A news story was circulating a few months ago—a woman in Australia came into the hospital with abdominal pain. She was increasingly forgetful and struggling with depression. Her doctors were stumped for over a year. What was causing her symptoms? Turns out she had a three-inch parasitic worm living in her brain. They took it out, and she recovered.
How do doctors crack cases like this? How do you even know to check for a brain worm? This is the specialty of Dr. Joe DeRisi. When doctors run into a diagnostic dead end they call him. In his world, brain worms aren’t even that rare. (Ask him about brain-eating amoebas.)
Guest host Flora Lichtman talks with Dr. DeRisi, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine and president of the Chan Zuckerberg BioHub San Francisco, about his fascinating work solving some of the most vexing medical mysteries, and how it may even help detect the next pandemic-inducing pathogen.
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Transcripts for each segment will be available the week after the show airs on sciencefriday.com.
705: A Black Physician’s Analysis Of The Legacy Of Racism In Medicine
704: Faraway Planets With Oceans Of Magma | The Art And Science Of Trash Talk
701: Is Each Fingerprint On Your Hand Unique? | In This Computer Component, Data Slides Through Honey
700: The FDA Approved The First CRISPR-Based Therapy. What’s Next?
703: Protecting The ‘Satan’ Tarantula | If Termites Wore Stripes, Would Spiders Still Eat Them?
699: Scientists Are Uncovering A World Of ‘Dark Matter’ Carcinogens
702: Syphilis Cases Up 80% Since 2018 | The Largest Deep-Sea Coral Reef In The World
698: Expanding Our Umwelt: Understanding Animal Experiences
695: How Signing Characters Help Deaf Children Learn Language
696: ‘Mysterious’ Canine Illness: What Dog Owners Should Know
694: An App For People Of Color To Rate Their Birthing Experiences | How Different Animals See
697: NASA Opens Canister With Asteroid Sample | ADHD Prescription Rates Spiked During The Pandemic
693: AI Helps Find Ancient Artifacts In The Great Lakes | An Artist Combines Indigenous Textiles With Modern Tech
691: When The ‘Personal’ Computer Turned 30
690: How The Moon Transformed Life On Earth, From Climate to Timekeeping
692: From Scans To Office Visits: How Will AI Shape Medicine?
689: Rhesus Monkey Cloned With Modified Approach Has Survived Into Adulthood
688: 3,000 Types Of Brain Cells Categorized In Massive Brain Cell Atlas
685: Brain ‘Organoids’: Lab-Grown Cell Clusters Model Brain Functions
687: The Lasting Allure Of Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’
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