BioTech Nation is a permanent weekly segment of the public radio program Tech Nation, hosted by Dr. Moira Gunn. It has emerged as the only regular weekly mainstream programming on biotech on the national and international scene. BioTech Nation features interviews with biotech leaders along with its regular feature: “BioIssue of the Week”, in which she discusses the breaking news of the day with award-winning science journalist, David Ewing Duncan.
Dr. Gunn has conducted over 300 biotech interviews and over 150 BioIssues of the Week. She has personally written and voiced over 100 biotech-related commentaries. At all times, she carries the audience along with the latest in biotech – breakthroughs in DNA technology, advances in viruses and bacteria, hope for alternative energy - from algae to plant-based jet fuel, the search for diagnostic biomarkers for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other diseases, the problems with direct-to-consumer DNA testing, governmental changes, such as GINA, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, and the list goes on.
She has brought the foremost voices in the biotech field to the airwaves and the Internet, including Dr. Ananda Chakrabarty, the holder of the first life science patent, Jim Greenwood, the head of the international biotechnology organization, J. Craig Venter, an early catalyst in DNA decoding and leader in the team which recently created artificial life, Joe DiRisi, the creator of the Virus chip, which analyzed the SARS virus, and over 100 scientist/CEO’s of biotech enterprise. In addition, there are ethicists, such as David Magnus of Stanford, stem cell scientists, such as Dr. Roger Pedersen of Cambridge, and educators, such as Dr. Elaine Johnson, Director of the NSF-funded Bio-Link. On BioTech Nation alone, over 300 scientists/engineers have been given a public voice.
In the U.S., BioTech Nation can be heard as part of Tech Nation in a number of venues: Four times each weekend on the National Public Radio website’s 24-hour Program Stream (npr.org), on nearly 200 public radio stations, and multiple airtimes on the NPR Channels on XM-Sirius Satellite Radio. Globally, BioTech Nation airs as a part of Tech Nation three times weekly on the NPR Channels of Sirius Internet Radio with 25 Airtimes to 177 countries via Armed Forces Radio International. BioTech Nation podcasts remain permanently archived on the Internet, enabling anyone, anywhere to listen to these materials on demand.
Tech Nation provides this programming free-of-charge to non-profit organizations.
