She's Ready To Gene Edit Babies - EP 32 Cathy Tie

I saw your Instagram post, I think today. It was awesome.

Was it the Barbie one? It's the Barbie one. Oh yeah. I love that movie. I was watching on the plane yesterday coming to SF.

But you're doing like, uh, you're like biotech influencer now. I mean, that, that was, that was like produced and everything.

Yeah. Well, Ashlee, okay, so for that video, it's my friend who's a videographer for like The Weeknd and Future. Like this, like rap artists and like hip-hop artists. He made my favorite music video by The Weeknd called Reminder. And then we met through like The Weeknd's like nonprofit group. And then I was like, hey, you probably don't know anything about gene editing, but, you know, I can tell you about it. And also I want to make this fun video. And he flew to New York and made it very different than rap music videos, of course. But he put it all together. So shout out to Gerard.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think we'll at least put a link in, but hopefully we can run a little of the footage while we're talking because it was awesome.

Yeah, you gotta have fun, you know, sometimes, once in a while. Yeah.

Kathy Tai, mm-hmm, how are you?

I'm good, how are you?

I'm good. We didn't know each other until relatively recently. I think we had I'm sure we have many friends and/or at least acquaintances in common from biotech land. And then Josie Zayner, who— oh, you do? I've known Josie for many, many years.

Oh, nice. Yeah, she's amazing.

Yeah. The two of you were working on a project that we wrote about called the Los Angeles Project to do— yeah, gene editing on animals, make glow-in-the-dark bunnies and things like that. And I think that got announced in January or February.

Yeah, that was February. But, you know, we were working on it for the last, like, 18 to 24 months.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's amazing. It's based in Austin and ideas, you know, want to make unicorns and dragons. It's all synthetic biology at the end of the day. So Josie and I were thinking about, you know, how to really use it to our full creative potential and make cool things. Yeah.

You've had a busy year because I wrote it because I wrote about that earlier in the year that it feels like a million things have happened. We ended up We ended up— well, I ended up following— all right, I'm gonna step back before I get into this whole story. I mean, you are— you're, you're in the biotech field. You're, you're kind of like a prodigy in some ways. I mean, you were working in a university lab when you were 15 or 16.

Yeah, I— it's— it feels like I'm a Disney child star, but like biotech, you know? Right.

Yeah, you're— it's, uh, your bio reminds me a little bit of Laura demonstrating. You both talked your way into these university labs at a very young age and started publishing papers and, um, doing things teenagers don't normally do. You ended up running, I think, two biotech companies.

Yeah, before I started Los Angeles Project.

Right. And then you're a Thiel Fellow.

Yes.

And so you have this track record of, yeah, I mean, starting biotech startups that did well and then, and then did the Los Angeles project. And then we have big news, which is just in the last month you've announced the Manhattan project, which is exciting and controversial.

It's been such a crazy year. Sorry, I talked to you last, like, at least over a call. It was when I was stuck in Manila, Philippines, and I remember being so jet-lagged. But, you know, like, I'm in the middle of like a shoot in Switzerland, somewhere in Northern Europe.

I was in Switzerland.

Switzerland. Yeah. And I snuck in a call. With you and then you quickly turn around that, that amazing article, very well written. And it was just the most chaotic time in my life. And I feel like just the whole year has been insane from, you know, and I feel like you saw it front row seat, you know, Los Angeles project, Manila, Philippines, and like now Manhattan project. So happy to tell you all about it. Yes. Yes.

We're going to get, we're going to get into all this stuff. It just, and then so we'll finish a beat on the Manhattan project just to let people know where we're coming from. But so you just in the last month, um, you announced a new product, a new startup, new company based in New York to do— you were very explicit and open to do gene editing on embryos, which is a very— is a highly touchy, controversial subject for many people. And you just came out and said, we're gonna, we're gonna go do this. And so, and, and so that is— that's kind of job number one right now is, is building that company.

That's my full-time job right now.

Okay.

As being the co-founder and I guess CEO of that company. And it's been, yeah, I mean, it's exactly what you said. It takes a lot of courage to come out and say it, especially in the scientific community where everyone is sort of, you know, it's sort of a monolith. Everyone's very careful about what they say in the public, even though many people agree with this mission and what the technology and the science needs to do for humanity. People won't say it out loud. But I feel like it's about time. You know, it's been 7 years since the first gene-edited children were born, although that was done in a way that, you know, isn't super transparent. But still, it's been 7 years. And then before that, it's been 10 years since gene editing was first used on human embryos. It happened in China in 2015 by another scientist named Jun-Qi Huang. I don't know how to pronounce his name because, you know, in Chinese there's like the accents on the different syllables. There's another scientist in China that did this. So it's been 10 years since that happened, and everyone has exact same narrative, this exact same messaging, like absolute ban, this is immoral. But it's been 10 years, and I feel like we've tried so many things, and finally we have to push the conversation forward. And there's probably a right way of doing it. It's just you need transparency, you need IRB approval, you need the public to be aligned with it, you need, you need it to be ethical, of course. And then I think it's just about pushing the science along.

All right, what do we do at Core Memory? We cover innovative, fast-moving, forward-thinking companies, which is why Core Memory is sponsored by Brex, because Brex is the intelligent finance platform for many of these companies. 30,000 companies from startups to the world's largest corporations rely on Brex's technology for their finances. They've got smart corporate cards, high-yield business banking and expense automation tools that are fantastic. I hate doing my expenses, and Brex's AI software runs right through those expenses, figures out where we're spending money, and takes care of so much stuff for you so you don't have to waste your time on it yourself. Go to brex.com/corememory to learn more and just, you know, get with the program. Let's get going. Let's get out of this Archaic finance software and move toward the future. CoreMemory and Brex. And so we've on this show, in my writing, we've covered a lot lately about what's been going on in the IVF world where we've started doing more open and available screening of embryos for certain traits. A lot of this is around health and people going through the IVF process get to pick the healthiest looking embryos. They get to screen for certain diseases, or at least get some sort of like percentages that, that you may or may not get cancer, all sorts of different conditions. Orchid is a company we've, we've profiled that has put a lot of, I think, scientific rigor in, into all of this. That in and of itself is controversial for some people. I see every time Noor posts about ORCID on Twitter. You've got some people in the pro camp, but then you've got a bunch of people are like, this is, uh, especially kind of from the religious side, I think, of, of you're killing babies, you're making this decision on who gets to live, who gets to die. And then this next step has been even more controversial when pe— if people start to think, okay, now we're going to gene edit babies to pick certain traits and, and people get nervous about this, right? It's like, it's like, what's, what's gonna happen? Are we— and so it's, it's such a hot button topic. What, what has happened since you, you announced this? NPR covered it. I feel like you— I haven't seen some massive backlash.

Yeah, everyone's so nice to me. I'm like, damn, I'm waiting for the— I was waiting for the ball drop. I was waiting for hate mobs. I was waiting for like crazy people to, like, give me death threats. And it was actually really pleasant. We got dozens of positive messages from people, including patients, like people that have genetic diseases, like hereditary cancers or trachymerituous disease. And they come to us and say, hey, you know what, I have this mutation. I'm going through IVF right now. Can we actually use your technology right now to change the outcome of some of these embryos? So I think from a technology perspective, what we're doing is quite obviously adjacent to embryo screening and some of the companies that you mentioned, and there's, you know, quite a few now. But I think philosophically it's quite different because instead of selecting the embryo, we're actually giving all embryos a chance. And, you know, from a religious perspective, instead of thinking about it as, you know, in some cases— and I don't necessarily agree with it— but people say, you know, you're discarding an embryo, discarding a life. What we're trying to do is save that embryo and save that life and give it another chance. And also for couples going through IVF, they're typically older and they have less embryos to choose from in the first place. So I think having more embryos that could be viable, disease-free is actually super helpful from like an embryo count perspective. So, you know, we're trying to give people more options, more chances. And so philosophically, I think that's where we're different. And hopefully, you know, we keep getting the message across in a way that people can resonate with and be aligned, be aligned with.

And is that how you're framing the Manhattan Project right now? It's mostly for people going through IVF, or can you make other changes to the embryo?

We're only focused on eliminating diseases right now because from a scientific perspective, the correlation is very well understood for a handful of diseases, quite a few actually, you know, just in terms of genotype-phenotype relationships. You know, that's one mutation or this one disease gene is absolutely responsible for the outcome of a patient getting a disease. So that's where we feel comfortable applying this technology, at least in the first phase. You know, and I think that's where we have to be responsible with the science. And that's actually where we draw the line. It's on disease prevention. I think anything else when it comes to polygenic traits, things that people talk about a lot in the media, especially when people are trying to sensationalize it, like enhancement, eugenics, like we're not interested in that. We're not interested in things that we don't even understand from a scientific perspective. Like IQ is one that everyone talks about, or attractiveness. It's really, really hard from a scientific perspective to, to understand the genetic causes of those things.

So you would be— you're looking at monogenetic single gene illnesses for right now?

For now, yes.

So I come in with my partner, we get the IVF test. It says we've identified this, this embryo may suffer from this condition. And you would what? You would go in and use CRISPR to, to remove to swap out this damaged part of the DNA?

Yeah, it's a simple microinjection to the embryo, and it contains the changes that you would want to make. Now, since 7 years ago when the first gene-edited babies were born, there's way better techniques that are way more precise and safe, meaning that there's less potential for off-target effects, so unintended consequences. Things like base editing, for example. It helps, especially if it's just a single nucleotide change, which applies to quite a few diseases. It doesn't induce a double-strand break. So it's simply a chemical-induced change for that one nucleotide, like an ATCG. You replace that and then you're able to have a healthy embryo.

So we just did a story on baby KJ, KJ Muldoon, who became a celebrity baby. Yeah, he— I've— what if I feel like it was like he was born 8 months ago or 9 months ago, somewhere in there, I think, in Pennsylvania. And had a single gene monogenetic disorder, was going to be life-threatening at some point, was when he consumed protein, he was overproducing ammonia. It was not being digested right. I mean, his body just didn't process protein the way most people do. And so totally debilitating condition, this was the first time I— we've obviously, we've had gene therapies before, but the first time people kind of sprung into action with this infant and were able to push through a gene therapy, get FDA approval, had something ready and into a baby. This was worldwide news. The thought is this, at least in the story that we wrote, we were arguing this was a milestone where it looks like there's millions upon millions of kids that suffer from these rare genetic conditions. Maybe we are now entering a phase where regulators are ready to move more quickly, where we've proven out that this technology is safe enough. I mean, so this is all falling in a similar bucket. You would be arguing the editing technology has gotten safe enough that we can— because I imagine that must be some of the pushback you would be getting is like, are we at this point where this is safe enough?

Yeah, a couple of things there. I think one, that does advance the field from a consent perspective. You know, from the technology side, you're just, you know, using it earlier when it's actually much more effective to get the genetic changes into the embryo or the blastoid. I think for an organism, especially an adult, there's trillions of cells, right? This is why somatic gene therapies are really difficult to develop. It's because you have to deliver the genetic changes to the specific cells in your body. And because there's trillions of them, you have to do it in an effective way, but also it has to be safe for the host because you do it via a virus, so you don't want to kill the host either. So it's a very complex issue. It's really the delivery mechanism that's changed— that's— sorry, it's very difficult. But with an embryo or like a very early stage, you know, blastoid, you have the potential just to change the entire embryo at once with one microinjection. So it becomes a lot more effective from a technology perspective, but also from a cost perspective. The first gene therapy that was approved by the FDA for sickle cell anemia, Casgevy, it's $2 to $3 million USD per patient per dose. And, you know, for something that you can inject into an embryo, it would be like 1% of the cost, if not less than that. And one of the biggest issues for every country right now is the national healthcare spending for healthcare, for doctor consultations, drug pricing, especially in this country. And so if you're able to provide patients that have debilitating heritable diseases with a much more cost-effective and safer option, then why not do it? And part of what you said about, you know, is it safe enough now? While that's a great milestone, I think for the germline gene therapy side, it's still very early because there's been proposals of a moratorium, a 10-year ban. So it's a paradox, right? It's a paradox in the sense that bioethicists want to keep saying that's not safe, or people want to keep saying that's not safe, but you can't make it safe if you don't work on it. So I think it's important to push this narrative forward. It's been 10 years since we first saw a scientist in China gene-edit a human embryo, Jianzhou Huang. And, you know, there's been no progress in the conversation publicly. And I think the public's tired of that. I mean, there's stagnation across all fields, especially biotech. And I feel like this is the one area where we can significantly change how medicine is created, how healthcare issues are addressed while saving lives, saving money for countries and national healthcare systems. Yeah, but most importantly, give people an option to not have to spend money when they're like— not have to get treatments when they're an adult after they suffer from the disease, but rather not be born with the disease in the first place. So yeah, I think there needs to be more research done in this space. It's definitely not ready right now because there was a moratorium. There's such a, you know, there's so much sensitivity around it. There was a federal funding, funding ban in the US. For this technology. I do think that doing animal studies, even IRB-approved, you know, cell line studies, things like that, that's really important to address the safety issue if we want to have this conversation productively.

All right, well, let's get into some of the controversy.

All right.

Which, which would you have in some ways a personal relationship to? Um, the, this— you mentioned the, the Chinese doctor 10 years ago, but then more recently, how many years ago, 5, 6, 7, 7 years ago. Um, and I, I, I'm gonna need help on the pronunciation now. Um, and then people call him JK. JK. And so he was a Chinese, Chinese scientist. Um, did gene— and please help me out if I butcher something— but did gene editing on two, two children, I think. And, and so ended up huge controversy. I mean, the scientific world, they were, they were still, um, in the embryos, right? And, and was trying to alter their genes to prevent them from getting HIV later in life. I think they lived in, uh, a region that had very high prevalence of HIV, and the argument was, was kind of putting in this, this safety measure. The scientific community recoiled. I think the arguments were this technology is not ready. You're also changing the genes. It's not like you're changing this for an illness that these children already have. It's kind of this predictive preventative measure. Hei Hei ended up spending 3 years in prison. Um, so the, the Chinese government seemed to— you had worldwide scientists reacting against it, and then the Chinese government seemed to, to see this negative attention and really crack down and, and So JK was in jail for 3 years. Then he comes out, he starts a new lab, which I didn't know you could— he was going to do that. I thought maybe he'd be in the penalty box for a very, very long time. And then it was, it was like earlier this year or— well, okay, I'll let you tell the story. I mean, the two of you, the two of you meet and then, and then for a moment in time, it looks like you, you were maybe going to start this type of company in China. Um, so, well, why don't I let you tell the story? What was your relationship, um, like with, with JK? And did I, did I sum up most of those points okay?

Yeah, it's a good summary of his previous life and work. And I met him about 2 years ago through a mutual connection who is from Shanghai. And, um, yeah, I was just as shocked as you are when I found out after, you know, prison he was going to go back to the germline editing space. I wanted to do more of that.

Can we define germline really quick for people?

Yeah, germline cells are reproductive-related cells. So sperm, egg, embryos, really anything that's not a somatic cell. Somatic cells are basically anything that's not a germline cell. So like your eyes, your skin cells, your hair cells, those are somatic cells. So when you say somatic gene therapy, it's just targeting any of your, you know, maybe organs or your eyes. When you say germline gene correction, you're talking about anything to do with reproduction. So your embryo or even eggs, I guess sperm as well.

So you're doing this editing at this very early, early stage.

Yes, exactly. And just as the embryo is dividing cells very rapidly, you do it as early as possible. So as it divides, it has a healthy copy of the disease gene or corrected version of the disease gene as it divides and divides into a full human being.

Okay. I know I cut you off. I knew we were going to say germline a lot, so I just wanted to— I wanted to throw out the— so he's— he comes out, he's doing this work, he catches your attention.

Um, yeah, um, and I guess I didn't know too much about the details before that, so I don't specifically know what happened in 2018. And, um, you know, when the twins were announced, Lulu and Nana, um, but, you know, earlier this year we did have a very short-lived personal— a personal relationship, and then, uh, and then I was banned from China.

You announced on Twitter, I mean, you know, if I'm going too far, let me know. But you, you announced on Twitter you were going to get married. He, it was kind of amazing. You, for JK, had the best Twitter account going on, or X account, whatever. Um, you know, he was doing these amazing posts. I kind of loved it. It was like biotech, uh, same thing, influencer sort of style, and very funny. And, and, and, and then anyway, yeah. The two of you were publicly kind of getting together on X, and then I saw the story and I reached out to both of you. I wanted to go to China and do—

I didn't invite you to Beijing—

and do a piece on all this. And then in the middle of it, um, I think you got married. You had a wedding ceremony.

Yeah, we had a ceremony.

You had a ceremony, and then you kind of came back to the US for a minute, and then we're heading back to China on X, looked like to go start a new biotech research lab or startup. And then like you said, you got— you were not able to get into China. So the Chinese government must have seen all these things going on on X and had some concerns.

Yeah, I don't want to comment too much on the relationship, but, you know, I do wish him the best. It's been, for me, it's been a very wild ride. I've never had travel restrictions before. So when that happened to me, I was really confused and surprised. And you were one of the first people I talked to about it. And you wrote an excellent, excellent piece. You know, I still read it once in a while just to feel nostalgic. But yeah, I know it was a very strange experience. But, you know, I think I learned a lot from that.

I don't mean to trivialize anything, and I'm sitting here with a slight smile on my face. Only, only— and it's your life, and I don't mean to— only because it was dramatic and, and, and like this whirlwind. So, yeah, I was in— I was shooting a movie in Switzerland when all this happened. I remember we were doing our shoot and then I was interviewing you on the side, and then we were packing up our gear and I was writing the story up because I think there were a lot of people in my journalism world that were fascinated by the story. I mean, J.K. has been this, this person that science writers have been interested a lot. And then there was this whole— in my head at that time, I was like, oh, well, this is fascinating. I think China will race ahead of the United States on this type of technology. And I we talked about some of this, but, um, you could see, like, obviously the U.S. and China are competing on many fronts, but to me, the U.S. has felt restrictive on this type of technology. You could see a world where China pushed dramatically ahead, and it looked for a minute like the two of you could be this, like, superpower, you know, coming together to do this. And then, and then, so yeah, I don't mean— I'm not even trying to really pry into your personal life, but obviously something changed and you decided to come do this in the U.S. instead. Well, you got banned.

Yeah.

So they— you were like stuck in the Philippines for a few days and then—

Yeah, it was like the longest 5 days of my life because I had— I have no experience with geopolitics. I grew up in Canada where it's very peaceful, and then I spent most of my life in Silicon Valley and then, and then L.A. And I thought I wanted— I was excited to spend more time in China because, you know, I moved out when I was 4. I moved to Canada. So I was excited to learn more about the country. I hear about things, you know, in the news, like they have a lot of cool robots and like drones that deliver food and bubble tea. So I was excited to see all those things.

Yeah.

And of course, you know, see what's happening in the biotech side. But I think from a biotech perspective, at least on the pharma side, like there's 8, 8 companies, 8 pharma companies that have over a $200 billion market cap in the US. There's actually none in— sorry, none in China. There's zero in China. And I feel like although China does well in a lot of things like manufacturing, robots, things like that, I don't know if biotech from a market cap perspective, just looking at the fact that the US has, you know, 8 $200 billion market cap pharma companies and China has zero. I don't know, um, if China is as aggressive there. I mean, surely they can. They have, uh, from an embryo perspective, they have lots of IVF clinics, they have lots of embryos, they have lots of primate centers, lots of monkey embryos. Those are really good for research. Like, monkey embryos, what you use to do preclinical research before you use human embryos, of course. And so they definitely have a lot of potential. But unfortunately, you know, after my travel restrictions happened 3 months ago, you know, I don't have access to, you know, being in China or, you know, what's happening there, information on what's happening there on the biotech side. But I am super excited to be building this in the US. I think, you know, despite the moratorium or the proposed moratorium, despite the federal funding ban over the last 13 years, I think some of the best talent and research on embryology, on genetic modification like gene editing, gene correction, and germline cells, it's still happening in the US and it's just being privately funded. And I spoke to a lot of those researchers and, you know, we have a super exciting announcement coming up later in September. We're working with actually like 12 amazing PIs, researchers in this embryology space, genetic engineering, gene editing, gene correction space for germline, even bioethics. We have a bioethics person on board now, so You know, I think we're moving ahead really fast, and it's all US talent. And I think that US still leads the way in this field, um, not just technologically but also ethically.

Okay, I want to get back to that. Last question on the personal drama.

Okay.

I mean, did you ever get any more insight from some Chinese government official on exactly what they were upset about or why you were banned?

Uh, I don't want to talk about— no, I don't want to. I, I do not want to get more involved in the geopolitics stuff. I just want to focus on my science, on my little lab.

Okay, because would you be able to say if you were— you obviously did not see that coming or you wouldn't have got on the bus. So that was—

oh no, I wish I knew because if I had known, I would not have gone in the first place. Because what happened was I gave up my place in LA, my car, I moved all my furniture into storage, I brought all my things with me including my dog. And then halfway or more than halfway to China, in Manila, Philippines, that's when I found out I couldn't travel to China. But by the time I found out that I couldn't go to China, I already gave up all my things in LA. So I literally didn't have a place to go back to. I had no home. So I had to go to like my parents' house for a bit. I stayed at hotels. And literally right now I'm still staying at a hotel. So I had no idea. I really didn't know.

So somebody was watching something, but they didn't raise concerns to you or anything. They just didn't let you in.

Yeah, I know. I wish I knew. But, you know, on the plane, it's weird because you know, from LA to Manila, it's a 14.5-hour flight. I was with my dog and I would see the flight attendants like whispering about me. But it was so weird because, you know, sometimes I see people whispering about me because maybe I have a dog and they're like, oh, the dog is so cute. But, you know, just the whole flight I would catch them in the lavatory area and they're like just whispering and being like, that's Cathy. And I'm like, oh, what's going on? And now it makes sense because as soon as I landed, I got off plane and there was someone holding up a sign with my name. They brought me over to the transfer desk and that's when I found out I, uh, they took my boarding pass and that's when I found out I couldn't go.

Just crazy. Okay. Since day one, the Core Memory Podcast has been supported by the fine people at E1 Ventures. They are a young and ambitious VC firm in Silicon Valley investing in young and ambitious companies and people. Thank you so much to E1 Ventures. For all your support. Your point on China and the pharmaceutical companies is interesting. I remember for a while I got really into the Beijing Genomics Institute, BGI, and they were this dominant force in DNA sequencing. And I remember the founder had one of my favorite quotes of all time, which was something like, if it's cute, we're going to sequence it. If it tastes good, we're going to sequence it. It was basically like, we're going to sequence everything. And I think they did, you know, just run around doing all kinds of animals, everything. And then so I, and I, in my head, just from that, and this was a long time ago, 16 years or something. I just, I was like, okay, well, they're going to race way faster than the US. When you're talking about the, some of this very advanced work and everything, that does seem to be the case that the US remains, at least in my eyes, the world leader in this type of technology. You brought up the monkeys as well, which is an interesting thing because in China, I think they have much more access to monkeys than the US does. And it is this key part of experimentation. I keep running into this in both the brain-computer interface field and on this genetic stuff. So I'm curious—

Oh, wow, that does converge, right?

How that plays out. Yeah. So there's quite a shortage of monkeys in the US right now. And it's definitely not the most pleasant topic to talk about because of what they're used for. But I mean, it's not— it's like no joke, you know? I mean, I— I hear about these islands in the Caribbean where people— I mean, it's crazy, um, crazy world. So you, you decide to do this in the U.S., um, and it's an interesting time because my impression from friends is that with the Trump administration, it was like I heard they're even like anti-IVF, you know, and not even not even the stuff we're talking about with Orchid and things like that. They're just kind of anti-IVF to begin with, much more conservative.

You—

so for you to start this in this moment in time, it didn't even— it didn't feel like extra risky on top of the preexisting controversy, I guess.

That's a good question. I mean, it's hard to predict politics, especially when you're not an expert, but from an external perspective, the same kind of same framework has been around for 13 years in terms of federal funding ban from the Congress to FDA to review this technology. And that's been a lot. That's a long time, like 13 years. And the technology has progressed a lot since then. You know, back then, what, what got the Congress a little stressed about germline gene editing was actually MRT, mitochondrial replacement therapy, this idea of a three-parent child. And but what I think is—

listen, I don't even know what that is.

Yeah. Do you know what a mitochondria is?

Yes. Yes.

The powerhouse of the cell.

Yeah.

So I made that joke on X actually at some point, but it's actually really important to know because mitochondrial replacement therapy was the first type of germline gene therapy that was looked at by FDA. And that's what caused Congress to pull funding from the FDA. And that because it's a germline gene therapy that You know, that then applies for all germline gene editing. So later on, when it came to nucleus gene editing, like the DNA, the double helix, that's, um, that still fell under the same rules as overall germline gene editing.

But what was Congress— what were they freaked out about in particular?

Yeah, mitochondrial replacement therapy is this idea where you have— so there's a cell, right? And there's nucleus, and then there's other, you know, organelles. There's, um, there's a cytoplasm, which is like the surrounding fluid, and then inside there's like organelles. There's mitochondria, that in the mitochondria sometimes can have mutations. So in the context where a couple has an embryo where the embryo has mitochondrial Ashlee Vance mutations and tDNA mutations, then what you can do is replace that mitochondria through, you know, sucking it out and then replacing— oh, sorry— replacing that cytoplasm mitochondria with the cytoplasm mitochondria of a healthy embryo. In this context, it was actually done on an egg cell. It was done by Shukhrat Mattalipov at Oregon OHSU. And it was the idea of taking a donor egg, a very healthy donor egg with healthy mitochondria, healthy cytoplasm, taking that out and putting it into a patient egg. So the nucleus is still the patient's nucleus. It's still her DNA. But the cytoplasm with the mitochondria is someone else's, um, from another egg.

I see.

And then when you fuse that with the sperm, you can still have an embryo. But from a— I guess from a science perspective, you're looking at 3 different people, um, participating in creating an embryo instead of 2, which is what's normally done. And so the, the news, um, press sensationalized it and called it a 3-parent child.

And then, and then people objected to that on the usual grounds. This is weird to wrap their head around.

Exactly.

A family.

Yeah. A Republican senator, you know, came out on Congress and said, you know, we can't allow this and then pulled funding. So it's actually not against the law to do germline gene therapy, but like there's no— I mean, there's no law to appeal. It's really just the funding that has been removed from the Congress to FDA to look at this technology and approve it. But it really did start with MRT, Mitochondrial Replacement Therapy, which wasn't specifically germline gene editing, right? It's not— you're not actually gene editing the nucleus of the cell, but that's what started the regulation change that affected all germline gene therapies. So it's been a long time since that happened. That was like the early 2010s. Now we're in 2025. The technology has progressed a lot. The UK has done additional studies on this. In fact, you know, that technology, that technology that I described, that Dr. Mitali Pawar at HSU worked on, that's been used by IVF clinics around the world. Over 100 children have been born with that technology. And yet we're not allowed to do anything, you know, we're not allowed to perform that in the US. But in other countries like Mexico, Ukraine, and other countries, that has been done in other IVF clinics. So I think from like a technology perspective, we're so much more ahead. And I think from a public sentiment perspective and also a healthcare cost perspective, I think this is needed at least to have a conversation about and to do experiments the right way to show safety and efficacy. And yeah, if people, you know, we live in democracy, so like if most people want this, you know, and they're the taxpayers that fund this research. Why should we not work on this? And in fact, in a way, you know, we don't want to withhold treatment. In fact, that's unethical if we do have the treatment on our hands.

So you, you didn't get any major pushback when you came out and announced this?

No. Yeah, no. Maybe people are working on it in secret. I have no idea. But so far, no, it's been like 3 weeks, 3 and a half weeks, and everything's good. We've been getting so much support. I think people are just tired of the same narrative. I mean, if you look at the news articles from 10 years ago in 2015 when the Chinese scientists— the first Chinese scientists that gene-edited a human embryo but didn't implant it— it's the same pushback from the same people, same reporters, the same like scientific, um, you know, leaders. It's the exact same narrative. So I think people are tired of it, like, and, you know, like other things haven't worked, so, you know, people are desperate for, for change.

I can't tell, I get— because X is such a It's very hard for me to tell how close to reality it is or the, like, mainstream opinion. I do see when Orchid posts and we ran our— we ran a video on them. I mean, the comments are pretty nasty, you know, and you get, you get, you get people that more or less see this as abortion or something, you know, like on that level of you're meddling with, you're meddling with the way things are meant to be and, and, and still a very Christian country. And like I mentioned, I mean, especially with the—

yeah, I don't know.

I don't know if you— it's interesting to me. I mean, you didn't get any pushback, but I can't tell if you're right that overall minds have changed or not. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, we'll see how things go. I'm sure, you know, once we announce more things, get more reach, you never know how the sentiment might change and replies and such. But yeah, I mean, it's also understandable. An embryo is something, you know, historically is made, you know, through love and, you know, intimacy. And in a lot of cultures and traditions and just throughout history, it's such a special thing. And to suddenly apply a very logical view on it and tell people what to do and what not to do, like, I can see how that is a little bit violating to, you know, people's like kind of subconscious thoughts and their feelings about something that is so private and intimate. Historically, I mean, you know, humankind has not been able to have this type of conversation or have these technologies be available until the last, like, you know, decade or a couple of decades. So it's quite understandable why people have that gut reaction or like that very first reaction, jerk reaction. But I'm also confident that at least with this approach, you know, for what we're doing, it's, it's really for a small group of people that have debilitating heritable diseases. And it ultimately is a choice. Um, if you don't want it, totally, that's fine. But there are many people who want it, so why apply a rule or a law to all the people and not give them the option to have it if they want it, especially if they have a very painful disease that they don't want to pass down to their children and could be very expensive to take care of from like a national healthcare cost perspective?

And you have, you have this fantastic track record. I have it in my notes, but you might have to save me time. Your first company was Renomics, and you started running that at 18.

Yeah.

And it's, it's still going, isn't it?

Yeah, it's still going.

Yeah. But you, you stayed there for what, like 3 years or so?

Yeah, I was there for 3 years from 18 to 21.

And what does it do?

At first we were focused on genetic testing analysis. There's a number of, like a large number of variants that you see in tests are variants of unknown significance. So we were deciphering the pathogenicity of those variants in cancer testing panels for BRCA1, BRCA2. We sold a lot of that data to companies around the world that do genetic testing, including a company you mentioned earlier, Beijing Genomics Institute, as well as several other genetic testing labs in the US and Europe. And then later on, we became more of a genomic services company. We do mutagenesis. It's been a while, but multi-site parallel mutagenesis to make mutation libraries for enzyme engineering, protein engineering projects. Applied the variants for some biocompanies, pharma companies to make better drugs, better proteins and enzymes.

And I just bring this up just to give the audience some sense of where you're coming from and what you've done, you know. So I mean, super impressive. You ran that as an 18-year-old. Can I ask a crass question? I mean, that was financially, it seems like that must have been good for you.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, like it was definitely a big risk at the time. And I actually ended up investing a bunch of my Thiel Fellowship money into that company too. But yeah, I really, really liked running that and ended up doing well.

And then you did some venture capital work and then you started another company, Lock Bio. And what happened to Lock?

It's still running. It's a really great company. It's a Shopify for drugs platform. You know, the idea that you can white label the entire stack of a telehealth offering from the software to payment processing to compliance to doctor consultations, pharmacy fulfillment for medications, can just white label all of that and give any, any brand, any company just all the access to run a healthcare operation and compete with, you know, leading companies like Hims Roman who are redefining the consumer experience for healthcare and drug prescriptions. I think, you know, that was our goal and we were quite successful at it.

Okay. And then If I can speak frankly.

Yeah.

You're an adventurer. You confuse me a little bit. I mean, you start the year announcing the Los Angeles project, which in and of itself, I think would be— that would be enough for a lot of people. We're going to go make genetically engineered animals. We're going to make unicorns. That seems like a full-time sort of job. And then you had the— you shifted so quickly to maybe going off to China to start a whole other venture and then And then now back. Yeah. I mean, is this— I assume one does not plan for this. I mean, this was just life taking you where life was taking you. Like, well, like, why not just do the Los Angeles project full-time?

Well, that was my plan.

Yeah.

I was going to move from Los Angeles to Austin to be with my team and run the company there. Um, but yeah, none of this was planned. Like, I don't know, for me, like, nothing happens for a while and then suddenly everything happens.

This is the heart of my question. I feel like you must have been searching for something or in an open-minded period of life where you were looking for your next big adventure. And then I just would have thought, oh, well, the Los Angeles, that seems like quite an adventure to go on. And you shifted gears so quick.

Yeah, I think it's two parts. I think one is you know, personally, I was in a place where, you know, I was in LA for 4 years already. Um, I went through a breakup last year that was really heartbreaking, and I wanted to kind of go out and be authentic and just be myself and just do the thing that my heart desires instead of like conforming to society and what society expected of me and how I should be acting based on other people's perception of me, which honestly wasn't a bad life. I just think that like Maybe I was deprogrammed when I was 18 to drop out of school and really see the world for what it is. And that curiosity never left me. And I think a lot of it is like genetic testing is something that caught my interest. Like I was always into philosophy in high school. I took 6 courses in philosophy, including college credits, and, and I felt like DNA just held the answer to so many of our questions. It's this bridge between the physical reality and kind of the intangible reality. And so I've always had this curiosity around it. I love gene editing too, this concept where we can change genes. But, you know, I ended up being more pragmatic and starting to— I started to sell drugs online. But, you know, my heart was always in genetics. So that's why I attempted, you know, through so many ways to really think about what I wanted to do back in genomics. Yeah, it took a lot of attempts and a lot of those attempts were public. And but, you know, it was really unplanned. And at the end of the day, I'm just trying to like solve that question. I have the initial question that drew me into studying DNA, studying genetics. It's just like, what is the reality of life and what is consciousness? Like, what are we all experiencing right now? So that's what drew me back, especially back to human genetics. And so that's how I ended up back here. But it's, yeah, it's been a crazy journey.

You said you were deprogrammed, which you could read that as that's something that happens to you or something that you more actively chase. Did you have a pretty traditional upbringing?

Yeah, I mean, yeah, relatively it's kind of your typical immigrant kid story or very ambitious. Like every year I would cold email, in high school I would cold email 100 professors and I would try to get some type of lab position. Nothing was ever handed to me. Like even when I published a paper when I was 16, I emailed 100 professors and one of them replied and he was like, you know what, sure, come to my lab. I ended up being the only high school kid he's ever, like, had in his lab. And I actually revisited— like, I visited him, like, many years later. I actually made a donation to his lab and he was really thankful. And it was such a cool reunion moment. So, you know, I really hustled. But I think more importantly, like, I was always challenging norms. I was put into this, like, academically rigorous program in high school called IB. I'm sure a lot of your viewers went through IB.

International Baccalaureate.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like AP, but like philosophy.

Yeah. Was this a public or private high school?

This was a public high school.

Okay.

Yeah. And, and I was very ambitious. Everybody, you know, wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer and everybody, it was very, very competitive. So I just, I was in the rat race quite a bit. You know, during my summers off in high school, I went to Penn to study philosophy and psychology. I went to Harvard to study physics the next summer. These are all real college credits that you would get at the end of the summer. And I remember the Harvard physics was so hard because I didn't take any physics before then I had like a bald spot on my head because I was so stressed out. So I was in the rat race really deep in it. I wanted to get into the best college. I was taking all the SAT tests, like all the SAT 2 subject tests. So I was very, very hardworking. But then I realized like, what is the point of that? You just end up getting an internship position like in college. You know, everybody was trying to get an internship at like JPMorgan or like, you know, do a PhD. And I was, you know, already in the lab since I was in high school and looking around me, everyone was like so depressed. Like all the PhDs and postdocs were just pipetting 14 hours a day, you know, writing grants. And, you know, I just really— I started questioning reality. So when I had the opportunity to start my own company, although at a young age, I feel like I've seen enough of that and really felt the rat race myself to kind of see through and take that chance, take that leap of faith. And the Thiel Fellowship only helped, you know, confirm that that is an okay path to take. And so after I took that, I was just, you know, blown away at how different the world is when you're outside of that race versus when you're in it. So I had to do a lot of deprogramming to kind of like see the world for what it is and create my own world model instead of kind of just looking at like courses and criteria and the next job and next job after that and live my life that way.

It's a really hard thing to do, especially when you're 18. My parents, I think, always fully expected I would be a lawyer or a doctor, and then I became a philosophy major in college. And here I am still gainfully employed. But I remember that was like a horrifying conversation to have with my parents.

Philosophy is so cool. What do you mean?

Well, philosophy was fine, I guess, just because I positioned that as pre-law, which you can do. But in my head, I had already checked out of that. I just, I think I knew in my head that I was not going the route that I'm sure my parents expected. And it's really, I went to a very competitive high school, you know, same thing. I was in the very much in the rat race. And so when you were deprogramming yourself and having these realizations, how did your parents react? It's got to be kind of cool when your kid's like, I'm going to start a company at 18.

They're kind of traditional. I mean, they just want to protect me. And they're like, you know, our, our like 18-year-old daughter is in San Francisco alone. They're in Canada. So that's where I grew up in Canada and in like Vancouver, Toronto.

Toronto.

Okay. So quite far from SF and especially when you're 18 alone in SF, you know, your parents are pretty worried. And, you know, my grandparents too, like my family's pretty close and they were like, oh, you're never gonna find a husband if you don't go to college. That's where you're supposed to find a husband. And so, you know, at first there was definitely a lot of pushback just to put me back in the traditional route.

Did you tell them how many single men were in San Francisco?

Yeah, I don't know if that made them more worried or less, but Yeah, it's just, I think at some point you have to realize that like your life is your own and you got to take control of it. And even though it kind of is hard to deal with people who are close to you not approving, not approving some of your decisions, at the end of the day, like it is your life and you're responsible for how you live it. And you have to be happy with the way the chances that you took, the risks that you, the bets that you made on yourself at the end of your life.

Did you end up in like a biotech community house, or where did you live when you were 18? That does seem scary.

Oh, I lived with like a random, um, couple I found on Airbnb. They're actually so nice. I think the guy worked for like HBO or something, or Hulu. Hulu, sorry, Hulu at the time. And they were like my, my, um, local parents.

Yeah. How long did it take your parents to feel comfortable with what you'd chosen to do?

I think it took them 7 years. I think I was 25 when they were like, you know what, it is what it is. She's not going to change her mind. You know, there were many years even when I was a VC, because my goal as a VC during my like 1 year at the VC firm was to learn. And they're like, why don't you just learn in school? And I was like, honestly, not a bad idea. So I did like re-enroll in school. But I didn't attend any— like I went to the orientation, got my student card, and then everybody was like, oh, I want an internship at like Goldman Sachs. I'm like, no, I can't be with— I can't hang out with you. And then so I left. I kept the student card so I can get student discounts.

Was this— where was it? What school?

Columbia.

Okay. Okay.

So I dropped out twice.

Okay.

Most people don't know that.

And you, you must like— you did LA for a bit and now you've picked New York. You might— you like New York.

I love New York. It was so unexpected because I was supposed to go to Beijing and then I went to Toronto and I was trying to figure out my next steps. Honestly, like the last 3 months have been so crazy. Like I was in Toronto and I was like, okay, like, what do I do? What do I— okay, let's start a company. I felt like my co-founder has been amazing. Arianna Haisoli, she was head of biological science at Colossal.

She's also— Right, right, right. Yeah, I saw that. That is right. Right. And Colossal is doing— um, pretty massive gene editing on animals, best known in at the moment for trying to bring the woolly mammoth back.

Yes. Yeah, so she was the head of biological sciences there, and she did her postdoc at the Church lab. And she's just like me in terms of passion for bringing this technology to, you know, parents who may have genetic diseases and want the option to have germline gene therapies available to them. So she's very passionate about that too, very bold. About that mission. So we teamed up, you know, I went to Boston to visit her when I was, you know, still like, you know, at my parents' house. And, and we really got along and we decided to start this company together and bring— and now we've brought on some incredible people and we actually have a lab, a full lab setup now in New York City. We chose New York for a number of different reasons from, you know, the research collaborations you can have, IVF centers, regulations, to the fact that it's just called Manhattan. So we can call ourselves Manhattan Project. It's a nice city.

Yeah, it's a little unfair. You've got the Los Angeles Project and the Manhattan Project.

You're— you can tell I'm very creative with names.

Yeah, but you're taking some good ones. That's bold. What is like— annoying reporter question. I mean, what is the trajectory of the company like? So you've only been around for about a month, so You've got this team you're assembling. How long does it take to begin offering these types of services?

Well, it depends on regulatory. Our goal right now is just to do the preclinical work in animal models, and we're getting IRB approvals and such. So that's the first step, is to create data in animal models, cell lines to show safety and efficacy. Once that is done, and we also concurrently want to do more public outreach, want to do patient advocacy type work to bring in a different type of just a number of different opinions to the table and push us along from a regulatory perspective. Once that's done, once regulatory changes, then I think, then I think we'll be positioned to then bring it to the clinic and bring it as a real option to patients.

Once regulatory changes, you know, those could be famous last words for some people. I mean, you know, sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we all have to bet on something.

And so, and are there— I mean, we talked about China a little bit, but like, is Europe doing this type of thing or is this— this is like a US and China thing to be had?

I think— I think there are other countries doing this for sure. I mean, IVF clinics have been doing MRT, for example, in other countries for a very long time now. UK also just, you know, published— a UK group published a paper about MRT but in embryos. So people are talking about germline. Gene correction in many countries. And I think regulations will change, you know, um, uh, across, you know, many countries, not just the US, once that happens.

Okay. All right, let's get sci-fi for a minute. Okay. Um, like, if I were in your shoes, I would talk about curing debilitating illnesses and things like that, and, and, and definitely frame stuff that way. Part of me might think like, oh, but you know, there are other uses to this type of technology eventually. Yeah. I mean, what— where does your head go? I mean, I mean, definitely starting out on illness, but do we— you have a company that's making genetically engineered animals as well. Do we— I'm less— I'm less into like the eugenics stuff. I'm not convinced that like society goes that way or that they coalesce around, like, wanting all the babies to look the same and everything like that. I'm more interested in, like, superpowers. And, and, you know, we do— or there's companies like Variant Bio that I've written on that have been scouring the world for these unique populations of people that have tremendous genes for fighting diabetes or increasing your metabolism. And they're, they're their VC pitched them as like finding the X-Men of, of the world. But, you know, so I'm more interested in things like that. Or maybe you wanna be really tall or, or, um, less like everybody looks the same and more, yeah, sometimes people want a little something extra for their kids. And, and is that of interest to you? We can start there. My other question is like, even if it's not of interest to you, do you think it's inevitable that we're going that direction. That was a lot. Sorry. Yeah, pick whatever you want.

Um, well, like, a couple days ago I learned that— do you know this basketball player Yao Ming?

Oh yes, yes, I grew up in Houston. Yes.

Oh yeah, yeah, Houston Rockets. Um, so Yao Ming was actually, um, I don't know if you want to call this like, um, I don't want to say joints, but, uh, genetically— no, no, no, no, no. So these— so essentially his mom is a very famous Chinese basketball player. She's 6'2", so very tall for a Chinese woman. And then his dad is also a basketball player in China, I think 6'7", 6'9", something pretty tall too, especially for China. And, um, and so when his mom retired from basketball, the government was like, if you're going to retire, you know, you gotta, you gotta get married and make an offspring, like make a baby. And so they, they arranged that marriage. They arranged some of their best basketball players to reproduce and create like a baby that is going to be genetically predisposed to being really tall and being very good at basketball.

Well, that worked.

And it worked. But you know, at the beginning, Yao Ming didn't like basketball, according to this documentary. I don't know him, but, you know, he didn't— he became like 7'6", so way taller than his parents. He didn't like basketball. He wanted to do like archaeology or something. But then, you know, you got to just keep— you were bred for this. You got to, you know, got to practice. So then he got better and better. And then he came to the US, you know, dominated the sports kind of like narrative, like all the basketball. Get— like, he was a superstar, right?

Yeah, well, he was object of fascination for his height, for coming from China, and then was just a very good basketball player. I mean, he was an All-Star for a number of years before I think he had feet conditions that slowed him down.

Yeah, yeah. So in a way, can one argue that that was an enhancement, like a genetically— a genetic— like something unnatural genetics that resulted in enhancement that was intended? Right. Like, I think that's— that was a long time ago too. I think he's like in his 40s. Like, he's kind of old.

Yeah.

You know, so that was already 40 years ago. So, so much of that was already happening back then. And who knows what has happened from then on. And that was for something visible, right? For heights, for ability to play basketball. I mean, I don't know what else people could be, you know, breeding for, breeding humans for. Right. Like, there's so many things that we don't know. But in a way, that's actually really successful because now we have Yao Ming. That's a success case for this type of genetic engineering. So from like a germline gene correction perspective, I wouldn't say like this is like the first or biggest use case because this can already happen. It's been happening for like decades now since Yao Ming or even before then. And for a lot of those traits, like, you know, IQ, just going back to IQ, attractiveness, it's not really fully well understood. So just to go in to make edits may not even be as effective as just like have two people be set up in a marriage with the traits that you like and then do whatever you did with Yao Ming's parents. Um, so that's kind of my stance on that for now.

Okay. All right. But I mean, I'm with you. Yes. And obviously we do this all the time as humans, right? And, and, and it's like perfectly okay to discriminate around intelligence. I mean, everyone's like You want to find someone intelligent to hang out with, and, and it's all okay. But, but okay, assuming, assuming we are able to do multi-genes, and we— let's, let's do the thought exercise that we can't— we do know what causes, um, higher IQs or, or whatever. I mean, is that something you're, oh, you're open-minded to?

The science has to be there for there to be a productive discussion. I also think it's like, I believe in having this conversation with different stakeholders. I think one part is obviously science, like science has to work, has to be there, like the genotype-phenotype correlation has to be super solid. R-squared value has to be, you know, very valid. And then on top of that, you have to bring in like legal experts, like people in charge of like public health, people that do bioethics, like, you know, you really want to present everyone's opinion at like a roundtable almost. And then you determine how it's used by society. And also different countries may use it differently. I can't control what Russia does, for example. So when the technology is available, those are all conversations that will be had in different countries and different people will end up doing different things. But that's the same with any technology, even with AI or space or any like defense technologies. The way you use it is based on, um, the groups that have control of it, right? And I think, um, who's going to have control of it— it's not really just a scientist, it's going to be, um, society, like companies, regulators, people whose opinions should all be heard.

Where do you— where do you imagine China ends up coming down on those types of questions? Maybe that's too broad, but let's look at the way JK was treated. I mean, is It's a little bit of a hard case because there was so much controversy, I think, around the techniques that were used and the specific nature of doing this on these twins before they actually had some condition you were being treated for. But I mean, you know, cracked down on him very, very hard and clearly were trying to save face to the international community, I think, on some level. And so if you play that out, you're looking at me like maybe you don't agree.

You're trying to, you're trying to get me banned in China forever.

I, I mean, you know, you do what you got to do because I understand there's, there's— you have a lot more at stake than I do. But the, um, if you play it out forward, we're in this moment in time where it feels to me like the US and China are racing forward on many, many fronts. You could see a world where China wants to be at the head of this, but they also do seem to be having this face-saving. We want to do what is the consensus somewhere in around them. So yeah, I just keep wondering if you think one country really goes for it and, and is like, we, you know, we're gonna— even if other people don't agree, we're gonna, we're gonna go for this and push, push, push the edge. Or do you think when it comes to biotech, the US and China are both in this kind of face-saving, we're going to be very pragmatic about how we advance this stuff? Like, is there a race dynamic like we have in AI and space?

And I would argue that the biotech dynamic is very different. Yeah, because it, it's rooted in collaboration between academic institutions. You know, if you look at, um, like publishing and like, it's more international. And that's why you can't really replicate an ecosystem in your own country and have it be a closed system the way that you can with software companies. For example, you know, Google, Meta, like they're not allowed to operate in China and they have like a different version of it just built for China. I don't think you can do the same for biotech because I think there's a— the difference here is that for software companies, you have like a— you have like a local maxima. So you can— it's more localized. You can, you know, just cut it off and build your own. And that's the local max— the new local maxima. For biotech, it's like global. There's a global maxima, like the fact that, you know, if you create a cancer drug in the US, it'll work anywhere, right? Like you're going to have patients all over the world that could use this drug. So you don't necessarily want to block off, you know, all the innovation happening in the US, for example, and just try to build your own cancer drug, try to replicate it. Like I think the dynamic is different from that perspective. And as a result, epidemia throughout the world is a little bit more of a monolith, like every— like, for example, if one thing is deemed unethical, it's most likely deemed unethical in other countries. I don't think— I mean, that's just the way that biotech works, and that's very different. I don't foresee a future where China or any other country is just fully closed off to collaborating with external research groups because that cuts off a lot of opportunities. That's how, you know, biotech progresses. That's how innovation works in biotech. Um, so that's kind of, that's kind of my answer.

As somebody who was born in China, grew up in Canada, worked in the U.S., had this— were willing to possibly go move your entire life to China, I mean, you know, horrible giant question, but, but yeah, what do you make of the current state of this whole U.S.-China dynamic writ large? And, um, it seems generally unhealthy to me the way The way we're both pitted against each other, although, you know, there does seem to be some reality to it. Although sometimes I think this is all like theater made up to, uh, to have the world move along. I don't know, I was— you don't have to answer it if you don't want, but I was curious.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, I, um, I don't know. I feel like every day there's like news about stuff. Um, I remember when I was in China very briefly this year, there were news about how like the tariffs are going to apply to China and also other countries. Like, I'm Canadian, so like it definitely impacted, you know, supermarkets and things like that in Canada. But in China, I remember like all the manufacturers started being like, oh, look at this Hermès bag, it's actually $2. Like, look at how we actually manufacture this. This is not what it's marketed to be. It's not actually manufactured or like hand-painted or something in France. It's actually just made— look at the factory. So I remember that really clearly. I don't know, probably doesn't answer your question, but I do feel like there's always like something random that comes out. But there was like this one moment though, where TikTok was almost banned in the US. TikTok, you know, being like a Chinese company, that was a whole thing. And a lot of American users went on Xiaohongshu, like RedNote, and started interacting with Chinese citizens on that app. And I thought that was a really beautiful moment because they got, they got to like share their passions, like or like how their day-to-day looks like. The Chinese citizens were like, oh, look at this, like, this is the train I took, or like, this is my home, this is my cat. And then the Americans were doing the exact same thing. And I thought that was a really beautiful moment. So while there's tensions, you know, with terrorism, economic policies or governments, I do feel like the people of both countries are actually more similar than different. And I think it would be really beautiful for like the populations, the people to connect more from both countries.

Of course they are, right? I mean, this is the way this always works. And when I go to China, people are so nice. And, um, I just don't think you can travel anywhere and interact with each other without realizing we're all— it's not like I'm breaking new ground here, but we're all quite similar. And on, on a pretty fundamental level, um, yeah, I was just curious on your— I feel like on a couple of your other answers. Well, I don't want to— I don't want to say what I don't know. I felt like you were holding back a little bit. If you, you know, you were like, when you started this company at the very beginning, you're like, look, this has been around for 10 years, we haven't done much. And then when I talked to, to Josie about the Los Angeles project, you know, she's, she's like, oh, most of these biotech people are such conservative duds, nobody's trying to do anything interesting. And I when you and I have talked, you, you kind of agree with that idea in the, in, in the large. Um, are you, are you disappointed with the state of biotech? We have all these fantastic tools at our disposal, and it does seem like most startups are just trying to hunt this single molecule they can make to sell for a whole bunch of money to Pfizer. And, um, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I get the sense that you're Um, you feel like it's mostly a quite conservative field given the tools that we have?

Yeah, I think anyone you ask, like, that's building a company in this space, okay, they've shown that they are, you know, willing to take risks. They probably see that, um, academia and then anything to do with like pharma and afterwards, it's, it's been the same playbook for a long time. And I think there's even more censorship in academia than ever. Like, for example, you know, there are scientists that really agree with me, but they have to like whisper it to me, like in a real life, you know, like an in-person setting, like at a lab. And I think that's just really unfortunate. You know, when I was 18, I started my company in the first in the genetic testing space. I really like the idea that you can use data to prevent diseases. And then I was like, okay, now, okay, once you figure out you have a disease, what are you going to do? Like, Can we fix it? Can we use gene editing? You know, we have CRISPR now. Like, there's so many things we can do. And nothing materialized. It's been like 11 years. I'm 29 now. And that field hasn't changed. Like, the genetic testing field is the exact same because insurance only covers the genetic testing of only a certain few genes. And so without the feedback loop of like, you test more genes, get more data, and then you inform what that data means, you don't get real progress. So like, the system right now is set up in a way where, you know, it doesn't change all that much. And it feels like, I mean, this morning I, I was speaking with a bioethicist, one of the few that's actually very, very for this space. He actually reached out to me after the announcement. And he was like, you know, this is the most, like, exciting thing right now. And like, in the whole space, in my entire career, this is the only part of biotech that has no stagnation. And I think he said it really wonderfully because what feels like the rest of biotech is just like, it's just stagnating. It's been 11 years since I was 18 and starting that company, like nothing changed. Like, yeah, maybe there's a few more somatic gene therapies, but they cost like $2 million. So it just feels, it feels like, it feels like no one's bold enough to think differently. And I think maybe because where biotech is different is that you typically need like a PhD, you have to read a ton of papers, you spend time in the lab to really understand it and know what to do with biotech. Versus in AI or like software, even robotics, you can just code something in your, in your backyard or something, or the garage, right? You build something like that's how Amazon started in your garage. But with biotech, there is that barrier. And so to get through that barrier, you have to go through academia, which then like programs you to think and say certain things a certain way because there's so much censorship now. And then by the time you're done with it, you know, after your PhD, your postdoc, you're like 30 years old or maybe like early 30s. You've already kind of been programmed to say and do a certain type of thing. And academia is a monopoly. So, you know, if you say the wrong thing, if you like go against the crowd, then you get ostracized and you can't publish, you can't get grants, and then your life is over. Versus in tech, just get another job at another big tech company. So there's a lot more at stake for this. I think that's one of the reasons for stagnation, but not just academia. It's like the biotech industry as a whole. There's a lot of other issues like reimbursements, like for example for genetic testing. That's why you have a lack of data and more genes that can test. Um, so all to say that, um, I am pretty bullish on this because it feels like, as the bioethicist earlier today said, it feels like it's the only part of biotech with less stagnation. And he's trying to spend more time with us too, so I'm very excited about that.

Seems like George Church could get away with just about anything. He was his lab. You know, they're always— they always make these big proclamations, um, but it feels almost like limited to his lab to some degree.

Yeah, I mean, he, um, he's done— he's, you know, done a lot of work in this space, and I really like the fact that he is quite open-minded in terms of what this technology can do and the applications that, um, are applicable here. Yeah, I, uh, I think, you know, someone earlier today actually also told me like he's like the Don, like a benevolent, benevolent Don of biotech.

So it's like, seems to be, you know, I've started hundreds of startups. It's hard to, hard to keep track. Um, all right, I'm gonna set you free after one last question.

Okay.

This, this Instagram post I'm fascinated by. Is this the start? Was that just like a one-off Or are you— I felt like you were almost like a character that you're— this like biotech character that you're embracing. Is this going to be an ongoing thing or was that a one-off?

We'll see. We'll see. But right now I am Biotech Barbie and you're Podcast Ken.

I'm just Ken.

You're Ken-Off.

Because, wait, you did have a couple Biotech Barbie posts. It wasn't just— was it just one? I know the video was one, but I thought you, you posted first just with the newspaper.

Yeah, it was like a screenshot of the video, right?

Yeah, right. Okay, so yeah, that's what made me start thinking this was an ongoing— this was going to be an ongoing—

yeah, we'll see. I don't know, I, you know, I am also a little new to this media game. I'm having fun, you know. I think sometimes biotech, um, You know, there needs to be a way for biotech to be communicated to, you know, masses, the public. And entertainment could be a good way to do it. Maybe it's not, not me in the future, but, you know, I'm having fun while I'm at it. Yeah.

Is there anything you would like to set the record straight? I think MIT Tech Review did a big story on some of this saga. Obviously, NPR covered your launch. Are there things that people got wrong that you want to fix?

Um, truthfully, I didn't read the MIT Tech Review article. Um, but, um, no, I think we covered a lot of subjects, and I'm pretty happy with what we covered. I don't think we missed anything.

Okay. All right. Well, I definitely didn't want to make you cry or anything, so we had more like love life, uh, drama that I usually get on my, my podcast. I didn't know I didn't know where we were going.

Yeah, I did it to myself.

Yes. It's not often I have like an international biotech celebrity couple kind of thing on the show.

Oh man.

So thank you so much for coming in. We really appreciate it.

Thanks for having me. That was fun.

The Core Memory Podcast is hosted by me, Ashlee Vance. It is produced by David Nicholson and me. Our theme song is by James Mercer and John Sortland, and the show is edited by the John Sortland. Thanks as always to Brex and A1 Ventures for making this possible. Please visit our Substack, YouTube, and podcast channels. To get more of what Core Memory makes. Thanks, y'all!