Cover of Works in Progress Podcast

Works in Progress Podcast

Works in Progress Podcast

By: Works in Progress
Listen for free

Season's Savings | 0.99 €/month for 3 months

5.99 €/month thereafter - terms apply. Cancel monthly.
Works in Progress is an online magazine devoted to new and underrated ideas about economic growth, scientific progress, and technology. Subscribe to listen to the Works in Progress podcast, plus Hard Drugs by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen.Works in Progress Magazine © 2025
Episodes
  • Can we switch off diseases?

    Can we switch off diseases?
    2 Oct 2026

    ** We’ve paused the Works in Progress podcast feed, so head over to our dedicated Hard Drugs podcast feed to listen to future episodes, if you hadn’t subscribed there already! https://harddrugs.worksinprogress.co/ **

    What if treating diseases was as simple as telling your cells to stop making a harmful protein? That’s the premise of siRNA, a technology that silences genes without changing DNA. Just a single dose of siRNA can last for months. Better, it can be reprogrammed to silence a different gene or mutation by simply switching its sequence.

    In this episode, Jacob and Saloni explore why it took so long for siRNA to be turned into drugs, why most siRNA drugs so far have targeted liver diseases, and whether they could eventually be used to treat many diseases, from infections to heart disease to rare diseases to cancers.

    Hard Drugs is a podcast from Works in Progress about medical innovation presented by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen.


    You can watch or listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

    Chapters:
    Click here to read the episode transcript.


    Saloni’s substack newsletter: https://www.scientificdiscovery.dev/

    Jacob’s blog: https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/


    Acknowledgements:

    • Graham Bessellieu, video editor
    • Abhishaike Mahajan, cover art
    • Atalanta Arden-Miller, art direction
    • David Hackett, composer


    Articles

    • Jacob Witten (2026). The kill switch for harmful genes. Works in Progress. https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-kill-switch-for-harmful-genes/
    • Virginie Baylot et al. (2024) Between hope and reality: treatment of genetic diseases through nucleic acid-based drugs. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06121-9
    • Chokwassanasakulkit et al. (2024) SiRNAs as antiviral drugs – Current status, therapeutic potential and challenges. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.antiviral.2024.106024
    • Antonio Fontanellas et al. (2025) RNA-based therapies in liver metabolic diseases. https://doi.org/10.1136/gutjnl-2023-331742
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 16 min
  • Are miracle drugs hiding in plain sight?

    Are miracle drugs hiding in plain sight?
    24 Jul 2026
    ** We’ve paused the Works in Progress podcast feed, so head over to our dedicated Hard Drugs podcast feed to listen to future episodes, if you hadn’t subscribed there already! https://harddrugs.worksinprogress.co/ **GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro have transformed the treatment of obesity as well as diabetes, can help treat heart disease, kidney disease, sleep apnea, and maybe even Alzheimer’s. But they are far from the only medicine with more than one use. Aspirin, colchicine, minoxidil, and Viagra were all found to treat more conditions than expected, and about a third of drugs end up with a second approved use.In this episode, Jacob and Saloni explore the idea of drug repurposing: taking a medicine made for one disease and finding it works against others. They trace how GLP-1 drugs emerged from an adorable Gila monster, why some drugs have multiple uses, why so many of those uses go untested, and how patents, competition, prizes, and platform trials shape whether we ever find them.Hard Drugs is a podcast from Works in Progress about medical innovation presented by Saloni Dattani and Jacob Trefethen.You can watch or listen on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.Saloni’s substack newsletter: https://www.scientificdiscovery.dev/Jacob’s blog: https://blog.jacobtrefethen.com/ Acknowledgements:Aria Babu, editor at Works in ProgressGraham Bessellieu, video editorAbhishaike Mahajan, cover artAtalanta Arden-Miller, art directionDavid Hackett, composerBlogsJulia Rohrer (2018). The uncanny mountain: p-values between .01 and .10 are still a problem https://www.the100.ci/2018/02/15/the-uncanny-mountain-p-values-between-01-and-10-are-still-a-problem/ Abhishaike Mahajan (2025). Mapping the off-target effects of every FDA-approved drug in existence (EvE Bio) https://www.owlposting.com/p/mapping-the-off-target-effects-of VideosGeorge Davey Smith (2026). Does the shingles vaccine prevent dementia? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlTnnQytOJ0 Articles & reportRadwan Darwish et al. (2025). History of glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.phrs.2025.108045 Brian L. Furman (2012). The development of Byetta (exenatide) from the venom of the Gila monster as an anti-diabetic agent. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.toxicon.2010.12.016 Eric Budish, Maya M. Durvasula, Benjamin N. Roin, Heidi L. Williams (2026). Missing markets for innovation: evidence from new uses for existing drugs. NBER Working paper. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34222/w34222.pdf Babak Sahragardjoonegani, Reed F Beall, Aaron S Kesselheim, Aidan Hollis (2021). Repurposing existing drugs for new uses: a cohort study of the frequency of FDA-granted new indication exclusivities since 1997. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7780607/ BMJ (2020). Covid-19: The inside story of the RECOVERY trial https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2670 Stephan Guyenet (2021). The future of weight loss https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-future-of-weight-loss/ Kevin Hickey, Erin Ward (2024). The Role of Patents and Regulatory Exclusivities in Drug Pricing https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R46679 Alex Kesin (2025). The three-thousand-year journey of colchicine https://worksinprogress.co/issue/the-three-thousand-year-journey-of-colchicine/ Samy Suissa, Laurent Azoulay (2012). Metformin and the risk of cancer: time-related biases in observational studies https://doi.org/10.2337/dc12-0788 Nicholas Reville (2026). Proposing an NIH High-Leverage Trials (HILT) Program. Center for Addiction Science, Policy, and Research (CASPR) https://caspr.org/policy/papers/HILT/ WebSmithsonian’s National Zoo. Gila monster. https://nationalzoo.si.edu/animals/gila-monster
    Show more Show less
    2 hrs and 32 min
  • Issue 24: Rats, The Glorious Revolution and the secret to ultra-Orthodox fertility

    Issue 24: Rats, The Glorious Revolution and the secret to ultra-Orthodox fertility
    17 Jun 2026

    Alberta is the only part of the world that has people but not rats. Rats came to the new world on ships to New York, Boston and Philadelphia during the Industrial Revolution. From there they spread west at a rate of 24 kilometers a year and by 1950 they were on Alberta's border. But Albertans stopped them coming any further.

    In the US there is a culture that lives in dense cities, the women usually work, and yet they still have an average of six children each. The ultra-Orthodox have a number of pro-fertility norms, most of which wouldn't work for the secular world but some we could learn from.

    Sam, Pieter, and Aria discuss a handful of pieces in Issue 24 of Works in Progress. They talk land reclamation, vaccinating wild animals, the Squamish Nation's housing development in Vancouver and how The Glorious Revolution caused the Industrial Revolution.

    Buy your copy here: https://worksinprogress.co/print/
    Show more Show less
    1 hr and 1 min
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
No reviews yet