Young scientists talk research, competitions and life beyond the lab.
Drop the STEM podcast talks with young researchers whose projects run from osteoarthritis pathways to a shoe cushioned by magnetic levitation. The host keeps the mood warm and celebratory, and moves between the lab talk and questions about competition highlights, family and life outside the lab.
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Drop the STEM podcast gives young researchers the microphone and lets them talk about the work, the wins and the rest of their lives. The guests come with long lists of credentials. Elisha Johnston, introduced as a researcher in molecular biology, has worked on projects spanning craniofacial development, chromatin conformation and cartilage regeneration. He now analyzes osteoarthritis pathways both computationally and in a wet lab, and volunteers with a senior living home and the Arthritis Foundation in Los Angeles. Rishab Jain is introduced as a teen innovator, researcher and content creator, named America's top young scientist at 13 for work on improving radiotherapy for pancreatic cancer patients. He later received a Regeneron Young Scientist distinction for research on making recombinant DNA technology more efficient. Dev Lochan developed a remarkably soft shoe using magnetic levitation and machine learning, part of a stated mission to bring modern research into everyday technology for joint and orthopedic problems. Joints, as it happens, come up with two of these guests. The host opens with a bright 'Hello, hello' and a rundown of the guest's achievements, delivered with plain enthusiasm. Then the science gets real space. In the osteoarthritis conversation, the talk turns to how the disease, its treatments and their side effects can make one another worse, and why an effective therapy could break that chain. Then the host shifts gears, 'to a lighter topic'. A question about STEM highlights brings out competition memories, from ISEF 2019 to a 2020 edition that became an online gathering because of COVID. Rishab Jain answers the same kind of question by tracing a line from a visit to a science museum and his first computer program to the 3M Young Scientist Challenge and national television. He calls it one of the moments he realized how much science communication matters. Life beyond the lab gets airtime too. One conversation stays with Diwali, the festival of lights, as a guest describes family, food and the story of Rama coming home. The conversations feel like two peers talking; at one sign-off a guest thanks the host for believing in young scientists 'like you and me'. The closing line stays the same: thanks for taking a few moments of science. For the biology, start with the osteoarthritis episode; for the arc of a science fair career, the Rishab Jain conversation.
Made for: Suits a listener who likes hearing ambitious young researchers explain their projects in easy conversation, and who finds the science fair story as interesting as the lab results. A good fit for someone curious about biomedical research told through personal paths.
What sets it apart: The guests are young researchers with competition credentials rather than established experts, and the host talks with them as a peer, moving easily from cartilage pathways or recombinant DNA to ISEF memories and Diwali.
Impactful conversations with great minds to inspire change and spread passion for science
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A young researcher's STEM path sharpens a practical look at cartilage repair.
Osteoarthritis is framed here as more than worn cartilage. The episode treats it as a condition with wider consequences, where better therapy might reduce the cascade of treatments, side effects, and worsening symptoms that can follow.
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Drop the STEM podcast follows Alicia Johnston, a UCLA molecular biology researcher, through osteoarthritis, cartilage regeneration, and how the disease progresses.
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