The U.S. healthcare system was designed primarily based on our understanding of the biological and social needs of white men. Of course, our current experience tells us that society is far more complex and that the system must recognize and [See the full post…]

A self-described geek, Dorit Donoviel was happily pursuing a career in molecular biology until a chance encountered diverted her course to space medicine. Today, Dorit directs the Biomedical Innovations Lab, Center for Space Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in [See the full post…]

While determining what to do with college and her career, Jessica Rousset struggled to decide – go with the right brain and be an artist or go with the left brain and pursue engineering. In a way she has managed [See the full post…]

Infectious disease physician, entrepreneur, and life-long innovator, Diego Miralles has pursued the frontiers of medicine on three continents, and in at least three distinct settings: academia, biotech startups, and the largest pharma company on earth, J&J. There, he founded both [See the full post…]

Emerging technologies bring not just profound opportunities but also vexing ethical dilemmas, involving issues such as privacy, consent, and access.

Today’s guest, Michelle Meyer, is a bioethicist and legal scholar who seeks to bring clarity and structure to this [See the full post…]

The success of Silicon Valley is often attributed to the ability of the entrepreneurial community to embrace setbacks rather than punishing those who experience them. Celebrating these setbacks has become an art form of it own as a recent NYT [See the full post…]

So much emphasis has been placed on fitness and wearables over the last five years and much has been made of whether these trackers can translate to better health or are just there to make people feel a sense of [See the full post…]

The gap between the promise and practice of technology has been especially vivid in the area of pharmaceutical clinical trials, where even switching from paper to electronic data capture has proved too radical for some sponsors. Today’s guest, Kara Dennis, [See the full post…]

James Joyce, the famous Irish author once said, “A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portraits of discovery.” His namesake, entrepreneur Jim Joyce, could not agree more. An entrepreneur many times over and [See the full post…]

For years, medical research seemed focused on understanding disease processes primarily through model organisms such as yeast, flies, and mice. Today’s guest, Merck’s Robert Plenge, offers the radical suggestion that with the help of emerging technology “humans serve as the [See the full post…]

One of the most significant challenges faced by the healthcare community is that the biggest companies want to innovate but can’t get out of their own way, while the smallest companies want to have an impact, but can’t get any [See the full post…]

Tech Tonics started 2015 with a goal of featuring the people and passion at the intersection of technology and health. We had 24 great shows featuring the perspectives of consumers and physicians, technologists and investors and others who represent the [See the full post…]

John Hixson’s career has taken him from a small town near Waco, Texas to the Johns Hopkins Medical School, a neurology residency at the University of Pennyslvannia, and ultimately to his current role at neurologist at UCSF and the [See the full post…]

Writer, editor, entrepreneur, visionary – Thomas Goetz has always combined a sophisticated understanding of emerging technologies with a profound sense of humanism. This was evident in his work at Wired (where he served as executive editor for eleven years), in [See the full post…]

When Dr. Sachin Jain got the call to become Chief Medical Officer of Anthem’s highly-regarded CareMore Unit, he could hardly have feigned surprise. It must have seemed like the role to which he was destined: a physician leader in an [See the full post…]

It seemed like a simple enough idea – evaluating whether the use of virtual reality goggles would reduce the pain experienced by hospitalized patients. Yet, when Brennan Spiegel, a gastroenterologist, clinical trial expert, and digital health pioneer at Cedar Sinai [See the full post…]

Matthew Holt has spent 20 years in health care as a researcher, forecaster, and strategist. He learned from some of the best in forecasting, policy and survey organizations, like the Institute for the Future and Harris Interactive. But these days [See the full post…]

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn’s mother was named Polly. Polly was diagnosed in 1971 with leukemia treated with the current state of medieval medicine and told she would not live long. But armed with a well-equipped librarian, some cooperative doctors and Adelle Davis’ [See the full post…]

When John Wilbanks graduated from Tulane with a major in philosophy and almost a minor in French, he had little idea that he would become one of the world’s most important forces for good in the areas of citizen science, [See the full post…]

In his final year of medical school at Columbia, Bijan Salehizadeh weighed whether to become a cardiothoracic surgeon or pursue what was a very unusual path at the time: a career in entrepreneurship.

Inspired by mentors including Dr. Mehmet Oz [See the full post…]

God help you if you are picked up by ambulance—assuming they can find you easily, they don’t know anything about you, can’t get your medical record, can’t effectively pre-communicate to the hospital what you will need, can’t document your data [See the full post…]

UCSF professor Bob Wachter has had a front row view to the collision of irresistible emerging technology with an immovable healthcare system, and has managed to navigate this interface with unusual nuance and grace, a story he shares in the [See the full post…]

After his second series of medical school rejections, biomedical engineer David Goodman found his way to a nascent medical device company seeking to develop an easy way to measure oxygen levels in the blood. The result – the Nellcor pulse [See the full post…]

Sean Duffy was one of those kids building monumental Lego edifices when his friends were playing outside. He continued to progress on the building front until he hit on his latest endeavor, the establishment of Omada Health, a company [See the full post…]

I first met Elli Kaplan, CEO of Neurotrack, when she won the SXSW best new start-up competition a few years back. She wowed the audience for the scope and creativity of what she is trying to do: create a [See the full post…]