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DeSci Office Hours
Recorded: Aug. 18, 2025 Duration: 1:01:19Space Recording
Short Summary
The conversation delves into the exciting developments surrounding the Prima Donna project, which has successfully raised $200,000 for its innovative enamel regeneration research. With a token launch on the horizon and the introduction of the Molecule Shop, the integration of decentralized science with traditional biotech is paving the way for new investment opportunities and consumer engagement in the health sector.
Full Transcription
GM GM. Hi Colin. How are you doing?
gmgm
Good Kiho, how are you doing buddy?
I'm good man. Welcome everyone to G-style for the car.
Happy to be here.
Kiho, hold on a second buddy. You sounded like you're in underwater.
Really?
Oh, you sound good now really oh you sound good now now you sound good better
yeah now you sound good awesome awesome yeah gym gym guys uh welcome to molecule d sci office hours
i was mia last week but uh yeah this week let's compensate for that and uh welcome carlin how are
you doing i'm doing good man i am uh-deep in writing my thesis right about now.
The final first author manuscript that I needed
in order to get approved for writing my thesis
is in submission.
It just went into submission, so waiting on some reviews.
Chicago is doing pretty well.
The weather is nice and cool, but still pretty sunny.
And yeah, can't complain.
How are you doing, buddy?
Awesome.
I'm good.
I'm good.
I'm on a developer sprint.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
As you know, something coming up soon.
So really soon, right? Really soon. Really soon right really really soon yeah yeah next week wow
i signed up for the wait i signed up for the wait list i saw you i saw you there
you get to see on the Thursday yeah probably by Thursday you are you are in the test okay that's what's up that's what's up awesome and yeah today i wanted to
uh discuss something uh interesting uh the project that you've been uh managing so far with molecule
prima donna yeah do you wanna uh pitch us what prima donna is and how's the community building going on
and what's the project is about yeah absolutely glad to this is a project that's pretty near and
dear to me it's like the i think when we all first joined molecule we got we were kind of assigned
a few of the like first few projects that had been brought through
the old catalyst system. And this one, Prima Donna, is through some researchers from
the University of Washington. They are all really great people. Dr. Hanala Ruohola-Baker, Dr. Julie Matthew, and Dr. Jonathan Ahn.
And some people in the Desai space may recognize Dr. Jonathan Ahn's name.
He has previously been funded by VitaDAO to do some work in the geroscience, so aging science
field. But the project's really cool because, you know,
Dr. Hanala and Dr. Julie, they're both stem cell scientists.
They work at UW's, it's called Ice Cream,
but it's like their Institute for Stem Cells
and something else like that.
I like the name Ice Cream, though.
And through their work, they discovered that they were able to use stem cells to create this thing called organoids.
And organoids are, you know, 3D versions of these stem cells to form like, you know, tiny models of organs.
And what's interesting is that they use these organoids in order to create a, recreate a dead organ known as enamel.
And that's kind of where Project Prima Donna comes in. It's this regenerative project for
recreating and regrowing enamel on your teeth. I think a little bit of background on like enamel,
it is something that, you know, before our teeth are formed, we have a lot of like stem cell progenitors in our gums as they're forming.
And this enamel like casing sort of comes around them.
And that's where we get our white teeth.
And then, you know, as the teeth are fully grown and start to erupt from your gums, the progenitor cells that form this enamel die off.
And so it's considered dead because it's not making any new cells. So it's one of those things
that as we go on about our lives, the enamel cells degrade. And then over time, we get our
more yellow teeth, we feel less confident, we're more exposed to cavities and to different bacteria or, you know, acidic solutions that could be, find their way to our mouths.
And this project is using, you know, the power of D-Ci to fund the creation, you know, scaling and the, you know, testing of these enamel regenerating organoids, which I think is really, really cool.
Seems like a very interesting project to me. And-
Yeah, I'm actually obsessed with it.
Yeah.
Why did you name it Prima Donna?
Prima Donna.
You came up with the name.
Yeah.
You know, I can't take full credit for the name it uh
it came from actually a near dear friend uh logan uh logan bishop curry uh who worked at
molecule at the time um and she in talking with hanula heard hanala describe the enamel as a very, you know, it's a tough,
it's a tough and very beautiful sort of aspect of our bodies. It's what gives our teeth
the luster and shine that you might associate with a really nice looking smile.
But it's also very, you know, finicky and picky, like a diva at a show, you know.
It's important and it's front and center, but it can also, you know, these minor annoyances might wear it away.
And then, you know, once, usually if someone's in show business, if they retire, it's rare that they make a comeback.
And so in these ways, sort of likening it to the star of the show of our mouths, that's where Prima Donna sort of erupted from.
That's interesting. That's interesting.
All right. What stage is the project right now?
Do you guys have a token or like the funding is closed?
Is the research started?
Like where do we stand with Prima Donna? Yeah.
So with the initial sort of like fundraise, the team was able to raise around 200K.
And this was an amount that they had also previously gotten from like some anonymous donors in their community.
They literally went on the news in Seattle and people saw the story and were like, oh,
I want to donate to this. And they had anonymous donors donate $200,000. And so their initial
raise, raised about that amount to coincide.
And so where the project is right now, the researchers have just received the, after some back and forth with the university,
DSI moves quickly, but, you know, some of our major institutions are, you know,
they want to make sure that they're doing the proper, you know, checks and balances to make sure that we're not scamming them in any way.
And I can totally appreciate that.
They have now received sort of the first installment of the research funds that they're going to need in order to carry out what phase they're at right now.
And so the current phase is that we have these enamel regenerating organoids that work in the lab from all the like, you know,
evidence that they've seen so far and like, you know, different stem cell and in vitro sort of systems. And so now they want to scale those up in order for them to actually be functional in
humans or, you know, in larger organisms, you are going to need a lot more
of these organoids and a lot more of the, you know, stem cell population that you're going to need
in order to produce the enamel regeneration organoids. So they are using the funds in order
to like figure out what needs to happen in order to properly scale that up. And then beyond what they're currently doing, they're
also looking forward to Dr. Jonathan Ahn sort of coming in with his dental expertise. He's a
dentist by training, as well as a researcher. And he will be performing literal like anti-cavity,
not anti-cavity, but like he'll be looking to see if these enamel regenerating organoids work
in non-human primates. So I think right now they've shown effectiveness in mice,
but unfortunately I think that mice are, their teeth are a little bit different than ours.
They don't necessarily have, you know, the same type of interior molars like that we have, like in the back of our mouths
and stuff like that. They're all basically, I think, incisors, which are the, you know, more
of our like front teeth. And so this beyond the scaling, once everything's scaled up properly,
I think with scaling, there's a lot of issues with, you know, quality. So they want to make
sure that the quality remains the same and that it still functions properly.
And then once they do that, they'll then be using it to test in these non-human primates,
which is pretty cool because also you're able to test multiple different teeth in the same primate to see if there's sort of, you know,
a limit to how much we're generating these enamel organoids can actually produce.
So really exciting stuff going on right now.
And I think that the future for this project is really bright,
just with the powerhouse team that they've collected together here.
And I know you're also from regenerative biology background, right?
So a question to you is, this technology that we are developing is it to regenerate uh
like the the whole tooth uh from the root like is that the goal or let's say like there is an
eroded enamel and then you use these stem cells to regenerate an animal like where does it start
stem cells to regenerate enamel? Like, where does it start?
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, there are some people, and I think there's a really
cool, if you look it up, there's a cool Japanese study where they have used sort of, you know,
a similar level of regeneration to fully regrow a tooth. But this project actually specifically
is looking at regenerating this enamel
and more specifically using it,
using the like models that they've created
as a platform for discovering like an easier
and more cost efficient way to regenerate that enamel.
So, you know, I think we can all understand
that cell therapies and stuff like that are not affordable
and they're not, you know, necessarily the most like effective way to go about solving an issue
if you can just, you know, get a cavity filled or something like that. But I think the,
by making it just focusing on, you know, regenerating a layer, maybe a few layers of this enamel to sort of, you know, put you back to the zero state where you were when your tooth first erupted from the gums, you can then, you know, more effectively with different molecules target that specific layer, you know, to, it is not only something
that would probably take less time than regenerating a whole tooth, but it's less complex.
You know, the enamel system itself is complex enough without throwing in like the inner
tooth, the, you know, the roots and all that stuff and all the different nerves that you have to
regenerate in,
in creating an entire tooth in order to properly feel it in your mouth,
you know?
So I think that what's cool about this project is that they are taking it sort
of to the not lowest hanging fruit, but the, you know,
place where their model can be the
most effective, which I think is key for any successful biotech project.
Awesome.
Awesome.
All right.
So as I understood, the funds are raised.
So the funds are raised.
There will be a token launch.
Awesome. That is TBd as of right now um but just know that the funds uh have been received by the research team and you know
work is progressing and updates will be dropping soon you can probably catch those either in the Telegram group that maybe the Molecule account could share after this.
And also on Moll Labs, there will be updates for those that are part of the community.
Awesome. Interesting.
All right.
Coming to the token launch, I know this TBDbd will also adopt this uh molecule protocol v2
model uh and i think like this alpha just landed last week um do you want to discuss about uh
molecule protocol v2 did you get a chance to go through uh the v2 protocol uh you know i haven't so i was hoping we could talk about
what it actually is in this in this chat do you have you been caught up on what's good with v2
yeah yeah it just makes the whole model that we were talking about for so long uh much more attractive for investors so the v1 is basically
this ipnft ipt model where you know like you uh invest in a project and the project's ip is
governed by the ipnft and all the governors will get something sort of a fractionalized uh you know like voting power or governance power which is uh ipt ip tokens right but the problem
that or like problem or general feedback that we've been receiving from most of the investors is that
it does not give us a clear exit path uh for ipt okay i'm an ipt folder what can i do with it right
uh it says loosely that you can govern the
project but to what extent and yeah we've talked about that before like what actually is governing
going on yes yeah so so someone listened to our conversation and now they they came up with the solution and yeah good so the solution is this so the version one is
basically they there are IP NFTs and IPTs but the new upgrade is kind of merging these crypto tools
into real companies like startups let's say you create a startup uh which is sort of a transition out of this ip
now these ipt's could easily migrate into equity shares okay earlier there was a problem in terms
of migration because ipt's are not actual shares you can call them stakes but still it's not
clearly defined but now with v2 it'll have clear legal structure around it
for better taxation and all of that and now you can easily migrate this into equity shares when
it forms into a startup and then all of this with you know best compliance frameworks yeah
works yeah and if you see like this this is how the the whole uh model would look now
initially you get ipt's as usual uh let's say now prima donna uh launches its token uh there's
gonna be ipt's for people who help fund research and the next step all the holders can still
exercise their power to vote on projects direction milestones and even
participate on different trials or whatever the the project decides upon and then the equity
bridge happens once the project matures let's say now you guys come up with the tech that can
regenerate enamel at a very low cost right right? Like a small injection to your root,
and then you start regeneration happening.
That's it.
So when you guys come up with such a tech,
let's call it the project mature,
then these token holders are eligible
to convert their IPTs into an equity,
into an actual startup of prima donna.
And at this stage, even VCs could come in big institutional investors could come in and then the next follow-up step is revenue sharing which
is the most avoided step to really like you know close the loop of decide and that is where like
you know you can make money out of these ip tokens so imagine a
project would mature and and start licensing their ip or uh there are revenues coming in from uh
different products coming out of these matured ip then this could be distributed back via complaint
mechanisms of course um you can think of buybacks where the the prima donna
project could buy their ipt's back in compensation for some price you know or there could be also
equity payouts so let's say the the license makes so and so and proportionate to your equity you can receive uh payments so yeah this is the the new uh v2 model uh which i
think is like uh yeah it's very interesting to me because earlier the ipt's looked very incomplete
you know incomplete and loosely described but now i think with this entire new thing, which is still like in a
beta stage, which is not really available, but I'm like super bullish on this.
Yeah, I think that sounds like exactly the bridge. I think you said bridge. The bridge is
what was missing. And I'm excited to cross that bridge, Prima Donna being one of the first projects that's going to get to
do it. So thank you for the explanation. I'm hearing like,
what do you think change that allow is the technology just
better or something that allows now for the the possibility of
the it's like, you know, instant startup spin out from from IPTs or is it maybe more of like an
evolution of like legal understanding yeah I would I would see it as more sort of an evolution
of the v1 model because the earlier notion from the founders are like people who
devised this IPT framework was just to my understanding I think
is to give the control over the science to people who actually wants to you know
access those scientific outcomes yeah it looked nice but imagine like we need to also consider
where we are doing this business right so it's not another crowd fundraise platform in
web 2 it's a web 3 project and uh so crypto moves very fast and and all those investors who invest
in it uh might not be uh very idealistically just looking for access you know just access to that
scientific project right but also some return like if the project really matures and makes money right and
that crucial part was missing uh but actually the real thought process of the v1 was okay the
governance power is your tool to make all these things happen right you can imagine it's like a
blank canvas you can then uh articulate and create your own ways of making these different structures for your own project.
But then now what V2 does is sort of gives you a clear framework, reducing that barrier for you or like the token holders to really, you know, take that path, like, you know, cross the bridge.
know across the bridge and I know for sure like the molecule team is working
behind this like the legal compliance framework to make it happen so I'm not
sure whether we will enter a realm of security tokens because I don't think
that's the case because you are jumping from IPTs which are governance tokens
then directly
into a startup equity model yeah uh you're exiting out of the crypto world and entering the the
traditional uh startup market so right i think it's a it's a it's a great move uh let's still
wait and see how this would uh play out but i think this is an interesting exit use case for
But I think this is an interesting exit use case for IP tokens, in my opinion.
Yeah, I think it's a really cool use case, too.
It's kind of what I feel is a great way to articulate what I think VCs were worried about with the original IPT model, too,
is that you get this great idea, but now so many people have their hand in it that it's like,
oh, I'm a VC and I'm kind of scared off by how many people have this share in what this project
actually is. But with that sort of inflection point where you can take the buyout as it goes,
inflection point where you can take the, the like buyout as it goes, not public, but as it becomes
a, an actual startup versus the people that, you know, maybe a select few are like, I'm going to
keep holding because I think that there's going to be an even greater sort of sort of bang for my
buck. If I hang out until we go all the way to the other side where you uh
now are launching as like a public company so you now have the like the share of the share
of these like now actually like publicly traded funds going on which i think is a really cool like
far future but definitely will be the case in the future the future of like investing in ideas
yeah during my consulting times i have also seen uh some of the dsai project like some of the
projects who wanted to try dsai model kind of uh you know left the idea because they hired their own investors like investor panel which uh didn't really seem
to understand this idea yes and if they don't understand it they don't like it exactly exactly
and because of that you know uh situation i think uh dsai was sort of uh how would i say segregated out of the traditional biotech system
right seen as a fringe uh movement yeah but now what it facilitates us is like taking the best
of crypto and the best of traditional biotech and then sort of fusing this into a hybrid system
and i think this would like attract this would create that path for both institutional
investors uh in the traditional biotech and also like you know retail investors in the crypto
market to uh come invest on the project at different parts of the project so i think this
is like um yeah uh it's an evolution in my opinion yeah for sure it's the the natural evolution i feel like it is yeah we just
all we all we all come to know more and more things so why should we not know more about all
the different projects that are that are building too yeah yeah but but still right like this uh
this doesn't solve all the problems no and, as we create new paradigms,
new problems are bound to come up.
Yes.
I think of all the like DGENs and crypto,
you know, maybe faking a project or something like that,
how far they might try to get.
And I would also see like, you know,
there is an innate speculative element to the web3
world yeah which people tend to love uh in in web3 and uh that part is still missing in my opinion
because uh i still remember 2023 uh or 2024 december the the core or like the key uh question of the the entire event
was conference was uh speculation versus governance right so these are like two offerings uh that's
possible for the web 3 world which one uh which one will fly high right that's that's the question we still are
taking the the governance route it is the best route for science because it it has to hold
certain integrity and all of that it's sort of uh you know it's not uh another meme coin to to go
speculate right like yeah uh so science needs to be like it
touches everyone's life so it needs to be handled carefully but I was also
seeing certain projects coming out who are taking this path of pure speculation
so you might have heard of prediction markets like polymarket oh yeah so this
could be the future as well right like there's the alternate
reality for real djian thing is uh imagine you have a hypothesis or a science project that's
super uh you know simple for people to understand and make a decision or predict
with all those resources or like the new agents has come up you know you can use pay
for those agents and use these agents to uh kind of predict which hypothesis will kind of succeed
right and then once you have that imagine how science would move faster with prediction markets
let's say i have a small hypothesis okay um having this particular uh bacteria in my gut is gonna make me live longer
or have less inflammation or to weight loss loss weight right and then you can put this hypothesis
and then just test it and then i think this pure speculative element will also fly along with governance. So I'm gonna wait and see
for this new prediction markets that are coming up.
I haven't seen any actual projects live yet,
but I have spoken with teams who are building it,
beta level, kind of tested one project.
So I'm interested to see like, you know,
how this new dimension would play out and then
in future probably we too could evolve into a v3 more sort of an uh you know diverse path
available for even speculators and governments yeah that's like the that's the true bioack is the v3 i feel like right the the the future is now sort of moment for for uh
dsai i think that um you definitely bring up some interesting points because prediction markets
i'm just so nervous of like people trying to fix the markets but that's also you know me thinking
of prediction markets from a a non-web3 non like crypto sort of lens and like you know gambling in
that sense where people you know maybe people bet on a basketball game and someone's like oh well
I know that people are betting on me to not do well, so I'm not going to do well or I'm going to do really well sort of thing.
How do you reconcile?
How do you think we're going to reconcile that with like an experiment that doesn't
work?
Because with the pump science as to use pump science as an example, you know, my compounds
berberine and biot, did not extend longevity.
And, you know, rightfully, as I as I would have predicted, the, you know, market the others um that you know saw also that their
their market cap fell and that you know the the market did not necessarily agree with the
successful experiment how do you think we're going to like reconcile that in the in this web3
v3 dci version yeah i think uh we need to see it play out in my opinion i think if you just keep it uh
you know pure speculative prediction sort of it's gonna be a wild thing because you would then see
projects even like dummy projects with no real use case for science could also like raise a lot of yeah
yeah because it's just fancy right like you could see these uh sperm races and different yeah sort
of you know cool things which which of course is interesting uh kind of makes science accessible
to people but the question is does it move the needle of science further right um that's the
question yeah the impact part right and these are all about impact in my opinion yeah and uh if if
you could bring those elements to it like because when you build a prediction market for science
you need to consider those uh you know things tools that are need to make uh you know decisions
within the scientific ecosystem like analytical tools yeah right like you need tools to make
decisions like in that p-value right exactly and we could provide those uh tools which could help
all these predictors or speculators to make a well-informed decision. For example, look at the agents.
Like, you know, a lot of AI agents coming up and Bio is also launching Bioagents.
So probably using these agents to, you know, use and see which predictions or which hypothesis would really fly.
Because this kind of tones down the whole complexity of
science now we are going to chat with the ai and discuss science in a very normal language and
yeah super accessible yeah tell me whether berberine and biotin will work or not will it
win the uh you know warm's race or not and then it can give you some sort of information and then
you can go dig in dig and dig in into the information and then ask it to make a score out of it right like how good are
you in this excavation process the the exploration process right uh depending on your analytical
ability you can bring that scientist out of you and then you can bet on the best predictions right
like that is where it would become more
gamified for people to interact with science and interesting thing is rather than digging into
molecular mechanisms i would go dig into user related experiences for example okay i have a
question um this let's say virgin olive oil people say for some people they say okay olive oil is good for
health and all of that and and for some people it might not work because olive is not a native
flora in that particular geography where that group of people have evolved so it's something
foreign probably the the body would not react the same way for olive oil for certain people so this could be an interesting hypothesis
because now the general market says olive oil is good the general science says olive oil is good
because it has just looked into that small fraction of community right but then now people can go and
start predicting this whether it will work or not.
And once the sufficient funds are raised, you can then enroll people to really test it.
And disprove or prove it, right?
If it is proved, you get 10x.
If it is disproved, that's it.
You lost the game.
That's it. With this, you can just propel science forward.
People can make 10x.
And yeah, science is moving
i think that's that's the kind of prediction market that i will really you know uh would love to engage with and um probably this then pay ways for the the governance model right like
you use prediction to kick start the the the campaign and once you see okay the evidences are coming out
then make it more concrete by giving those people uh you know more stable governance power to
control this hypothesis wherever it's evolving into yeah that's pretty i like the idea that and
i think uh i'm picturing um the prediction uh i think that it's a good use case, especially for when we talk about how a lot of
clinical trials are too general as well. We can get the prediction markets to give us how specific
people want the understanding of their things to be. It's a whole new way to do your own research,
basically. And you're like're like yeah you've got some
skin in the game with the with the research that you're doing but you're also like i think that
that might incentivize people to you know do a more thorough job as well so i think that it is
when you when you put it that way you want that 10x you want what vcs get over there like you
know they get a 10x but it takes
you know or like i guess they get 100x but it takes you know 10 years versus the you know you
get this 10x from dsci and it was what two months something like that i think that would be pretty
cool or even just a year a year for 10x would be insane and then it just continues to get shorter and shorter as you guys
like already have more data genius i i think you need to make like how vcs do you need to make
multiple bets and you need to make a calculated bet uh not just going say yes or no rather than
you go say why how much person yes and how much person
no right and for that you need tools uh of course like not everyone can go into the lab and
simulate all these studies and predict whether it will work or not but then now uh as we were
saying like the agents right like the agents is going to be the new meta which is going to let people you know enter
different roles different hats right yeah you can become a clinical scientist or a clinical
researcher or you can be a an in silico researcher looking at molecules or you could be also a a
general physician with a lot of knowledge let's say you have an agent like
the spine dow agent is basically a repository of patient doctor interaction so imagine like if
there is any spine thing coming up like you can use that agent to derive that particular
dimension of your knowledge and you can you can go for other agent to get more analytical knowledge then combine both these things it's like you have a canvas you have multiple agents
in the system and then you can use different agents you need to know what to use when right
and how to use these things and that's the whole game and i think that's gonna be a very interesting
world in my opinion where we don't have to work a lot and rather, you know, do this, use these tools and, you know, work from home, making predictions,
moving science. I'm looking forward for that. Go to the park, make some art, you know,
you take a real canvas, touch grass. Yes. We need this so that more people in Web3 can touch grass,
Yes.
We need this so that more people in Web3 can touch grass, I think.
I think it's so close.
Probably after the agentic launchpad goes live, you will see this happening more often.
A lot of different parts of science is going gonna move in a different pace after this and i think
it's a it's a nice time to see molecule v2 coming up uh this is an interesting uh exit case for
ip token holders and then we also see now molecule lab uhule Labs opened. And then we have the shop, Molecule Shop opened.
Yeah, the shop is really cool.
I have not bought anything just yet, but I'm like, man, this is what I was talking about.
We have like a true retail, like true, like, yes, true retail.
That's insane.
But science, it's got everything.
I'm going to get a Hempy shirt for sure.
I'm going to list something there.
I'm going to keep it.
Yeah.
Oh, what is it?
Tell me.
Give me like a category for what it is.
It's going to be a test.
Okay.
A testing sort of a panel of tests.
Okay. And you can redeem it from any part of the
world oh thank you because you know sometimes it's it's crazy usually i feel like the issue
is not being in the u.s being in the u.s it's a little bit difficult to get some of these things
that are coming up in these cool uh international labs yeah yeah and uh yeah this is gonna
unlock a whole new uh meta as i'm speaking uh so let's let's just wait and see and i think the
at least in my opinion the interesting part behind like which i loved about the shops
being run by molecule is that so molecule is this home for all scientific research data that's coming out
of DSI projects right like it's basically a repository of knowledge where all the DSI
projects updates go their intellectual property information goes on chain and all of that probably let's we would see in
future when you go purchase a supplement right uh or like even a drug uh in molecule shop you will
have the opportunity for the first time ever in history to look back at the data provenance like
you know why this product is here how did this project come to existence who all who are all the people
who tested this what are the results and all of that in a very digestible format so that you will
be way more confident before consuming something you know uh because you you can see the whole data
trail on from the genesis till the end you have a product in the hand who all invested in it how
did it come here what all the information that's been you know developed and harvested
uh what new projects forked out of this uh project and all of that i think that's gonna be a very new
uh yeah interesting aspect of uh molecule shop in my opinion yeah and implicate the implications for
having every basically like uh in the movie credits when you see every person that was like
involved in every part of the of the creation and like the commercialization of this of a product
is gonna be one it's gonna let people know know, put real, real names or real identities
to, you know, what they're putting into their bodies. But it also, I feel like gives you a
little bit more of that peace of mind. Like you're saying, it's the next step of, you know,
is this lab like certified, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. They're, they're not just certified,
They're not just certified, but they're a molecule partner or something like that.
but they're a molecule partner or something like that. That's pretty cool.
That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
And who knows?
Probably some of the agents could also go buy these products for you.
Yeah.
A shopping agent.
That's our agent of the day.
It shops for you.
It shops for you.
First, it has to know what you are and what sort you know what sort of diet and supplement and lifestyle
you lead yeah and you need to have this sort of health uh health app not not health app health
agent sidekick yeah who kind of knows uh your protocols and then you just need to tell yeah
i think i'm i want i want to do this picture that it goes and shops for protocols and products and
yeah exactly buy buy and make investments for you yeah you put a vr headset on and you go to your
like nutritionist vr agent you then go to the vr grocery store with your uh with your shopping
agent yes i i think this uh i would say three to four years down the line uh it'll be a reality oh yeah
yeah because i have seen like precursors to these things uh already uh in in beta uh ready to be
tested so being in the space is really uh and interesting, especially at this time.
See how this new entire reality is coming into existence.
And being a part of that is, yeah, crazy times to be in.
Early, but not too early.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And I see a request. Ed is here. Nice. Hi, Ed. Welcome on, man. How are you doing?
It comes to foods and things in experiments. I think the problem has often been that we find, I come from agriculture, regenerative
agriculture, and we haven't done, we hadn't done a lot of the metabolomics work.
So that when we think of something like a carrot or a tomato or an orange or olive oil and its health benefits,
what we find is it all depends on how it's grown.
And we used to think that there was very little difference with how you grew something,
with what metabolites, what vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, phytonutrients would be in it.
Well, having people in the groups done a lot of the metabolomics work now, we find there's
massive variations.
So you can't just prescribe eating a certain fruit or a vegetable or meat or anything else.
Meat, for example.
The difference in omega-6s to 3 ratios in how meat is produced
can be anywhere from 1 to 1 to 19 or 20 to 1.
Of course, we know omega-6s cause inflammation.
So when you test for things things you're going to get incredibly
different outcomes I think the protocols and experiments are the key problems often in
agriculture we've seen over the last 40 or 50 years I've been in it we see all kinds of experiments and then we start to ask questions
about what was the soil biome what was the soil makeup what were some of the you know other parts
that weren't considered here um sure you had an idea and you wanted to you know promote it and it's pretty easy to design
an experiment that you know kind of meets your interest that i i have found has been the problem
in science and the hopes of desai and i think when you get the more people that you have
criticizing or trying to support to make a better protocol
in an experiment,
the more likely it's going to be useful for a practitioner.
That's what we found,
that when it comes down to the practitioner level,
whether it be the consumer or a producer of something,
to meet a need, it's poorly designed protocols.
And that's my question, is how do we bring in, make decentralized science,
but very collaborative in these designs, So we're not wasting money doing work that doesn't really come up with the right answers,
because that's what has been the problem.
I think that's why we in agriculture went DSI, because the institutions just weren't providing us information that we put
it out in the field worked and the more we identified and did the science ourselves
looking at metagenomics of our soil looking at metabolomics looking at all these things um
that's when all of a sudden we came up with massive different
results in the actual field. So I'll end it there.
Thanks for sharing, Ed. And I think that's a great question regarding, you know, how
do we get these protocols and even, you know, what questions we're asking
to be the proper questions. And I think you sort of touched on, you know, all the different things
that you, as, you know, someone directly involved, hands-on with the agricultural part of, like,
actually producing these things for people, is that, you know, I think with D-Sci, the
collaboration and the bridging of all these different, you know, I think with DSI, the collaboration and the bridging of all these
different, you know, different functional groups, these different, you know, these different areas
of expertise, and getting out of, you know, getting out of the mind space of, you know,
I want to do this because I'm curious, and getting into more of the mind space of, I want to do this
because this is what we all as a group believe will solve the problem the best way.
And so, you know, I hope teams that are building that maybe hear this can try to keep that in mind and remember like a perspective such as yours,
whenever they're, you know, coming up with their, you know, they have a general idea, but they're like, oh, but what?
Figuring out the correct problem and the correct question to ask is more than half the battle. up with their, you know, they have a general idea, but they're like, oh, but what, figuring
out the correct problem and the correct question to ask is more than half the battle.
So I think that that is what teams should keep in mind going forward.
And Ed, any thoughts on lab-grown meat?
It's been kind of popular in like the news a little bit more recently.
of popular um in like the news a little bit more recently i think it seems like a great idea
especially if you're looking for um you know more regular sort of like nutrient production but any
thoughts haven't seen the metabolomics on it yeah what's the gut in it i have no you know and
analyzing well that's it.
You know, they talk about the production all the time.
I've been hearing it for years.
It's the same with, you know, the plant-based burgers, impossible or beyond.
You know, they tried to say, well, it'll save the planet.
Will it?
And, of course, there's a lot of, we disagree a lot on a lot of those issues right
because they blame the cow but it's not the cow it's the how yeah so um it's the same you know
and that's why as much as they told us 10 years ago that it was going to take over five years ago
stock is down to nothing right now hydroponics has the same issues um again
they thought it you know and it has its place but it's science needs to be advanced we try to
promote that all the time because if food isn't for entertainment, it is in some ways.
We get together, we enjoy a meal.
But food is for health and nutrition and to support our biome.
And that's the problem right now.
It's just not doing that.
I mean, when we test oranges, and an average consumer is going to think it's winter,
I need some vitamin C, so I need to eat some grapefruit, some oranges.
But when we test an orange, it almost has no vitamin C at all.
And then we grow it properly, and all of a sudden it has 10, 15, 20 times the amount.
that and then the consumer has no idea you know are the people in regenerative ag we we say we
And then the consumer has no idea.
a lot because we are decide we collaborate together we've done the testing you know we can
see the difference now and we did it well enough so that we understand not that there's a difference but then why is there a difference
and we looked at is it the variety is it those practices is it this is it that
you know we came up with the number one factor was the biome but then as when we came up with
the idea of first of all was there nutrient density because we had been
told by academia for years that it was insignificant so then we decided okay number we have to set up
a good experiment like okay is there a variation is it significant then we all just had to think okay so so we figure out there is a huge
difference how we're going to benefit the public so we're like well we're going to have to find a
way to measure it and not only are we going to have to find a measure we're going to have to
find a piece of equipment that we could make that the consumer could afford to use, or at least the market could afford
to use to measure it.
So in other words, you go to the supermarket, there's three different carrots.
You look at them and one of them's got all these fancy package bunnies on it.
And that's the one your kid wants.
your kid wants well we look at the variation in percentile um so if you shot if you if one of them
Well, we look at the variation in percentile.
is in the 20th percentile and one's in the 40 and one in the 70th percentile of nutrient density for
what a carrot can within the variation you can have should be buying that 70 especially if you're
doing it for your health and especially for your kids the one with the 20 the right but the one with the 20 might have the bunnies on it right so we actually
have the meter now that can it's a handheld it can go into a smartphone because when we do an
experiment we have to think about it holistically like what do we need to know and how can it help?
And then how can it help?
We now know because we had people send in all kinds of samples from supermarkets,
from farms, from farmers markets.
We had farmers send in soil samples.
We had them send in their practices. We had them send in their practices.
We analyzed all that stuff, the variety of seed they use, where they're located, what their weather conditions are.
As many things as possible to put all this together to make it so it's a it's beneficial to everybody involved and so we think
because we realized that if we're going to change the system we need to have it
all the way down to the point of the consumer from the farmer to the point of
consumer and to educate all the people in the supply chain so in other words
that bag of with the bunnies on it wants the people know that that's
only a 20th percentile. And we found out that over 90% of what the consumer has access to
is within the 10 to 20 something percentile. That's why we're not healthy.
And so we need to empower the whole system when we do an experiment or we think about doing
experiments to give the full benefits not just to trick people you know like we have been told
for many years there's insignificant differences you know we have we have a researcher that worked
on fungicides in the pesticide industry for many years.
He had no idea about regenerative agriculture, even though he had been doing it for 38 years.
Thought he knew everything about soil profiles and all that sort of stuff.
He realized he knew nothing.
And so he did it for three years. Last fall, he retired early, set up an experiment on a farm,
doing regenerative practices, researched all he could,
did all the protocols to test, had his first crop last year.
He was expecting at least 20% or 30% overall kind of benefits.
It ended up to be, average eight times there were many things
that his oranges and grapefruit had that he couldn't even find and he found a guy that was
about less than 10 miles down the road that did the same varieties um did all the practices that
industrial agriculture says he should be doing with all the pesticides
there besides synthetic fertilizers was eight times different and when you he did taste tests
people couldn't even didn't you know first they he had to give him a slice of the industrial one
and they're like oh yeah this is an orange kind of tastes like this has little sweetness and they tried his and it's like wow this isn't these are the same variety
so it's just an example of you know the way i think when you're on the other end i i science
over my lifetime has it used to be collaborative.
I used to go into my university because my state university is in my same town.
I've been doing this for 50 years, working with farmers, working with researchers.
And I used to get a lot of collaboration.
And over time, it seemed like scientists and institutions were trained to just do your thing.
Yeah.
And it's more and more siloed.
Yeah.
It's more and more siloed.
And just get some results that benefit, you know, and of course the funding, like we always talk about, where was the funding all of a sudden coming from?
It was in the original land grant universities.
The funding was from the people to do experiments that benefited the people.
Then all of a sudden funding by the food industries and the chem ag industries to do the research.
And of course, they're going to, you know, it's easy.
I can do a protocol and make it sound really good.
I can defend one side.
It's like a debate.
You can defend one side or the other side and make it sound good.
You know, I could feed somebody some meat.
And because I'm with a plant-based burger company, I could feed somebody some meat and i could show they have inflammation
from that meat because i feed it like a feedlot and get that high i can maximize those omega-6s
so it causes the maximum amount of inflammation or i can do it the other way. I can do the best grass-fed, get it down to that one-to-one ratio,
and show it didn't cause any inflammation.
Actually, it was beneficial because the omega-3s, it fought inflammation.
And, of course, you read so many science, so many reports on it,
and you go, well, what about this? What about that? So I'll just, I'm rambling.
I'll land it there. I love it though. I love it. I, I share a lot of the same frustrations that you've voiced here today. And I, you know, I, I joined a program where I, it literally, you know,
has like multi-disciplines in the name, but it is a very, very siloed, very not collaborative.
And so, you know, it's up to people like us to keep pushing for more collaboration and more accountability across all these different phases.
So many variables that come up when you're thinking about like agriculture and all these different things that, that you know you can't help but be exposed
to like you know external sources uh sort of system um but yeah thanks thanks so much for
talking to us ad kiho any any other uh thoughts from you today yeah i think this is a very
interesting uh take it's not about eating healthy i think it's it's more about uh sourcing healthy food and then
eating it right yeah um it does make sense i think the whole goal uh for me like at least from the
the the other job that i do with microbiome tao is to create this um you know trail of information
starting from the soil uh from looking at your soil biome to
the plant biome and and how does this plant biome enters your gut and then how does it influence
your body and then going it taking it back into a full circle sending it back to the soil right like
this whole cycle of you know the super organism that's moving within us right into different
hosts is very interesting to me.
So the whole microverse is about that.
To connect these dots, to enable tools and infrastructure that could kind of, you know, track these different things.
So we are in the process of building those rails.
I think that's going to be a very sophisticated, you know, environment to interact interact with and it's in the making so thanks
for people like ed who is pioneering this regenerative agriculture movement and yeah
thanks everyone for joining the space thanks everybody it's a wonderful space yeah we always love talking to you prima donna molecule v2
v3 and a little taste of v3 yes yes all right
yeah all right thanks guys thanks for tuning in yeah thank you all so much yeah we'll see you the same time next week thank you thanks ed see you next week bye peace
