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PODCAST

The Biorevolution Podcast

Louise von Stechow

The Biorevolution Podcast with Andreas Horchler and Louise von Stechow – father and daughter, journalist and biologist, talking about the technologies of the biorevolution. Can genetic engineering, synthetic biology, and artificial intelligence save humanity from disease, climate change, and overpopulation, or are these technologies the first step towards its downfall? Content and Editing: Louise von Stechow and Andreas Horchler Disclaimer: Louise von Stechow, Andreas Horchler and their guests

science life sciences

All Episodes

43:31

Living and Learning in the Metaverse: Stepping Inside...

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/10/01

For centuries, scientists have relied on visual representations to make sense of the world, from anatomical drawings and microscopy images to increasingly complex computational visualizations. Yet most scientific data still ends up on a flat screen. Extended reality (XR), including virtual and augmented reality (VR, AR), offers new ways of interacting with information. Researchers can step inside a dataset, such as the Human Reference Atlas (HRA) and move around structures, manipulate them with

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51:23

Lab-in-the-Loop: AI bridges to the wet lab

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/08/31

Artificial intelligence is increasingly becoming part of the scientific process itself. Beyond analyzing data or predicting molecular structures, emerging AI co-scientists can generate hypotheses, critique ideas, search the literature, propose experiments, and interpret results. In lab-in-the-loop approaches, these computational systems are connected with wet-lab experimentation and automation, creating iterative cycles in which models learn from experimental data and suggest what to test

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41:50

The good, the bad and the overhyped - 4 years of...

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/08/06

The BioRevolution podcast has now reached 50 episodes.One topic, however, has come up again and again: artificial intelligence. AI is enabling new biotechnologies, driving new business models across biotech, pharma, and MedTech, and even opening new possibilities for enhancing humanity itself. Sixteen of our episodes have focused specifically on AI, and it has also featured prominently in many others. Does AI make us smarter or less capable? Does it make us more productive, or simply more

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35:27

Nature’s origami– DNA nanotechnology

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/05/21

DNA nanotechnology treats DNA not primarily as a carrier of genetic information, but as a programmable material. Based on the predictability of Watson–Crick base pairing, DNA nanotechnology allows researchers to encode specific structural information. DNA origami, in particular, is an interesting approach for reproducibly folding complex two- and three-dimensional DNA nano-objects.The potential of DNA origami structures shows their versatility, from biosensing and diagnostics to drug delivery,

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37:19

From biohacking to healthcare- the growing pains of...

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/05/04

From Biohacking to Healthcare- the growing pain of the Longevity IndustryShownotes the BioRevolution podcast episode 48 For most of human history, “living longer” mainly meant not dying early but this has changed drastically with significantly increased life expectancy in the 20th century. This raises a new question: how can we live longer, individually and as a society, without simply shifting the burden into more years lived with chronic disease? Researchers are increasingly reframing the

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33:42

AI driven protein design- beyond nature's blueprint

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/04/20

Nature has “gifted” us proteins that carry out a vast array of functions in cells, shaping the lives of all organisms, ecosystems, and ultimately the planet. In the age of synthetic biology, researchers are pushing beyond the catalogue of naturally evolved proteins by redesigning or even de novo designing proteins to make them more suitable for human goals—improving function, stability, specificity, manufacturability, or even creating entirely new capabilities. Artificial intelligence is becoming an

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30:24

From Animals to Algorithms: How AI Brings Drug...

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/03/19

Animal models have been the mainstay for testing hypotheses about human diseases and their treatment in academic research and drug development. However, these models raise ethical concerns and are costly and time-consuming. Most importantly, animal models often have low predictive power for the behavior of novel treatments in humans. Ethically, animal testing is arguably justifiable only if it can meaningfully predict outcomes in humans. Financially, committing millions of dollars and years of

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46:08

From Bench to Mic – Demystifying Science

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/03/02

In our complex world, science can be an important guiding thread for decision-making—both for policymakers and for individuals—on how to shape the health and wellbeing of society and individuals. But science often gets lost in translation, making it hard to distinguish facts from myths and to find truth within the complex picture of modern science. Good science communication is key to demystifying science and enabling science-based decision-making for everyone.In this episode of the BioRevolution

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37:53

Into the dark – finding meaning within the depth of...

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/02/05

For decades, biology treated the human genome as a tidy instruction manual—genes neatly encoding proteins, surrounded by vast stretches of supposedly irrelevant DNA. As sequencing and molecular tools advanced, that picture fractured: scientists uncovered transposable elements, viral remnants, regulatory RNAs—and even unexpected, tiny non-canonical proteins, often called the “dark proteome.”Today, we know that much of this presumed “junk” DNA is biochemically active under specific conditions,

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39:49

Everything Everywhere All at Once: Mapping the Bigger...

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2026/01/19

We’re living in the big data age, surrounded by personal, scientific, and societal data that could help us understand the world, make decisions, and even forecast what comes next. But complex systems don’t fit neatly into human intuition, and we can’t “see” meaning in massive datasets without help.That’s where macroscopes come in: software tools designed to make complexity interpretable, explorable and allow users to “make sense” out of big, complex data. In this episode of the BioRevolution

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37:39

The Rare Lens: AI-based image recognition for rare...

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/12/01

The Rare Lens: AI-based image recognition for rare disease diagnoses There are around 6000 rare diseases, which affect over 300 million people worldwide. Rare diseases are often difficult to diagnose, and people affected by a rare disease wait an average of five years or more for a correct diagnosis, which can be a heavy burden on patients and also hinders rare disease research and drug development. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help address these diagnostic challenges. One promising approach is

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42:42

Virtual cells - Decoding life's basic units

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/11/07

Cells are the basic units of life. For over a century, understanding cellular processes has been the basis for understanding human development and disease, and for deciphering the actions of novel disease treatments. But there’s a caveat: wet-lab studies in cells take time and money, they are often reductionist. To overcome those challenges of the wet lab, researchers have for some time tried to model cellular processes mathematically, in so-called virtual cells. With the availability of large-scale

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43:31

The 8 Essentials For Overcoming Cancer

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/10/20

Every second man and every third woman will experience a cancer diagnosis during their lives. Getting the news can be devastating and paralyzing, but making the right decisions about treatment, care, mindset and lifestyle is a crucial part of finding a cure.In her book “The 8 Essentials for Overcoming Cancer - Cancer, I can” medical doctor and pharma executive, Stefanie Walther describes her very personal journey and gives holistic advice for battling a cancer diagnosis, from finding the right

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42:03

Creative Matter: Where Art Meets Science

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/10/01

This time Louise and Andreas invited the artist Annette Goessel into the show to discuss the once united forces of art and science that seem so seperate in our day and age. And: For the first time since the beginnings of the show we speak German once more (apologies to the non German speakers) In dieser Episode diskutieren wir die faszinierende Verbindung zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft. Wir erkunden, wie Neugier und Emotionen sowohl Künstler als auch Wissenschaftler antreiben und welche Rolle der

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29:38

Out of the Lab, Into the Code: An Age of AI Scientists?

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/09/01

It sounds promising: AI chatbots acting as scientists, condensing the work of weeks, months, or even years of reading, debate, and hour-long lab meetings into minutes. Researchers at Stanford University and Google DeepMind have released multi-agent AI “scientist” systems. But how good are they, really, and will they overcome current limitations of large language models like OpenAI’s GPT or Google’s Gemini—such as the lack of robust reasoning capabilities, which are crucial for scientific discovery

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27:41

The biorevolution podcast #37

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/08/01

The $600 billion MedTech industry is undergoing a technological transformation. From AI-powered medical imaging to smart diagnostics and remote monitoring tools, artificial intelligence and machine learning are reshaping how care is delivered — and increasingly how patients manage their own health.In this episode of the BioRevolution podcast, we are joined by our guest, idalab’s MedTech expert Julian Beimes to discuss how this AI-driven wave aligns with broader shifts in medicine: virtualization,

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41:45

The biorevolution podcast #36

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/07/02

Food is a topic that is both deeply personal and of global importance. What we eat affects our health and longevity, but also the lives of animals and the future of our planet.New technologies and scientific discoveries are now enabling us to transform how we produce food and personalize nutrition in entirely new ways. In this episode, Andreas Horchler and Louise von Stechow speak with food expert and CEO of Berlin Food Campus, Lia Carlucci, about key trends shaping the future of food—from

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41:15

The biorevolution podcast #35

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/06/02

Despite great hopes for Artificial Intelligence (AI) in biotech and pharma—with investments exceeding $50 billion over the past ten years—the question of when the technology will reach maturity remains difficult to answer. How can biotech and pharma leaders navigate this complex gray area, where hype around the technology obscures the outlook and few concrete milestones provide clear signposts for decision-making?In this episode of the BioRevolution podcast, Louise von Stechow and Andreas Horchler

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38:11

The biorevolution podcast #34

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/05/05

More than 20 years after the Human Genome Project, enabled by new sequencing technologies, researchers are making progress in exploring the vast non-coding space that constitutes 98% of our genomes. This non-coding, or "dark," DNA harbors elements with important regulatory functions in health and disease. But pinpointing disease-relevant DNA elements within this massive DNA space can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. This difficult search can be eased by artificial intelligence

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42:21

The biorevolution podcast #33

The Biorevolution Podcast ·

2025/04/01

When the Swiss chemist synthesized and tested the psychedelic compound LSD in the 1930s, he knew he had found a tool to explore the human mind.Indeed, before psychedelics became illegal in the late 1960s, a mountain of evidence had been produced, showing potential benefits of psychedelic-assisted therapy for depression, anxiety, and substance abuse. After a decades-long hiatus, research on psychedelics as a treatment for psychiatric diseases is experiencing a renaissance—and initial results look

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