Scientists talking shop with scientists, from cells to medicines.
Maria Wilson and Danielle Mandikian are scientists who step out of the lab to talk shop with other researchers. Episodes range from multiple sclerosis and the eye to lung disease, cell therapies and AI agents, and the conversations keep returning to how a discovery might turn into a treatment.
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Two Scientists Walk Into a Bar is a conversation show built on a simple premise: scientists talking to scientists. The hosts, Maria Wilson and Danielle Mandikian, introduce themselves as people who love science enough that talking about it is the next best thing to doing it. Their guests are other researchers, asked about what they are working on and imagining, and about how that work might one day become a medicine. The bar in the title sets the mood, with episodes opening on an invitation to grab a favorite drink and unlock a science brain. What follows is not watered down. In 'S7E02: Breakthroughs in MS', the discussion covers smoldering inflammation behind an intact blood-brain barrier and a drug class aimed at BTK, a protein involved in both B cells and microglia. The talk also turns to whether cell therapies and a full immune reset have any place in multiple sclerosis. In 'S6E06: Decoding Lung Disease', a speaker named Dorothy describes how the lungs respond to infection and how that response turns maladaptive in people with asthma or COPD. Dorothy also notes that the show addressed this in Season 4. Cell therapy turns up again and again across these episodes. In 'S6E05: Cells at Work', a speaker credits the CRISPR boom with making cells far easier to modify, while stressing the analytical work needed to prove, for safety, that edits hit the right spots. 'S7E01: The Wild World of Eyeballs' lays out approaches to geographic atrophy, from putting in a slurry of fresh retinal pigmented epithelial cells to placing a cultured sheet described as a fancy Band-Aid. The same conversation explains the retina through grocery store workers, a business center and a food desert, a good example of how plainly the show will explain things. AI gets its turn too. In 'S6E07: Foundation Models and Agents', a guest named Aviv explains what an AI agent could do in drug discovery, using a data set from inflammatory bowel disease patients as the example. The hosts are openly enthusiastic, trading lines like 'gives me goosebumps', and one calls herself a 'cell girl'. That enthusiasm sits alongside caution. In the MS conversation, the jury is still out on how a promising drug class will compare with existing anti-CD20 therapies. 'Season Seven Teaser' turns the microphone on the hosts. They look back on a season with an unmet-need theme and name favorite conversations: Daniel Lafkas on mucus, Aviv on using AI to find new therapies, Todd McDevitt laying out the cell therapy landscape. Episodes end with a host signing off to go back to wrestling with data or stocking cells, which keeps the lab in view. The show bills itself as being for scientists, science geeks, and the people who love them. For a first listen, pick by subject: 'S6E07: Foundation Models and Agents' for AI, 'S6E05: Cells at Work' for engineered cells, 'S7E01: The Wild World of Eyeballs' for the retina.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants biomedical research explained by the people who do it, and who is happy to meet terms like microglia, nucleases and foundation models in a relaxed, conversational setting.
What sets it apart: The hosts are scientists interviewing their peers, and they sign off by heading back to their own data or cells. The conversations pair specifics like BTK or gene-editing tools with everyday analogies, and they keep asking how a discovery might become a medicine.
From research on cancer vaccines to why we feel pain, scientists are tackling some of the biggest challenges in human biology. Want to find out what they’re working on? Pull up a stool for "Two Scientists Walk Into a Bar." Subscribe below to catch each episode as it goes live.
Retinal cell smoothies sound less ridiculous once you're allowed to ask what goes where.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A careful, scientifically grounded look at emerging MS therapies that lets the uncertainty sharpen the promise.
Multiple sclerosis is framed around a hard clinical problem: progression and inflammation that may keep going behind an intact blood-brain barrier.
A playful look at retinal repair, with grocery-store metaphors making cell therapy easier to picture.
Vision turns into a working landscape as the hosts open with a playful ophthalmology spelling quiz, then move into the machinery of the eye and the research trying to repair it.
A clear, grounded look at how AI agents could help scientists analyze data and explore new research paths.
AI agents get a clear, practical workout in this PlayNext review, moving from a plain definition - an LLM-like core with memory, tools, and an environment - into the more concrete task of analyzing inflammatory bowel disease data.
A clear guide to how lung disease can turn the body's defenses into part of the problem.
Genes or environment gives this lung-disease discussion a clean way in, and the answer lands in a useful both-and. The hosts explain how lungs react to infection, why mucus and inflammatory cells can defend the body while still causing collateral damage, and why a cough can hang…
A clear look at engineered cells, patient safety, and the still-unsolved challenge of tracking them.
Maria Wilson and Danielle Mandikian move cell therapies past the promise of the lab and into the harder terrain that begins once engineered cells reach patients.
Science education between theory and classroom reality.
Two Scientists Walk Into a Bar: S7E02, “Breakthroughs in MS,” centers on Sherman Gia, who treats and researches multiple sclerosis and explains why anti-CD20 B-cell depletion changed the disease story.
Two scientists host a show where they interview other researchers about their work and discoveries, starting with a focus on vision and ophthalmology.
Hosts Danielle Mandiki and Maria Wilson preview season seven of their science podcast, discussing favorite episodes on unmet patient needs, mucus, digital twins, AI in therapy development, and cell therapies.
Two Scientists Walk Into a Bar S6E07, “Foundation Models and Agents,” centers on Maria Wilson and Danielle Mandikian talking with computational biologist Aviv Regev and Stanford computer science professor Yuri Leskovich about AI in biology.
Two Scientists Walk Into a Bar: S6E06, “Decoding Lung Disease,” centers on how the lungs develop, defend themselves, and fail in diseases like asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, and emphysema.
Danielle Mandikian and Todd McDevitt define cell therapy as a medicine made from cells, then split it into autologous and allogeneic approaches that can produce one-to-one or one-to-many dosing.
Iraj Husseini defines a digital twin as a mathematical model built from an individual's clinical, physiological, treatment, and genomic data.
Fred DeSavage describes profiling tumor cells by DNA, transcription, proteins, and location, while Jennifer Schutzmann says deep profiling is not yet ready for routine clinical use.
Stephen Rutherford says familiar sources of antibiotic compounds have largely dried up, leaving too few active molecules to develop into drugs.
The hosts introduce a new season and preview an interview with computational biologist Aviv Regev about her unique approach to studying biology.
The podcast announces a host change and previews upcoming episodes on asthma and multiple sclerosis, while discussing tumor mutations and immune system research.
An immunologist discusses cancer biology, explaining how tumors use normal cellular pathways and the role of genetic mutations.
An immunologist hosts a conversation with a microbiome researcher about the role of bacteria in the human body.
A scientist discusses the ubiquity of microbes, the need for antibiotics and antivirals, and the problem of antibiotic resistance.