Shows
The Existential Hope PodcastAmy Proal on rethinking chronic diseaseWhat if chronic diseases, from Alzheimer’s to autoimmune conditions, share a hidden cause: lingering infections deep within our tissues?Microbiologist Amy Proal, co-founder of the PolyBio Research Foundation, joins host Allison Duettmann to discuss how persistent pathogens could drive inflammation, aging, and many chronic illnesses, and why our current “autoimmunity” model might be missing the root cause.They explore PolyBio’s groundbreaking work collecting rarely studied tissue samples, the link between viruses and Alzheimer’s, the rise of long COVID, and simple tools, like clean indoor air, that could prevent future pandemics. Amy also o...
2025-10-2252 min
Still Here: A Podcast From The Sick Times8/6/25: Recapping the Patient-Led Research Fund summer 2025 webinarIn this episode of Still Here: The Sick Times' team recaps the Patient-Led Research Fund summer 2025 webinar. Plus, an update about the National Institutes of Health's RECOVER-Treating Long COVID initiative. The transcript for this episode can be found on our website, or jump to a specific part of the podcast below: (00:00:00) Intro(00:01:25) Recapping the PLRF summer '25 webinar(00:19:17) Research: RECOVER-TLC announces hybrid workshop(00:21:41) Outro-Mentioned in this episode (in order of appearance):The Sick Times: Live blog: Following the Patient-Led Research Fund summer 2025 webi...
2025-08-0622 minStill Here: A Podcast From The Sick Times6/12/25: Recapping Spring 2025 PolyBio Research Symposium; a Long COVID language revolutionIn this episode of Still Here: The Sick Times' team recaps the Spring 2025 PolyBio Research Symposium on Long COVID. And disabled journalist Lygia Navarro talks about the language we use for Long COVID, rounding up reader responses to a survey about terms used to describe aspects of the Long COVID experience.The transcript for this podcast is available on The Sick Times’ website. You can jump to specific sections of the podcast and transcript below:(00:00:00) Intro(00:01:07) Recapping the Spring 2025 PolyBio Research Foundation Symposium on Long COVID(00:14:55) A Long COVID language revolution(00:28:42) Outro-Mentioned in this...
2025-06-1229 min
One Thing with Dr. Adam RindeEpisode 117: The Hidden Microbial Drivers of Chronic Illness with Dr. Amy ProalIn this episode, Dr. Adam Rinde welcomes back microbiologist and PolyBio Research Foundation co-founder Dr. Amy Proal. Together, they unravel a framework for understanding chronic illnesses through the lens of persistent infections and their impact on mitochondria, immunity, and neurological health.Dr. Proal shares cutting-edge research linking pathogens like herpesviruses, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr, and even latent parasites to conditions like Alzheimer’s, long COVID, chronic fatigue syndrome, POTS, and more. Discover how stealth microbes can disrupt the vagus nerve, hijack mitochondrial energy systems, and weaken immune responses, setting the stage for a cascade of chronic dysfunctions.Th...
2025-05-2247 minStill Here: A Podcast From The Sick Times11/15/24: One year of The Sick Times!This week, we celebrate one year of The Sick Times! The Sick Times team discusses the newsroom's origin story, what the publication means to them, and what the next year (and hopefully years, plural) holds. Also in this episode: the latest COVID-19 numbers, and recapping the team's coverage of the Fall 2024 PolyBio Symposium on Long COVID Research.The transcript for this podcast is available on The Sick Times' website. You can jump to specific sections of the podcast and transcript below. (00:00:00) Intro(00:01:24) COVID-19 trends(00:05:14) Research — Recapping Fall 2024 PolyBio Symposium on Long COVID Research...
2024-11-1629 min
The Science of Life with Dr. Raven BaxterEP 05: The microbes that live inside and on us, with Dr. Amy ProalIn this episode, I talk with CEO of PolyBio Research Foundation, Dr. Amy Proal, who is a microbiologist passionate about advancing science in a way that we understand the roots and drivers of the chronic illnesses that impact millions of people every day. We talk about everything from persistent pathogens, to breaking down elitism in science, and so much more. I loved this episode! You’re going to learn so much!PS: So sorry I’ve been away! I had a bit of a hiccup in my life due to this real estate transaction (just google my name...
2024-06-2649 min
Raise the LineNeuropsychiatric Impacts in Post-Acute Infection Syndromes: Special Series from The Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses at Mount SinaiIt’s hard for many to believe a tick bite or case of COVID can lead to severe mental illness, but we’ll be hearing from someone on this episode of Raise the Line who lived through just that experience. Dr. Raven Baxter also happens to be the host of this special series on post-acute infection syndromes produced in collaboration with the Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses at Mt. Sinai. While struggling with long COVID, Raven developed panic attacks and other mental health problems, and even though she explained to providers that she previously had no histor...
2024-06-1950 min
Raise the LineThe Building Blocks of Post-Acute Infection Syndromes: Special Series from The Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses at Mount SinaiToday, we’re excited to bring you the first episode in a special Raise the Line series that Osmosis from Elsevier has created in partnership with the Cohen Center for Recovery from Complex Chronic Illnesses (CoRE) at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital. PAIS: Root Causes, Drivers, and Actionable Solutions is a ten-part examination of a range of post-acute infection syndromes such as long COVID, tick-borne illness, chronic fatigue syndrome, and connective tissue disorders. Your host, Dr. Raven Baxter, a molecular biologist and Director of Science Communication at CoRE, will be joined by an impressive array of...
2024-05-2251 min
Long Covid Podcast103 - Dr Amy Proal - Viral Persistence in Long CovidEpisode 103 of the Long Covid Podcast is a chat with the fabulous Dr Amy Proal, a microbiologist researching viral persistence in Long Covid. We chat through what brought her to this research as well as taking a bit of a deep dive into the topic.Review Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-023-01601-2#MOESM1PolyBio Research Foundation recent paper on SARS-CoV-2 reservoir in LongCovid/PASCMessage the podcast! - questions will be answered on my youtube channel :) For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops...
2023-09-2859 min
Long Covid Hope PodcastSeason One Finale!The Season One Finale episode of the Long Covid Hope Podcast, the podcast that aspires to shine a light on the more hopeful stories of Covid-19 long haulers. In this episode, we hear updates from the Season 1 participants as well as a huge great thank you to everyone who took part. This podcast wouldn't exist without its wonderful and generous interviewees! Sarah attempts to summarise what has happened in Season 1, and reads out some heart-warming listerner feedback. We then look forward towards Season 2, where things are going to get bigger, better and even more inclusive and diverse (hopefully!) In...
2023-05-2159 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Diane Griffin: Mechanisms of viral RNA persistenceDr. Diane Griffin is the Alfred and Jill Sommer Professor and Chair in the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is also a professor of infectious diseases and of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her team studies RNA viruses such as alphaviruses and measles virus to clarify the mechanisms by which they interact with the host immune system. Importantly her lab also studies the persistence of these RNA viruses. In other words, they study the mechanisms by which a range of RNA viruses or their...
2022-07-1448 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Rudy Tanzi: Alzheimer's, persistent infection and innate immunityDr. Rudolph (Rudy) E Tanzi is the Vice Chair of Neurology; Director, Genetics and Aging Research Unit; Co-Director, Henry and Allison McCance Center for Brain Health; Co-Director, MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease, and the Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Much of Rudy’s career has focused on characterizing the human genetics of Alzheimer’s disease. But more recently, his lab has moved into the study of how infectious and innate immune signaling also contribute to the Alzheimer’s disease process. Indeed, his lab has discovered that amyloid “plaque” in the Alzheimer’s brain may...
2022-06-1657 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Wes Ely: Post Intensive Care Syndrome, LongCovid & empathy for suffering patientsDr. E. Wes Ely is a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine with subspecialty training in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine. Dr. Ely’s research has focused on improving the care and outcomes of critically ill patients with Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS)/ICU-acquired brain disease. He also is the founder and co-director of the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction, and Survivorship (CIBS) Center, an organization devoted to research and ongoing care for people affected by critical illness. Recently, Dr. Ely has started to work on projects to help and study patients with COVID-19 and LongCovid. He is...
2022-04-2058 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Kevin Tracey: Vagus nerve signaling in COVID-19 and LongCovidKevin J. Tracey is president and CEO of, and the Karches Family Distinguished Chair in Medical Research at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research; professor of Molecular Medicine and Neurosurgery at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell; and Executive Vice President, Research, at Northwell Health. He is a leader in the scientific fields of inflammation and bioelectronic medicine. He is an expert on vagus nerve signaling and is well known for describing the vagus nerve anti- inflammatory reflex.
2022-04-1243 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. James Heath: Multiple early factors that anticipate LongCovidJames R. Heath PhD is President and Professor of the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle, and Professor of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UCLA. He has directed the National Cancer Institute-funded NSB Cancer Center since 2005. He has also founded or cofounded several biotech companies. Recently, he was the lead author of a large study that used a range of advanced technologies to characterize biological factors that predispose to development of LongCovid.
2022-03-2349 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Meghan O'Rourke: A journey with chronic illness detailed in "The Invisible Kingdom"Meghan O’Rourke is an author, poet, editor, and podcaster. She is the editor of The Yale Review and also worked as an editor at The New Yorker and Slate. She just published a book called “The Invisible Kingdom.” The book details her experiences with chronic illness and the grief and difficulty of struggling with symptoms that medicine finds hard to understand and diagnose. Eventually though, Meghan finds some clarity about her symptoms, including a diagnosis of late-stage Lyme disease.
2022-03-0556 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Monica Embers: An overview of Lyme and tissue researchDr. Monica Embers is an Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and Director of Vector-Borne Disease Research at the Tulane University National Primate Research Center. Dr. Embers studies Borrelia burgdorferi - the bacterial pathogen that causes Lyme disease. Her work focuses on use of well-established animal models to study Borrelia persistence in tissue and antibiotic efficacy against Lyme disease. She is also working on projects aimed at developing novel therapeutic strategies to eradicate Borrelia infection.
2022-02-2341 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Tobias Lanz: Molecular mimicry connects an EBV viral protein to Multiple SclerosisTobias Lanz is an MD and academic research scientist in the laboratory of Prof. William Robinson at the Department of Rheumatology/Immunology at Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. Lanz's research focuses on B cell biology in autoimmune and infectious diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS), lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and COVID-19, and explores viral and microbial triggers of autoimmunity. Recently Dr. Lanz was the first author of a breakthrough study that connects Epstein Barr virus directly to the MS disease process. The study demonstrated high-affinity molecular mimicry between the EBV transcription factor EBNA1and the human central nervous system protein GlialCAM:
2022-02-101h 01
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Akiko Iwasaki: An overview of her research on LongCovid and ME/CFSDr. Akiko Iwasaki is the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor in the Department of Immunobiology and a Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University. She is also a principal investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research focuses on the intersection of viral activity and the human immune response. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, her lab has been studying the SARS-CoV-2 virus in a range of capacities, with a primary focus being to better understand the biological mechanisms contributing to LongCovid - a condition in which patients develop a range of...
2022-01-3142 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Lena Pernas: Possible Toxoplasma reactivation in COVID-19/LongCovidDr. Lena Pernas is a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing. Her lab studies Toxoplasma gondii - a parasite that causes a chronic infection in a large segment of the human population, and has been implicated in a range of neuropsychiatric symptoms. Lena is currently studying if chronic Toxoplasma infections are reactivated in patients with COVID-19 or LongCovid. She is also a expert on the molecular mechanisms by which Toxoplasma modulates the metabolism of the cells it infects, and how mitochondria function as part of the innate immune response that “fights back” against the...
2022-01-1838 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Alessio Fasano: SARS-CoV-2 reservoir/spike protein + microbiome in MISC/LongCovidDr. Alessio Fasano is the W. Allan Walker Chair of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition and Chief of the Division of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition at MassGeneral Hospital for Children. He is also the Director of the Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center at MGHfC. His research focuses on the molecular mechanisms by which bacterial pathogenesis, activity of the gut microbiome, and intestinal mucosal biology impact the development of chronic inflammatory conditions such as celiac disease. As part of this research, he discovered zonulin, a protein responsible for regulating intestinal tight-junctions. Recently, he turned this expertise to the study of...
2022-01-0748 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Resia Pretorius: LongCovid microclots (spike protein, apheresis, and other topics)Dr. Resia Pretorius is both the Department Head and a Research Professor in the Physiological Sciences Department, Faculty of Science at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Her team has used super-resolution and electron microscopy, together with several other methods to identify microclots containing trapped inflammatory molecules in the blood of patients with LongCovid. She has recently partnered with several clinical collaborators to trial if HELP apheresis (a form of blood filtration) can remove these LongCovid microclots and improve patient symptoms. Soon she will be extending her research on blood clotting and possible viral protein-driven platelet hyperactivation to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis...
2021-12-181h 07
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Ilene Ruhoy: diagnosis and treatment of structural issues in patients with EDS, ME/CFS, and related conditionsIlene S. Ruhoy, MD, PhD is a board certified neurologist and Medical Director for the Chiari/EDS Center at Mount Sinai South Nassau. Dr. Ruhoy has trained in both pediatric and adult neurology at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington where she received additional training in mitochondrial medicine and neuromuscular medicine. She also completed a two-year fellowship in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona under integrative physician Dr. Andrew Weil. Now, at the Chiari/EDS Center, Ilene uses a combination of both allopathic and integrative approaches to treat patients with chronic conditions such as EDS an...
2021-12-0749 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Liisa Selin: T cell exhaustion and viral activity in ME/CFSDr. Liisa Selin is a professor of pathology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. In her work as a viral immunologist, she and her colleague Dr. Anna Gil recently received an NIH grant to study the role of viral infection and T-cell exhaustion in the development of ME/CFS. Their work may also help shed light on the LongCovid disease process.
2021-11-1854 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Ben Readhead: infection as a driver of neurodegenerative disease (Alzheimer's)Dr. Ben Readhead is the Edson Endowed Professor of Dementia Research at Arizona State University’s Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center. His work has partially focused on using biomedical informatics approaches to better understand the role of infectious agents such as herpesviruses in conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease. He is also studying the collective composition and impact of organisms (the microbiome) in the brain in order to better understand how microbial/viral activity may contribute to neurodegenerative disease.
2021-11-081h 05
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. Kim Lewis: persister cells and pulsed antibiotics in Lyme diseaseDr. Kim Lewis is a University Distinguished Professor at Northeastern University with particular expertise in molecular microbiology. He is also the director of Northeastern’s Antimicrobial Discovery Center. His laboratory studies persister cells responsible for tolerance to antibiotics, uncultured bacteria of the environment and the microbiome, and also works on drug discovery. Some of the work he has done on persister cell formation, antibiotic development, and use of pulsed antibiotics involves Borrelia burgdorferi - the causative agent of Lyme disease.
2021-11-0241 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. David Putrino: Treatment/research at Mt. Sinai's LongCovid (Post-COVID) Care Clinic.Dr. Amy Proal interviews Dr. David Putrino. David Putrino is the Director of Rehabilitation Innovation for the Mount Sinai Health System and associate professor of rehabilitation and human performance at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is affiliated with Mount Sinai’s Center for Post-COVID Care, which launched in May 2020 as the first major multidisciplinary LongCovid treatment and research center in the USA, and has been both tracking symptoms of and treating patients with LongCovid.
2021-10-2548 min
The PolyBio PodcastInterview with Dr. John Chia: ME/CFS and chronic enterovirus infectionDr. Amy Proal interviews Dr. John Chia about chronic enterovirus infection in MECFS. Dr. Chia is an infectious disease physician who practices at ID Med in Torrance, California. He has published multiple papers on infection as a driver of ME/CFS, with a particular focus on the role of persistent enteroviruses in the disease process. In addition to his clinical work, he runs his own enterovirus research laboratory, EV Med Research, and is on the board of directors of the Enterovirus Foundation.
Dr. Chia has been studying enterovirus involvement in chronic disease for decades, and has published...
2021-10-171h 21