Best Known Method is a podcast where host Dr. Ethan J. Weiss — cardiologist and physician-scientist at UCSF — asks some of the most accomplished people in medicine, science, and technology how they approach making life’s most important decisions with less than perfect information to guide them.
01 — Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Napkin Moment
Siddhartha Mukherjee — physician, oncologist, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies — on his journey through Stanford, Oxford, and Harvard, becoming one of the defining physician-writers of his generation, and his research into the effect of the ketogenic diet on cancer.
02 — Ron Krauss: The Pattern Guy
Dr. Ron Krauss — Senior Scientist and Director of Atherosclerosis Research at Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute — on his career in cardiovascular disease, writing and subsequently rewriting the nutrition guidelines for the American Heart Association, and the complex relationship between diet and cardiovascular risk.
03 — Eric Topol: The Optimistic Futurist
Dr. Eric Topol — founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, one of the most cited researchers in medicine, and author of Deep Medicine — on the convergence of artificial intelligence and clinical care, why he believes AI will restore the doctor-patient relationship rather than replace it, and how genomics and digital tools are reshaping how we practice medicine.
04 — Jessica Mega: The Data Doctor
Dr. Jessica Mega — co-founder and former Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of Verily (Alphabet/Google) — on the influence of the Yale system on her leadership, the career switch from Harvard to Google, and how she approached medical research inside the world’s largest technology company.
05 — Roger McNamee: The Instrumental Technologist
Roger McNamee — investor, venture capitalist, and early backer of Facebook and Yelp — on his success in tech investing, what led him to write Zucked: The Education of an Unlikely Activist, and the dangers consumers face from the platforms he helped build.
06 — Rob Lustig: The Unsweetened Truth
Dr. Robert Lustig — Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at UCSF — on how he shifted from studying the brain to studying how the brain controls eating, and his work as a researcher and public voice on the obesity epidemic and processed sugar.
07 — Lisa Rosenbaum: Writing From The Heart
Dr. Lisa Rosenbaum — cardiologist at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and National Correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine — on building a career at the intersection of clinical medicine and medical writing.
08 — Sek Kathiresan: The Inherited Mission
Dr. Sek Kathiresan — co-founder of Verve Therapeutics (acquired by Eli Lilly, 2025) — on mapping the genomic regions associated with blood cholesterol, the genetic basis of heart attack risk, and his decision to leave his roles as Director of the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Director of the Cardiovascular Disease Initiative at the Broad Institute, and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School to go all-in on gene editing for cardiovascular disease.