Dr. Moira Gunn talks to JJ Bienaime, President & CEO of BioMarin Pharmaceuticals about the problem of orphan diseases, diseases not yet under research by pharmaceutical companies because of a lack of financial incentive to market new medications for treatment.

Paul Hastings, president and CEO of Oncomed Pharmaceuticals, discusses the controversial topic of cancer stem cells, what he calls the root of the tumor. He also talks about how his company is working with other pharmaceutical companies who are helping with Oncomed's biotech work.

Moira speaks with former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner David Kessler about his book The End of Overeating, in which he discusses what has been invisibly added to the American supply, leaving some of us obese, and many of us, unexpectedly overweight. He tells us the science behind what happens to our brains when we eat food laden with salt, fat and sugar.

Moira speaks with Rory Cooper and Oz Osborn about quality of life technology. The Quality of Life Technology (QoLT) Center is a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (ERC) who's mission is to transform lives in a large and growing segment of the population, people with reduced functional capabilities due to aging or disability.

At PatientsLikeMe.com, people share data about their illnesses, the drugs they're taking, and the effects (and side effects) of their treatments. In this conversation, co-founder Jamie Heywood tells host Jon Udell that selling this data to drug companies is more than a good business. It aims to put patients into more direct contact with those companies, and help ensure that drug discovery and development meets their needs.

Moira speaks with UCLA psychiatrist Dr. Judith Orloff about the psychology and biology of our emotions. Orloff discusses her book Emotional Freedom, a road map for those who are stressed out, discouraged, or overwhelmed as well as for those who are in a good emotional place but want to feel even better.

Dr. Moira Gunn interviews David Ewing Duncan about his work in trying to help develop a personalized medicine project. He talks about how it is possible to have a project in place within ten years, using the human genome project example, where scientists worked together on a worldwide basis to accomplish a complex task.

A food crisis is upon us. Prices of food commodities have risen dramatically. Shrinking supply, due to weather and the production of biofuels, combined with spiking petroleum prices, has lead to rising demand and instability in countries the world over. Robert Hormats, Helene Gayle, and Jacqueline Novogratz discuss the roles that the financial sector, NGOs, and small farmers around the world play as well as what they can, and must do, to reverse this alarming situation.

Dr. Moira Gunn interviews David Ewing Duncan, author of the book Experimental Man: What One Man's Body Reveals about His Future, Your Health, and Our Toxic World, in which he became the ultimate guinea pig, putting every aspect of his physical makeup under the microscope.

Dr. Moira Gunn talks with Cliff Reid, Chairman of Complete Genomics about DNA data and large scale genome studies. He discusses how his company's high quality, affordable DNA sequencing enables commercial-scale research of the genetic mechanisms underlying drug responses and complex diseases.