The federal agency known as the FDA, or the Food and Drug Administration, was born over 100 years ago—at the turn of the industrial revolution, in a time of enormous upheaval and change, and rapidly emerging technology. The same could be said to be just as true today. From CRISPR to synthetic biology to using artificial intelligence in medicine, our healthcare system is undergoing massive amounts of innovation and change.  Covering everything from gene-editing your dog to tracking the next foodborne outbreak, this wide-ranging conversation between Principal Commissioner of the FDA Amy Abernethy and Vijay Pande, GP on the Bio Fund at a16z, discusses how the agency is evolving to keep pace with the scientific breakthroughs coming, while staying true to its core mission of assessing safety and effectiveness for consumers in the world of food and medicine.  Highlights: What the FDA looks like today and the key steps of the FDA process to getting a drug/product to market [2:20]  How to manage a culture when mitigating risk is a top priority while aiming to innovate for the future [5:22]  Creative problem-solving in times of crisis, such as the Opioid crisis [9:58]  Preparing for and preventing drug shortages at scale [13:30]  How advances in bioengineering are transforming healthcare [16:00]  How the FDA is thinking about n=1 therapies and its applications in the future [18:54]  The future of healthcare privacy [26:10]  The ways the clinical trial process are shifting [29:26]  Innovations in Bioengineering as they relate to regulating food in the future [36:02]  How the FDA handles foodborne illnesses and its plans to innovate food safety [39:12]  Discussion about the next 100 years of the FDA [41:25]

This is a turn of the decade (and January-themed) look backward/ look forward into personal genomics, given recent and past retrospective and prospective pieces in the media on the promise, and perils, of the ability to sequence one's DNA: What did it, and does it, mean for personalized medicine, criminal investigations, privacy, and more? General partner Jorge Conde, who has a long history in the space, covers everything from where genealogy databases and large datasets come in to fetal testing, multi-omics, and other themes spanning the past, present, and future of personal genomics in conversation with Sonal Chokshi for episode #18 our news show 16 Minutes, where we cover recent headlines, the a16z way, from our vantage point in tech -- and especially what's hype/ what's real. While we typically cover multiple headlines, this is one of our special deep-dive episodes on a single topic. (You catch up on other such deep dives, on the opioid crisis and other evergreen episodes, at a16z.com/16Minutes). And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to the separate feed for "16 Minutes" to continue getting new episodes.   image: Petra Fritz / Flickr