Glen de Vries grew up in Manhattan, a nerdy kid who admired Richard Feynman, loved his TRS-80, and went to Carnegie Mellon University planning to study chemistry and computer science. A summer of molecular biology inspired him to switch his [See the full post…]

The medical device company iRhythm has been described as that rarest of all breeds – a digital health company with an actual, viable business model behind it. On today’s Tech Tonics podcast, we’re delighted to welcome Uday Kumar, the cardiologist [See the full post…]

“I build stuff” is how data scientist Eric Perakslis modestly describes his breathless career, a journey that’s taken him from industry to academia and back again, with a brief stop at the FDA.

Eric’s first job after college was at [See the full post…]

When you ask Jan Bruce where she grew up, she says “in the media business.” Jan worked early on in the magazine and then digital media sectors, backing into the health and wellness category through opportunity. She planned a career [See the full post…]

Jessica Mega, an accomplished cardiologist and now Chief Medical Officer at Alphabet’s Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences), says she joined the venerable Silicon Valley company to help patients. According to Jess, physicians who love patients need to lean into [See the full post…]

Deborah Kilpatrick grew up on a family farm in rural Georgia; her dad was a teacher and football coach; she describes life in her town as “very Friday Night Lights.”

With a passion for math and science, Deb decided to [See the full post…]

Reports suggest that today there are between 1.2 to 2.6 million legal medical marijuana users in the U.S. But as we know, there is great controversy about medical marijuana as a “legitimate” medical intervention due to its history as an [See the full post…]

Chris Benko first joined Merck when he was but a lad of eighteen, rising through the ranks in HR and talent management to become one of the youngest VPs in the history of the organization, at the age of 34. [See the full post…]

Susannah Fox eloquently described her job as U.S. HHS Chief Technology Officer – a role which just came to an end in the transition to a new administration – as “helping Health and Human Service (HHS) leadership harness the power [See the full post…]

Many entrepreneurs and investors on our podcast advise would-be innovators to focus on the problem to be solved, rather than become wrapped up in a particular technology. “Your solution,” VC Dave McClure famously warned entrepreneurs, “Is not my problem.”

On [See the full post…]

Rasu Shrestha, MD, is one of those doctors who found his way from medicine to technology. As he puts it, he rolled downhill from his birthplace in Kathmandu, Nepal, across many continents and into medical school in India. But Rasu [See the full post…]

Vishal Gulati says he was “genetically predisposed to be a doctor.” But as it turns out, he was born to be a pioneer in open data, digital health and global venture capital.

During his medical training, Vishal realized that the [See the full post…]

A cardiologist by training and a data scientist long before it was sexy, Dr. Taha Kass-Hout demonstrates the outsized impact possible when heart, vision, and passion meet commitment to government service, and beyond. Originally from Syria, Taha discovered his love [See the full post…]

Jazz musician, cardiologist, geneticist, engineer, entrepreneur, referee of kids soccer: our guest today, Stanford’s Euan Ashley, does it all, and just might be the most interesting man in Silicon Valley.

Scotsman by birth, doctor by destiny, and a technologist by [See the full post…]

Jody Holtzman, Senior Vice President of Market Innovation at AARP, has a favorite quote, which is Thomas Edison’s, “…there are no rules here – – we’re trying to accomplish something.” He has certainly brought that idea to life as [See the full post…]

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…]