Greetings–My name is Carl Zimmer. I’m a contributing national correspondent for Stat, a new online publication about medicine and life sciences. (You can find out more at http://carlzimmer.com ) I’m also a columnist at the New York Times. Also, I write books about biology (and one about science tattoos). I’m in the midst of publishing a three-part series at Stat about my genome, called “Game of Genomes.” When I got the opportunity to get my genome sequenced, I found a way to get my hands on the raw data (a 70 GB hard disk, to be specific). I then enlisted two dozen scientists to guide me through its depths. Along the way, I got to see how my unique DNA alters the shape of the molecules that make up my body. I found out that 613 of my genes come from Neanderthals, and discovered how they are influencing my health. I learned my genome is littered with broken genes and overrun by ancient viruses. I even discovered my health is protected by mutations that are the basis for new blockbuster drugs. In the process, I learned how much our genomes can reveal to us, but also how many mysteries they hold back. Here is part one of the series:https://www.statnews.com/feature/game-of-genomes/season-one/ And here is part two:https://www.statnews.com/feature/game-of-genomes/season-two/ Part three will come out next Monday And here is a site where you can find all the data and analysis (including my genome): https://zimmerome.gersteinlab.org/ I’ll be back at 3 pm ET (12 noon PT) to answer your questions, ask me anything! EDIT, 4 pm: Thanks for all the great questions so far! I’ll zip back in an hour to answer any new ones that arrive.

Hi reddit! I’m Sam Arbesman, Scientist in Residence at Lux Capital, a venture capital firm investing in emerging science and technology startups, where I help explore what the future of science and tech holds, make sure our firm is at the forefront of these trends, and help the startups we invest in stay ahead of the curve. I’m the author of Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension, which is about how our technologies have become so complex that we don’t really understand them anymore (even if you are one of the experts who made them), and what that means for us as a society. I’m currently thinking a lot about this topic and how we can meet our technologies halfway, even if we can never fully understand them. I’m also the author of the Half-Life of Facts, which examines how knowledge changes over time. My training is in complexity science, computational biology, and applied mathematics (I have a PhD in computational biology), and I use the ideas of complex systems to examine how science and technology change over time and what this means for society. This involves both academic research as well as popular writing, the latter of which has appeared in such places as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Wired, where I was previously a contributing writer. I’ll be back at 11 am EST (8 am PST, 4 pm UTC) to answer your questions, ask me anything! Update: Hi everyone! I had a blast interacting with everyone here, answering questions, and just being part of this fantastic conversation. Thanks so much! Time for me to sign out, but I’ll try to check back and might be able to answer a few more.

Hi Reddit! We are leaders of a global research effort to identify and characterize the mechanisms responsible for the development of type 2 diabetes (and related conditions including obesity) using human genetics. The prevalence of these conditions continues to increase, and current strategies for prevention and treatment are clearly inadequate. We perform large-scale discovery studies (using genotyping and next-generation sequencing in tens of thousands of individuals) to highlight the variants that influence individual predisposition to these conditions. We then use these discoveries as the starting point to home in on the specific mechanisms through which those genes act, providing novel clues to disease biology. We hope to turn this information into new ways of treating and preventing these conditions. Our latest study (including GWAS, exome array, exome and genome sequencing in 120,000 subjects) was just published in Nature (you can read here). This study provides the most detailed description to date of the contribution of inherited genetic variation to T2D risk: it has established that shared common variation underlies most of that predisposition, as well as identifying a number of genes which are disrupted as a result of those changes, and which are therefore prime targets for future therapeutic development. You can find out a bit more about these studies in the blogs here. An important facet of our efforts is being proactive about sharing those data with other researchers (for example). We are: Mark McCarthy, University of Oxford, UK Mike Boehnke, University of Michigan, US Andrew Morris, University of Liverpool, UK Jason Flannick, Broad Institute, US Christian Fuchsberger, University of Michigan, US & EURAC, Italy Tanya Teslovich, University of Michigan. We will be back at 3pm EDT (noon PT, 8pm BST) to answer your question, ask me/us anything! Thanks everyone - we’re signing off now. Been fun. Sorry we didnt get to every question but hope you have found it useful. Best Mark (on behalf of the team)

Hi Reddit! I am Shib Mookherjea, Principal of Val Qual International, a Consulting/Training company offering various advisory and Management Training services to the Pharma, Biotech, and Medical Device industries both in the US and abroad. I have diversified expertise and experience in Analytical Development, R&D, QA/QC, and Laboratory Management, having held supervisory and leadership positions in several companies spanning over 25 years. I have proven track record of initiating and implementing GLP/GMP in several laboratories in addition to leading Analytical, R&D and QC teams and have offered targeted training courses in more than 20 countries. I have had also extensive experience in the areas of Pharmaceutical Development, Methods Transfer, Analytical Problem Solving, PAT applications, and Team Development and Regulatory submissions. I have held management and supervisory positions for Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Troy Corporation, Allergan and CRO/CMO organizations. I have been on the faculty of Continuing Education Division of American Chemical Society, CFPA, Sindusfarma (Brazil) and several other international organizations. The aim of these training initiatives is to foster professional development while bridging the gap between academic training and industry-required knowledge base for Chemists and Scientists holding positions in various industries. Ask me questions on and about the topics of Analytical Methods Development, Validation of Methods, Qualification (IQ, OQ, PQ) of lab equipment and systems, FDA GLP Regulations, and QA/QC in Pharma labs. I’ll be back at noon EDT/9:00am PDT to answer your questions! EDIT: I am ready to answer your questions. As a thank you for participating in this AMA, we’d like to extend a discount to you for any of my courses offered through the American Chemical Society. Register between now and August 1, 2016 using the code ACSREDDIT20OFF to receive 20% off of your registration fee.

Hi Reddit, I am currently CSO of Collaborative Drug Discovery, CEO of Phoenix Nest, CEO of Collaborations Pharmaceuticals, Inc and CSO of the Hereditary Neuropathy Foundation and I am on the Editorial Board of Pharmaceutical Research. I am a graduate (MSc, PhD, DSc) of the University of Aberdeen. I have spent 20 years working in the USA, first as a postdoc at Eli Lilly, then as a senior scientist at Pfizer and Lilly before joining smaller start-up companies. I then went on to co-found and found two rare and neglected disease companies. My background is in clinical pharmacology, with an interest in understanding drug-drug reactions and toxicology. I quickly moved from doing bench work to learning how to use computational approaches to make predictions that could help drug discovery. Over the years I have collaborated with different academics and companies to build models that help predict how compounds bind to enzymes, transporters, ion channels and receptors. As the datasets have grown I have applied different machine learning approaches. My work in the last 8 years has brought me into working on neglected diseases like tuberculosis and rare diseases such as Sanfilippo syndrome and Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease. Again collaborations are central to what I do. Virtually everything I work on is funded by a grant whether from the NIH, EU or others so even though I am not working in a university I am constantly working on small business or other grants. Most recently my work has led to projects and collaborations on the Ebola and Zika viruses. All of this has been published openly and I am an advocate of open access publishing as well as using social media to publicize science. I believe it’s important for scientists to use tools like Twitter to tell the world about their work, conferences they are attending and publications. I will be back at 11 am ET (8 am PT) to answer your questions on rare diseases, science collaborations, and my experience doing science outside of academia.

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Hi Reddit we are scientists from Toronto/Boston working on improving the use of nanomedicine in the clinic. If you’re curious about our list of credentials: Shawn Stapleton PhD, Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital, who’s currently looking to transition into faculty. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shawn_Stapleton https://www.linkedin.com/in/staplet David Jaffray PhD, Senior Scientist and Director of the TECHNA Institute, University Health Network and University of Toronto. https://www.uhnresearch.ca/researcher/david-jaffray http://technainstitute.com/people/david-jaffray/ Michael Milosevic MD, Clinician and Scientist, University of Toronto and Princess Margaret Cancer Center. https://www.uhnresearch.ca/researcher/michael-f-milosevic http://www.radonc.utoronto.ca/content/michael-milosevic Our collaborative research focuses on using imaging, mathematical modeling and physiological/molecular measurements of the tumor microenvironment to understand where nanomedicines end up in a tumour. We are using this knownledge to (1) develope strategies to improve nanomedicine drug delivery to tumours; and (2) develop new clinically relevant imaging methods to help guide drug delivery in patients. Ultimately we’d like to be able to use imaging methods like CT, MRI, or PET to bring drug delivery to the same level of precision achieved with radiation therapy and surgery. We’ve recently published a review describing how radiation can be used to improve nanomedicine drug delivery to tumors, leading to improved tumor response. The manuscript, titled “Radiation effects on the tumor microenvironment: Implications for nanomedicine delivery. ”, can be found in Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews . Check it out! http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169409X16301818 This is exciting area of research that will allow us to use clinical methods, such as radiotherapy, to guide where nanoparticles go in the tumor AND increase local drug concentrations without increasing toxicity. We are here to answer your questions about drug delivery, nanomedicine, imaging, radiotherapy, oncology, the pains/pleasures of research, transitioning to/making it in academia, why Toronto is an exciting for biomedical research, and more! Ask US Anything!

Hello Reddit, I am a professor of Chemistry (as well as Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Medicine) and Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology at Northwestern University. My research focuses on the development of methods for controlling molecular architecture on the 1-100nm scale and using such structures for inventing technologies that impact chemistry, biology and medicine. My research group is best known for the discovery and development of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) as well as enabling techniques such as dip-pen nanolithography (DPN), polymer pen lithography (PPL) and beam pen lithography (BPL) – methods that allow scientists to “draw” and create patterns of extraordinary sophistication and complexity on a variety of surfaces using nanoscale pens and chemicals and biological materials as inks. In addition to my work at Northwestern, I am also a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology (PCAST), and a member of all three National Academies. I also serve as an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the ACS’ flagship journal founded in 1879. I’ll be online at 11am EDT to answer your questions. Fire away! - CAM Editing links - ACS Signing off - fingers are worn out! Sorry I could not answer all of the questions, but thanks for a great discussion. Chad

Hello, Reddit! We are: Gonçalo Abecasis, professor of Biostatistics at the University of Michigan’s Center for Statistical Genetics (UM / CSG) Scott Vrieze, professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at the University of Colorado’s Institute for Behavioral Genetics Chris Clark and Kevin Wei Li, web application programmers at UM / CSG Gregory Zajac and Katharine Brieger, graduate student research assistants at UM / CSG Ellen Schmidt and Anita Pandit, research area specialists at UM / CSG We use genetics to understand human health and disease and spend our lives analyzing genomic data and developing tools to make these analyses more informative. Tackling some of the big challenges in human genetics and genomics requires engaging 100,000s of volunteers and collecting rich information about their health, behavior and environment. Last year, we launched Genes for Good, a study of genes, health and behavior through a Facebook app. Volunteers complete health history surveys, daily health tracking surveys, and behavioral tasks. After providing a base level of information, we ship a free spit kit to participants to collect a DNA sample. Results, including summaries of survey results, raw genotypes and ancestry information, are freely shared with participants. To date, over 12,000 people have used our Facebook app, completing over 500,000 health history surveys and trackers. Data stripped of information such as names and addresses are shared with other scientists to ensure the information is used to the greatest extent possible to understand links between genes and health. Believe it or not, this is actually a relatively new way of approaching medical research! You can read more about the study on the Genes for Good informational website or join the study here. It’s free and all you need is a Facebook account! We’re here from at least 1pm-3pm EDT (10 am PST, 6 pm UTC) to answer questions about the study and about the future of genomic research in general! Ask us anything!

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Hey Reddit! I am John Johnson, founder and CEO of the economic consulting firm Edgeworth Economics, which is known for its work in antitrust, labor, and intellectual property consulting. Edgeworth models all kinds of big data, from football player injuries to chocolate prices. With Edgeworth, I work as an expert witness, requiring that I explain both simple and complex data concepts to lawyers and juries that knew little about how data could be used to misrepresent a subject. My work explaining data inspired me to work with Mike Gluck to co-write a book: “Everydata: The Misinformation Hidden in the Little Data you Consume Every Day.” Everydata is about how all kinds of data is misrepresented and misinterpreted. Recently I wrote an op-ed for The Hill about the flaws in a particular political poll. In my “spare time,” I am chairman of the board at Appleseed, a nonprofit dedicated to social justice. In my ACTUALLY spare time, I follow professional wrestling and baseball. PROOF I’ll be back around 2:30 PM ET to answer all your questions about data (visualizations), how data is misused, econometrics, Everydata, Rampart, or whatever else your heart desires! Edit: I have a meeting to get to, but I’ll stop by tomorrow to answer any more questions that I get, or have missed so far Edit 2: I think I officially have to call it at this point. If you have any more questions, you can still post them here or PM me and I’ll try to get around to them at some point. Thanks so much to everybody who participated! Also thanks to u/rhiever who set this whole thing up. Appreciate your mods, they’re really great!