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PODCAST

Touching Base

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN)

Touching Base is the dynamic podcast series from the editors of GEN (Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News). Each episode features a rotating cast of senior editors including John Sterling, Kevin Davies, Julianna LeMieux, Alex Philippidis, Uduak Thomas, Corinna Singleman and Fay Lin who delve into emerging stories, exchange ideas, and debate the latest trends in biotech. Additionally, they talk to some of the leading voices in the industry about what"s now and next. Hosted on Acast. See

science life sciences

All Episodes

24:28

Artificial Intelligence in the Emerald City and...

Touching Base ·

2025/10/24

We are gearing up for our annual AI in Drug Discovery summit in a few days. So, for this episode, we focused on some recent AI news coverage. First, GEN senior editor Fay Lin, PhD, visited Seattle recently for some AI-focused meetings. She discusses her experiences in the Emerald City including an exclusive in-person interview with Nobel laureate, David Baker, PhD, on what’s real and what’s hype when it comes to using AI to design proteins de novo.  Then we discuss new research from University of

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21:00

Nobel Prizes Announced and Breakthroughs for...

Touching Base ·

2025/10/10

Metal-organic frameworks and peripheral immune tolerance were the big winners of the Nobel prizes in chemistry, and in physiology or medicine, respectively. In this episode of the podcast, we discuss the winners and the impacts of their discoveries. Then we move over to some business news where we discuss a novel gene therapy for Huntington’s disease from uniQure that made waves recently. Early clinical trial data for AMT-130 showed that it could meaningfully slow the progression of the disease by

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28:17

BPI 2025 Debrief and Takeaways

Touching Base ·

2025/09/26

GEN has been at the forefront of biotech and bioprocessing news for over 40 years. Last week, editor in chief, John Sterling and deputy editor in chief, Julianna LeMieux, PhD, attended BioProcess International (BPI). This annual meeting is a hallmark event for GEN, where we attend talks, speak with a multitude of bioprocess companies, and keep up to date on the latest products and news for the year. John and Julianna discuss their experience at this year’s event. Additionally, GEN held its first

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27:30

Developing New Therapies Through Partnership,...

Touching Base ·

2025/09/05

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 synucleinopathies, plus additional targets. Two stories this week covered very different types of cell reprogramming techniques for therapy development. The first approach may overcome the time delays and safety risks of traditional immunotherapies, especially for patients with aggressive, late-stage disease

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21:34

Stem Cells in Space and AI for Nanoparticles and...

Touching Base ·

2025/08/22

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 could still produce healthy offspring back on Earth. It’s a question with real implications for the future of deep space missions and even space tourism. Then, we turn to recent advances in AI. We talk about a machine-learning model trained to predict more effective nanoparticles for delivering RNA

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34:22

Reversing Parkinson’s in Mice, Protecting Primates...

Touching Base ·

2025/08/08

This episode ofGEN'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, asingle gene therapy injectedat birth now offers lasting protection from HIV in infant rhesus macaques. Rounding out our episode, we discuss key factors shaping this year’s A-List of Top 10 U.S. Biopharma Clusters and recap the regulatory conflict surrounding Sarepta Therapeutics’ Duchenne muscular dystrophy

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42:34

Sarepta Under Scrutiny, AstraZeneca’s Big Bet, and AI...

Touching Base ·

2025/07/25

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 tragedies associated with its DMD therapy as well as with a new therapy for limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. Also in this episode, big updates from AstraZeneca including a $50 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing and R&D, a heartwarming story about preventing mitochondrial disease involving eight

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31:41

Merck Acquires Verona, Virtual Cell Challenge, Gene...

Touching Base ·

2025/07/11

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, the Arc Institute has launched the Virtual Cell Challenge to evaluate the ability of transcriptome AI models to generalize to new cell contexts for therapeutic applications. Fujifilm rebrands life science companies to position itself as a drug development leader. Additionally, AAV-OTOF gene therapy

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28:44

BIO 2025, Huge Virtual Cell Dataset, AI-Designed De...

Touching Base ·

2025/06/18

AcastBIO 2025, Huge Virtual Cell Dataset, AI-Designed De Novo ProteinsBIO 2025 is off and running. GEN editors discuss the size and scope of the bustling conference hall and share excitement about the week’s talks and panels. News from BIO includes the announcement of Lilly’s acquisition of Verve Therapeutics. Editors discuss the implications of industry-backed therapeutics amid cautious investors and public sentiment. In the realm of AI, Xaira Therapeutics, a $1 billion-backed AI drug discovery

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29:55

Rocket’s Gene Therapy Trial Paused, Boltz-2 Open...

Touching Base ·

2025/06/06

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 predicts molecular binding affinity at newfound speed and accuracy, aiming to democratize commercial drug discovery. Intellia Therapeutics saw its stock nosedive late last week after a patient in its Phase III trial of the CRISPR-based therapy experienced non-lethal liver toxicity. In other news, a

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41:34

Customized CRISPR for KJ, 10x and Illumina Lawsuits,...

Touching Base ·

2025/05/22

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 stories from ASGCT 2025—and talk about the family and scientists at its center. In other news, laboratory-evolved CRISPR-associated bacterial transposases are being used to insert healthy genes into human cells. On the business front, 10x Genomics settles with Bruker and Vizgen while Illumina sues Element

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35:34

Insights into COVID-19’s Origins, Recursion Reverses...

Touching Base ·

2025/05/09

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 into GEN’s coverage of the annual AACR meeting including how the community is navigating massive research budget cuts. Then we discuss a potential colorectal cancer therapy using CRISPR-edited tumor infiltrating lymphocytes and a method for delivering protein therapies and gene editors using engineered

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30:26

Navigating Biotech’s New Normal, Applying AI to Cas9...

Touching Base ·

2025/04/25

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 cuts on biotech, Roche’s manufacturing and R&D plans amid tariff threats, and shares an update on Eli Lilly’s diabetes pill.Also, in honor of DNA Day, we reminisce about how far the field has come since the discovery of the structure of DNA and the completion of the Human Genome Project. We also talk

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45:26

Discussing De-Extinction, Trump’s Tariffs Touch...

Touching Base ·

2025/04/11

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 implications of their work. In other stories, we discuss the early impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs on biotech as well as the growing alarm in the scientific community in the wake of sweeping layoffs and leadership departures at the FDA, CDC, and NIH.We also share news from recent scientific

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25:57

Dravet Gene Therapy Tested in Mice, Sarepta’s...

Touching Base ·

2025/03/28

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 highlight some recent progress from two editing companies. We also break down the recent news from Sarepta about the death of a patient after treatment with its gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy.In other stories, new data reveals a nonviral method for introducing transgenes into human primates and

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32:32

Genetic Engineering at Asilomar, Stand Up for...

Touching Base ·

2025/03/14

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 conference and relating to the current discussions around genetic engineering. Science has been under fire recently and many people attended the Stand Up for Science Rally at one of a few dozen locations across the United States. One of the speakers at the rally in Washington, DC, was former NIH director

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25:42

AI Models Writing DNA and Designing Enzymes, Some...

Touching Base ·

2025/02/28

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 AI, the Arc Institute in collaboration with Nvidia has dropped Evo 2, the “largest publicly accessible AI model for biology to date,” for designing genomes. Additionally, new work from Nobel Laureate, David Baker, uses AI to generate enzymes from scratch. We also dig into the big announcements from

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19:20

Recursion Clinical Trial, CRISPR Delivery methods,...

Touching Base ·

2025/02/14

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 lately. They also discussed gene editing updates in delivery systems, Cas12 preclinical work, and AgBio. The discussion was rounded out with a look forward into takeover targets for 2025.Featuring Alex Philippidis (Senior Business Editor, GEN), Fay Lin, PhD, (Editor, GEN Biotechnology), Uduak Thomas (Senior

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47:08

DNA Day: Deep Dive

Touching Base ·

2024/04/26

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 (Editorial Director, GEN), John Sterling (Editor in Chief, GEN), Uduak Thomas (Senior Editor, GEN), Alex Philippidis (Senior Business Editor, GEN), Fay Lin, PhD (Senior Editor, GEN Biotechnology), Jonathan Grinstein, PhD (Senior Editor, GEN), and moderated by Corinna Singleman, PhD (Managing Editor, GEN and

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22:10

How Biotechs Are Plugging AI into Drug Discovery...

Touching Base ·

2024/04/19

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 notable players in the space? How do humans fit into these growing computational pipelines?This week, Jonathan Grinstein, PhD (Senior Editor, GEN) and Fay Lin, PhD (Senior Editor, GEN Biotechnology) unpack one of the fastest growing topics in the biotech field, AI in drug discovery.Listed below are key

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37 results

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