Personalized Drug Design: New The...
Personalized Drug Design: New Therapies for Rare Genetic Diseases with Dr. Stanley Crooke
Biomedical Frontiers: Stories with Innovators in Healthcare by Dasha Tyshlek
S3 · E17
Aug 1, 2025
01:09:56
Episode notes

Dr. Stanley Crooke pioneered a new class of medicine—antisense oligonucleotides—and built a $5B biotech company, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, to prove it could work. Then he walked away to found a nonprofit, n-Lorem, to treat patients with one-in-a-billion genetic mutations—people no one else would help. In this episode, we explore:

  • What nano-rare diseases are, and why they represent medicine’s next great frontier.
  • The promise of antisense therapy for individualized, mutation-specific treatment.
  • The 30-year scientific journey behind genetic medicine—and what it takes to lead through failure.
  • Why n-Lorem offers a new nonprofit model for treating diseases too rare to commercialize.
  • The privilege, heartbreak, and hope of doing science not just for success, but for purpose.

Mentioned Resources: ... 

Keywords
translational research
Biotechnology
Genetics
Gene Sequencing
Tech Transfer
Rare Diseases
Pharmacy
Cost of Healthcare