Hard Drugs is a show by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen about medical innovation: how to speed it up, how to scale it up, and how to make sure lifesaving tools reach the people who need them the most. It is brought to you by Works in Progress and Coefficient Giving. Listen on your favorite podcast app or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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Latest Episodes

The history of vaccines

Before vaccines became routine, they were risky experiments. In this episode, Jacob and Saloni travel back to the world of smallpox, cowpox, and cow-based “vaccine far...

Will AI solve medicine?

Artificial intelligence is transforming how we discover and develop new medicines. But how far can it really take us? In this episode, Jacob and Saloni trace the path ...

The art of protein design with AI

What if you could design a protein never seen in nature? In this episode, Jacob and Saloni explore how researchers are using new tools like RFDiffusion, AlphaFold, and...

Hacking proteins with AI

Nature didn’t evolve all the proteins we need, but maybe artificial intelligence can help. Jacob and Saloni explore how tools like AlphaFold and ProteinMPNN are helpin...

100 years of insulin in 15 minutes

A hundred years ago, insulin was scraped from pig pancreases. Today, it’s made by bacteria in giant tanks. In the second part of a mini series on proteins, drug develo...

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