Euan Ashley is Chair of the Stanford School of Medicine, the Roger And Joelle Burnell Professor of Genomics and Precision Health, and a professor of medicine, of genetics, and of biomedical data science. Ashley’s research group is focused on the science of precision medicine. In 2010, he led the team that carried out the first clinical interpretation of a human genome. In 2023, he published the book “The Genome Odyssey: Medical Mysteries and the Incredible Quest to Solve Them.”
Svexa’s Co-Founder, Chair of the Board and Chair of Stanford Medicine Prof. Euan Ashley, M.B., Ch.B., D.Phil. was recently interviewed on The Ringer’s Plain English podcast. In this episode, he discusses with Derek Thompson how exercise may be the single most potent medical intervention ever known.
Exercise is a conundrum. On the one hand, physical activity is clearly one of the best interventions for preventing physical disease and mental suffering. On the other hand, scientists don’t really understand how it works inside the body or what exactly running, jumping, lifting, and squatting do to our tissues and organs. That’s finally changing. Euan, a professor of genomics and cardiovascular medicine, is a member of a new research consortium that studies rats and humans to understand the molecular changes induced by exercise. In this episode he talks with Derek about the earliest findings from this new consortium, how exercise might have disparate effects in men versus women, why nature’s most effective cardiovascular intervention also seems to be nature’s most effective mental health intervention, as well as whether it will one day be possible to identify the molecular basis of exercise precisely enough to develop exercise pills that give us the benefits of working out without the sweat. This topic aligns perfectly with svexa’s fundamental goal of unlocking the potential of data to maximize human performance while minimizing risks.
Listen to the podcast here