Dr. Mary Ann Jabra-Rizk is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, where she studies the fungus Candida albicans and its interactions with the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. C. albicans is a normal commensal fungus and S. aureus is also a common human commensal, but both are also opportunistic pathogens of humans. Fungi and bacteria are separated by several billion years of evolution, and yet Dr. Jabra-Rizk is studying how these organisms communicate with each other and team up t...
Mar 27, 2018•54 min•Ep. 25
Dr. Steven Norris is a Professor at the University of Texas Health Houston, where he studies Borrelia burgdorferi , the bacterium that causes Lyme disease. Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the U.S. and it can lead to lifelong debilitating conditions, including arthritis and neurological symptoms. Dr. Norris has been studying B. burgdorferi for many years in his laboratory, and investigated various aspects of how this organism causes disease in infected hosts, including its...
Mar 12, 2018•1 hr•Ep. 24
Dr. Andrew Alspaugh is a physician and Professor of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Alspaugh is a mycologist, which means he studies fungi. Fungi typically cause serious and sometimes fatal disease in immunocompromised people. It is difficult to treat and prevent fungal diseases in these patients, due to their poorly functioning immune systems. Dr. Alspaugh is doing research on Cryptococcus neoformans, a common fungal infection of HIV-infected individuals. Dr. Alspaugh discus...
Feb 27, 2018•38 min•Ep. 23
Allan Hall is the lead distiller at Ranger Creek Brewing & Distilling, a “brewstillery” located in San Antonio that makes handcrafted beer and whiskey. Beer brewing is applied microbiology utilizing the fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae to ferment sugars that produce alcohol. Allan talks about the history of brewing and fermentation, the challenges of being an independent craft brewery, the science behind distilling whiskey, beer brewing around the world, and finding his love for science on th...
Feb 13, 2018•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 22
(Blood, That Is) and Transmit Diseases, Too! Dr. Mary Ann McDowell is an Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Joao Pedra is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. McDowell studies the parasitic disease Leishmaniasis, which is transmitted to humans through the bite of a sandfly. Pedra studies Lyme disease and Anaplasmosis, which are bacterial diseases that are transmitted to humans through the bite of a tick. The sandfly and tick vectors play ...
Jan 30, 2018•40 min•Ep. 21
Travis Block Communicates Science: the Promise of Stem Cells Dr. Travis Block is senior scientist at StemBioSys, Inc., a biotech company working on stem cell biology, and also the president of San Antonio Science, an organization that promotes science awareness. Dr. Block talks about the promise of stem cell research in treating various diseases, including cancers and degenerative diseases, and the challenges of developing technologies that can be affordable and useful for everyone. Dr. Block di...
Jan 16, 2018•51 min•Ep. 20
Dr. Anthony Griffiths and Dr. Ricardo Carrion are scientists at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute who work on some of the most dangerous viruses in the world under Biological Safety Level 4 (BSL4) containment. BSL4 is the highest form of biological containment that is required for viruses that have a high level of lethality and for which there is no cure. The ebola virus caused a huge outbreak in Western Africa in 2014 that led to over 11,000 deaths, and when an ebola-infected patient arri...
Jan 02, 2018•56 min•Ep. 19
Ron Nirenberg is the mayor of San Antonio, the seventh largest city in the U.S. San Antonio is one of the fastest growing cities, and bioscience is a major driver of the economy. Mayor Nirenberg talks about the importance of bioscience to the economy, and how the universities, military medicine, and private entities in San Antonio are critical components of the bioscience sector. He discusses with Ann Stevens, the President of BioMedSA several issues, including global warming, protection of the ...
Dec 21, 2017•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 18
Dr. David Blehert is the Branch Chief of the Wildlife Disease Diagnostic Laboratories with the U.S. Geological Survey, and a world expert on White Nose Syndrome (WNS). WNS is a fungal disease that is decimating American bat populations. The fungus, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, infects hibernating bats and disrupts their hibernation, leading to high levels of mortality, close to 100% in some caves. Dr. Blehert is working to study this fungus and come up with treatments and cures for American bat...
Dec 08, 2017•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 17
Dr. Jimmy Ballard is professor and chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. Dr. Ballard is an expert on Clostridia-related diseases, and specifically disease caused by C. difficile, or “Cdiff.” Cdiff infections result from heavy antibiotic usage, and can cause serious and even fatal disease. One of the most successful treatments for Cdiff infection is a fecal transplant, where fecal bacteria from a healthy donor are transplanted ...
Nov 20, 2017•55 min•Ep. 16
Dr. George Dimopoulos is a Professor at Johns Hopkins University, and Dr. Helen Lazear is an Assistant Professor at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Dr. Dimopoulos studies mosquitoes, those pesky insects that annoy people by biting them and sucking their blood. But they also spread a number of diseases, including malaria and dengue virus. Dr. Dimopoulos is developing various clever ways to prevent mosquitoes from transmitting diseases to humans. Dr. Lazear studies the Zika virus, wh...
Nov 06, 2017•46 min•Ep. 15
Dr. Dan Riskin is the host of the Animal Planet show about parasitic infections, Monsters Inside Me, and he also hosts a nightly science show broadcast in Canada, The Daily Planet. Dr. Riskin studied vampire bats while earning his Ph.D., and to this day is still bat crazy. His career promoting science for general audiences and his entertaining and enthusiastic personality have led him to be a guest on various late night talk shows, and he is the author of the book “Mother Nature is Trying to Kil...
Oct 23, 2017•58 min•Ep. 14
Jonathan Berman is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas Health San Antonio, and also one of the organizers for the March for Science. The March for Science was an amazing global phenomenon that occurred on April 22, 2017, where people all over the world participated in local marches in support of science. He discusses the genesis of this movement, the politicization of science, how to combat fake information on the internet, dealing with feedback through social media, and his favorit...
Sep 08, 2017•56 min•Ep. 13
Dr. Damian Krysan is a physician and an Associate Professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Dr. Krysan studies fungi, which in addition to their known roles in e.g. food spoilage and alcohol fermentation, can cause significant disease in humans. Fungi typically cause serious and potentially fatal disease in immunocompromised people, which presents a challenge to the medical community to come up with ways to treat and prevent fungal infections in this population. Dr. Krysan is doin...
Apr 28, 2017•41 min•Ep. 12
Dr. David Bisaro is a Professor at the Ohio State University. Dr. Bisaro studies plant viruses, which are a major source of economic loss for farmers. Plants, just like humans, can be infected with viruses, but unlike humans they don’t have antibodies and immune cells to fight off virus infections. This can be devastating for farmers who can lose large amounts of their crops from plant viruses. Dr. Bisaro studies how plants can survive virus infections by their own type of immune system, which s...
Apr 24, 2017•43 min•Ep. 11
Dr. Alex Berezow is a science reporter, he works with the American Council on Science and Health to report on scientific discoveries and current issues. He discusses some of the difficulties associated with reporting on science to an increasingly skeptical and/or distrusting general public. In the era of fake news, conspiracy theories, and the internet, it has become increasingly difficult for scientists to convey the importance of their research, and the benefit to society. Alex discusses how t...
Mar 13, 2017•40 min•Ep. 10
Whooping cough, caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis, is an extremely dangerous and potentially fatal disease for infants. We rarely see this disease anymore because everyone is routinely vaccinated against it with the DPT childhood vaccine. But there has lately been a resurgence in whooping cough cases, caused primarily by a reformulation of the vaccine to make it safer, which unfortunately also made it less protective against this disease. Dr. Rajendar Deora is an Associate Professor o...
Mar 03, 2017•37 min•Ep. 9
Dr. Stefan Pukatzki is a Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at the University of Colorado in Denver. Dr. Pukatzki studies Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes the human disease cholera. Cholera is a dangerous water-borne disease that rapidly spreads through human populations in large epidemics. Dr. Pukatzki discovered that V. cholerae has a stabbing device, the Type Six Secretion system, that it uses to inject poisons into surrounding bacteria to kill them off and gain a competitive ...
Feb 24, 2017•39 min•Ep. 8
Mr. Cliff Kapono is a PhD student at the University of California San Diego. The human body is covered with trillions of microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa), and these microbes produce lots of different chemicals that affect humans in many different ways. Kapono’s thesis studies are based on the idea that surfers spend a lot of time in the ocean, so their microbiomes are likely influenced by all the marine microbes and chemicals. Kapono is systematically studying the microbial co...
Feb 21, 2017•33 min•Ep. 7
Dr. Nathan Schmidt is an Assistant Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Louisville. Dr. Schmidt studies the parasite that is transmitted by mosquitoes and causes malaria, Plasmodium. Malaria is a prevalent parasitic disease around the globe that is estimated to kill up to 500,000 people every year. Dr. Schmidt is interested in how the microbiome, which are the bacteria that are naturally found in the gut, influence the ability of a host to resist being infected with mala...
Dec 21, 2016•38 min•Ep. 6
Dr. Girish Kirimanjeswara is an Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Kirimanjeswara studies bacteria that cause disease in humans, and how the immune system fights against these microbes. Selenium is a trace element that is found naturally in various environments, and Dr. Kirimanjeswara has become interested in the involvement of selenium in infectious disease. Dr. Kirimanjeswara discusses trace elements, whooping cough, as well as his f...
Dec 15, 2016•40 min•Ep. 5
Dr. Jeffrey Stott is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Stott studies the cause of an unusual tick-borne disease localized in cattle in California. Epizootic Bovine Abortion is caused by bacteria that cannot be grown in the laboratory, which has hampered the development of vaccines against this disease that leads to up to 5-10% of all cattle abortions in California. Dr. Stott discusses the search for an effective vaccine, as well as his interes...
Nov 14, 2016•33 min•Ep. 4
Dr. Mike Gilmore is the Sir William Osler Professor of Ophthalmology, and Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Gilmore is the director of the Harvard-wide Program on Antibiotic Resistance, and his research focuses on the evolution and development of multidrug resistant strains of enterococci, staphylococci, and streptococci. The world is facing a serious health crisis with the increasing prevalence of multidrug resistant superbugs; the CDC estimates that there are 2 mill...
Oct 28, 2016•48 min•Ep. 3
Dr. Timothy Kern is a professor in the Department of Pharmacology at Case Western Reserve University and director of the Center for Diabetes Research. His research is focused primarily on determining what causes retinopathy in diabetes patients and how to prevent it. His laboratory is identifying how hyperglycemia causes retinopathy, and discovering new treatments that may inhibit the loss of vision in diabetes. In this episode, he talks about how to control blood sugar, new diabetes treatments,...
Oct 24, 2016•18 min•Ep. 2
Mr. Jason Rosenfeld, assistant director of global health at University of Texas Heath Science Center at San Antonio is the first speaker of Microtalk. He is a public health professional with over 10 years of experience designing, implementing and evaluating international health and development programs, with a specific focus on community based water, sanitation and hygiene education and behavior change. In this episode, Jason shares his global health experiences in Africa, Haiti and the Dominica...
Sep 20, 2016•39 min•Ep. 1
