“Pharmaceutical companies sometimes have a bad rap of being, you know, big, bad pharmacy. But I learned that the patient or the people I am working with right now are just as passionate and just as dedicated to the patient community as I am.” A

Helping the Patients He Can. For Free. For Life. - Stanley Crooke, MD, PhD

Jul 26th, 2021 34m 47s

Imagine you are one of only 10 people in the world with a disease. People with ultra-rare conditions have little hope of attracting research funding to find treatments to work for them. The investments just don’t make sense to for-profit busi

Alison Bateman-House, MPH, PhD: Not can we… but should we? Bioethics

May 17th, 2021 43m 39s

“I don't think a bioethicist is normally who people have come to their elementary school career day. So, we are a novel breed to many people.” Alison Bateman-House, PhDThat is how our latest guest on Improbable Developments reflected on her cho

Emerging Researcher: Shandra Trantham

Mar 16th, 2021 28m 7s

In the last of our Emerging Researchers Series, I speak with Shandra Trantham, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida. Shandra was destined for a life in science. As a young child, science and math were her favorite subjects. She and I

Emerging Research: Emily McIntosh

Feb 23rd, 2021 50m 12s

In the latest episode of our Emerging Researchers Series, we talk to Emily McIntosh (@MCINTOSE) a recent Ph.D. from the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario. Living less than an hour from Toronto, she is a big Leafs fan (that is the Maple Le

Emerging Researcher: Robin Powers

Jan 14th, 2021 39m 12s

We continue our Emerging Researchers series with an interview with Robin Powers, a student just starting her master’s degree work. Robin is an enigma. She has a wealth of energy and a very fast-moving mind. She has dreams and aspirations that w

Emerging Researcher: Layne Rodden

Dec 15th, 2020 32m 45s

We are excited to introduce our Emerging Researcher Series. Over the next 4 months, we will be talking to some people who are at various stages in their education. Each of them is excited about the research they are doing now and are looking fo

Ethan Perlstein: Scientific Coaching for Rare Families

Nov 16th, 2020 16m 46s

We first met Dr. Ethan Perlstein on our other podcast Raising Rare. Dr. Perlstein is a biotechnology entrepreneur. Dr. Perlstein has nearly two decades of experience in biomedical research and over five years in biotech company formation and e

Lynne Becker: Re-empowering TBI Patients

Oct 13th, 2020 52m 30s

Put me in the game coach.These six simple words can be putting athletes, soldiers, and employees at great risk. Lynne Becker knows this from her experience building a database of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) for the department of defense. A b

Mike Wenger: Improving Clinical Trial Data Transparency

Sep 15th, 2020 30m 58s

Mike Wenger is Vice President of Patient Engagement at TrialScope. A brain tumor patient and software developer, Mike is passionate about patient access to clinical trials. He is spearheading TrialScope Connect, the industry’s first patient ref

Mary Rofael, MD: Helping Companies Communicate Complex Data in Ways that Matter

Jun 29th, 2020 25m 29s

“I think it is really important for the public and the patient Community to learn a little more about FDA advisory committees because these are public meetings and they're accessible for anyone to attend and learn from.” Mary Rofael, MDAn FDA A

Rob Lambkin-Williams: Mapping Out the Quest for a COVID Vaccine

May 7th, 2020 36m 31s

The impact of COVID-19 is literally being felt around the world. Humanity has been racing to find weapons to fight this invisible enemy. We know so very little about how the virus is operating. This can leave us feeling confused and isolated. W

Kieran Geoghegan: Life of a Scientist

Mar 25th, 2020 43m 52s

"For me it was a question of dying and going to heaven for 32 years."Dr. Kieran Geoghegan was inspired by the scientific and technological breakthroughs of the NASA programs in the 1960’s. This became a lifelong quest to get to the bottom of th

Robert Weker: Against All Odds

Feb 11th, 2020 46m 50s

Rob Weker’s story is remarkable for many reasons.First and foremost, he has beaten cancer.Not once. Not twice. But three times.Getting the third diagnosis, this time it was pancreatic cancer, really got his attention. Only 7% of pancreatic pati

Carol Marzetta: Living to Help Other People

Jan 14th, 2020 29m 42s

This month listen to Dr. Carol Marzetta talk about how the urge to help other people has shaped her career and her life. From her earliest days as a Discovery Biologist, she has found he passion in work that tries to help people in need. She sh

Donald Kirsch: Getting to Know a Drug Hunter

Dec 10th, 2019 37m 6s

We’ve all been there. You are at a party and someone asks, “So, what do you do?” Dr. Kirsch always found it hard to explain his career as a discovery scientist. He decided to write a book about it. The Drug Hunters: An Improbable Quest to DIsc

David Pearce: Hope Can Be Curative.

Nov 18th, 2019 29m 9s

Today we hear from David Pearce, PhD, President of Innovation and Research, Sanford Health and Vice Chair, Consortium Assembly, International Rare Disease Research Consortium (IRDiRC)Dr. Pearce’s rare disease background emanates from publishing

Kyle Bryant: Remember Why We Are Doing All This

Oct 9th, 2019 34m 37s

We welcome Kyle Bryant of the Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance (FARA) to discuss his journey as a patient with Friedreich’s Ataxia (FA), as an active patient leader, and in his job as a liaison between the FA community and researchers.Afte

David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSC, FCPP

Sep 9th, 2019 36m 54s

We are honored to have Dr. David Fajgenbaum as our first guest on Improbable Developments. His story is intense. Before he even earned is medical degree, he was faced by a rare life-threatening illness for which there was no treatment, let alon

Welcome to Improbable Developments!

Sep 1st, 2019 10m 33s

In this, our first episode, Kevin lays out the objectives and plan for the Improbable Developments podcast. He also shares a personal story about a medicine he worked on earlier in his career.