Uncontrolled Spread: Science, Policy, Institutions, Infrastructure
There’s no question technology played a huge role in the recent/current pandemic, including especially in the plug-and-play engineering and incredibly fast development behind the mRNA vaccines… But is there an even bigger role for the private sector, not just government, to play (and partner) when it comes to key infrastructure for future such emergencies, and even beyond?
Especially given how faulty the translation of institutional science to policy and public health measures turned out to be — for instance, with “6 feet” of social distancing, or with fomite (vs. aerosol) transmission of COVID. And why are we still talking about the same, not specific, vaccine booster for the Delta variant? What can we learn about real-world evidence, other clinical trial approaches, and progressive (vs. binary) EUA approvals when it comes to public health emergencies? Are capabilities like genomic surveillance and mapping strains — which require layers of technology, real time — sitting in the right places?
In this special book-launch episode of the CFI Podcast, former FDA commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb — author of the upcoming new book, Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us, and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic — shares insights on the above, and revealing stories from behind the scenes. Do we need a new entity to manage public health through a national security lens, and is the government capable? Gottlieb debates this and other probing questions from CFI co-founder Marc Andreessen (who famously wrote “It’s time to build“); CFI bio general partner Vineeta Agarwala MD, Phd (who has spoken about the trials of clinical trials, practiced medicine during the pandemic, and more); and founding CFI bio general partner Vijay Pande PhD (who, among other things, founded the distributed computing project Folding@Home which pivoted to COVID proteins).
One thing’s for sure — with this COVID crisis, we’re at an inflection point between old and new technology — whether it’s in how we make vaccines, or how we apply the fields of synthetic biology and genetic epidemiology in public health response. So now’s the time to look both backward, and forward, to really change things…
-
Scott Gottlieb
-
Vineeta Agarwala is a general partner on the Bio + Health team at Andreessen Horowitz, focused on biotech, digital health, and life sciences tools/diagnostics.
-
Marc Andreessen is a Cofounder and General Partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
- Follow
- X
-
Vijay Pande is the founding general partner of the Bio + Health team at Andreessen Horowitz, focused on the cross-section of biology and computer science.
More About This Podcast
The CFI Podcast discusses the most important ideas within technology with the people building it. Each episode aims to put listeners ahead of the curve, covering topics like AI, energy, genomics, space, and more.