuticals has been suspended following the death of a patient. MIT and Recursion have released Boltz-2, an open-source tool that pr…

A baby, named KJ, has become the first patient to be treated with a personalized CRISPR therapy to address a severe metabolic disorder. We discuss this story—one of the biggest science/medical storie…

The exact origins of SARS-CoV-2 are still something of a mystery, but new research may bring scientists one step closer to an explanation for how the virus reached Wuhan. Also in the episode, we dive…

The seismic changes made by the current administration in the United States continue to impact the scientific community. The business news segment of this week’s episode covers the effects of job cut…

Are Dire Wolves really back? We give our take on Colossal Biosciences’ latest announcement about the de-extinction of Dire Wolves including some thoughts on their approach and some of the broader imp…

Gene therapies take center stage in this week’s episode. We discuss a potential gene replacement therapy for people with Dravet Syndrome that scientists have tested in mice with good results and high…

GEN editors discuss both the news and history of DNA and genetic engineering. We present a recap of the 50th anniversary Asilomar conference, delving into some of the history from the 1975 Asilomar c…

In honor of Rare Disease Day, we discuss news from Healx, a clinical-stage biotech, which has dosed the first patient in a Phase II trial of its new drug for neurofibromatosis type 1. In the world of…

Season 2 Episode 1 (February 14, 2025): This week, the GEN editors discussed some interesting and developing stories around AI, including an in depth dialogue about what Recursion has been doing late…

Episode 19 (April 26, 2024): This week, the GEN editors celebrated DNA Day by sharing some stories about their favorite observations and applications of DNA research.

Featuring Kevin Davies, PhD (Edi…

Episode 18 (April 19, 2024):  

Biology’s exploding data streams continue to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) tools to streamline drug development. How do we define AI in drug discovery? Who are…

Episode 17 (April 12, 2024):  

This week, the GEN editors discuss the launch of Nvelop Therapeutics, a new start-up leveraging approaches developed by gene editing pioneers David Liu, PhD, and J. Ke…

Episode 16 (April 5, 2024): This week, the GEN editors discussed deep proteome profiling of home-sampled dried blood spots to assess the effects of SARS-CoV-2 in mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, r…

Episode 15 (March 29, 2024): From the expansion of Nvidia's generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform for drug discovery to AI notetakers that coach doctors to be more human, the GEN editors d…