Dr. Eric Topol

I thought we'd start off with background.

that you grew up in rural Wisconsin on a dairy farm, which your father had to sell to then he became a policeman.

Is that kind of the skinny on that?

And so there you were in Wisconsin.

Then you went to the top institution at UW-Madison University.

You got your baccalaureate and PhD degree there, and you're a full-fledged microbiologist, immunologist.

You went to Stanford for postdocs.

I mean, you had some incredible training.

And then you decided you're going to be doing work in the government, various government agencies.

I didn't even know the depth of all these agencies that you've been working at.

What, for 18 years or so?

Maybe you can tell us a little bit about that run because you've been with BARDA, Homeland Security, ARPA-H.

I mean, wow.

Yeah.

That's saying a lot considering the challenges you had subsequently.

It kind of culminated though, then you were made deputy director of ARPA-H in 2023, right?

For the country.

That's what it was conceived as with initially a $6 billion support or something like that.

Anyway, so here you are.

You're at ARPA-H.