Episodes

416
Oct. 6, 2025

The Genes of Wrath: Jennifer J. Brown

Jennifer J. Brown is a scientist, a writer, and a mother who never got the luxury of separating those roles. Her memoir When the Baby Is Not OK: Hopes & Genes is a punch to the gut of polite society and a medical system that expects parents to smile through trauma. She wrote it because she had to. Because the people who gave her the diagnosis didn’t give her the truth. Because a Harvard-educated geneticist with two daughters born with PKU still couldn’t get a straight answer from the very system...
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Oct. 1, 2025

Introducing Standard Deviation EP1: The Impossible Climb

This episode of Standard Deviation features Oliver Bogler in conversation with Dr Na Zhao, a cancer biologist caught in the crossfire of science, politics, and survival. Na’s life reads like a brutal lab experiment in persistence. She grew up in China, lost her mother and aunt to breast cancer before she turned twelve, then came to the United States to chase science as both an immigrant and a survivor’s daughter. She worked two decades to reach the brink of independence as a cancer researcher, o...
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415
Sept. 29, 2025

Sorry, Your Awareness Campaign is Showing

Katie Henry has seen some things. From nonprofit bootstraps to Big Pharma boardrooms, she’s been inside the machine—and still believes we can fix it. We go deep on her winding road from folding sweaters at J.Crew to launching a vibrator-based advocacy campaign that accidentally changed the sexual health narrative in breast cancer. Katie doesn’t pull punches. She’s a born problem solver with zero tolerance for pink fluff and performative empathy. We talk survivor semantics, band camp trauma, nonp...
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414
Sept. 22, 2025

The Uncensored, Unapologetic Olivia Battinelli

What happens when you hand a mic to the most extroverted, uncensored Gen Z career coach in New York? You get Olivia Battinelli—adjunct professor, student advisor, mentor, speaker, and unfiltered truth-teller on everything from invisible illness to resume crimes. We talked about growing up Jewish-Italian in Westchester, surviving the Big Four’s corporate Kool-Aid, and quitting a job after 7 months because the shower goals weren’t working out. She runs NYU Steinhardt’s internship program by day, r...
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413
Sept. 15, 2025

Miss Diagnosed: Sophie Sargent

Sophie Sargent walked into the studio already owning the mic. A pandemic-era media rebel raised in New Hampshire, trained in Homeland Security (yep), and shaped by rejection, she’s built a career out of DM’ing her way into rooms and then owning them. At 25, she’s juggling chronic illness, chronic overachievement, and a generation that gets dismissed before it even speaks. We talk Lyme disease, Lyme denial, and the healthcare gaslighting that comes when you “look fine” but your body says otherwis...
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Sept. 8, 2025

Building Tools, Not Excuses: Rethinking Healthcare with Marc Elia

This episode is sponsored by Invivyd, Inc. Marc Elia is a biotech investor, the Chairman of the Board at Invivyd, and a Long COVID patient who decided to challenge the system while still stuck inside it. He’s not here for corporate platitudes, regulatory shoulder shrugs, or vaccine-era gaslighting. This is not a conversation about politics, but it's about power and choice and the right to receive care and treatment no matter your condition. In this episode, we cover everything from broken clinic...
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Sept. 1, 2025

LEAD EP5: Redemption

After years of carrying the weight of lead, Shannon and Cooper find a path out from under the darkness and into the sunlight. LEAD: how this story ends is up to us is an audio docudrama series that tells the true story of one child, his mysterious lead poisoning, and his mother's unwavering fight to keep him safe. A true story written by Shannon Burkett. Directed by Alan Taylor. Starring Merritt Wever, Alessandro Nivola, Cynthia Nixon, and Cooper Burkett. Lead was produced by Shannon Burkett. Co...
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Aug. 25, 2025

LEAD EP4: The Long Haul

The deficits from the lead poisoning continue to intensify, Shannon channels her anger and grief into holding the people who hurt her son responsible. LEAD how this story ends is up to us is a true story written and produced by Shannon Burkett. Co-produced by Jenny Maguire. Directed by Alan Taylor. Starring Merritt Wever, Alessandro Nivola, Cynthia Nixon, and Cooper Burkett. EP4 features Eboni Booth, Sasha Eden, Kevin Kane, April Matthis, Alysia Reiner, and Mandy Siegfried. Casting by Alaine All...
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Aug. 18, 2025

LEAD EP3: Fraying at the Edges

The effects of the neurotoxin are taking their toll on Cooper as Shannon desperately tries to navigate the severity of their new reality. LEAD how this story ends is up to us is a true story written and produced by Shannon Burkett. Co-produced by Jenny Maguire. Directed by Alan Taylor. Starring Merritt Wever, Alessandro Nivola, Cynthia Nixon, and Cooper Burkett. E43 features Jenny Maguire, JD Mollison, Laith Nakli, Deirdre O’Connell, Carolyn Baeumler, Zach Shaffer, and Monique Woodley. Casting b...
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Aug. 11, 2025

LEAD EP2 : Stop the Spiral

As the lead wreaks havoc on Cooper's development, Shannon searches for answers. Desperate to get a handle on what was happening to her son, she grabs onto a lifeboat - nursing school. Andy tries to piece together the past to make sense of the present. LEAD how this story ends is up to us is a true story written and produced by Shannon Burkett. Co-produced by Jenny Maguire. Directed by Alan Taylor. Starring Merritt Wever, Alessandro Nivola, Cynthia Nixon, and Cooper Burkett EP2 features Keith Nob...
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Aug. 4, 2025

LEAD EP1: The Monster in the Walls

A mysterious dust fills a young family’s apartment. The truth begins to unravel when the mother gets a call from the pediatrician - the monster deep within the walls has been unleashed. LEAD how this story ends is up to us is a true story written and produced by Shannon Burkett. Co-produced by Jenny Maguire. Directed by Alan Taylor. Starring Merritt Wever, Alessandro Nivola, Cynthia Nixon, and Cooper Burkett. EP1 features Zak Orth, Jenny Maguire, Daphne Gaines, and Micheal Gaston. Music by Peter...
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412
July 28, 2025

Meet My Grief: Notes from an Orphaned Teen

Lexi Silver is 15 years old. She lost both of her parents before she turned 11. That should tell you enough—but it doesn’t. Because Lexi isn’t here for your pity. She’s not a sob story. She’s not a trauma statistic. She’s a writer, an advocate, and one of the most emotionally intelligent people you’ll ever hear speak into a microphone. In this episode, Lexi breaks down what grief actually feels like when you’re a kid and the adults around you just don’t get it. She talks about losing her mom on ...
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411
July 21, 2025

The Cancer Fun House: Michele Andrews

Michelle Andrews built a career inside the pharma machine long before anyone knew what “DTC” meant. She helped launch Rituxan and watched Allegra commercials teach America how to ask for pills by name. Then she landed in the cancer fun house herself, stage 4 breast cancer, and learned exactly how hollow all the “journey” slide decks feel when you’re the one circling the drain. We talk about what happens when the insider becomes the customer, why pill organizers and wheat field brochures still pi...
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410
July 14, 2025

D.A.M.M. Good Trouble: Ann Marie Morse

Dr. Anne Marie Morse walks into the studio like a one-woman Jersey Broadway show and leaves behind the best damn TED Talk you’ve never heard. She’s a neurologist, sleep medicine doc, narcolepsy expert, founder of D.A.M.M. Good Sleep, and full-time myth buster in a white coat. We talk about why sleep isn’t a luxury, why your mattress does matter, and how melatonin is the new Flintstones vitamin with a marketing budget. We unpack the BS around sleep hygiene, blow up the medical gaslighting around ...
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409
July 7, 2025

The Elastic Life of Gigi Robinson

Gigi Robinson grew up with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a disease that turns your joints into overcooked spaghetti. Instead of letting it sideline her, she built a career out of telling the truth about invisible illness. We talk about what it takes to grow up faster than you should, why chronic illness is the worst unpaid internship, and how she turned her story into a business. You’ll hear about her days schlepping to physical therapy before sunrise, documenting the sterile absurdity of waiting room...
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408
June 30, 2025

The Bronx Bleeds Blue: Vanessa Ghigliotty vs. Everyone

Episode Description: If you’ve ever wondered what happens when a Bronx-born pediatric nurse with stage 4 colon cancer survives, raises a kid, becomes a policy shark, and fights like hell for the ignored, meet Vanessa Ghigliotty. She’s not inspirational. She’s a bulldozer. We go way back—like pre-Stupid Cancer back—when there was no “young adult cancer movement,” just a handful of pissed-off survivors building something out of nothing. This episode is personal. Vanessa and I built the plane while...
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407
June 23, 2025

Ask Better Questions or Die Trying: Risa Arin

Risa Arin doesn’t just talk about health literacy. She built the damn platform. As founder and CEO of XpertPatient.com (yes, expert with no E), Risa’s taking a wrecking ball to how cancer education is delivered. A Cornell alum, cancer caregiver, and ex-agency insider who once sold Doritos to teens, she now applies that same marketing muscle to helping patients actually understand the garbage fire that is our healthcare system. We talk about why she left the “complacent social safety” of agency l...
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406
June 16, 2025

Pediatric Engineering for the Rest of Us: Dr. Jamie Wells

Dr. Jamie Wells is back—and this time, she brought a book. We cover everything from biomedical design screwups to the glorified billing software known as the EHR. Jamie's new book, A Clinical Lens on Pediatric Engineering , is a masterclass in what happens when you stop treating kids like small, drunk adults and start designing medicine around actual human factors. We talk about AI in pediatric radiology, why drug repurposing might save lives faster than biotech IPOs, and the absurdity of thinki...
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405
June 9, 2025

Pinky Swear: Erica Campbell and The Wanted Mastectomy

Erica Campbell walked away from corporate life, took a hard left from the British Embassy, and found her calling writing checks for families nobody else sees. As Executive Director of Pinky Swear Foundation, she doesn’t waste time on fluff. Her team pays rent, fills gas tanks, and gives sick kids' parents the one thing they don’t have—time. Then, breast cancer hit her. She became the patient. Wrote a book about it. Didn’t sugarcoat a damn thing. We talk about parking fees, grief, nonprofit burno...
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404
June 2, 2025

Dr. Allyson Ocean Unfiltered: Science, Colons and Calling BS

Allyson with a Y. Ocean with two Ls. And zero chill when it comes to changing the face of cancer care. Dr. Allyson Ocean has been quietly—loudly—at the center of every major cancer breakthrough, nonprofit board, and science-backed gut punch you didn’t know you needed to hear. In this episode, she joins me in-studio for a conversation two decades in the making. We talk twin life, genetics, mitochondrial disease, and why she skipped the Doublemint Twins commercial but still ended up as one of the ...
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May 30, 2025

[BONUS] No One Told Me: COVID and Cancer

Sponsored by Invivyd, Inc. Nobody wants to hear about COVID-19 anymore. Especially not cancer patients. But if you’ve got a suppressed immune system thanks to chemo, radiation, stem cell transplants—or any of the other alphabet soup in your chart—then no, it’s not over. It never was. While everyone else is getting sweaty at music festivals, you’re still dodging a virus that could knock you flat. In this episode, Matthew Zachary and Matt Toresco say the quiet part out loud: many immunocompromised...
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403
May 26, 2025

Constellations and Cancer: A Storytelling Rebellion with Lisa Shufro

EPISODE DESCRIPTION Lisa Shufro is the storyteller’s storyteller. A musician turned innovation strategist, TEDMed curator, and unapologetic truth-teller, Lisa doesn’t just craft narratives—she engineers constellations out of chaos. We go way back to the early TEDMed days, where she taught doctors, scientists, and technocrats how not to bore an audience to death. In this episode, we talk about how storytelling in healthcare has been weaponized, misunderstood, misused, and still holds the power to...
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402
May 19, 2025

Dancing Through the Wreckage: Sally Wolf

What happens when you blend the soul of Mr. Rogers, the boldness of RuPaul, and just a pinch of Carrie Bradshaw? You get Sally Wolf. She’s a Harvard and Stanford powerhouse who ditched corporate media to help people actually flourish at work and in life—because cancer kicked her ass and she kicked it back, with a pole dance routine on Netflix for good measure. In this episode, we unpack what it means to live (really live) with metastatic breast cancer. We talk about the toxic PR machine behind "...
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401
May 13, 2025

OCRA, Acronyms, and Audra: The Nonprofit Multiverse of Madness

Episode Description Audra Moran is the President and CEO of OCRA—Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance—which means she spends her days doing things most of us wouldn’t survive five minutes doing: merging nonprofits, leading national patient support programs, funding lifesaving research, surviving pharma grant hell, and trying to reach every woman in America who might be slipping through the cracks. We talk about her time working with the Helen Keller National Center (yes, she knows finger spelling), ...
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