Best Protein Engineering Podcasts (2025)

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129. Why the protein category is CPG’s biggest growth engine (and it’s just getting started) 29:06

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14d ago29:06

29:06

On this week’s episode, host Jess Gaedeke is joined by Brian Lechner, Senior Director of Category Leadership at Premier Nutrition, to unpack how the protein category defied traditional CPG rules to become a mass-market force, why retailers who “build it” are winning big, how innovation is shifting toward new formats and demand moments, and what GLP…

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Episode: 80 - Vibha Jawa Discusses the Impact of Biologic Molecules and the Future of Immunogenicity 26:58

15d ago26:58

26:58

December 13, 2025 | What is next for immunogenicity? In this episode of The Chain, Vibha Jawa, chief scientific officer at EpiVax, provides her thoughts and insights on BiTE molecules, pegylated molecules, and other biologic molecules and their impact on cancer treatment and research with host Rakesh Dixit. Jawa shares the most rewarding project sh…

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128. How Barilla used consumer segmentation to drive brand growth 14:03

2d ago14:03

14:03

On this week’s episode, host Jess Gaedeke is joined by Amir Jamil, Associate Director of Analytics, Insights and Capabilities at Barilla, to discuss how he navigated stakeholder pushback to rebuild Barilla’s consumer segmentation, why trust and empathy are the real drivers of insights impact, and how Gen Z, AI, and shifting food trends are reshapin…

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Why Lifting Is Non‑Negotiable For Perimenopause And Menopause 20:13

2d ago20:13

20:13

Feeling unlike yourself as hormones change? Let’s get specific about what actually helps. We explore how strength training becomes a steady anchor during perimenopause and menopause—lifting mood, protecting metabolism, improving sleep, and restoring confidence—without relying on endless HIIT or willpower alone. We start with the chemistry behind mo…

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Armor Up, For Real Health 3:14

3d ago3:14

3:14

You’ve got goals bigger than a quick fix, and we’ve got a roadmap that respects your body and your time. Armor Up is our fresh chapter dedicated to women who want real strength, steady energy, and health that lasts—without crash diets or punishing plans. We’re taking the best of our candid style and pairing it with science you can actually use, so …

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This year’s biggest breakthrough and top news stories 33:58

5d ago33:58

33:58

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about this year’s best online news stories—top performers and staff picks alike. Together they journey the scientific gamut, from bird feeders’ influence on hummingbird beak evolution to the use of “artificial spacetimes” to guide tiny robots through their envir…

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Rebuilding high-stakes software AI-first 4:33

6d ago4:33

4:33

Delfa is an AI-first clinical trials software company. In this episode, we explore how Delfa’s AI-first Participant Relationship Management system transforms clinical trial operations, speeds recruitment, and helps bring medicines to patients faster.

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129. Dig (In)spiration: Why protein became the new pillar of modern wellness (and what you can learn from it) 17:05

7d ago17:05

17:05

On this week’s episode, Jess is joined by Erin Mays, EVP of Trends & Innovation at Dig Insights, to unpack how protein evolved from a niche fitness ingredient into a powerful cultural and brand signal, what its rise reveals about the shift from diet culture to resilience-driven wellness, and the lessons brand leaders can take from protein’s inclusi…

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Menopause, Weight Gain and Hormones with Fat Loss Expert Dr. Bill Campbell #828 54:24

7d ago54:24

54:24

In this episode, Dr. Bill Campbell returns to the show to discuss a major pivot in his research from building muscle and optimizing fat loss to understanding menopause and its effects on women's body composition. After watching his wife struggle through a severe perimenopause transition that resisted every traditional fat loss strategy, Campbell un…

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Can AI generate new science? 11:33

8d ago11:33

11:33

New AI research systems are beginning to contribute verifiable results across mathematics, physics, biology, and materials science. How close are we to AI producing genuinely new scientific knowledge?

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Hunting asteroids from space, and talking to pollinators with heat 27:59

12d ago27:59

27:59

First up on the podcast, we’ve likely only found about half the so-called city-killer asteroids (objects more than 140 meters in diameter). Freelance science journalist Robin George Andrews joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss the upcoming launch of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Surveyor, an asteroid hunter that will improve our ability to look for large …

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Episode 189: NASA’s Flawed Plan to Return to the Moon – with Mike Griffin & Lisa Porter 1:18:11

13d ago1:18:11

1:18:11

Today’s episode of STEM-Talk features a timely and wide-ranging discussion with Drs. Michael Griffin and Lisa Porter about NASA’s plans to return humans to the Moon, the history of lunar missions, and how China’s advances in space technology pose a serious threat to U.S. national security. IHMC founder and CEO Emeritus Ken Ford’s interview with Gri…

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My Spine Said “No Running” And My Brain Said “Watch Me” 34:27

14d ago34:27

34:27

What do you do when the experts say your best days are over? Our guest, Ian, heard that he would walk with devices and never run again after a rare neurosarcoidosis diagnosis led to a risky spinal biopsy and paralysis from the chest down. He chose a different path. That quiet inner line—watch me—sparked a long, unglamorous climb through therapy, se…

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Black Root Recovery: The Multi‑Modality Recovery Sauna Built for Veterans, Athletes, and High Performers #827 45:34

14d ago45:34

45:34

Former Marine and general contractor Andrew Kavanaugh joins the crew to share the origin story of Black Root Recovery, a company he founded after watching too many of his fellow Marines struggle physically, mentally, and emotionally after returning home. What started as a personal quest to rebuild his health led to a 90-pound weight loss, the elimi…

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Embodied AI is hitting its stride 11:37

15d ago11:37

11:37

A deep dive into world models, VLAMs, planning layers and real deployments from robotics companies Sereact and Wayve - and what comes next for embodied AI.

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Grappling with declining populations, and the future of quantum mechanics 38:00

20d ago38:00

38:00

First up on the podcast, Science celebrates 100 years of quantum mechanics with a special issue covering the past, present, and future of the field. News Contributing Correspondent Zack Savitsky joins host Sarah Crespi to talk about a more philosophical approach to quantum physics and the mysterious measurement problem. Next on the show we have Ann…

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Ben Johns - The Most Dominant Pickleball Athlete In The World #826 50:34

21d ago50:34

50:34

In this episode, the world's #1 pickleball player, Ben Johns, joins Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Travis Mash, and Dr. Mike Lane to unpack what it really takes to stay at the top of one of the fastest-growing sports on the planet. Ben walks through the insane travel schedule, the perpetual in-season demands, and the growing physical toll of a sport p…

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How A Mobile Training Trailer Makes Health Accessible For Women And Kids 13:14

23d ago13:14

13:14

Imagine a fully equipped gym rolling up to your driveway, your school, or your neighborhood greenway—no memberships, no commute, no intimidation. That’s the heart of our latest project: a mobile training trailer designed to make fitness accessible for women, kids, and communities that don’t have easy access to safe, supportive spaces to work out. W…

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Black Forest Labs raises $300M to power frontier visual intelligence 4:53

23d ago4:53

4:53

Today, I’m excited to unveil Air Street’s investment in Black Forest Labs as it announces a landmark funding milestone: a $300M Series B, following a previously unannounced Series A. Together, these rounds represent a big step in scaling the company’s momentum, with Black Forest Labs now capitalised with half a billion dollars and trusted by leadin…

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State of AI: December 2025 newsletter 43:39

24d ago43:39

43:39

Welcome to the latest issue of the State of AI, an editorialized newsletter that covers the key developments in AI policy, research, industry, and start-ups over the last month.

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When we’ll hit peak carbon emissions, and macaques that keep the beat 26:21

26d ago26:21

26:21

First up on the podcast, when will the world hit peak carbon emissions? It’s not an easy question to answer because emissions cannot be directly measured in real time. Instead, there are proxies, satellite measures, and many, many calculations. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss how close we are to the top of carbon mountai…

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Jeremy Elser - Biology and LLMs Meet in the Lab 20:16

28d ago20:16

20:16

At the Advanced Lateral Flow Conference, I spoke with Jeremy Elser, Head of Science Operations at Palantir and founder of Ship of Theseus, a biotech company tackling longevity and regenerative medicine. The name refers to the Greek thought experiment about replacing every plank on a ship over time, similar to Jeremy’s vision to keep rebuilding the …

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MRI-based Muscle Analysis with Dr. Doug Goldstein #825 1:00:37

28d ago1:00:37

1:00:37

In this episode, the Barbell Shrugged crew explores how next-generation MRI muscle analysis is transforming the way high-performing athletes train, recover, and prevent injury. Dr. Doug Goldstein walks Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash through Doug Larson's full Springbok Analytics scan a 3D "digital twin" of his musculoskeletal system th…

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Our investment in Clove 4:55

29d ago4:55

4:55

Building the first AI-native wealth institution for the mass affluent. Air Street Capital is investing in Clove’s $14M first financing round, backing a new kind of wealth institution built for this generation rather than the last. Clove’s founders, Christian Owens and Alex Loizou, see this gap not as an inevitability but as a result of infrastructu…

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A headless mystery, and a deep dive on dog research 32:35

1M ago32:35

32:35

First up on the podcast: the mysterious fate of Europe’s Neolithic farmers. They arrived from Anatolia around 5500 B.C.E. and began farming fertile land across Europe. Five hundred years later, their buildings, cemeteries, and pottery stopped showing up in the archaeological record, and mass graves with headless bodies started to appear across the …

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Profluent raises $106M from Jeff Bezos 4:48

1M ago4:48

4:48

Profluent builds frontier AI systems to unlock programmable biology. Now, Profluent has raised $106M led by Bezos Expeditions and Altimeter, with continued support from Spark, Insight, and Air Street. The company is now the largest position in Air Street’s second fund. This new capital accelerates the company’s path toward scaling frontier protein …

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ALFC Double Feature - Making Lateral Flow Accessible Everywhere 29:06

1M ago29:06

29:06

This episode is a double from my visit to the Advanced Lateral Flow Conference. Usability is Innovation: Atomo Diagnostics Atomo Diagnostics set out more than a decade ago to solve a surprisingly human problem in diagnostics: complexity. Founder John Kelly describes how even the best rapid tests—validated in pristine lab environments—often fail whe…

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127. Dig (In)spiration: Why empathy + insights + marketing are a match made in campaign heaven 13:25

1M ago13:25

13:25

On this week’s episode, host Jess Gaedeke chats with Dig’s very own SVP, Lesley Sloggett, to unpack how real customer stories fueled an empathy-rich financial campaign, why seamless collaboration between insights and marketing creates game-changing work, and how Gen Z’s nonlinear approach to money and life is reshaping the future of financial brand…

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Precision Muscle Analysis with Matt Brown of Springbok Analytics #824 55:13

1M ago55:13

55:13

In this episode, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash sit down with Matt Brown, Director of Business Development at Springbok Analytics, to explore the cutting edge world of MRI based muscle analysis. Matt breaks down the origins of Springbok, how the company grew from a university research lab solving cerebral palsy surgical problems into o…

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Introducing Profluent’s E1: Retrieval-augmentation for protein engineering 6:38

1M ago6:38

6:38

Understanding how protein sequence encodes structure and function remains one of the central challenges in the life sciences. Yet most protein language models still treat each sequence as an isolated datapoint. This forces the entire burden of evolutionary context into model parameters, which leads to blind spots in underrepresented families and am…

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Poolside acquires Fern Labs 7:37

1M ago7:37

7:37

Poolside is building one of the strongest full-stack AI companies in the world: energy, compute, models, and the infrastructure needed to run multi-agent systems for complex enterprise workflows. The Fern team brings a deeply opinionated agentic core - built from first principles and stress-tested on real workloads - into a company with scale, dist…

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Solving the ‘golfer’s curse’ and using space as a heat sink 28:13

1M ago28:13

28:13

First up on the podcast, Online News Editor David Grimm joins host Sarah Crespi for a rundown of online news stories. They talk about lichen that dine on dino bones, the physics of the lip-out problem in golf, and a brain-computer interface that can decode a tonal language (Chinese) from brain waves. Next on the show, Jeremy Munday, a professor of …

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127. How collaboration between insights and marketing fueled CIBC’s most authentic brand campaign yet 36:01

1M ago36:01

36:01

Insights and marketing is really a match made in heaven. On this week’s episode, host Jess Gaedeke is joined by Erin Cohen, Senior Director of Consumer Insights and Intelligence, and Rachel Vares, Director of Brand Marketing, Advertising and Content at CIBC, to discuss how deep consumer insights and seamless collaboration between insights and marke…

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Measuring Muscle Mass Percentage with Dr. Chris Perry, Anders Varner, Travis Mash and Doug Larson #823 45:41

1M ago45:41

45:41

In this week's episode of Barbell Shrugged, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, Coach Travis Mash, and Dr. Chris Perry dive deep into the real science of muscle mass, why it's the single most important tissue in the human body and what happens when you don't have enough of it. They cover everything from how muscle mass impacts disease risk, hormone balance…

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Episode: 79 - Conversation with Bahija Jallal on the Biggest Anticipated Transformations and Breakthroughs 42:46

1M ago42:46

42:46

November 11, 2025 | What is the next modality to focus on in the next 10 years? For Bahija Jallal, CEO of Immunocore, it would be T-cell engagers. In this episode of The Chain, host Rakesh Dixit speaks with Jallal on the potential advantages of bispecific T-cell engager therapy versus T-cell receptor therapy, biggest anticipated changes in drug dis…

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State of AI: November 2025 newsletter 33:32

2M ago33:32

33:32

Welcome to the latest issue of the State of AI, an editorialized newsletter formerly known as Guide to AI that covers the key developments in AI policy, research, industry, and start-ups over the last month. First up, a few reminders: Read more on press.airstreet.com

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Understanding early Amazon communities and saving the endangered pocket mouse 35:03

2M ago35:03

35:03

First up on the podcast, Contributing Correspondent Sofia Moutinho visited the Xingu Indigenous territory in Brazil to learn about a long-standing collaboration between scientists and the Kuikuro to better understand early Amazon communities. Next on the show, we visit the Pacific pocket mouse recovery program at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance…

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126. Dig (In)spiration: Why “killing the middle” sparks true innovation 16:16

2M ago16:16

16:16

On this week’s episode, host Jess Gaedeke is joined by Dig Insights Co-Founder and CEO Paul Gaudette to discuss why true innovation requires focus, how “killing the middle” frees teams to pursue ideas that matter, the dangers of chasing shiny objects without consumer purpose, and how building a culture of shared accountability, not isolated teams, …

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The Art of Protein Engineering 20:35

2M ago20:35

20:35

Carter Mitchell, Chief Scientific Officer at Kemp Proteins, brings scientific rigor and an artist’s imagination to the world of protein design and production. In this episode, recorded at the Advanced Lateral Flow Conference, we explore how his company is pushing the boundaries of protein expression, quality, and analysis using tools that merge mac…

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Cardio Isn’t The Hero, Protein Is 19:09

2M ago19:09

19:09

We unpack why progress can stall for women over 35 even with consistent training, and how smart metrics reveal what the mirror misses. We share the five biggest mistakes, real numbers from our own scans, and the exact fixes that restore muscle, reduce fat, and calm stress. • who this is for and why the scale misleads • lessons from competing and un…

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Rebuilding Strength and Purpose, Travis Mash's Path Back to the Platform w/ Anders Varner, Travis Mash and Doug Larson #822 41:47

2M ago41:47

41:47

In this episode, Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash sit down for a story that is equal parts comeback and evolution. After a hip replacement and years away from competition, Mash, now over 50 years old, stepped back onto the powerlifting platform to go nine for nine and set new age group world records. He breaks down how he rebuilt his bod…

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Episode 188: Marina Walther-Antonio discusses the microbiome’s role in women’s health and cancer 1:19:16

2M ago1:19:16

1:19:16

Today we have Dr. Marina Walther-Antonio, a Mayo Clinic researcher who investigates the role of the microbiome in cancer and reproductive health, particularly endometrial and ovarian cancers. According to the World Cancer Research Fund International, endometrial and ovarian cancers are among the top 10 most prevalent cancers in women worldwide, and…

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PARIMA’s first regulatory approval and another wake-up call for Europe 2:38

2M ago2:38

2:38

PARIMA, a global leader in cultivated proteins, has become the first European company to secure regulatory approval for cultivated meat, with the Singapore Food Agency granting clearance for its cultivated chicken. It’s a historic moment for Europe’s food-tech sector, but one that’s unfolding thousands of miles away from home.…

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Detecting the acidity of the ocean with sound, the role of lead in human evolution, and how the universe ends 45:27

2M ago45:27

45:27

First up on the podcast, increased carbon dioxide emissions sink more acidity into the ocean, but checking pH all over the world, up and down the water column, is incredibly challenging. Staff Writer Paul Voosen joins host Sarah Crespi to discuss a technique that takes advantage of how sound moves through the water to detect ocean acidification. Ne…

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Gourmey acquires Vital Meat and forms PARIMA to industrialize of cultivated food 3:31

2M ago3:31

3:31

Building a next-generation food company.

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126. Why this CMO & Author believes the innovation funnel is broken (and how to fix it) 36:21

2M ago36:21

36:21

On this week’s episode, host Jess Gaedeke is joined by Tina Lambert, former Chief Marketing Officer at Tropicana and author of Innovation Is Ugly, to unpack why the traditional innovation funnel is broken, how leaders can balance creativity with disciplined execution, and the lessons she’s learned from both billion-dollar brand successes and specta…

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Escaping the Transactional Trap to Build Impact-Driven Success with Master Coach Angie Wisdom 33:35

2M ago33:35

33:35

Feeling accomplished but oddly empty? We sat down with master certified coach, author, and Fortune 500 speaker Angie Wisdom to unpack why high achievers slip into a transactional loop—and how to rebuild success around alignment, self-trust, and impact. Angie shares how her pivot from finance to coaching revealed a simple truth: when values vanish f…

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The Science of Sleep and Recovery w/ Dr. Allison Brager, Anders Varner, Travis Mash and Doug Larson #821 49:44

2M ago49:44

49:44

In this episode, neuroscientist and U.S. Army sleep expert Dr. Allison Brager joins Anders Varner, Doug Larson, and Travis Mash to explore the real science behind sleep, recovery, and wearable technology. They discuss which devices actually deliver useful data, such as the Oura Ring for sleep tracking and Garmin for cardiovascular measurements, and…