Topic: Biotech

Dr. Moira Gunn talks to JJ Bienaime, President & CEO of BioMarin Pharmaceuticals about the problem of orphan diseases, diseases not yet under research by pharmaceutical companies because of a lack of financial incentive to market new medications for treatment.

Paul Hastings, president and CEO of Oncomed Pharmaceuticals, discusses the controversial topic of cancer stem cells, what he calls the root of the tumor. He also talks about how his company is working with other pharmaceutical companies who are helping with Oncomed's biotech work.

Moira speaks with former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler about his book The End of Overeating, in which he discusses what has been invisibly added to the American supply, leaving some of us obese, and many of us, unexpectedly overweight. He tells us the science behind what happens to our brains when we eat food laden with salt, fat and sugar.

Moira interviews Matt Gardner, President & CEO, BayBIO, the Northern California Life Sciences Organization, about the organization's the new free online Impact 2009 Report about all the biotech companies in California and everything they are working on.

On the one hand, biofuels offer a green substitute against petrol-based fuels such as gasoline. On the other, they are still expensive to produce and are causing a steep inflation in food prices the world over. A panel of experts debates the root causes of the increase in food prices, and the need to produce biofuels vis-a-vis the measures to tackle the economic and political side effects of its production.

Dr. Moira Gunn interviews Craig Wheeler, CEO of Moementa Pharmaceuticals, who discusses biologics and the new biosimilars bill in Congress.

Dr. Moira Gunn interviews David Ewing Duncan about his work in trying to help develop a personalized medicine project. He talks about how it is possible to have a project in place within ten years, using the human genome project example, where scientists worked together on a worldwide basis to accomplish a complex task.

Moira interviews Dr. Joe Miletich, Senior Vice President, R&D, Amgen, about how new DNA technologies are changing on-going scientific studies. She also speaks with Carlos Riva, CEO, Verenium Corporation, about how ethanol is moving from small farms to full commercialization.

Dr. Moira Gunn interviews Alva Noe, author of the book Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness, in which he challenges the assumptions underlying neuroscientific studies of consciousness.