Five years ago, when Dr. Leslie Alexandre arrived in Seattle to lead the industry group Life Science Washington, she found a community in a mild state of shock. "One of the real challenges was our ecosystem had tons of great research going on, and many wonderful companies, but I think our industry was a little bit in the doldrums in 2016, in part because Amgen had just completed moving out of Elliott Bay," she said. "It started in 2014. And when I arrived, it was just the last people." Amgen was...
Oct 19, 2021•49 min
Amazon made headlines at the height of the pandemic for developing its own COVID-19 testing system for its workers. The same test is now available to the public for $40. You can order the test on Amazon.com, take it at home and ship it to Amazon to get your results. So what is it like to take Amazon’s COVID test? We decided to find out. On this episode, GeekWire reporter Charlotte Schubert goes hands-on with Amazon’s COVID-19 test, adding to our understanding of the tech giant’s emerging health ...
Aug 04, 2021•33 min•Season 5Ep. 11
Amazon's move into healthcare is multifaceted, including COVID-19 testing, its Halo health band and service, cloud services for healthcare and life sciences, and even primary care for its employees. A major motivation for the company: the sheer size of the healthcare market, and the massive problems to be solved. "Amazon is a big company now, still with big growth ambitions, and so they need to tackle big markets," said John Rossman, a former Amazon business leader and the author of The Amazon W...
Jun 24, 2021•31 min•Season 5Ep. 10
Before their son was born, Sanath Kumar Ramesh and his wife Ramya had normal first-time-parent jitters. Ramesh, who works for Amazon as a software engineering manager, was so excited to welcome his little boy. He was ready for the challenges and rewards of parenthood. In August 2018, Raghav was born, and Ramesh’s life began changing in ways he’d never expected. On this episode of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast, we’re reconnecting with Ramesh to hear more of his compelling, inspiring story. We pr...
May 12, 2021•22 min•Season 5Ep. 9
The speed of the creation of vaccines for the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 was a modern marvel. You might already have already gotten yours. But what if vaccines and therapeutics could emerge even faster in response to the next pandemic. That’s one of the goals of a $5 million gift from Microsoft to the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine. On this episode, we talk with Microsoft’s chief scientific officer, Eric Horvitz, and the director of the...
Mar 31, 2021•27 min•Season 5Ep. 8
Walter Isaacson has studied and written extensively about the physics and technology revolutions as the biographer of such figures as Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs. But after writing his latest book, he is convinced there's a far more momentous revolution in the works. "The next few decades are going to be the era of biotech," he said in a GeekWire podcast conversation about his new book, The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing and the Future of the Human Race . "We'll be able to do tot...
Mar 09, 2021•34 min•Season 5Ep. 7
To help people live, Mark Roth scrutinizes those who've come frighteningly close to dying. People who have been lost in the frozen wilderness in a Mount Rainier whiteout or stowed away in the wheel well of a trans-Pacific jet. People who have suffered massive heart attacks or body-crushing car wrecks. Roth, a biochemist and cell biologist at Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, sees a thread connecting these catastrophes with something seemingly quite different: immortality. Both co...
Mar 04, 2021•25 min•Season 5Ep. 6
GeekWire editor Todd Bishop: On a cold, clear weekday morning last month, my quest to figure out whether I had COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic took me to my back porch, where a mobile phlebotomist drew my blood. It had been 10 months since I was sick, and I had already received a negative result on a standard antibody test. That earlier test was designed to detect the presence of the antibodies produced by the body’s immune system to ward off the virus that causes COVID-19. The negati...
Feb 26, 2021•34 min•Season 5Ep. 5
A group of 14 U.S. health systems, representing tens of millions of patients across 40 states, will pool data using software developed by Seattle startup Truveta , leveraging artificial intelligence to search for medical breakthroughs and previously undetected patterns of inequity in healthcare. The company, led by former Microsoft Windows chief Terry Myerson, gave new details about its origins and plans Thursday morning, saying it has grown to 53 employees. Truveta emerged from stealth mode in ...
Feb 11, 2021•20 min•Season 5Ep. 4
GeekWire editor Todd Bishop: A few weeks ago, I started wearing a new health band. It regularly eavesdrops on my side of conversations, and it has a lot of opinions about them. “You had three phrases that sounded annoyed, irritated or disgusted," a section in the app reported on a recent evening, recapping my daily interactions. Not only that, but I had "one phrase that sounded stubborn or condescending.” Another feature invites me to strip down to my underwear for a picture. "Find a well-lit ar...
Jan 21, 2021•31 min•Season 5Ep. 3
To say that Dr. Brad Younggren has a unique perspective on COVID-19 would be an understatement -- because he actually has multiple perspectives. Dr. Younggren is the chief medical officer at Seattle-based healthcare startup 98point6, which has seen interest in its on-demand virtual care service skyrocket amid the pandemic. He's also an emergency physician, and the medical director for emergency preparedness, at EvergreenHealth Medical Center, in Kirkland, Wash., the first hospital in the country...
Dec 29, 2020•31 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Did you get really sick in the first few months of the year? Do you wonder if it was COVID-19? You're not alone. On the Season 5 premiere of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we revisit the early days of the pandemic in an effort to figure out a mysterious illness, with help from experts at the University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and ZoomCare. We come away with a deeper understanding of the nuances of COVID-19 testing, and insights into how the outbreak is changing t...
Dec 10, 2020•32 min•Season 5Ep. 1
The last time we caught up with Pillsy co-founders Jeff LeBrun and Chuks Onwuneme, three years ago , they were focused on their flagship product, a smart pill bottle that sounds an alarm if people forget to take their pills. But that was just one example of the broader trend of remote patient monitoring -- technology that helps medical professionals keep tabs on the status of patients at home, day in and day out, not just during periodic visits to the doctor’s office. Even before COVID-19 led to...
Jun 15, 2020•21 min•Season 4Ep. 13
GeekWire Health Tech Podcast subscriber, you're invited to join us at 1:30 p.m. Pacific this Thursday, May 21, for a live online discussion with Dr. Thomas Lynch, the new president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. You may have caught my earlier conversation with Dr. Lynch on this podcast when he was just starting in the job, back in February . Of course, a lot has happened since then! Register for the webinar here. Scientists from the Seattle-based institute have emerged as leaders...
May 19, 2020•2 min
In the world of diagnostic tests for COVID-19, there are two main approaches: PCR tests, which detect the presence of the live virus; and serology tests, which detect antibodies that indicate whether someone has recovered from the disease. But could there be a third way? Two companies based in the Seattle region, Microsoft and Adaptive Biotechnologies, are working together to try to create a better diagnostic test. Joining us to explain the initiative are Peter Lee, Microsoft corporate vice pres...
May 15, 2020•25 min•Season 4Ep. 12
We’re exploring the intersection of psychedelics, health care, mental health and even spirituality with a journalist who has been reporting on the topic for GeekWire, two entrepreneurs looking to capitalize on future legalization of psychedelics, and a physician scientist who uses a form of psychedelics as part of his practice of medicine and psychotherapy. Related stories COVID-19 mental health crunch puts impetus on psychedelic drug innovation, doctor says Oregon psychedelic startup tests nasa...
Apr 30, 2020•31 min•Season 4Ep. 11
SPOKANE, Wash. — If you showed up at an emergency room with a heart attack, you’d expect to receive some diagnostic tests like pulse, blood pressure and an EKG. You’d be surprised if medical professionals based their assessment only on how you looked, or how they perceived your behavior that day. Yet, that is exactly how autism spectrum disorder is diagnosed. Dr. Georgina Lynch , an assistant professor at Washington State University in Spokane, Wash., says autism is assessed with too limited a s...
Apr 15, 2020•22 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Much of the current focus in health care is rightly on the near-term challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. But beyond the current crisis, health care technology veterans are already seeing major changes that promise to become permanent realities -- from the sudden boom in telemedicine, to regulatory shifts impacting health care billing, to the use of location data to track the disease. "Most interesting is what's going to happen when this is over," says Anne Weiler, the co-founder and former CEO ...
Apr 07, 2020•35 min•Season 4Ep. 9
On this episode: FindTheMasks.com, GetUsPPE.org and Masks 4 WA . The coronavirus outbreak in Washington state has not yet reached the "peak" some public health officials anticipate but already ICU physicians like Mike Holmes are grappling with a dearth of necessary supplies. Holmes described an "extreme shortage" of masks he and his colleagues at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle need to treat COVID-19 patients. "We are now reusing single-use masks over and over and over again," he said. It's a ...
Mar 26, 2020•14 min•Season 4Ep. 8
A consortium of tech leaders — including Seattle’s Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Microsoft — today unveiled an AI-enabled database that’s meant to give researchers quicker, surer access to resources relating to coronavirus and how to stop it. GeekWire science editor Alan Boyle explains the initiative on this special episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast. Read his story here . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Mar 17, 2020•12 min•Season 4Ep. 7
A new generation of cutting-edge vaccines could dramatically accelerate the global response to future outbreaks such as the current coronavirus epidemic. On a special episode of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast, we go behind the scenes with two University of Washington scientists pursuing these vaccine breakthroughs. Dr. Deborah Fuller is a professor of microbiology and a vaccinologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and Dr. Jesse Erasmus , a molecular virologist working on new...
Mar 05, 2020•39 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Dr. Thomas Lynch is in his first week as the new leader of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center , but he already has a four-point plan to help guide the Seattle-based institute in its quest to treat and ultimately cure cancer. Given his new home, in the middle of one of the country's hottest tech hubs, it's no coincidence that one of those points heavily involves on the technology industry. "The intersection between tech and data and science is something we are really well-poised to be abl...
Feb 05, 2020•35 min•Season 4Ep. 5
It has been nearly two decades since scientists accomplished the first complete sequencing of the human genome. This historic moment gave us an unprecedented view of human DNA, the genetic code that determines everything from our eye color to our chance of disease, unlocking some of the biggest mysteries of human life. Twenty years later, despite the prevalence of genetic sequencing, considerable work remains to fulfill the promise of these advances to alleviate and cure human illness and diseas...
Jan 10, 2020•28 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Melissa Mulholland was 16 weeks pregnant with her second child when her doctor noticed something unusual in an ultrasound scan. It was a condition called posterior urethral valves, PUV, and it meant her son wouldn’t survive the womb without medical intervention. She was fortunate to have a doctor skilled in detecting the condition and intervening to address it, and the good news is that her son, Conor, is now 5 years old. But the experience left Mulholland thinking about the families who aren’t ...
Dec 11, 2019•26 min•Season 4Ep. 3
A lot of us are using apps and devices to get healthy. But these are just the beginning of a wave of technologies that promise to give our smartphones health superpowers. On this episode, we’re talking to Shyam Gollakota, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Washington. Shyam has been doing crazy things with smartphones and smart speakers like Alexa — turning them into sonar machines that can detect heart attacks, opioid overdoses or even something as simple as an ear ...
Oct 29, 2019•25 min•Season 4Ep. 2
Artificial intelligence is at the center of many technology discussions today, and perhaps nowhere are the implications more meaningful than in the world of health care. So where is AI making an impact in health? What does the future bring, and how should healthcare providers and technologists get ready? On the Season 4 premiere of GeekWire's Health Tech Podcast, we address all of those questions with three guests, Linda Hand, CEO of Cardinal Analytx, Colt Courtright who leads Corporate Data &am...
Sep 19, 2019•38 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Kristin Anderson has already fought cancer in more ways than one. She's a cancer survivor whose battle with breast cancer started when she was just 28 years old and pursuing a doctorate in immunology. And as a researcher at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, she's investigating ways to use our body's own immune system to attack solid tumors. But Anderson has a new plan to fight the disease. She's climbing Mount Kilimanjaro as part of a fundraising effort that has raised $1.4 million and...
Jul 06, 2019•16 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Peek into a random hospital room in the U.S. today, and you might see something that makes you cynical about technology. The classic scene is of a provider talking with a patient as they face the opposite direction and take detailed notes on a computer. In other words, the patient's only face-time with their doctor is spent staring at the back of his or her neck. Beyond the loss of human interaction, the long hours spent entering these notes at the end of the day have placed a well-documented bu...
Jun 25, 2019•26 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Voice assistants are coming to the hospital. Last month, Amazon Alexa announced a new skill that made the platform compliant with HIPAA , a set of privacy rules that govern patient data. Not far behind in the race are Google, Apple and Microsoft, which are also positioned to bring their voice assistants to healthcare settings. On this episode of the GeekWire Health Tech Podcast, we dig in with the first of a two-part series on the latest technology sweeping the industry. We’ll hear from innovato...
May 23, 2019•20 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Nanodropper, a startup created by a group of University of Washington students, has developed an adapter that makes eye drops smaller. It’s a way for people with glaucoma and other eye diseases to waste less of their medication and save money. The idea was inspired by an article published by NPR and ProPublica, which pointed out how pharmaceutical companies make eye drops that are larger than what the human eye can physically absorb. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Apr 16, 2019•18 min•Season 3Ep. 5
