Best Gene Synthesis Podcasts (2025)

1
The hidden language of RNA – how epigenetics is shaping medicine 31:51

11d ago31:51

31:51

This episode teaches that innovation is born at the intersection of curiosity and persistence. Dr. Gudrun Stengel, co-founder and CEO of Alida Biosciences, reveals how her startup is transforming the landscape of RNA research through a novel technology called proximity barcoding. Dr. Stengel’s story exemplifies the power of entrepreneurial spirit i…

1
Sustainability made simple – greener choices in molecular biology 10:21

1M ago10:21

10:21

Sustainability in the lab isn't just a trend—it's a responsibility. In this quick but powerful Mol Bio Minutes episode, sustainability expert Sune Lund Sporring shares actionable tips to reduce energy use, manage lab waste, and transition to greener materials like Thermo Fisher’s Sustain Series bio-based plastics. Discover the difference between bi…

1
SIPs with Standards 21:00

1M ago21:00

21:00

Stable Isotope Probing (SIP) is a powerful technique for studying microbial communities. These experiments can show which microbes are handling specific nutrients, or what they're doing with those nutrients, and even how quickly. But there's a catch: SIP labwork and analysis can be very demanding. The JGI offers SIP analysis to make these experimen…

1
From bats to cancer – the power of gene regulation 33:53

2M ago33:53

33:53

Join us for an insightful conversation with Dr. Nadav Ahituv, a leader in human genetics and gene regulation at UCSF. He shares his personal journey from scoliosis patient to genetic researcher, exploring the mysteries of non-coding DNA, massively parallel reporter assays, and CRISPR-based therapeutic innovations. We dive into his lab’s diverse pro…

1
No more smears – expert tips for electrophoresis success 9:05

2M ago9:05

9:05

With prior Mol Bio Minutes episodes covering DNA form migration and staining considerations for nucleic acid gel electrophoresis, we tie it all together with this great set of overall tips, tricks and resources for the topic. Anyone that’s ever run a gel has undoubtedly produced gels with smeared, faint or poorly separated bands. What causes these …

1
Biologically removing the forever from “forever chemicals” 32:00

2M ago32:00

32:00

It could be argued that biology has always boiled down to chemistry, and that chemistry has always boiled down to physics. However, not many would deny that the fields of biology and chemistry are overlapping more than ever, with both leveraging computing methods, also more than ever. This conversation with Dr. Ramesh Jha, Technical Staff Member at…

1
A clear picture – staining tips for gel electrophoresis 10:17

3M ago10:17

10:17

You can run the perfect agarose gel to separate your nucleic acid fragments but if you don’t stain and image the gel properly, it’s all for not. In this second installment of Mol Bio Minutes we take a look at the staining considerations for nucleic acid gel electrophoresis with Paulius Palaima, Product Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific. He covers…

1
With knowledge comes great responsibility 35:37

3M ago35:37

35:37

Topics and terms such as biosafety, biosecurity, containment, and contamination are things most of us have heard of and think about at some level, but with the pace of molecular biology moving faster than ever, these are topics with implications that are reaching farther than ever. We’re joined by Dr. Ryan Burnette and Dr. Lauren Richardson from Me…

1
DNA on the move – the influence of form on gel migration 9:19

4M ago9:19

9:19

Agarose gel electrophoresis is a staple method in almost all biology and biochemistry lab where separation and analysis of nucleic acids is needed. In this Mol Bio Minutes mini episode Augustė Užuotaitė, Scientist III at Thermo Fisher Scientific, covers the basics of electrophoresis with a spotlight on how different forms of DNA migrate differently…

1
The genetics and neuroendocrinology of obesity 31:37

4M ago31:37

31:37

Obesity is one of the most pressing health challenges of our time, with genetic and molecular factors playing a crucial role in how our bodies regulate weight. In this season opener, we explore the science behind obesity, focusing on how hormones, genetics, and brain circuits influence feeding behavior and body weight. Join us for a fascinating dis…

1
Season 3 spoilers – innovation, inspiration, and insight 4:36

5M ago4:36

4:36

The start of Season 3 is just around the corner, slated to start in January 2025. What’s the new season hold in store you might ask? Steve assures us he’ll be back hosting Season 3 and teases at topics that are coming. These include biosecurity, bioengineering, polymer degradation, genetics of obesity, CROs and how they utilize mol bio, platelet bi…

1
It’s all in your approach – biosynthesis of natural products 33:18

6M ago33:18

33:18

We’re joined in this episode by Dr. Sarah Barry, Reader in Chemical Biology at King’s College London. Sarah started with an interest in biochemistry, went into organic chemistry because it was more concrete, and now applies her chemist’s approach to understanding and manipulating biosynthesis of natural products for important areas of research, inc…

1
The value of community – your microbiome 31:58

7M ago31:58

31:58

The history of fermented foods like beer, bread, and other foods can be traced back thousands of years to ancient civilizations in China and Egypt. This ancient technology was originally used to preserve foods when refrigeration was not an option. While less common in modern industrialized civilizations, we’re now realizing that fermented foods pla…

1
Adopt-A-Genome 26:45

7M ago26:45

26:45

In this episode, undergraduates adopt genomes that the JGI sequenced, but never published in the literature. These students analyze the genomes, write reports, and publish first-author papers, making the data available for future research. Hear from Rekha Seshadri (JGI) and Matt Escobar (California State San Marcos) about how the Adopt-A-Genome pro…

1
Therapeutic nucleic acids – a CDMO’s view on mRNA 32:04

8M ago32:04

32:04

While some of us knew a good bit about mRNA prior to 2020, we all got a crash course on mRNA technology and its prophylactic and therapeutic potential as a result of the COVID pandemic and subsequent SARS CoV-2 vaccine development. In fact, most of us have now received at least one mRNA vaccine at this point. Our guest for this episode, Dr. Christi…

1
A molecular thermometer for the future 35:29

9M ago35:29

35:29

There are all sorts of molecular tests to tell if you’re infected with something specific, but what do you use when you’re not sure what you might have? You might use a thermometer as a first step, but wouldn’t it be nice if that thermometer was a bit more high tech? In this episode we meet Dr. Nick Meyerson, CEO and co-founder of Darwin Bioscience…

1
Gotta Catch 'Em Gall 24:31

10M ago24:31

24:31

Kasey Markel and Patrick Shih (UC Berkeley and the Joint BioEnergy Institute) are looking for new ways to engineer plants. So they’ve looked into wasps that program oak trees to grow structures called galls. In this episode, hear from Kasey and Patrick about how this project unfolded, and how they worked with the JGI's metabolomics program to find …

1
Directed evolution – A PETase project 32:58

10M ago32:58

32:58

Plastics are a modern miracle of science that have helped deliver both convenience and life-saving solutions. However, we must now grapple with the challenge of immense amounts of plastics in our waste streams and environment. How do we best deconstruct plastics to reusable or more bio-friendly molecules? This is the exact challenge being addressed…

1
A Redesign for Yeast’s Genome, Chromosome by Chromosome - Jef Boeke, Weimin Zhang & Leslie Mitchell 20:53

11M ago20:53

20:53

To engineer yeast to do more, and understand genomes in general, Jef Boeke, Weimin Zhang (NYU Langone Health) and Leslie Mitchell (Neochromosome) have worked to replace yeast’s native chromosomes with synthetic versions. This project has turned out to be an international collaboration, with some artistic endeavors along the way. Eventually, the goa…

1
Scientific marketing in the century of the biotech revolution 32:37

11M ago32:37

32:37

Most scientists start their education and careers with a vision of working in the lab to discover great things and drive innovation. However, we don’t all end up loving the actual lab work portion of science. What non-lab career options exist to utilize molecular biology knowledge and skills? Well, according to our guest, Jason Amsbaugh, Founder an…

1
Forest Fungi, Seagrass, and a New View of Symbiosis 26:34

11M ago26:34

26:34

Three stories of JGI-supported research, connected to nutrient cycles. Francis Martin and Lucas Auer discuss their work on communities of forest floor fungi. Allison Joy looks into seagrass meadows' carbon sequestration with insights from Adam Healey and Xiao Ma. And Karen Serrano and Benjamin Cole explain their research on the symbiotic relationsh…

1
What Happens To a Rainforest When You Dial Up Drought? - Linnea Honeker and Malak Tfaily 22:53

12M ago22:53

22:53

Rainforests store a big fraction of all the carbon on Earth, and soil microbes play a key role in pulling that carbon out of the atmosphere. This episode, researchers take a look at what happens to that storage when a rainforest hits a drought. Tag along with their experiments in a fully enclosed, human-made ecosystem: Biosphere 2. Links from this …

1
Cheers to molecular Biology 34:47

1y ago34:47

34:47

While the end product is quite different, brewing beer is not all that different than many other bioproduction processes used in the lab and industry. Both require skills, experience, and the right QC/QA methods to control and monitor the starting materials and the entire process, all the way to that bottle of suds you might be thirsty for. Steve a…

1
Unsung heroes of food health and safety 32:10

1y ago32:10

32:10

When you buy chicken or turkey from the grocery store, you might not give it much thought, but there is an entire network of people working to ensure the health of the animals in our food supply chain and your health. In this episode, we talk with an unsung hero, Beverly Wood, supervisor of the molecular diagnostics lab at the North Carolina Depart…

1
Molecular Biology for hire – the CRO experience 31:53

1y ago31:53

31:53

Contract Research Organizations (CROs) are a resource that most scientists know about but relatively few have first-hand, internal experience with. In this episode our hosts speak with Saboor Hekmaty, Director of Laboratory Operations at Avrok Biosciences, who pulls back the curtain to illuminate what CROs do, and the skills required for them to be…

1
High-throughput transcriptomics and AI for drug discovery 31:56

1+ y ago31:56

31:56

Doing something complex and meaningful in a new way requires thinking and acting a bit differently. This is the case with how Dr. Joey Azofeifa, from Arpeggio Bio, is using systems biology to discover new drug candidates. Join us in this Season 2 kickoff episode where we dive headlong into transcriptomics, systems biology, machine learning, and lea…

1
Season 2 Teaser 2:40

1+ y ago2:40

2:40

We start the second season of this series with an update on what you can expect from new episodes, which start to drop soon. Your host, Steve Lewis, shares details on changes you can expect as the series evolves. One change will be a broadening of application topics to be covered, as this season will include episodes discussing transcriptomics in b…

1
The Megadata of Lake Mendota - Part 3: Boating Out to David Buoy 24:38

1+ y ago24:38

24:38

This is the third and final episode of our series on a giant metagenome assembly from Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota. In the last two episodes, we’ve covered the specialized software and supercomputers behind this project. But every part of this project depends on lakewater samples — so this episode is a look at how researchers get these specialized snap…

1
The Megadata of Lake Mendota - Part 2: Souped Up Computing 22:06

1+ y ago22:06

22:06

This series is the story of a giant metagenome assembly from Wisconsin’s Lake Mendota. In this episode: a look at the supercomputing that stitches together large datasets with the assembler program MetaHipMer2. Oak Ridge National Lab is home to two supercomputers — Summit and Frontier — that process terabytes of data with MetaHipMer2. And the Natio…

1
The Megadata of Lake Mendota - Part 1: Many, Many Mers 26:16

1+ y ago26:16

26:16

Lake Mendota sits right next to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. And Trina McMahon's lab has been sampling the microbes of that lake for over 20 years, to understand how the freshwater ecosystem works. So a few years ago, when they set out to analyze 500 metagenomes, it was the biggest project the JGI had ever put together. The next 3 episodes…

1
Experimenting with EcoFABs for Student Labs - Jill Bouchard & Ying Wang 22:15

1+ y ago22:15

22:15

To set up flexible, repeatable experiments on plants and microbes, Trent Northen’s group at Berkeley Lab created a fabricated ecosystem – an EcoFAB. These small plastic growth chambers let researchers around the world compare their work consistently. And EcoFABs also work well in the classroom. This episode, we visit Los Medanos College to see EcoF…

1
JGIota: A Surprise for Chloroflexota — The First Flagella! 8:26

1+ y ago8:26

8:26

To understand how organisms adapt to extreme environments, Marike Palmer and Brian Hedlund study organisms living in hot springs. Hear how their recent work revealed more about the history of the Chloroflexota phylum and a new way of moving: a tail-like flagella. Submit your own proposal to work with the JGI Join us at the 2023 JGI User Meeting Lin…

1
JGIota: A Tool to Find the Nomadic Genes that Help Microbes Adapt - geNomad 5:51

1+ y ago5:51

5:51

A quick snippet on Antonio Camargo and Simon Roux, a few of the JGI researchers behind software that finds plasmids and viruses within microbial genomes. As mobile genetic elements like viruses spread their DNA, they can affect how microbes cycle nutrients and adapt to climate change. Find all episode transcripts on our website Publication: Camargo…

1
A look into the fruit bowl of biology 30:56

1+ y ago30:56

30:56

In this episode of Speaking of Mol Bio, we speak with Dr. Mandovi Chatterjee about single cell analysis. Dr. Chatterjee is the Director of Single Cell Core at Harvard University Medical School. She has spent her career at the exploring and mastering a wide variety of single cell methods . In conversation with Dr. Chatterjee, our hosts dive into the…

1
The intersection of biology and technology 38:45

2y ago38:45

38:45

In this episode, the hosts have an intriguing discussion with Dr. Ben Sun, Head of Biomarker Genetics at Biogen. Dr. Sun holds an MD/PhD from the University of Cambridge, providing a view and perspective on data from both research and clinical perspectives. The advantage of his unique background is that it provides a balanced perspective on large-s…

1
Multi-omics | The molecular biology of plants in space 31:59

2y ago31:59

31:59

Dr. Stan Roux, Professor of Molecular Biosciences at the University of Texas – Austin, has had a long and successful career based on his fascination with plants and his desire to understand plant biology. He’s spent his career exploring the effect of apyrase on root systems, crop yields, and plant nutrient uptake. We get into Stan’s unlikely career…

1
Methane Makers in Yosemite's Lakes - Mike Beman and Elisabet Perez Coronel 27:16

2y ago27:16

27:16

Meet researchers who have hiked, rafted and met local wildlife (a marmot!) as they’ve sampled the microbial communities living in the mountaintop lakes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. These lakes are isolated, but varied. They’re a great way to see how climate change affects freshwater ecosystems, and how those ecosystems work. Links from this epis…

1
A Shrubbier Version of Rubber - Andrew Nelson and Colleen McMahan 20:37

2y ago20:37

20:37

Right now, our natural rubber comes from just one tree species: Hevea brasiliensis. It’s great at producing latex that becomes rubber, but it’s vulnerable to disease and climate shifts. So researchers are looking into a desert shrub that’s native to North America: guayule. This episode was made in collaboration with our friends at the HudsonAlpha I…

1
CRISPR | An insider’s perspective on CRISPR 31:39

2y ago31:39

31:39

In this episode, Gabriel and Steve welcome a colleague of theirs, Dr. Doris Beylkin, to share her depth of knowledge and perspective on the CRISPR cell engineering topic. While Doris is a Global Market Development Manager today, she has over 10 years of experience supporting customers in planning, troubleshooting, and analyzing gene modulation and …

1
The Busy World of Deep Sea Eruptions - Anna-Louise Reysenbach and Emily St. John 30:44

2y ago30:44

30:44

The ocean depths are vast and dark. But there are hotspots on the ocean floor — underwater volcanoes and hydrothermal vents — where lively microbial communities thrive, and even support entire ecosystems. Hear from researchers Anna-Louise Reysenbach, Emily St. John, Gilberto Flores, and Peter Girguis about sampling these communities, and understand…

1
Crops as Tough as World Cup Turf - James Schnable and Guangchao Sun 28:16

2y ago28:16

28:16

In our warming world, we’ll need corn, sorghum and other crops to grow well in worse conditions: with more heat, less water and less fertilizer. Grasses do better in these conditions, so plant biologists James Schable, Guangchao Sun and Vladimir Torrres have looked into traits that could transfer from grasses into other crops. One grass they studie…

1
Season 4 Trailer (and sneak peek!) 3:14

2y ago3:14

3:14

On June 8th, Genome Insider is back! We've got a batch of 4 new episodes where researchers discover the expertise encoded in our environment — in the genomes of plants, fungi, bacteria, archaea, algae, and environmental viruses — to power a more sustainable future. Stick around for a snippet of the next episode. Join us at our User Meeting: jointge…

1
Exosomes | The early realization of the exosome’s potential 32:11

2y ago32:11

32:11

This discussion with Dr. Johan Skog covers a lot of ground while staying super approachable. The Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Exosome Diagnostics, starts by sharing basics about exosomes and tells us about how he’s translated his curiosity for the vesicles from tumor stem cells into his current role where he’s helped develop the world’s …

1
Exosomes | Exploring the body’s extracellular delivery system 32:09

2y ago32:09

32:09

It’s been 40 years since extracellular vesicles, or exosomes, were first connected to the way cells communicate and transfer information. Since then, researchers have studied what part they play in the normal physiology of a cell. There has also been an expanding amount of work in the role that exosomes can play in therapeutics and diagnostics of a…

1
JGIota: A Biofuel Breakthrough in Anaerobic Fungi with Michelle O'Malley and Tom Lankiewicz 4:31

2y ago4:31

4:31

Michelle O'Malley and Tom Lankiewicz of UC-Santa Barbara discuss the importance of studying anaerobic fungi, as well as a recent discovery that turns scientific presumption on its head and opens up a new avenue to explore for efficient biofuel production. Find all episode transcripts on our website Publication: Lankiewicz, T.S., Choudhary, H., Gao,…

1
Multi-omics | Investigating the body’s internet 33:01

2y ago33:01

33:01

Multi-omics is a great example of how the scientific community is thinking larger and using complementary methods to gather deeper information to understand biology and inform medicine. Proteomics is just one of the -omes of multi-omics but it’s the one that Steve Williams, Chief Medical Officer at SomaLogic, has over 30 years’ experience in. Steve…

1
JGIota: Sequencing Shiitakes with David Hibbett 5:40

2y ago5:40

5:40

David Hibbett (Clark University) fills us in on the kind of decay that makes shiitake mushrooms special. This week, he 39 collaborators published a paper tracing how these mushrooms have evolved. Find all episode transcripts on our website Publication: Sierra-Patev S et al. A global phylogenomic analysis of the shiitake genus Lentinula. Proc Natl A…

1
Multi-omics | The importance of science in data science 33:21

2+ y ago33:21

33:21

In this episode, we talk with Chris Whelan about the data behind science. Chris is the Director of Neuroscience, Data Science & Digital Health for Research and Development at The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, as well as the Chair of the UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics project. He connects the dots between genomics and proteomi…

1
CRISPR | Making the world better 29:57

2+ y ago29:57

29:57

Since it’s discovery, CRISPR Cas9 gene editing technology has blossomed and boomed. It’s moved from a highly technical niche technique to one that is arguably mainstream and being applied to countless challenges in applied biology. In this episode we talk with Travis Hardcastle, who previously worked in R&D to develop gene editing products and is n…

1
Season I Trailer 3:02

2+ y ago3:02

3:02

Experience the Speaking of Mol Bio podcast in its extended video format for a more immersive journey, while also ensuring accessibility with downloadable transcripts for each episode. Watch now at thermofisher.com/podcast-video A short trailer to introduce the Speaking of Mol Bio co-hosts and get their take on what the series is all about. You'll h…

Podcasts Worth a Listen

Gene Synthesis Podcasts

Podcasts Worth a Listen