Health

person using an apple watch
Luke Chesser - Unsplash

Today’s podcast guest is Rosalind Picard, a researcher, inventor named on over 100 patents, entrepreneur, author, professor and engineer. When it comes to the science related to endowing computer software with emotional intelligence, she wrote the book. It’s published by MIT Press and called Affective Computing.

Dr. Picard is founder and director of the MIT Media Lab’s Affective Computing Research Group. Her research and engineering contributions have been recognized internationally. For example, she received the 2022 International Lombardy Prize for Computer Science Research, considered by many to be the Nobel prize in computer science.

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Matt Fuchs
Matt Fuchs is the host of the Making Sense of Science podcast and served previously as the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org. He writes as a contributor to the Washington Post, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, Nautilus Magazine, Fortune Magazine and TIME Magazine. Follow him @fuchswriter.
natural killer cell
NIAID, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

On today’s episode of Making Sense of Science, I’m honored to be joined by Dr. Paul Song, a physician, oncologist, progressive activist and biotech chief medical officer. Through his company, NKGen Biotech, Dr. Song is leveraging the power of patients’ own immune systems by supercharging the body’s natural killer cells to make new treatments for Alzheimer’s and cancer.

Whereas other treatments for Alzheimer’s focus directly on reducing the build-up of proteins in the brain such as amyloid and tau in patients will mild cognitive impairment, NKGen is seeking to help patients that much of the rest of the medical community has written off as hopeless cases, those with late stage Alzheimer’s. And in small studies, NKGen has shown remarkable results, even improvement in the symptoms of people with these very progressed forms of Alzheimer’s, above and beyond slowing down the disease.

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Matt Fuchs
Matt Fuchs is the host of the Making Sense of Science podcast and served previously as the editor-in-chief of Leaps.org. He writes as a contributor to the Washington Post, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, WIRED, Nautilus Magazine, Fortune Magazine and TIME Magazine. Follow him @fuchswriter.
Fetuses can save their mothers' lives

Stem cells from a fetus can travel to the heart and regenerate the muscle, essentially saving a mother’s life.

Adobe Stock

Story by Big Think

In rare cases, a woman’s heart can start to fail in the months before or after giving birth. The all-important muscle weakens as its chambers enlarge, reducing the amount of blood pumped with each beat. Peripartum cardiomyopathy can threaten the lives of both mother and child. Viral illness, nutritional deficiency, the bodily stress of pregnancy, or an abnormal immune response could all play a role, but the causes aren’t concretely known.

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Ross Pomeroy
Steven Ross Pomeroy is the editor of RealClearScience. As a writer, Ross believes that his greatest assets are his insatiable curiosity and his ceaseless love for learning. Follow him on Twitter