Blog
Money in Politics
A data-driven profile on major sources of campaign financing for U.S. Congressional & Presidential elections and their influence on outcomes.
PhD Career Prospects by the Numbers
A data-driven profile on the types of work that STEM PhDs pursue and their pay scales, based on employment statistics from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. Department of Labor.
Biotech Investment Surges in 2020
During the height of global shelter-in-place measures in the first half of 2020, US-based biotechnology & pharmaceutical companies booked the highest level of venture capital investment ever recorded in the history of the industry. In honor of the last trading day of 2020, I wrote a "Year in Review" for biotech investing.
Foghorn Therapeutics Breaks New Ground in Cancer Epigenetics
Epigenetic drugs are an emerging class of cancer therapeutics. In this article, I introduce Foghorn Therapeutics, its co-founder, Cigall Kadoch, and the science behind their unique drug development program.
Next Generation Cancer Diagnostics Revolutionize Patient Care
In this article, I identify the market leaders in sequencing-based cancer diagnostics (Guardant Health, Foundation Medicine, GRAIL, Thrive), highlight the maturity of their respective technologies, and present the latest data releases from their ongoing clinical trials. Additionally, I describe the unique ways in which their cancer diagnostic platforms leverage next generation sequencing technologies to either (1) guide cancer treatment or (2) detect cancer early.
How to Master a New Technique
STEM fields are constantly evolving and, therefore, demand that their practitioners grow and evolve in kind. PhD.candidate Roshan Chikarmane shares a three-step process for rapidly acquiring competence in a new skill or technique: imitate, improvise, and innovate.
Johns Hopkins awards nearly $1M to support PhD professional development
Press release in The Hub that describes the grant awarded to me and my colleagues by the Office of the Provost at Johns Hopkins University to start the Hopkins Biotech Podcast in early March of 2020; the podcast officially launched on Memorial Day 2020 (May 25).
Why Leave Career Fulfillment Up to Chance?
Why leave career fulfillment up to chance, when you can master the job market through the learned experiences of those who have been there before? Check out Hopkins Biotech Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or SoundCloud.
Every Challenge is an Opportunity
Challenges are inevitable, particularly for those working in STEM fields. However, not all challenges are inherently setbacks. Ph.D. candidate Roshan Chikarmane shares a story that demonstrates how to recognize strategic inflection points and emerge more resilient than before.
An Alzheimer’s Drug Rises from the Ashes
Biogen surprised the world in late 2019 by announcing the company’s intention to file a request for FDA approval of its Alzheimer’s drug, aducanumab. Let’s explore why the filing surprised so many people in the drug development industry and the implications that aducanumab might have on the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Businesses Innovation: A Cure for the Drug Pricing Dilemma
In an age of polarization, most Americans agree that drug prices are out of control. Ph.D. candidate Roshan Chikarmane identifies key drivers of rising drug prices and introduces corresponding interventions that are being undertaken by business leaders to shift industry trends toward more affordable health care.
Genome Engineering Emerges from the Shadows
The fruits of modern molecular biology offer us a powerful tool that allows us to engineer the genetic code of virtually any organism. Early therapeutic applications could foreshadow an inflection point for the positioning of genome engineering in modern health care.
The Biopharma Startup: A Heart-Pounding Venture
This is a story about how a group of passionate researchers at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine turned scholarly insights into therapies that could help millions of patients with heart failure.
Cancer Diagnosis — It’s in Your Blood
Two companies are developing technologies that are capable of simultaneously detecting multiple cancer types at early, more treatable developmental stages. These early detection platforms could drastically improve disease management regimes in the coming years.
Engineering Magic Bullets for Pancreatic Cancer
On October 18, 2018, investigators at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins reported on a vaccine that targets pancreatic cancer, both by training immune cells to recognize frequently mutated proteins expressed by the cancer and by emboldening those immune cells to attack tumors on sight.
The Life and Times of a Principled Scientist
On November 3rd, 2018, the Johns Hopkins Brady Urological Institute held its 13th Annual Prostate Cancer Research Day. This year’s event was commemorated to the life of Dr. Donald S. Coffey, a Professor Emeritus. A handful of Dr. Coffey’s mentees, now professors forging new discoveries in cancer research, shared various principles of scientific investigation that he had taught them
Solving the CAR-T Conundrum
In mid-2017 the FDA approved Kymriah and Yescarta, the first immunotherapies that involve the direct administration of genetically modified immune cells called CAR-T. While they show strikingly robust remission rates in clinical trials for different forms of blood cancer, they can also cause serious and sometimes life-threatening side effects, a major limitation of CAR-T technology. A new generation of this cancer immunotherapy, CubiCAR and sCAR-T, display comparable antitumor effects in preclinical studies and offer feasible strategies for diminishing side effects,.
Landmark RNAi-Based Therapy Achieves Clinical Success
RNA interference (RNAi) is a process that cells use to block the production of certain proteins. The mechanism was first described in a 1998 paper for which its authors, Andrew Fire and Craig Mello, won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine. Scientists at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals have taken the discovery to the next level by developing the first RNAi-based therapy to achieve clinical success.
Three-Minute Thesis: A Case Study in the Economics of Communication
Contestants from various schools of Johns Hopkins University recently faced off in the university-level Three-Minute Thesis (3MT) semifinal competition. Their task: deliver a talk on the significance of their dissertation topics, equipped with naught but a single PowerPoint slide and three-minutes of stage time. The top two semi-finalists, Caroline Vissers, Valerie Rennoll, and Sarah Attreed will proceed to the 3MT Competition for the State of Maryland.
A Novel Cancer Immunotherapy Unveiled: Y-Traps
The next generation of cancer immunotherapy, Y-traps, were recently unveiled in a Nature Communications by researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Insilico Medicine Inc., and Stanford University. Their pre-clinical study assessed the platform’s efficacy in humanized mouse models of melanoma and breast cancer. The therapy aims to mobilize a patient’s own immune system to treat advanced forms of metastatic tumors that don’t respond to classical chemotherapy.