Bidding Strategies for Broad Match Keywords Part 2

[00:00:00] shelby: it's crazy what they get away with in the cosmetic space. I was buying a new moisturizer a couple weeks ago and I looked and it had said, Clinically validated, and then I looked a bit deeper and it was 15 people wearing the moisturizer for one hour , and then they were taking the results from that to be gospel and clinically validated.

[00:00:26] erum: Hey Carl. What's up?

[00:00:27] karl: Hey Iam, how's your week going?

[00:00:29] erum: It's going really well. It's event season here in New York. Well, it's always an event season in New York cuz New York is a half new place that never sleeps, but specifically in the biotech world, we went to a couple events, we were at the indie.

[00:00:43] erum: Grand opening, which is an accelerator program that funds biotech companies across the board. the ones, that are in biopharma and ones that are in synthetic biology. And it was awesome.

[00:00:54] karl: How'd you like it? I thought it was great. this, space at IND Bio opened is near Penn Station in a neighborhood that has seen a lot of new buildings, a lot of revitalization over the years.

[00:01:05] karl: the indie bio location is in the heart of New York City, Easy to get to. Fascinating space. There was like 300 people there. You had representatives from the city and the state, when the state put out a R F P for, biotech indie bio, who had traditionally had been in Ireland, and in, San Francisco, applied and they ended up getting some grant money for that.

[00:01:27] karl: it's really gonna be very exciting to have them here. They actually launched Indie Bio New York at the height of the pandemic. They located the class at Rockefeller University, on the Upper East Side and did most of it virtually and since they launched, that was in 2020, they've had five classes go through the program in New York and the number of new companies and, the amount of funding that those companies have generated in the employment that those companies have generated was mentioned last night and it.

[00:01:55] karl: Stunning. It is just, jaw dropping because they barely started. the money that has poured into those companies is amazing. So it's gonna be a huge economic driver for the state of New York and biotech in general.

[00:02:08] erum: I really,appreciated the remarks by Sean O. Sullivan, who heads up s so s v,

[00:02:13] erum: he really painted a very interesting picture about, planetary health. Human health and how there were, it was only like 2 billion people,

[00:02:21] erum: On the planet. And it was kind of stabilized until there. was a discovery of like petrochemicals to run machinery and create fertilizers and all this food, became available. And of course there's also the, alleviation of some diseases and then the population grew and grew and now we have a whole different set of problems, petrochemicals, were helpful, they're awesome back in the day and they.

[00:02:43] erum: create the planet that we're in, help increase our population, but now it's causing all these issues with the climate and now we need to look for different solutions and gotta, turn to different tools. I mean, biotech is one, there's lots of different tools. it was really great.

[00:02:55] erum: We have a really. Amazing venture capitalist BC that we are interviewing. Today. Her name's Shelby Nead. How did you meet Shelby Carl?

[00:03:04] karl: I met Shelby because she had, done a biotech meetup on Twitter that she was doing in New York City.

[00:03:11] karl: it was interesting to me and ended up going to that event and spoke to her and, like what she was trying to dothe two of us have been part of another community and have organized communities and we think that it's important to be parts of communities and we are parts of many communities.

[00:03:26] karl: that's how I met Shelby. And then I liked the group and ended up offering her the opportunity to use the messaging lab space for another group. And then we subsequently have gotten to know each other, so, we did organize an event together and we're talking about organizing other events together in the future.

[00:03:42] karl: Shelby's very interesting. She's got an interesting, background. She's trained as a plant, I wanna say geneticist, but I'm probably wrong. And now she's working as a venture capitalist, at Compound vc. She's only been in New York City for six months. So that gives her a very interesting perspective on, biotech in New York City.

[00:04:00] karl: we should just let Shelby talk for he.

[00:04:02] erum: Yeah, let's get this party going. .

[00:04:05] karl: hey Shelby. Welcome, to Grow Everything

[00:04:07] shelby: great to be here.

[00:04:08] shelby: Thanks for having me.

[00:04:09] karl: And I, were really excited to have you come on, board as a, I'm gonna say a new representative of the, New York biotech scene. And,we're excited to have this conversation

[00:04:19] shelby: with you. Yeah, likewise. you guys have been very welcoming and the biotech community in New York, and I've really helped make it feel more like home.

[00:04:29] shelby: So yeah, just really glad. Have an excuse to, to speak more with you guys. .

[00:04:35] karl: so why don't we just kick it off by asking you, how do you talk about biotechnology to people who don't know anything about it.

[00:04:40] karl: What do you tell people when they ask you what do you do and what is bioTE.

[00:04:44] shelby: Yeah, that's a great question. I'm of two minds about what I tell people. I have really in-depth conversations very quickly with people already in the biotechnology industry. For people that don't know, I normally have more of a pharma.

[00:05:00] shelby: Curing disease, curing cancer, spin on things. And it's only really with writing that I've engaged with the bioeconomy aspect Of growing medicines, of growing fabrics that. Make textiles and growing soap . it's harder for it to sink in for when you're just saying that to people.

[00:05:25] shelby: we have bacteria that can make spider soap. And for them to see it written. I feel like that's been a more digestible way. so I have tried to talk to my parents more about the bioeconomy and for them, I can just see their eyes glazing over as soon as I say something like that. But I did send them an article that I wrote and it seemed like they really got it.

[00:05:49] shelby: it's like, People being interested and engaging with biotechnology, with different formats really helps in the understanding. So listening to podcasts such as yours that talk about it from many different angles, and then having it be, a steady part of what they're reading, really helps.

[00:06:10] shelby: so the blog post I have is called Biocene Thoughts, and Because that's where aspirationally will be in the bios scene. Right now we're in the anthrop scene to where everything we see inhale, I jest is like made with humans.

[00:06:23] shelby: And then the ultimate heating of the earth is caused by humans. But in the biotechnology, in the bios scene sphere, hopefully everything we see will be, like buildings Made from plants or made from mushrooms and our food being much more naturally sourced. And as same with the textiles that we have, those not being derived from petrochemical plastics, but maybe bioplastics instead.

[00:06:49] shelby: that's hopefully what we're going towards.

[00:06:51] erum: And I think that you're in a very challenging position because you are, a scientist.

[00:06:57] erum: by training you're also a VC by training.you're in these worlds where it is a very, very niche and you have a lot of technical knowledge. you have to translate on both sides, on the enterprise side and on the science. sideSo you're speaking two different languages

[00:07:14] erum: you, you started your career education, in the sciences, and then you made a transition into a world of venture capital. I mean, we all know about, shark Tank and that has become very popular. So now the world of VCs has become a little bit more mainstream.

[00:07:28] erum: And so you are a shark in the biotech. Space. So what in inspired you to become, a vc?

[00:07:34] shelby: my love of research in new science became really evident through 10 years of higher education 10 full years that I did enjoy, but, I just had so much resistance at the end of my PhD to pipe heading anymore, like I just couldn't do anymore, like pipe heading, clear liquids and tiny tubes, and then heating those tubes up and cooling them down.

[00:08:00] shelby: And I just I couldn't imagine that being the rest of my life. But what I really enjoyed, especially with writing up my thesis, is engaging with all of the surrounding literature and the new trends. And, I was really grateful to be able to work with a couple UK based funds during my PhD to help orient,in the biotech.

[00:08:20] shelby: Seen both on the synthetic biology side and the more traditional therapeutics. it, it just became an easy decision that I felt where my interests in bringing research ideas together and reading papers made the most sense, and especially, that's why I was really jazzed to join Compound, which is a research and thesis driven fund, and that being at its core, resonated with me, and how I like to engage with the biotech ecosystem.

[00:08:50] karl: Yeah, one of the things Erum and I talk about is we're constantly feeding our curiosity. and I often say the thing I love about the work that we do is, constantly having to learn about. new technologies, new companies, engaging with people that are building these things and talking about them and helping them.

[00:09:09] karl: we joke around that we are endlessly curious you sound the same. And being part of this feeds that. And then also knowing that there is like, Greater impact that we potentially are making that is incredibly important right now.

[00:09:22] karl: Yeah,

[00:09:22] erum: and I hear you on, the lab life. Ithat was me. I was in pharma, I was, a chemist I felt like an automaton. I'm like, this could all be automated. Like 1:00 AM I doing here, you know, .

[00:09:32] erum: don't get me wrong, the lab was exciting, but for me, after a certain amount of time, like you, Shelby was like, okay, it's time to see what's going on the, in the bigger picture. , because, when you do experiments, it's very narrow.

[00:09:43] erum: Yeah. And there's a whole ecosystem to be built. and you specifically, being in your shoes and, in venture capital, You have to see a lot of companies, right? being pitched nonstop. there's sort of people coming to you, but you also have to go seek out these companies.

[00:09:57] erum: wanna share some of the interesting things that you're seeing out there?

[00:10:00] shelby: I'm really amazed by the breadth of companies that. Are being formed in all of the different challenges they're addressing, whether it's, hormone monitoring for women experiencing perimenopause like very early, or, I was speaking to a company today that helps with, new types of veterinary drugs based on cannabinoids, to.

[00:10:28] shelby: Using cutting edge human therapeutics, but using them in plants instead. So bio uses this new age therapeutic called ProTacs. Yeah. That selectively degrades certain proteins. They use that in implant instead for disease and pest resistance. So interesting. there's a real richness to the diversity.

[00:10:55] shelby: Issues being solved, and it's really such a privilege to interact with all of these different folks every day that have that broader vision to help and make a change.

[00:11:06] karl: Yeah. That pro the ProTax space, we know it well because the ProTax space, which is a protein degradation, Has been very well funded. So it's very interesting to think about it being used beyond human therapeutics. But the evolution of that has been the molecular glue space. . Yeah. Which is still considered to be very niche and new, and yet that has also seen a lot of investment. to our listeners, we at messaging lab, we're always trading notes to their friends on the investor side because we're all seeing different things.

[00:11:32] karl: Sometimes we see the same things, and I think that's what makes us exciting to constantly have these dialogues.

[00:11:37] Proteins are naturally degraded by cells in,nature. And usually what happens is there's a special molecule that is attached to them , that marks those proteins for degradation. Meaning that a normal protein isn't gonna be degraded, but once it gets this mini protein attached to it, then it will be degraded by a cell, and you have to think of it as kind of being like a trash mechanism.

[00:12:02] Certain proteins end up being not useful anymore, and so the cell degrades them and maybe turns them into new proteins or just eliminates them all together. This has been of great interest to. Drug developers because there is the possibility of degrading proteins that are not healthy by attaching certain molecules to them, and then marking them for degradation.

[00:12:25] So when Shelby says ProTax, she's talking about this field of study to develop medicines that are based on this concept of degrading proteins. On the other hand, molecular glues are a type of molecule. Encourages two proteins to come together that normally wouldn't interact. This is a little bit of a newer area for drug discovery.

[00:12:47] It's probably been around less than five years, but it has attracted a fair amount of interest from investors

[00:12:54] shelby: . Yeah, absolutely. And. I a hundred percent agree. molecular glues in a way to modularize and engineer the continuous discovery of new ones is something that I've seen several early stage companies trying to solve and.

[00:13:11] shelby: Really hopeful because, just the smaller size make cell membrane permeability much better. And, the oral availability much better as well.

[00:13:19] karl: yeah, people don't know, generally people don't know how challenging drug discovery is. and then these things like that, Shelby mentioned about membrane permeability, getting the drug to the.

[00:13:31] karl: Is a very challenging I don't know. Can we just say, area of study, area of research, area of investment, area of company formation, drug delivery is a big thing. it's so fascinating. Endlessly fascinating. There's so much going on in all those spaces.

[00:13:46] erum: What are you looking for right now? what are some of the technologies? besides therapeutics, cause we're gonna go deep into that later. a lot of what we've been discussing is synthetic biology. because of our thesis or our focus here, I grow everything is, you can grow different products that, we use every single day.

[00:14:02] erum: is there anything that you're looking for specifically?

[00:14:05] shelby: I'm really bullish on. Companies that enable condition optimization during the fermentation process, and companies that

[00:14:18] shelby: modularize or digitize the C D M O process as well.

[00:14:23] karl: Shelby mentioned a C D M O and A C D M O is a contract development and manufacturing organization. A lot of biotechnology companies use contract manufacturers or contract development manufacturer organizations to scale up the production of. Molecule. You might remember a couple of episodes ago, Sherra Tku of C 16 Biosciences mentioned using contract manufacturers to manufacture their palm oil alternative.

[00:14:55] karl: And that's an example of a company using A C D M O or C M O to augment their capabilities.

[00:15:04] shelby: there are very few. Companies actually there that are enabling the synthetic biology transformation. But all of these early, like pre-seed, seed stage companies that are focused on maybe one or two products that are very technically very sound on those products, but don't necessarily have the scale up expertise are going to need enabling companies in order to achieve.

[00:15:34] shelby: High scale and eventually market success. So right now, more looking at the infrastructure and enablement side of synthetic biology, what about you guys? where are you seeing the my excitement

[00:15:49] karl: Mist or Mystic

[00:15:53] karl: Yeah, when we talk to people and they bring us the technology that we haven't heard about. It's always something that, I always reflect on it and I'm like, wow, that's very clever, or that's really interesting. I tend to fall in love with the technologies and the companies and the people behind them very easily.

[00:16:10] karl: I'm very excited about,the kind of tools being developed for using. Not model organisms, uncharacterized microbes under underutilized. I'm very excited about that. Non fermentation biomanufacturing is very exciting and we're seeing some very interesting things in that space.

[00:16:30] karl: Not just cell-free, but the use of different organisms that normally wouldn't be used. and then consumer applications. our friends at K 18 Hare, they're the number one. selling hair product in Sephora, And, they're very biotech forward.

[00:16:46] karl: We say that they're a biotech, company. disguised as a hair care company and I'm excited to see more of those. what about you, IAM?

[00:16:53] erum: the consumer biotech is something that's very exciting because, it's putting biotech in the hands of people, especially if you market it that way, right? Biotech is in the hands of everyone that they just don't realize it. it's in their bodies because the Covid vaccine, was developed in that way.

[00:17:09] erum: Of course a biomaterial, so we had poly bio on here. making leather, out of agricultural waste. it just checks off so many boxes and I think those stories start inspiring people and getting them to understand, okay, there's this technology, there's this tool that can be used to create different.

[00:17:29] erum: I don't have to just, use, just chemistry. This is something, using biology is, more green. This is a little bit more interesting. There's also some challenges and risks. we talked to Megan Palmer, she pointed those out. You have to have a nice release plan if you're making some type of organism that goes out into the world.

[00:17:45] erum: But, I do think that the consumer biotech and the stories, You know what you need to hear from the companies that you're seeing, what Carl and I do every day is just try to get them out there, get them in the mainstream because we need more talent, right? these companies need people with all different talent to join them.

[00:18:02] erum: And if people don't know that they exist, they'll never go and apply, Yes. just the consumer biotech is going to be helpful in

[00:18:09] shelby: that. . Yeah, a hundred percent. And I feel,that's really something I missed in the things that I'm very bullish on because I absolutely agree.

[00:18:18] shelby: And I, at the networking event we were at, earlier this month, I tried Z biotics. and it really did stop me from feeling effects of the alcohol itself. And I. See things like that seeping into to everyday life, and it's amazing they've got things like that to a semi affordable scale. But it's interesting the different pricing structure you can have if it is like a bio commodity.

[00:18:52] shelby: That people will pay more for something that really works that isn't just snake oil. that aspect, it's in a middle zone between a pure commodity and a kind of a drug in a way. And that allows for a lot of pricing power.

[00:19:07] erum: Yeah, and you're right, like it's also functionality, like it works, right?

[00:19:10] erum: , because you have to think about the biology of, you as a human and how these products interact with the biology and it has to work, right? Where chemistry is sometimes a shot in the dark, and I don't wanna be negative towards chemistry. I have a degree in forensic chemistry.

[00:19:24] erum: I love chemistry, butthere's always been a battle. Like even when I was in college, the biology department and chemistry department, we'd always have competitions play like football.

[00:19:33] erum: have you seen like anything in the personal care space, that excites you?

[00:19:37] erum: Besides p of course. .

[00:19:39] shelby: Yeah.

[00:19:39] shelby: I've heard whispers of phages. Being used to treat acne in the care space, which is interesting

[00:19:48] Shelby mentioned Phss and Phss are viruses that infect and replicate within bacteria, and they can be modified to target and kill bacteria. So this is great for applications like antibacterial, or killing whatever bacteria is causing your acne.

[00:20:03] shelby: I love the face lotion idea. The microbiome lotion. that's really powerful because so many of us, myself included,I've had acne problems it seems like my whole life.

[00:20:14] shelby: So I've been aggressively using alcohol on my face and I'm sure killing all. The positive and negative bacteria , that's really nice that there's hope that one day it can maybe be rewild with with all the good bacteria. and then like directly controlled with phages as well. And I've heard whispers of like pages for deodorant as well to get rid of the smell causing, bacteria and.

[00:20:43] shelby: More natural hair colors.

[00:20:48] erum: can we talk about that? Cause we talked about hair a couple times. Yeah. what have you seen? we know you have some inside Intel

[00:20:56] shelby: Yeah. a friend that I have from Cambridge in the uk. Nina Warner is her name, and she was always very entrepreneurial and ran the entrepreneurship society at Cambridge and started a company that's looking at safer ways to do hair coloring.

[00:21:16] shelby: I, and yeah, I'm really bullish and still providing the same experience to customers while also being at price parody or hopefully slightly higher. that's been the traditional challenge for a lot of companies, but the fact that she's so laser focused on, on par quality and customer experience.

[00:21:42] shelby: As well as the health angle just really gives me hope that we can keep exposing our,bodies, to products that are better for us.

[00:21:50] karl: Yeah, I had a great conversation with Nina a couple months ago, so thanks for the introduction and I'm looking forward to following up with her because I was so fascinated and inspired by the, approach he was taking towards.

[00:22:03] karl: coloring hair and just,on this whole note of the consumer biotech. as we are speaking now in late January, there was just an N B C news story. I don't know if you saw it, Shelby, that was about, Arcaea, which is a personal care product company that, was spun out at Ginkgo Fireworks.

[00:22:21] karl: And it's a really nice story.I will link to it in the show notes. I put it in my, LinkedIn and Twitter feeds. the woman who interviews, Jina, the c e o, who we have invited to be on the podcast is gonna be on the season, does a really good job. And then she goes back in the studio and, has samples of the, perfume that was made from an extinct flower from Hawaii, which is.

[00:22:41] karl: also fascinating. So really nice story. We'll make sure we link to it so that people can see it. just of switching the subject a little bit, let's kind of circle back to, New York City and,how you ended up here, Shelby. And, you said that you were happy to find a nice,biotech ecosystem, how long have you been here and what's been your impression so far?

[00:23:01] shelby: Yeah, I've been in New York for six months now. I moved right after finishing my PhD and it's been really refreshing how open and curious people are in this ecosystem to meet others. Cause New York has just, A lot of people moved out for the pandemic and then summer last year is when a lot of people started to move back to New York City, but a lot of the people that moved back are biotech people,

[00:23:32] shelby: So it's great for us and yeah, from the synbio side to the therapeutic side to. All the new lab spaces that are in New York. it's just a wonderful community. And not to mention in terms of lab space cheaper than Boston and the Bay Area , I've really en enjoyed it and, hope to.

[00:23:58] shelby: More events with you guys at the messaging map and more events with the broader community too. Yeah, because

[00:24:06] karl: you've organized some biotech meetups. Just how we met. what are those called so that people know and how are those received?

[00:24:12] shelby: Yeah, they're called,

[00:24:14] shelby: Bio meetups is good. I called them Bio Hangouts, but the first month I was here, I. Just wanted to meet other like-minded folks, . And so I put out a tweet, and I would've been happy if five, four or five people wanted to meet up and just say hello and talk about what we were working on. But 30 people ended up showing up

[00:24:39] shelby: And since then there's been a cadence. Events, one of them being at the messaging maps office. So thank you for that. And a pretty good, return rate of people that have come before. So it really feels like a community and it, the breadth of people that come to the events, people from the longevity space to public biopharma companies, to equity research.

[00:25:07] shelby: To investors. the breadth is, really informational and fun as well.

[00:25:13] erum: that's great. Iwe love having an events with you. it's really good to just let loose, it isn't very formal, which I like, cuz you just are trying to make friends, You never know when you need them for any like intel

[00:25:23] erum: this is a big picture question. If I were to give you 10 million right now, , what would you do with that money in terms, would you start a company? Would you invest in other companies? What would you do?

[00:25:35] shelby: That's a great question.

[00:25:37] shelby: the partner of compound has asked me this a couple times as well. Oh, . .

[00:25:41] karl: Nice. I understand. So you, you've practiced this question. Yeah.

[00:25:44] shelby: I feel like I'm never quite in the state of, in the state of mind to give it an answer that it deserves , but Maybe not investing in a company or starting a company, but just investing in better r and d in scale up processes and trialing different forms of microbial cultivation. Non-model organisms, like you're talking about Carl different medias and trying to find a way to streamline and automate that process.

[00:26:23] Non-model organisms refers to organisms, particularly microorganisms that haven't been used by the research, community for study, for historic reasons, probably because they're. Harder to culture. So the most used organisms in biotechnology are e coli, which is a gut bacteria and yeast, which you may know is used for the production of beer and, , yogurt and a lot of other things.

[00:26:53] However, those are two microorganisms in. are potentially trillions of microorganisms on the planet. It just happens that those are the most extensively studied and the most used in industry.

[00:27:05] shelby: I don't know, 10 million is probably not enough to do that effectively, but maybe it could be a, an inroad and maybe it's not the final scale up that a company does, but the Zero to 0.5 scale up that a company does. Just to see. I feel like a lot of companies fail in that phase, even more than what scale in the 0.5 to one phase

[00:27:30] shelby: So them getting to even 0.5 facilitating that would create a lot of value.

[00:27:37] shelby: Okay. Fine. I'll

[00:27:37] erum: give you 250

[00:27:39] shelby: million. Is that enough? Okay. . Yeah. I, that's, that would do do a good bit. what would you guys spend.

[00:27:46] karl: Uh, 10 million. See you later. I'm moving to Panama

[00:27:53] karl: Now. Erum, you answer while about it a little bit. .

[00:27:55] erum: Um, I'm very entrepreneurial. I had started a company, before in the digital health space. I'm, know, seeing all of these things that are going on in the synthetic biology space. So I would do. Like half start the company. And I have a long list of companies that I would probably start, I mean everything from like a, I dunno, like a drink with, very unique flavor profiles.

[00:28:17] erum: It's like very efficient to, make, I actually spoke with a brewer today and he said that they use,genetically engineered microbes, to get more fruity flavor out of the yeast and to use less hops in the process. Oh, interesting. Of making really high quality beer. So it saves 'em a lot of money and it gives them more control over the flavor of profile.

[00:28:37] erum: And I was like, oh, that's interesting that you can like, do that. So I like the idea of making a product, like my past company was software, so it's a little bit more. not in the hands of people so half just 5 million to start something there. Probably there. Raise more capital but less five million's.

[00:28:52] erum: Enough to get some proof points out in that space. And then 5 million, I'd probably invest in a complimentary company to the company that I start. So interesting being able, yeah. To be able to, work together and scale up. So half invest, half used to start a company cause it is fun if you have the right idea, the right team of people.

[00:29:08] erum: cuz just, think about it and think about the future and just keep going and building, make mistakes. I've done it one time. I've made a lot of mistakes, but, I have learned from those.

[00:29:17] erum:

[00:29:17] karl: Yeah, it's, I'm glad you said it that way, Iran, because initially I was gonna say I'd go, 50%, consumer biotech.

[00:29:24] karl: probably help, consumer companies get their products. But I would actually shift it. I would do,I will take like a safe bet with you, shall be, a third would go towards helping people scale, because I do, think we're gonna overcome it.

[00:29:36] karl: There is a bio-manufacturing shortage, so I think that, there's a lot to be done on the biomanufacturing side, but I also do believe that on the Biomanufacturing side, there's too many people focused on fermentation and fermentation only can do certain things. there's other ways that we can produce natural and biotech products that do not involve fermentation.

[00:29:57] karl: So I would take a third. Take a third and go deep into, personal care. And it's not even that much. That's $3 million. And then the other third,I'm feeling like, with Ira, you're talking about like a beverage or something like that, that, I find that, that would be on the consumer side as well.

[00:30:13] karl: Maybe I would go 70% consumer biotech and 30%, scale up. Yeah.

[00:30:19] erum: Yeah. Kate . Now we're, I know we're dreaming a lot here, but this is something that's been on my mind is the idea of. engineering food to be medicine. Iit is medicine, like food is medicine, of course. if you're eating the right foods but maybe something a little bit more like specific, if you have a specific,disease state or ailment, and you can have a drink rather than taking a pill.

[00:30:39] erum: I_ feel like I just hate taking pills. I used to have a huge problem, like my dad would have to like, crush it in a drink, and there's of course helping alleviate disease, but then there's also okay, can we step up?_

[00:30:50] erum: How can we get some superpowers from some of these drinks?

[00:30:52] karl: Mm-hmm. Now, right? I love that. Two be room, but the only problem with like functional drinks is then you have to go through an FDA process and that's going to eat up a lot more than 10 million

[00:31:01] erum: we'll have to raise more money. Is compound looking for any investments in the drink space?

[00:31:09] karl: Yes. Yeah, The other thing that, we don't talk about, but I'm endlessly fascinated by is. dual use technologies, so technologies that are, may be developed, using biotech in the third world that are location specific. maybe developing world isn't the right way to put it, but what's gonna be interesting is watching very specific technologies develop in locations that.

[00:31:30] karl: would've never been developed in New York. Something that was developed in Maine, or maybe something is developed like in, I don't know, Lawrence, Kansas, that someone in New York would've never thought of. Or someone, I'll say in Panama, or in India or someplace that is so specific to the location and just makes so much sense for that location.

[00:31:49] karl: And then how do. Dual use it into the developed world or for other uses, like that being a scout for that kind of stuff and paying attention to it, is gonna be really interesting to see how things develop over the next 10 or 20 years. Because a lot of those technologies will be developed.

[00:32:03] karl: ,

[00:32:03] shelby: absolutely. You can get CRISPR kits shipped to your home now, and so the biohacker communities. Some of the biggest people won, at least that I see on Twitter. , yeah, a hundred percent agree that the biohacking and the, I guess the de-globalization of it, that the needs of someone in New York aren't necessarily the needs of someone in Columbia or in Dubai.

[00:32:33] shelby: So Yeah, in that case, maybe it's the CRISPR kits themselves, , right? Instead of the specific products that would be interesting and create value there. but regardless, really excited for that. And I think Igim has made some moves to make it a broader, a broader suite of teams.

[00:32:53] shelby: the West Asia, south Asia, Africa, and I'm really glad that they're looking outside of North America and Europe for new ideas. Agreed.

[00:33:06] erum: You said biohacking and that isn't going to be one of the episodes we'll have, so we are starting this culture club. Shelby, I don't know if he mentioned this to you.

[00:33:14] erum: I wanna join . Yes. It's not a Boy George fan club. but ultimately it's just no us reading or watching or seeing things, that are happening in biotech or in business. And just being able to talk about it. on the Docket right now is a docu-series on Netflix called Unnatural Selection.

[00:33:36] erum: And they do talk about the biohacking community. They talk about drug pricing and gene drives

[00:33:42] erum: ,

[00:33:42] erum: yeah. I'm just always fascinated by the things you're seeing and your takes on commodity biology and that being the next big thing. I'm just curious,have you seen, in terms of the industry, how long have you. Been bullish on commodity biology and where is it now as opposed to, five years ago?

[00:34:04] karl: when you say commodity biology, unpack that for us.

[00:34:08] shelby: Yeah. More of the consumer biology, I

[00:34:11] karl: feel like it's still relatively new and it's not something that the public is that aware of. There is a lot of ingredients that are produced, through fermentation.

[00:34:20] karl: That's been something that's been going on for a long time. So a lot of cosmetic personal care products, the, the ingredients are produced through fermentation, not necessarily with genetically modified organisms or, genetic engineering, just straight up traditional, Fermentation. And let's just say over the last 10 years, this might not be accurate. We have seen more products that were previously, available only through natural sources. I'm thinking of Squalling specifically, but I know there's a lot of other ones. Squalling, which is a long, carbon molecule that used to be extracted from sharks, and is a great emollient that gets used in a.

[00:34:59] karl: Beauty products, is now overwhelmingly. through fermentation and produced in yeast. So that's a big change. like in the consumer or personal care products market, there is like this fascination with naturally sourced ingredients. And what that means for most people is, oh, they.

[00:35:17] karl: They pulled it from a plant or they extracted it from a plant. And what I would say most people don't understand is there's not enough land mass on the planet to satisfy the needs of everyone wanting natural ingredients and feeding everyone. So being able to find the pathways and put those pathways into, yeast or even plant cells and fermenting those, or growing those in ways that you don't need the plant, we're gonna see a lot more of.

[00:35:43] karl: but what's missing is we haven't had a lot of brands that are just very biotech forward saying, this is the product of biotechnology. These are the benefits and this is why we use biotechnology to develop this product.

[00:35:54] shelby: . Yeah, definitely. And it's crazy what they get away with in the cosmetic space. I was buying a new moisturizer a couple weeks ago and I looked and it had said, Clinically validated, and then I looked a bit deeper and it was 15 people wearing the moisturizer for one hour , and then they were taking the results from that to be gospel and clinically validated.

[00:36:22] shelby: Yeah, it was crazy. .

[00:36:24] karl: Yeah. I mean, people say that about the vitamin industry, but one of the things they say about the American consumer market is there's so many ingredients that they're just not allowed anywhere else in the world.

[00:36:35] karl: . But because people proven they're generally safe, those ingredients make their way into these products. And you can have a trial if you want to call it that, of 15 people for an hour, and then you can say clinically validated. And Far beware.

[00:36:48] shelby: . Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:49] shelby: It's really scary, that's the other space that I didn't mention I was interested in, but I am, it's the remediation space of all of these bad chemicals and maybe it starts with the being able to test them all as well. Yeah. So that's something where there's new research coming out and higher regulation, and there could be.

[00:37:14] shelby: Some interesting companies built there

[00:37:17] erum: are you referring to like environmental remediation or,

[00:37:19] shelby: yeah, like for forever chemical remediation. primarily, but I'm sure there's, like Carl said, so many more chemicals that we just don't know that they're toxic yet. But , over the course of the next few years, we'll probably realize that they are, and being able to rapidly.

[00:37:39] shelby: Engineer microbes to get rid of those from our food and water systems, is a really

[00:37:46] shelby: valuable application of biotechnology. Yeah, no doubt. Have you, have

[00:37:51] erum: you met, um, Nicole from Ionia?

[00:37:54] shelby: I haven't. I haven followed Ionia though. Yeah.

[00:37:57] erum: Yeah. We'll have her on in the next couple of episodes, oh, she'll dig into that bit. she'll definitely listen and, We'll have her come down and, or we'll go up to Boston and see her.

[00:38:06] erum: Cool.

[00:38:07] shelby: Oh, that's exciting. That's really cool. Yeah. i'm fan girling if here . Yeah. .

[00:38:14] erum: Yeah, definitely. biotech nerds in that way. . Thank you so much, Shelby. It's always great chatting with you. We'll talk to you again some more. Of course. We'll plan some events. We'll have you back on. it's always, we always learn a lot speaking with.

[00:38:27] shelby: Yeah, I agree li likewise. It's just always great interacting with you guys and I'm sure we'll see each other like in the next week. So probably. Yeah. some New York bio event. So yeah. Yeah. Just really appreciate it again, guys.

[00:38:44] karl: Yeah. All right. Thank you so

[00:38:46] karl: much Shelby.

[00:38:46] karl: wow, that was a great interview. Shelby is just so inspirational. It's so nice to talk to her. I always enjoy the conversations we have with her. I'm looking forward to seeing her in person very soon.

[00:38:57] karl: what'd you think, Iran? what was the highlight for. Shelby's

[00:39:00] erum: just super, super, super smart. And so I feel smart when I talk with her. I went to the University of Cambridge.that's one of the top schools in the world.

[00:39:08] erum: She studied specifically bioscience enterprise.I didn't even know that that was possibility. But there is, a program at University of Cambridge called, Bioscience enterprise. And so she has her master's in philosophy there.she studied plant science. I mean, I don't even know how her brain survives.

[00:39:25] erum: Like she has so much information and like, she works at compound. They're so lucky to have her a part of their team. she's very thoughtful as we all heard her talk about, how she would deploy. A hundred million. she knew how much she needed to do what she wanted to do. So I had 10

[00:39:42] karl: million.

[00:39:43] karl: 10 million. Oh

[00:39:44] erum: yeah. 10 million. Yeah. So, and we needed to, uh, up the numbers. Like she was just like, okay. She did the calculation, in her head on the spot, that's Shelby, right? she knows a number. She knows what can happen and what's really great and which is why.

[00:39:58] erum: Compound is solucky to have her, is that she sees where the gaps are and she asks the right questions and I love the fact that she kept wanting to bring it back to us.she's just, kind of joy to be around.

[00:40:08] karl: Yeah.we should have Shelby come back, in a few months, after we've done a few more episodes.

[00:40:13] karl: In the meantime, I want to just thank our listeners. We are the fastest growing biotech podcast. In the universe. we do have a Patreon page. We have a couple people supporting us. So thank you to our supporters. if you have questions or ideas that you want us to talk about, please, visit the Grow Everything page at Messaging Lab.

[00:40:30] karl: All the information is on there. until next time, keep growing everything.

[00:40:35] erum: See you guys later. Have a good one.