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DeSci Office Hours
Recorded: April 17, 2025 Duration: 1:03:12Space Recording
Short Summary
In a dynamic discussion, participants explored the intersection of decentralized science and healthcare, highlighting trends in partnerships, funding challenges, and innovative projects aimed at enhancing community engagement and data sovereignty in the crypto ecosystem.
Full Transcription
Music Thank you. Thank you. Music Hi everyone, I think we can kind of get started. Can everyone hear me? Do I have a thumbs up?
Can people hear me? Can someone send me a thumbs up if they can hear me? Okay, I can see Carlin's
reaction. Awesome, Carlin, I'm trying to figure out how to bring you up as a guest.
Let me do this.
But hi, everyone.
How is everyone doing?
It is Thursday, but also kind of it's giving end of the week vibes because it's a public
holiday tomorrow.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hi, Colin. How are you?
Good. Doing well.
Good.
Good.
I was just kind of saying it's giving
end of the week vibes, even though
it's not technically the end of the week.
But we're edging up on a long weekend.
So, yeah. Exc excited to have you guys here
totally i feel like it's friday somewhere right
it's friday somewhere um but yeah a little recap of the week from molecule uh first of all i mean
it's ella speaking i am molecule scientificule Scientific Communicator but yeah recap
of the week um Molecule was in ActiSci London last weekend um which was really amazing getting
to meet people in real life and connect um I find that like conferences and stuff they even though
like we are obviously a decentralized ecosystem getting to meet in real
life is just such a such a valuable time and I always feel like it's great getting to know people
like behind the profile pictures and like the discord names that we interact with every day
um so yeah feeling very inspired um by all of that um yeah we've also had a bunch of um proof
of inventions registered using molecules ip protocol
which has been exciting um through our education initiative uh it was one of their assignments
this week so i got to um see them use that ip protocol which is exciting um what else product
is cooking in the background we'll have some exciting announcements for you coming next week, a little bit onwards.
But yeah, yeah, I think that's kind of it from my end.
Kiho, Colin, how are you guys doing?
I'm doing pretty well.
Compared to last week, Northwestern is now a little bit more uh someone someone in the like
university sphere i think it was harvard they like pushed back against some of the like the
governmental um unfair sort of things that are happening in the like the academic science
community here in the u.s and so with harvard doing it i'm like okay cool that means that
northwestern at least has like a they have like a big brother that they can follow to like do the
right thing, hopefully. And so hopefully they take things to, you know, to court if necessary to sort
of like ensure that in, you know, the eventual like litigation of all this stuff that the people
who earned their, the like grants that they
earned so far end up getting the grants um but me personally i'm doing pretty well the weather's
been nice um i'm writing my thesis right now so a little less lab work a little bit more uh
reading and writing which is always fun
nice nice um well i'm glad things are stabilizing a little bit for you
um in fact uh jansu has just been writing a blog on the nih cuts jansu i've invited you up to speak
if you want to do a little recap or just speak about like kind of what you learned during that
um blog research but yeah it seems to be some pretty scary stats um about the future of researchers but
I also kind of do wonder like I like I'm not you know able to accurately like commentate on the
politics of it but I also do wonder how much of it is kind of just like a show of strength
and if it's you know like if it's a lot of propositioning or a future actually come to fruition. I think it's more of a scare tactic than anything.
You know, academics aren't notoriously spineful people sometimes when it comes to like their funding and stuff like that.
So I think they're really just trying to, you know, put fear in people and hopefully that like moves some of them to make the wrong decisions or something like that
Take advantage of which is just like an evil thing to do
Hi guys, yes, so my research was really disappointing because I came across many
Research was really disappointing because I came across many posts from the scientists whose funding was cut off or their application for a grant was rejected.
Although they put so much effort for a grant.
But now the pending requests are being rejected.
Up to 5,000 NIH employees are on the line they can lose
Oh John see you cut off I don't know if it's just for me. Yeah you cut off after you said lose I think uh oh maybe we lost her yeah Kihal how are you doing buddy I'm
doing good actually um yeah it was not the case for the last couple of days uh I think
um building in the bear market takes a mental toll on you but I think you know this is the right
time to build and to be to be there present and show the community that you are there
so yeah currently building holding on to the trenches yeah and, happy to join the call.
I'm Kiho, reporting from India.
It's a warm summer night.
Yeah, half past nine at south of India.
Heck yeah, Kiho.
This is, I mean, this is when legends are made.
So keep building, man.
Love to hear it.
Sorry, I'm back.
Do you hear me now?
Yes.
Welcome back.
Okay, perfect.
Sorry, my internet connection is going back and forth.
Also, so the NIH cuts were when first announced,
they were going to target the additional fundings.
But in reality, they don't know. No one knows if the
budgets that will be saved, like for NIH, it will be up to $4 billion. But no one knows if this money
will go into more projects, like to fund more projects, or is it just government saving money strategy so the optimistic people thinks
it will give up more money to the ongoing projects but in reality probably it won't be like that and
in reality probably it will be just money will be saved from the government
yeah i mean there were also some interesting stats in the blog sort of
about like every dollar that the NIH invests has like a like it's like a 2.38 dollar return
I might be fudging these numbers but something along those lines um so yeah I kind of like um
I think also what I'd learned as well through that blog was like that the premise of
saving money is it's more like it's quite short-sighted um which i think if you speak
to any scientists they're gonna tell you obviously it's short-sighted to you know cut the funding of
a whole bunch of critical research um because yeah it's a kind of i mean it's gonna have an
impact not now but really really sort of five, ten years down the line.
Yeah, and NIH funded the drug research.
99% of the drug research that was going on in the U.S. was funded by NIH.
So when you cut the budget of NIH, you are actually cutting the budget from the health care in general. And it is also like in economical wise, it is also not smart to, you know, cut budget
from health care because then you will have more people that are getting sick and that
is burdened on the health care.
So it doesn't make sense in for scientific community, but as well as also the in general,
it doesn't make sense you are
you are gonna lose money in long term but maybe they don't care about the long term i don't know
but yeah NIH is the fundamental health care foundation in US and now it is really getting
ripped off yeah i think for me it's also interesting because it speaks to a sort of a bigger issue which is that really if we have one institute or institution that is responsible for like funding
the research that results in sort of 99 of the drugs coming to market like that is a huge
centralization problem um and now we're all sort of feeling the effects of that. It's like when the NIH wobbles, that it has such a centralized grasp on everything.
But yeah, I mean, I think there's so much to unpack there about like why other institutes
and sort of regions of the world are not able to bring drugs to market as effectively.
the world are not able to bring drugs to market as effectively.
Yeah, that is really interesting.
Speaking of like centralization and stuff, I feel like I've been looking a little bit
more into like SEI and their proposed buying of 23andMe.
I was wondering what you guys maybe thought of that.
Good thing, bad thing.
Would it work if they ended up doing it?
What do you think?
I think in general,
genome's data is sort of a gold mine currently for all pharma companies big
pharma I think it's not just this there's there's a lot of interest from
different big farmers I've been recently digging into these data buyers
specifically like what sort of data does big pharma buy and who are the other buyers
and how much like what's the deal size and all of that like what sort of data is currently
considered uh valuable and um i was i was quite surprised like the the numbers go so high, like to 2 million, sometimes from 100K to 2 million, based on the size of the data set.
But I think the important part here is if someone is offering anything for free, like 23andMe did offer KitCost for for for like really cheap price that kind of like
really kicked in and people got curious wanted to dig into their genomic data without you know
aware of being aware of what could happen if this genomic data could go out of hand um but yeah i think um general precautions on on personal data
literacy or privacy whatever like you know before sharing these data is very important and then
um ethical use of data that's that's very important right like um how how these data
are used is it just for purely scientific purposes?
Is these data sets are anonymized? Or then this data is like still can be tagged to a user and
then this could then, you know, end up in a lot of different negative paths as well, right? Like
insurance companies discriminating their users based on these profiles that are sold
you know there are like far-fetching negative complications as well right yeah but
i don't see like you know this data thing sharing data without user consent or you know without user being compensated for that um yeah i don't i don't
really um agree with this model uh specifically when it comes to data i i stand for data sovereignty
and i think like any any part of data that's coming out of you belongs to you and you should be
you and you should be able to monetize anyone who is using your data.
Totally agree.
But I'm wondering in those instances,
especially if we can get everybody's like personal data on chain,
what happens if you're someone who's like data is already out there,
but maybe like you passed away or something like that?
Do you feel like those are then like sort of like burned like a,
like a, you know, to never be accessed again?
Or are they sort of added,
do you think maybe they could be added
to some sort of like, you know,
fair use sort of like repository of like genetic information?
Yeah, I think that's a tricky topic.
Generally, like putting data on chain is not sustainable, but hashing this data set and
storing the hash on the chain is a good way, securing the access to the data set that you can
decentralize or facilitate a blockchain. But also, if you want to be legally compliant with data handling procedures and all of that,
then there is this, you need to have this particular feature to be forgotten.
If the user requests you to be forgotten, you should be able to manually delete them out of the system completely.
So this is a prerequisite.
Like most of the guidelines, like be it Mica, anything,
right, like they ask for this.
So if you would build in a compliant system,
then generally you have this safe,
like where you can go back and and just disconnect the the users from the uh from
their wallet or or any sort of private key uh just like you know remove that association then this
data is like anonymous no one knows who who this person is and all of that probably the best way
is to you know like set up a set a an expiry period on this data then someone has to
come and renew like sign back um sign into their wallet saying that okay they're still available
they're still using it they are still alive and all of that uh probably this could be a way to
you know keep regular audits uh on from the users end, and also I think this is a good idea, right?
Like all these data should be used for general science,
you know, to move the needle of general science, yeah.
It's a really interesting question, Karlyn.
I actually haven't thought about it before
of like what the rights are once you've passed away um and a couple of those popped into my head because i
know i mean so for example the heila cells the henrietta lacks cells which like so much of
biology is built upon and those were taken without her consent um and i know that her family is very actively involved in like reclaiming you know um that
history and that legacy um and that kind of makes me think of this this sort of post-death
access to data and maybe it would I mean in my head maybe it would be like okay like same way
that patents work it's like or or you know that's copyright is that like after 50 years or something, then data goes like, it's just free and open and considered a public
good.
Um, but yeah, I like immediately my heebie jeebies go up on like, you know, immediately
after death, you know, DNA access is, is free.
Um, but yeah, I'm just, I'm just spitballing here.
Yeah.
I think we, maybe we could think about it as almost like signing up for like organ donation or something yeah you're agreeing that you're
you know the things that you did in life end up producing good for other people down the road
hopefully which i think would be cool yeah yeah interesting hello hey kato what's going on yes
i'm just going to make this quick.
A young gentleman called Kihou, Kihou Red Tape something.
He made a very big statement.
I'm actually from Uganda, East Africa, and I'm speaking now.
But, you know, I love the whole idea of DAOs because the new world needs to realize
that decentralized finance is taking hold.
But honestly, when it comes to integral property, no one is going to really, really, I mean,
go out of their way to have this work put, I'm trying to find the right word, turned into an NFT because they've put in
years and years of work to research this.
It's a complicated topic, intellectual properties.
But anyways, that's just my take.
Okay.
Good night from the side.
Absolutely.
Thanks, Kato.
All right. Absolutely, thanks Kato. Alright, I wanna...
Go ahead.
I was gonna say, I'm happy to jump in, because I think, obviously at Molecule we spend a lot of time thinking about intellectual property.
And I completely agree with you Kato. Intellectual property, it's a large and tricky beast and actually fuels i and
you know i think the more i've learned about intellectual property the more that i've realized
that it actually like churns the engine of the world and so much of like the economy
and like what we do is really built around this sort of ownership of of ideas and and data and, you know, so on and so forth. I do somewhat disagree with you in
the sense that if a researcher has put lots of time and effort in, that they wouldn't necessarily
want to register their work as an IPNFT. I actually think to the opposite is that if someone
has put like a deep amount of time and passion and energy and work into something that these they would want
to protect it as much as possible um and the way i like to see sort of the ip nft is this
it's not a replacement to the traditional intellectual property system but it's like
this extra wrapper that goes on top of the existing system by registering you know your research on chain and it actually makes that like claim over
that idea stronger um and so it kind of complements the existing system and and strengthens your
your ownership or your know your your record of that idea um which i think really if if this is
if someone has worked on something for years and years and is deeply passionate about it, I think that would be a strong enough value proposition for them.
That's at least how we're thinking about it.
I think you're having, I feel like then they would be even more incentivized to sort of,
you know,
use the POI sort of the easy,
like quick,
the quick and easy and efficient way to register their ideas so they can
like get it out of the way almost to like continue their work properly.
Yeah.
I mean,
also I will suggest that like not to self promo,
but I am going to self-promo, which is we've actually just done a three-episode podcast series over on the sort of deep dive into like how intellectual property
came to be as a concept um how we think about like you know it being traded and that sort of
thing and and what how it actually touches on people's lives because I think this is something
that I you know until I started working in a company that really dealt deeply with intellectual
property I had no idea how intellectual property was touching my life like it kind of just seemed like this abstract concept um and then we also then have a another
podcast coming out with Kevin who's our head of product which really delves into like okay cool
like why does Molecule think our protocol can sort of add to that system and bring additional value
to that system um but yeah if you're into
podcasts I would recommend that you give it a listen because I think we tried to
keep it away from like being too technical and to like large
argonics I think that is obviously difficult to penetrate but yeah just if
you're interested in the topic of intellectual property I would suggest
giving those listen where can we find those podcasts i'm a big podcast
person we it's the dsai podcast so we are on spotify and we're also on youtube if you if you
watch on youtube you can see our gorgeous faces yeah okay video style that's a bonus that's a
bonus right there you don't get that with office hours exactly exactly um and we share them from
the molecule page and stuff.
But yeah, the DSI podcast, if you look that up on Spotify, you can find us.
Absolutely. Cool.
I guess like I spent hours and hours on DSI podcast when I jumped into DSI.
I think the Molecule Fellowship.
It's a goldmine, I would say, right?
Like you get everything.
I think the old ones are the, you get everything. I think
the old ones are the real OGs. Like, I still would go back and listen to that. I'm still
picking up on the new ones. But yeah, it's definitely something, you know, like when you
are traveling, riding, walking, or doing experiments in the lab, it's a must. a must um you know you can listen to this i um yeah i strongly recommend that
yes so i started working for molecule two and a half months ago and half of my onboarding time
i spent time watching those podcasts like i'm promoting these podcasts right now as well. But yeah, seriously, like they really teach a lot in different angles,
different, you know, values of the DSI, what we are advocating,
what we are trying to target in the traditional system.
And after watching them a lot, it was like meeting a celebrity
when I met Ella and Jillian and Paul.
Yeah, they are really, really beneficial.
And they are celebrities too.
They're celebrities.
Yes, they are.
You guys, you guys.
You're a bit of a blush.
Good that we cannot see you.
Yes, exactly.
I have to jump soon to have a meeting with my PI.
It was great to talk to everybody.
Before I go, I want to leave you guys with some alpha.
Kehoe made me think of this.
Take a walk once a day for like 30 minutes.
I've been doing it recently, and it's really been great for my ability to just clear my head, get some good and like creative thoughts going so uh everybody take a walk enjoy the rest of your time and uh happy
easter for those that celebrate all right take it easy bye have a good one man thank you bye
all right um who wants to come up to the stage um i have a couple of things to you know dig and decide i've been lately
thinking about a question that um one of my mentors from molecule asked um for existing
bio douse how we can expand beyond just you know looking into drug discovery pipelines, which takes years to see maturation
and something to come out in terms of returns.
Because crypto in its native state
is a fast-moving industry,
and people are always looking for quick returns,
and some hold their bags.
But I've been thinking like
you know what are the spaces that these buy-outs could step in and explore that
are short that can see short-term products short-term maturations and could
also help the you know the community to to walk the long way.
You need short-term solutions to alleviate the symptoms
and pain of the users if you want them to walk with you
for the longer mission.
So I've been digging into this lately,
looking at different things like longevity nutrition sector or supplement stacks that these
dows could come in and invent. Cosmaceuticals, I think that's a real thing that is emerging.
And then bio-wearables, there are a lot of cool bio-wearables and then brain computer interfaces is picking up so
what's your thoughts right like people in the crowd what's on your mind where
do you think by the offshore go next be it AI biotech or data angle if you guys
have any thoughts please feel free to share
i see um side of in the crowd and zach zach hi zach um i just want to give a shout out to Zach he's a huge community builder and yeah he's a he's a fermented person yeah spreading
the goodness of probiotics and fermented drinks all across the Twitter space
happy to see you here do you want to join in
all right hi hi side out uh, guys. How's it going?
Going good. How are you?
Good. This is Riley. I'm a content lead.
And yeah, we're doing good over here at Side Out.
We got a bunch of interesting projects, creating new molecules and opening an IRL space to promote what we're doing.
And yeah, there's a lot of excitement over here.
Great.
Give us some alpha.
What's been happening currently in the psychedelic space?
I've been quite recently following you guys regarding the citizen science model that you guys been trying to implement for psychedelic trials.
Is there any alpha on that end?
Yeah.
So we have a bunch of really interesting projects.
If you're talking about Oxy, we are promoting participation in psychedelic studies through tokenization
so we have one of the best researchers answering this question of what do psychedelics do do they
actually help people and we don't have great data a lot of the time and so what he's doing is asking people to take psychedelics in their real life
and report back on how they've affected them. And we've created this model where we are
going to pay people in USDC and our own token to participate in these studies.
and our own token to participate in these studies.
And we've already gotten some of the most high-quality data this researcher has,
and we hope to get even more high-quality data going forward using this new bridge
between the old scientific ways of gathering data and analyzing it and this new way which has the potential to
bring tens of thousands of more research subjects into the space get them
excited get them participating and tease out whether psychedelics do really do these things that some of us think they do,
like help with focus or energy or calm or help you through your day, help you feel more content,
or is it all a placebo? Is it mostly in your head? So that's one thing that's really exciting
that we're doing. The other thing that I'm super excited about is our project called DMXE.
Now, we are developing a new molecule, a new to people and mapping out what the drug does to them.
They say that it takes them to a new place, that they feel new feelings, that we have an artist who says it's improved his artwork.
And so we're in the early stages of developing that, working on finding a lab to do our animal testing, hopefully go through animal testing up to human testing and then eventually bring it to clinical trials.
So those are two of our two of our projects that I'm really excited about right now.
projects that I'm really excited about right now.
That's amazing.
That's amazing.
I work with MicroBalmDAO as well.
The idea of citizen science trials that you guys have been talking about for so long,
we picked it up and we firmly believe in it.
I think this has a lot of upsides rather than doing trials in a traditional setup I
think cost wise coordination wise and also like you know having this sort of
intimate relationships between different cohorts and participants coming to these
studies I think that's a that's a huge upside there, but still to be, you know, tapped in and explore.
That comes, that takes me to one more question.
Like, how do you guys monitor these trials, right?
Like, how do you track your users?
Do they self-report or do you have an app or something to track this?
How does this work? So it's being built on Qualtrics,
which is the software that already exists
to do a lot of citizen science.
And so we are adding a tokenized layer
onto this software that already exists.
Awesome. Awesome.
Awesome.
I think, yeah, incentive is like user-aligned incentive
is a big part of citizen science trials
because to get people excited, to make them walk
through the entire trial, to be compliant,
and having the sense of responsibility.
I think high rewards is very much important.
Yeah, I agree with you there.
Yeah, I think adding a token layer incentive is very interesting in that case.
I also, it does one thing, question that I've also thought about a little bit is I know with certain clinical trials, there are quite strict regulations about like, you know, gifts that you can give to participants and that sort of thing. any incentive for the participant to like artificially endorse or agree with your study
um and I've always one of the interesting things I've always thought about is like
where would tokens fall in that framework um but yeah I know Side Hours was founded by
well you know part of the founding team was two lawyers. So I'm sure they've thought about it.
I wonder if you know if it has, like, what that answer might be.
I don't know.
I thought that you could compensate for, like, certain things.
Like, can't you give people money for meals and travel and things like that?
Yeah, so you can compensate,
but then that would be saying that the tokens
have financial value okay wait what's the problem with that well that i think then they're no longer
governance tokens oh okay but um but we're compensating them in usdc i think that's the main
We're compensating them in USDC.
I think that's the main thing.
Okay, so interesting.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's definitely going to be the future of DSi
in terms of the fact that once we start hitting more clinical trials,
I think it would be a cool additional layer to have.
Yeah, I mean, I think it's like,
actually I've seen some back and forth internally with our team
about we definitely want to give USDC because people, you know, can combine spend that.
And then are we going to mint more tokens based on every study?
So like, should, if we do this one study on psychedelic microdosing, does that have a particular own token that then gives it governance rights
to the data that is collected for this study?
And so everyone who participates in the study then can vote about like, okay, we want to
keep the data private or we want to sell it or we want to all own a part of the IP.
And I think there's debate right now as to whether that's too complicated.
Yeah, and other things like that.
But yeah, we have a couple of lawyers on the team
that are looking at this sort of stuff.
Yeah, it's a super interesting use case.
Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, my pleasure.
Yeah, we are building on the same line right like um having these data sets specific
to a study or or a trial that you are running and then what if we could make this data room
as an asset right like asset and then tokenize these asset and give it back to the users
so that when when someone right like come and use this data, be it running
computation on top, someone wants to license, get a license on this data, then you kind
of, you know, equally distribute the value, like not equally, but you have a better value
distribution system with blockchain and this sort of documenting it on chain. I think that's a very good model
in terms of looking at data as a product,
but not just data like the outcome
that's coming out of the real study in itself.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think it's like so exciting from our end
because it can be used for all these other things.
Hopefully we'll pioneer it with psychedelics, which are a very particular thing where people need to be incentivized to do it because it's kind of dicey.
You know, if you're putting out into the ether that you're taking psychedelics where it might not be legal where you are, maybe that will be more like a reason to get this tokenized thing going.
maybe that will be more like a reason to get this tokenized thing going.
And then there's no reason that it couldn't be used in every single kind of,
of study to study nootropics or, or the microbiome or whatever.
And then because there are so many things that I think a lot of us are interested in that are very difficult to study in a typical clinical trial,
randomized placebo controlled study that are so expensive that we have to bring people into the lab and it just costs thousands of dollars in overhead.
and with the citizen science thing,
incentivizing people to do it in their own home,
you take a micronutrient or you take a nootropic
and then you report on what happened.
And it just has such potential.
And actually we have a Twitter space happening a week from today
where we're going to be talking to the co-creator of our program of this tokenization
thing he's this great scientist balaj and um he's going to talk about the ways in which this is like
expandable to all different kinds of science then so i'd love for anybody to come and check that out
if you can.
I'm definitely joining.
I'm definitely joining because we recently got in touch with Tyler from Sido.
So we just explored.
This is basically coming out of the D-Sci Edu course.
We have a fellow who is in the D-Sadu course who is a psychologist and a brain scientist
he has been working with patients who are trying um you know psychedelics as a therapy
so we what we are trying to look at is um will there be a correlation and causation between
um the the dose dependent uh variation based on your gut microbiome profile, right? Like, can you optimize the dose based on your gut microbiome? Because I think
there's a deep molecular connection with serotonin pathways that's kind of, you know,
lighting up when you take a psychedelic.'s why i think you have this butterfly uh churning effect in your stomach when when you take a psychedelic so we are we are trying
to explore that because i think we have a bunch of patients across the globe who are trying this
we're just going to ask them to take additional microbiome uh tests and and record more data so that we can tap into this,
you know, the gut-brain activity or whatsoever. I'm super hyped for this. Yeah.
Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, there's so much potential. And yeah, the gut brain access is super, super important. And the, the possibilities
of studying psychedelics, not only for what it does for your mind and your spirit, but what it
does for your body is really, really untapped. There's all of this wonderful evidence that it
can help people with pain and, and, and nausea and all kinds of things so i appreciate you guys looking into that
wait um
do we have someone from the d side that you hear
So I'm just looking at the comments.
so i'm just looking at the comments
Munna thinks brain computer will play an important role with DSi for human longevity.
All right. attended this wonderful citizen science, basically a pop-up city in India called Zugarama.
We had a BCI, Deep Tech Week.
We had all these like, you know,
brain controlled computers, games and different things.
I was super amazed with the pace that this is moving.
And I think with acceleration,
with AI, I think it's a gear shift. Things are going to change and accelerate pretty fast.
Yeah, I think BCI is the next. BCI gene therapy, cloning and stuff, I think, controversial,
but are gonna be the next frontiers in biology,
moving towards the biosingularity, I guess.
I'm reading through the comments.
So guys, if you, yeah.
So SaiDao Space is happening next week.
Feel free to add it to your calendar.
A lot of alpha there.
And there's also a question from spec truth.
Do either of you use epigenetic tests before treatment or after?
Not really. we haven't uh yeah at least for from from our side microbiome side um no we we haven't looked into that but i think uh that also adds an additional data layer because
when you look at data as a product be it it for any biodiesel, like working on longevity, mental health, reproductive health, women's health, whatever.
The layers of data that you add on top will exponentially increase the quality of your data
and the insights that could come out of it.
Because in the current world I think like
everyone uses a wearable device you have heart rate monitoring you can you can literally measure
sleep patterns autonomic nervous system activity if you could like really tap into that I think
you can tap into specific other channels of communication, molecular communications like vagus nerve activity and different things.
Along with this, you know, vocal biomarkers is something that is picking up, just like recognizing your voice to, you know, evaluate mood and all of that.
And again, next thing, which is your genomics data, epigenetics data, microbiome data.
Microbiome in itself is non-invasive.
You just need to collect your stool samples.
So I think adding additional data layers and attach it to a proper clinical data set, it makes the data really valuable.
And I think that's the next step.
I think anyone who is going to run a trial or run an experiment,
I think, should focus on having multiple different data
layers from now on, because this will then help us
to build a rich data set, not just that,
and also to inquire things that we haven't seen before
with AI acceleration and so on.
Yeah, we had some really interesting data points in this big study that our
Opsi leader, that our tokenization of studies leader ran about whether microdosing actually helps
in the ways that people think that it does like people think psychedelics microdosing is this
cure-all and it improves everything and what we had people do was had them take objective tests to see if their cognition was better, if they were better on this, doing math or doing all these other things.
And the interesting thing that he found that this research team found was that people thought they were doing better if they were taking a microdose.
And the interesting thing is that they actually were doing better.
Even if they didn't actually get a microdose, because we had placebo controlled it, so that
some of the people had actually gotten a microdose, some of the people had not gotten a microdose.
If they thought they had gotten a microdose, they did better on these tests. If they thought they
had gotten a placebo, they did not do better on these tests. And it didn't matter whether they
had or had not actually gotten a microdose. So it was a super interesting finding about the power of belief and the power of the mind to be to make its own reality, to make its own to talk itself into working better.
And so we validated some of that using these objective measures.
Yes. Super interesting. Yeah, I came across a study. One of my teammates,
one of our teammates were there at DCI London, and I heard about this update on this double
blinded study on microdosing. Interesting, very interesting update on that. Yeah yeah the power of mind like it's it's it's something we haven't still tapped into
um i i agree with you reality is something that we manifest and real is something that is
unchangeable uh yeah i i kind of don't uh don't think i'm talking too philosophical, but this is something sort of a perception that I
created, getting going deep into, you know, like once you once you learn biology, you start seeing
things, you start seeing visions of, you know, how things work around you, like from plants to your
body, to your mind, to your blood vessels, and and all of that then it comes to this you know
thin line of reality versus real where reality is something that like we are on a twitter space
dthi officers um yeah we are having a good time here that's that's your reality you can also
change it right like oh this topic is boring for me i want to jump out of this call i want to go
have my dinner so this is something
you can really manifest and change but real is something that you cannot change uh how our
molecular mechanisms work we are all made up of atoms uh we don't have free will things like this
which we which we think you know uh which cannot be changed so i think uh it's good to like you know
uh maintain this delicate balance between real and reality
so that you are alert and aware of things happening around you, but also at the same time,
focus on practical things that could help us enjoy the time here.
Yeah. A psychedelic doctor friend says, look, if you knock your shoulder out of its socket, no amount of belief
is going to be able to put your arm back in its socket.
You need someone to jam it back up there.
But if you're sick and you believe that you can get better,
it can make a real difference in helping you to get better.
100%. Yeah.
So we have Toad here.
Do you want to introduce yourself?
Yeah.
Thanks so much for letting me come up and chat.
I have been seeking out a conversation with Desai.
So like really happy to run into this.
Hey, everyone. I'm Toad. I am the lead benefit steward at Opolis. Opolis is a DAO that is curating health insurance for self-employed
people. And it was at ETH Denver this year, we announced that we're moving from like purchasing Cigna for
self-employed people and actually investigating bringing the entire health insurance on chain
inside of a DAO, like ACA compliant regulated health insurance, but done inside of a model where we're able to make it ourselves and make
it do what we think it ought to do. And I've been talking to a network of 200 compounding
pharmacists across America. And I've been seeking a conversation with Desai because I,
And I've been seeking a conversation with Desai because I, goodness, guys, I think we got distribution for all of this drug research that's been going on inside of this health plan.
You know, that's how it works now.
Big Pharma is partnered with Big Insurance.
So it sounds like decentralized insurance should partner with decentralized science and bring the you know
the new medicines to the people so you know i've been seeking out a conversation just to see if i'm
uh completely barking up the wrong tree or if there's there's something there you know to that
so people who know more about desai please tell me. Yeah, this is definitely something,
I think it has a potential. I think there is an opening, a space and void where this could
come and fill in because if you look at the essence of DSI, the idea is to connect citizens and the scientists
who have never been in sort of having a conversation
for a long time.
There's no conversation for a long time.
So the idea is to create a dialogue
so that citizens can tell these scientists who
are innovating solutions, what do they want?
And what's their pain point like this is the
solution that i'm looking for and then scientists could then build a product that's you know like
really uh user-centered impact driven and not just like market and profit driven right like
it's kind of you know uh hacking the the system um to to make it more efficient. And I think what DSI brings in general, like broadly, is a systemic change.
It's not necessarily a product innovation or a business innovation, but it's a systemic innovation, right?
Like kind of coordinating different structures that exist between healthcare, science, anything, right?
Like clinics.
I think kind of this coordination layer
is what Desai is bringing.
And I think with blockchain and all of that,
this could be more equitable and trust-free.
Yeah, I think there is a real potential there
for you to explore.
I would suggest you to keep digging.
And join these spaces more.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm super interested in this.
I've never actually heard of this concept of decentralized insurance.
Would love to know a little bit more about like how it works practically
yeah i mean like like fundamentally you know it like health insurance is like three big pieces
you know you you have a network you have a claims administrator and you got a ton of money and um
we we've been doing health insurance for self-employed people for the last seven years,
and we've learned how to manage the money. And Eigenlayer has partnered with us to act as our
reinsurer. So the staked assets are, you know, they're there to back us if we get ahead of like premiums coming in to claims ratio,
right? But the decentralized part, I would say is really like the money. And that's the part
that's never been fixed in healthcare. Like we've always been out here, like good people
advocating for change and getting policies passed but then
they go into this for-profit you know system and it just adds layers and layers and more costs and
makes health care unattainable and then uh you know you you come back to like okay we've got
the money um what do we need next we need claims administration there are a ton of boutique claims
administrators that will administer just a compliant plan document um last year i wrote a
400 page plan document for our health plan and uh half of it was just cigna it was just standard
cigna people could buy cigna if they wanted And the other half was our own network that was like, hey, go anywhere you want. And we're going to use some AI to query and set a fair rate with the doctor and pay them make it so that you had an all in network.
And I processed like 9000 claims.
And I had to go and like actually work on 18 of them.
The vast majority of them, there was no issue. We were able to let members go wherever they wanted.
And like, that's it.
like that's it it was so cool um and that's just by like paying the doctors fast underneath the new
It was so cool.
health care uh price transparency legislation where providers have to kind of like provide
their rates on their site but details details you can set up claims administration and um
you know that's just like a we'll call it an off chain protocol, like a services provider who is inside of like a multi-sig wallet and moving dollars from like the compound claims pool where, hey, people pay their premiums and it goes over there and sits there and collects yield and you've got the claims administrator over here and you know hey
uh you know sally needs something paid for at the hospital and they they literally like the
claims administrators that i'm uh you know talking to today for you know this service to be provided
they're willing to operate fully in usdc and off- off ramp the tokens when they're needed and just send them to the doctor like they always have.
And, you know, when you get on direct primary care, which is just
great for getting, you know, ahead of things more, engaging in lots of tests, like more regular,
simple blood testing, offering our people to, you know, send in a swab of their DNA if they want to have genomic medicine made on my
compounding pharmacy network. The pharmacy, I guess, is another bit of it too. You have to go
and find a pharmacy network. I've got one of those. It's access to all of the, all the nonprofit pharmacies,
about 74% of the pharmacies in America you'd have access to, but, you know,
you got to go out to the different networks and figure out how you're going to
pay claims. And once you know how you're going to pay claims,
and it tells you what the normal cost of your claim is going to be. And Hey,
if you know what the normal cost of your claims are going to be,
you got administration, you got a ton of money then you just do normal underwriting and they've been
doing that for a long time you know you just get a an actuary to tell you what you ought to charge
people um yeah it's it's it's not all that crazy really yeah i'm super super fascinated by it as a concept i
literally had not crossed my mind until like honestly about 10 minutes ago um please please
send me or send molecule a dm i'd love to just like jump on a call and discuss um that'd be fun
yeah i mean i can share what i know about decentralized science with you and i could
learn a little bit more about decentralized insurance health insurance um but yeah I mean maybe maybe actually my closing
statement on that because we do have to sort of tie this space up is that uh my mom actually was
sorry I'm choking here I'm not because I'm emotional but because I swallow bones but
but my mom was admitted to hospital last night for appendicitis.
She's absolutely okay.
You know what I mean?
It's just one of these things that happens and she's got a great hospital.
But, you know, I've been suffering through this morning trying to get, like, all that insurance stuff sorted out.
And I think, you know, it is – we are in the spaces that we are and, you know, using this novel technology that is web3 technology and blockchain to update systems because they fundamentally don't work
um and that kind of branches across you know financing banking insurance and ultimately like
uh healthcare and science um so yeah really i think drives home the point that, you know, these new systems are needed.
100%. Hey, I DM'd you, I sent you my healthcare planning with Toad Calendly link. If you want
help with the claim, like, I've just been doing healthcare for 13 years, I'd be happy to talk
with you about it. Cool. You know, cool. it. Cool. Thank you so much, everyone.
It was great to chat. For those
of you who
have a long weekend, enjoy your long weekend.
We are doing these
spaces every Thursday evening
or morning, depending on where
you are. But yeah, DCI Office
Hours next week, same time.
We'll see you then. And other than that, have a
beautiful week.
