Hard Drugs
Episodes
Should everyone be taking statins?
27 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, but it’s also one of medicine’s biggest success stories. Since the 1950s, the risk of dying...
The first cancer vaccine
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hepatitis B is a tiny virus that causes hundreds of thousands of deaths from liver disease and cancer each year. The vaccine against it became the fir...
The history of vaccines
26 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Before vaccines became routine, they were risky experiments. In this episode, Jacob and Saloni travel back to the world of smallpox, cowpox, and cow-b...
Will AI solve medicine?
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Artificial intelligence is transforming how we discover and develop new medicines. But how far can it really take us? In this episode, Jacob and Salon...
The art of protein design with AI
15 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 RFDiffusio...
Hacking proteins with AI
01 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nature didn’t evolve all the proteins we need, but maybe artificial intelligence can help. Jacob and Saloni explore how tools like AlphaFold and Pro...
100 years of insulin in 15 minutes
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 pr...
Proteins: Weird blobs that do important things
03 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This episode kicks off a mini-series on proteins, drug development and AI. Saloni and Jacob explore the world of proteins, including how proteins fold...
Lenacapavir: The miracle drug that could end AIDS
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Lenacapavir is a new HIV drug that blocks infections with an efficacy rate of nearly 100%, and it could completely change the fight against HIV worldw...
Coming soon: Hard Drugs
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hard Drugs is a new podcast about medical innovation: how to speed it up, how to scale it up, and how to make sure lifesaving tools reach the people w...