137. Hack to the Future: Shelby Newsad on Biohacking Breakthroughs

[00:00:01] Erum: Hey Carl. How's it going?

[00:00:03] Karl: It is going really well. Iam, you just got back, where were you? What'd you do?

[00:00:08] Erum: I just got back 12 hours ago from Montreal, which is a 12 hour trip back from Montreal on the Sunday after 4th of July. the biggest thing you should not be doing is what I was doing as being second traffic that last day of vacation, which. In the grand scheme of things was fine.

[00:00:25] Erum: You know, I would say, my husband and son, I mean they were chill to drive with. my son wasn't getting too crazy. he had a lot of music requests, so we had to just make sure we were DJing for him. He is four, so, but he has some good taste.

[00:00:39] Karl: Normally that's an eight hour drive. It's still super far or it feels super far. And what's crazy is from a train ride perspective, I think it takes as long to take the train there as it does to drive, which is crazy because Montreal should only be like two hours away

[00:00:54] Karl: from New York City that is.

[00:00:55] Erum: Yeah, yeah, But we had the car because we were driving around Montreal. We went to Quebec City. It was beautiful. not only did I have a good time with my family and friends and. We had a great time eating and being immersed in the Quibi quo culture, but

[00:01:11] Karl: Yeah, no, the food is great up there. I love,

[00:01:13] Erum: oh my God,

[00:01:14] Karl: I love, Montreal and I love Quebec.

[00:01:16] Erum: It's so good. Well, maybe we should do a messaging lab.

[00:01:19] Erum: Canada up there, because there's a lot of biotech companies. I mentioned in the previous podcast, I met with a few of them and I have a, couple friends that live there and they really are like, you gotta move here, you gotta move here. And I was like, Hmm. I don't know. Brooklyn's pretty good. I mean, it is its own bubble, right.

[00:01:38] Erum: Carl?

[00:01:39] Karl: Quebecers will hate me for this, but you know, those winters are damn long, you know,

[00:01:45] Erum: Yeah,

[00:01:46] Karl: and, damn cold.

[00:01:47] Erum: Yeah. Damn cold. But they were like, oh, you know, it's a dry cold it's its own culture and huga, you can get really cozy. you just need to know it's not the weather, it's the gear. It's never the weather, it's the gear.

[00:01:59] Erum: so I just got back and you're about to leave. Where are you going?

[00:02:03] Karl: So I'm gonna go hike in northern Spain. whenever I say that to people, they ask me, are you gonna go hike the Camino? Which is the Camino, then Santiago, which a lot of pilgrims do. I'm not doing the Camino. I'm gonna be hiking in the Picos Ropa, which is, the peaks of Europe. It's right on the Tavian Sea.

[00:02:21] Karl: It's supposed to be like the Alps of Spain. We'll see, What it's really like, but we're gonna go to Bilbao, then we're gonna go to the Picos and hike there for a little bit more than a week and then, spend some beach time and then come back. But

[00:02:35] Karl: there's been a lot of great stuff going on. Ira. You're worried that, Chatt PT is aing our brains. Why?

[00:02:41] Erum: Yeah. So I came across as Instagram post and it was interesting because MIT just completed the first brain scan study on chat GBT users, and the results are very interesting.

[00:02:52] Erum: the four months of data revealed that , 83% of people who use Chachi PT to write couldn't remember anything they wrote just minutes later. So only 11% forgot when they use Google or their own brain.

[00:03:07] Karl: Yeah, I mean, here's what I wanna say about that. I think if you're using AI to write for you, you're cheating. And I know a lot of people do it. I'm not surprised that people are saying that it makes you dumb. but I also wonder were there similar studies that came out when I.

[00:03:21] Karl: Search engines first came out because people would just search for stuff anyway. I know AI's at a different level. I'm not gonna, debunk the study because I believe what MIT has done, but I also.

[00:03:32] Karl: Think that, we're all looking for ways to use these technologies and, I think when you work with them, it's not necessarily gonna make you dumber.

[00:03:40] Erum: Yeah, it's not, it's just, A lot to process. I mean, one thing they also said was that the neural connections in your brain crash from 79 to just 42. so that's a 47% collapse in neural connections being made. So it's like if your laptop lost half its power, you would just not be using it.

[00:04:00] Erum: I'm reading this actually, and they're using words that are. Pretty biased. I mean, your neural connection's crashing. I don't know if that's the actual scientific term or you're just not using as much of your brain, but you may be using your brain for other things.

[00:04:12] Erum: I don't know. Maybe you have better memory, but, I do feel like the challenge would be in the critical thinking. Because if you are not using your brain power to make the connections between concepts yourself, then it's like, okay, if you don't use it, you lose it type of situation.

[00:04:30] Karl: Totally. Yeah. I, agree with that.

[00:04:33] Erum: I think for us, 'cause we do use, ai, , throughout our work or different things we're using it for, . Maybe we need to have a policy on using Jet GET and then also there's other ways to move your mind and move your brain, there's things that we talk about here on the Everything podcast when it comes to biology, and there's so much depth and also high level thinking that needs to happen when you're thinking of what goes on on the DNA level and you're working up the. Layer of complexity to societal norms and how we operate as humans.

[00:05:08] Erum: I think a couple episodes you said Iam, that, , IRL or in real life is gonna become even more important.

[00:05:15] Karl: And it's something that we talk about with our clients. It's something that we talk to our friends about. We go to a lot of events. We end up meeting people all the time. We've got multiple communities that we've built. And so I think, Ai, becomes like a work partner very easily.

[00:05:30] Karl: People will depend on it to get their work done. lots of jobs are gonna get lost, whatever. But what's gonna become more important is those real world connections that people create and have with each other. And I think that those connections can be augmented by our use of AI as a knowledge source or to question us or whatever.

[00:05:49] Karl: But I just do think that you're pointing out something that. You've pointed it out a couple times and it's gonna become more important now in terms of pets.

[00:05:59] Erum: Yeah, that's a good point. Very good point. Very good point.so, there's always new news. So shared with me this interesting story, and I, love hearing, health stories when it comes to animals and pets. there's an article you sent about stem cells being used to take care of your pets.

[00:06:15] Karl: Yeah. Okay. So in terms of pets, I read this article in Tech Crunch that said that this company, Gallant, which is a San Diego based, biotech company, just raised $18 million. But part of what they did was. in their release, they said they're about, a year away from having stem cells ready for pets.

[00:06:35] Karl: And the first thing they're going after is painful mouth condition that cats get called feline, chronic ging geo stomatitis.

[00:06:42] Karl: So, we've talked about dogs and livestock as being really important? Markets that often get neglected by people who are working in biotech, and yet if you wanna get a product to the market faster, sometimes it could be a way to shortcut, your entry into the human market.

[00:06:57] Karl: So I thought that this was a really interesting story and Fits into our Grow Everything thesis in that everything, will be grown, everything should be biological. And while we don't often do stories or do put a lot of focus on the biopharmaceutical industry, even though we work in it, it's interesting to see that here's a company, that fits our thesis that.

[00:07:16] Karl: Pets are a really great market to go into and they're moving really quick. And one of the places where pets have been used was in the biohacker market. there was this guy down in Mississippi who was trying to hack his dog so they would glow in the dark. That was one of the first people I was exposed to who was.

[00:07:35] Karl: really doing livestock or dog biohacking. Now there's companies where you can buy a clone dog or a clone cat. I think they're like $10,000 each. But biohacking has been a theme that we've had, on this podcast several times. Iran, let's talk what do you wanna talk about when

[00:07:52] Karl: it comes to biohacking?

[00:07:53] Karl: 'cause we're leading into our guests.

[00:07:55] Erum: Yeah. So

[00:07:56] Erum: bio hacking animals, definitely. , There's a lot of new therapies that are coming out, so we're not breaking any news here. Everyone's heard of resveratrol and, NAD plus. And NMN and these, other. Longevity therapies. if you haven't heard about it, I mean, we are gonna be talking about it in this episode with our friend Shelby, who works at Compound, an investment firm focusing on very deep tech, and she'll talk about the thesis.

[00:08:22] Erum: It's really interesting, but longevity is a part of that, or biohacking or bio acceleration. There's different terms for it and. You're talking about pets and one of the therapies that is very interesting is the follow statin cell therapy. And that was used on dogs and it's so dogs and mice. So it's already tested on dogs and mice.

[00:08:45] Erum: And when this goes on video, you'll see it on video. But, we'll put in the show notes. These dogs are jacked. These mice are jacked with follastatin cell therapy, and this is a cell therapy that's being offered in, , Honduras, actually not in Honduras, but it is a crypto state, which we've talked about this crypto city it was called Italia, but it's in Prospera. It's lots of branding. But, they have this therapy down there and the company that has it down there is called Mini Circler. But anyway, so there's a lot out there and a lot of leading thinkers. we saw Peter Diamandis at Synbiobeta this year, and he invests heavily in longevity.

[00:09:21] Erum: he also invested in, friends of ours. They have a company called One Skin. and there's other leading thinkers like Abe de Gray. I think he was one of the first people in the mainstream that looked at Ric DNA and how telomeres, if you can extend them, it can extend life, is the hypothesis there.

[00:09:37] Erum: And then of course, Brian Johnson, Carl, who else out there is on your mind?

[00:09:42] Karl: it's funny this morning video popped up on my YouTube feed where Brian Johnson was talking about the health benefits of taking olive oil, and adding olive oil to every meal and how it lowers LDL and has all these kinds of health benefits, which I don't think that's anything new.

[00:09:57] Karl: I mean, I know Brian has experimented with. millions of dollars worth of medicine. So it was interesting that popped up this morning. But, Shelby is someone who at Compound has been very interested in this space and has been investing in it. Do you remember how we met Shelby Erum

[00:10:13] Erum: I feel like it came through you, but, my first memory of meeting Shelby. someone had connected her to you and they were like, oh, let's grab coffee with Shelby. She sounds so interesting, and I don't know if you actually met together separately. Actually now I can't remember, but I know that we were at a cafe devotion and she was talking about her experience, her education.

[00:10:35] Erum: she went to Cambridge. She, had this really great thesis the thesis that we share, we all share of biotech really transforming lots of different industries. she was working out a venture fund, which is a, interesting place to be.

[00:10:48] Erum: Of course. 'cause you're seeing so many. People that are commercializing science and what a great conversation. Do you remember how we met Shelby?

[00:10:56] Karl: I don't remember how we met, but I do remember that first time we went to go get coffee at devotion. So I, love Shelby. I love the conversations we have with her. She's a very deep thinker. Last year she helped this biohacker event that you mentioned. I think last week or the week before, I wasn't able to go this year, but you went and we decided we'd interview Shelby and bring her back on the pod.

[00:11:17] Karl: after that event, which she's gonna talk about.

[00:11:19] Erum: Yes, and we do have an episode Where we recapped last year's biohacker day. So if you wanna go back and listen to that and see how things have evolved since then. but we do ask Shelby, about. How things have evolved since the first one.

[00:11:32] Erum: but this is going to be such a great conversation. It's on the nose if you are looking into different types of longevity therapies and wanna know what else is out there. This is the episode for you, so let's let Shelby take it away.

[00:11:47] Erum: Shelby of Compound vc. We're so excited to have you on the Everything podcast today because we're doing something a bit special. We're having our. Biohacking Demo Day Recap, something that you have hosted. You've collaborated with Union Square Ventures to host this amazing event, bringing together founders, investors, thought leaders, and simple people like myself.

[00:12:10] Erum: Carl didn't come this year. He was there last year,

[00:12:13] Karl: Sorry.

[00:12:14] Erum: but it's incredible. So thanks for coming on and downloading with us.

[00:12:18] Shelby: Yeah. Well it's great to be here. Really appreciate you joining for both events and

[00:12:26] Erum: Yeah. So what inspired you compound USV to create a biohacking demo day? Why are you doing this?

[00:12:35] Shelby: Yeah, a few different things were happening at the same time that we thought were really interesting. mainly people That didn't really understand, that didn't come from traditional science backgrounds, actually taking health into their own hands and learning about it.

[00:12:52] Shelby: and we saw this with a few different Reddit threads, like our biohackers, our peptides. and at the same time we saw people making new products and people making blood tests that before. And to pay and new products and that there really is a new category being made here. as we thought about it more, it just made sense to us that this could actually change healthcare, the healthcare system in its entirety, and shifted instead of to the institutions where it is today to the actual individual where we the executor.

[00:13:32] Shelby: Yeah. Right time, right place, right technology, and right cultural movement as well.

[00:13:40] Karl: So last year you had written a thesis and painted some pictures of what things might look like, in the next few years. I can't remember exactly what the timeline was, but what was different this year? what progress had you seen over the course of the year and what did you think was, had changed already?

[00:13:58] Shelby: so our first bio hacker demo day was half academics talking about the work that, was fresh off the press but hadn't. Translated yet, and the other half of the talks were people actually building in the space. but since then, that was September of last year. So in the nine months since we've just seen an explosion of consumer biotech companies, we wanted to have another demo day to showcase just how fast the space is moving and how many more products there are.

[00:14:29] Shelby: the event was also hopefully to spark imagination with people in the audience to be like, now's the time. And there's a lot of different ways that we can use biotech today to give new products to people. ,

[00:14:41] Erum: Yeah. I love that. the products of the people. You mentioned that one of the impetus for you to have this demo day and talk about biohacking is the fact that, hey, look, healthcare is changing. People are becoming more empowered.

[00:14:56] Erum: Can you unpack that idea?

[00:14:57] Shelby: Yeah. , I think this is the central point, biohacking as well. At least two and half million paired genotypes and phenotypes. And this is through the form of national scale biobanks, like the UK Biobank and all of us biobank in the us, which is the finished biobank. what we've seen is papers analyzing this biobank data. people with deep learning can actually predict Timeline of disease onset, and then use feature extraction to understand which biomarkers and genes are predictive of that onset. So one of our companies, proud investors in Fearon that is using this to help patient enrichment and target selection for traditional pharma companies. but what we're excited about is, them continuing to work in this sector.

[00:15:51] Shelby: also companies seeing the potential of this paired genotype phenotype data and then using that for more consumer use cases. I can send you guys papers after, and maybe we can put links to this the description of the podcast. but the data very compelling.

[00:16:08] Karl: I would love that. We're living in this moment where, we're seeing. maybe not radical, I don't wanna say radical regulatory change, but we are seeing some radical changes. There's this whole Make America healthy movement. they want to change the way foods are formulated.

[00:16:23] Karl: They're talking about changing the way vaccines are formulated. synthetic dyes are being, phased out and, the whole healthcare system, which is such a huge amount of our GDP, we pay so much into it, and I'm not sure people necessarily are healthier, but. How does, what compound thinks about, health optimization and biohacking fit into all of that, and what's the investment thesis?

[00:16:47] Karl: why is Compound interested in investing in biohacking, tools?

[00:16:51] Shelby: Yeah. Yeah. I think these regulatory undercurrents are a bellwether that the societal consciousness is changing about how we're ingesting chemicals in our bodies. And you see this with Nat Friedman's, investigation of which foods have the most microplastics? And slightly before that it was forever chemicals and.

[00:17:12] Shelby: They're still in basically all of our food and drinks. and I've proven to be poisonous and increase cancer risk. moving towards the investment thesis, what's really interesting to us is that maybe in five to 10 years, maybe in five, definitely in 10 consumer health records will be more valuable.

[00:17:32] Shelby: Medical health records and then whoever owns these consumer health records and is able to optimize off of them those companies become the United Healthcares of the world or in a good way and those companies become like the next Quest Diagnostics, for example, that is also able to help with health.

[00:17:52] Shelby: That's something that we think is underrated and still not talked about as much, but really shifts the scale in terms of where value is accruing in.

[00:18:03] Karl: Just to be clear, when you say consumer health data, this is the data that people are gathering either on their Apple watch or their aura ring with their whoop with whatever, wearable and all. So if they're doing any consumer tests, and I am not familiar enough with this, but are there ways for an individual consumer to aggregate all this and then, query it?

[00:18:24] Karl: I mean, I'm sure you could drop it into chat gt and query it, but are there more. Robust tools, number one. And then number two, I see a huge opportunity in terms of making that data more consumer friendly. Iam, here's something we should be thinking about because a lot of healthcare data is very complicated and there are contradictions when you look at, or, I mean if you don't understand, you would see these contradictions in your data that maybe point to something that isn't really there.

[00:18:49] Shelby: Yeah, there are companies, which one actually spoke at this demo. What?

[00:18:58] Shelby: and yeah, his premise was that he's been a biohacker for 15 years. He has all of this diverse siloed data, but he basically built the platform for himself and other people like him. but I think even he's been surprised at how much data is being collected and how that can influence. People's responses. So for example, he presented about how his Apple Watch can pick up sounds, soundscapes, and then tell him where he is in his journey to Boston from the suburb that he lives in. but I think taking a step back, if we're able to layer that with cortisol data in the future and then understand how that.

[00:19:37] Shelby: inflammation levels, for example, we could start adjusting our environment and our habits to things that, promote more health. of the belief, this is another one of our investment theses that we don't have enough data today. and people that bring that new data to the industry, that's more valid.

[00:19:56] Shelby: Could really increase health

[00:19:57] Shelby: outcomes.

[00:19:58] Erum: Yeah, I mean I loved, Volgar dynamics, positioning and what I really took away from that too was the fact that he pointed out that there's a lot of technology that's already created, but just hidden. so that Apple Watch feature that you created to, monitor the environmental sound and how it could affect your hearing, there is a little feature that, he's like, did you know that you could do this?

[00:20:20] Erum: Or Apple Watch? being able to connect that with AI tools, which, APIs. ai, the is what they're called, being able to connect different data streams to ai, so ai. Generate more insights. We know it does a great job. we're using chat bt in perplexity scanning the web and it scans your streaming data, your data of your health and what's around you.

[00:20:45] Erum: It's gonna be very profound and he makes it easy for people to do that. That's the goal. but that feeds into the next question, which is, there's this demo day lineup had a wide range of startups, from ful. Pump that science was there to people that were doing crypto biology, solar wearables.

[00:21:02] Erum: So what were you hoping to spotlight in this mix? when you were thinking of putting this together, obviously there were some of your portfolio companies that were there, but there were others. So What was the thesis for this demo day in particular?

[00:21:15] Shelby: Yeah, we wanted highlight people building.

[00:21:20] Erum: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:21] Erum: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:22] Shelby: Pretty new to be able to bet on experiments with crypto tokens. that's something that was not, around even, even five years Yeah, exactly. same with. Ways, like Nutri oat that are processing oat fiber in order to leach forever chemicals and microplastics from food. that's a real consumer need that is only being proven by people doing more microplastic tests on the food they're consuming.

[00:21:54] Shelby: but yeah, wasn't really a market need two years ago because a lot of people didn't know about it or its health effects. but it could really change the way we, engineer our bodily inputs, and optimize those. the idea was for it to be fun visionary and new. we have the privilege of seeing a lot of net new ideas being investors and, Really sharing that viewpoint with others is something that we like doing with those demo days.

[00:22:23] Karl: Yeah, I love it. talking about fun, companies. So I didn't get a go, but I spent time looking at the companies that were gonna be there. And one of the ones that really stood out for me was pump science. And, they're focused on, decentralized approach To science they take their name from Pump Fund, which is a meme coin launchpad, I guess we could call it.

[00:22:46] Karl: but when you think about this idea using crypto to fund science, what's your take on crypto's role in accelerating biotech or health innovation?

[00:22:57] Shelby: Yeah, great question. And I think the impact is pretty massive because even two years ago, the people that you can raise from if you're a bio founder are pretty limited. most of them are Older stuffier organizations that like certain indications and modalities, but things outside of that, aren't as much and it makes sense for their fund structure.

[00:23:18] Shelby: And many funds have, really promoted the community and new cancer treatment and immunotherapy treatment by doing that. The crypto's interesting because I think fun is a symptom. What it actually brings is new ideas to the field. when you bring new ideas to the field, serendipity can happen.

[00:23:36] Shelby: And serendipity has actually driven a lot of scientific innovation, from penicillin where it was just mold on the scientist sandwich that fell into a Petri dish that allowed us to understand that there was potentially an antibiotic metabolite in there. serendipity is also. From my understanding of crispr, discovery was a big part of that too.

[00:24:01] Shelby: So I think that's an underrated and under talked about part of crypto funding, , I think it optimizes and maximizes potential serendipity.

[00:24:10] Erum: Yeah.

[00:24:11] Shelby: I mean, Carl, you're, big into crypto yourself and have been a crypto maxi for years. So , why are you interested in deci?

[00:24:19] Karl: Yeah, it's funny, I don't consider myself a crypto maxi, though. I have been in crypto for a really long time. And, I think for the same reasons you are, I think that, funding mechanisms are broken. There's a lot of places where funding is very challenging.

[00:24:33] Karl: One of the examples, and we've had a couple of examples on the podcast, is women's health. It's just so underfunded. And how is it possible that, half the world's population, their healthcare is just not being researched in a way that's equitable. the reason breast cancer is not solved.

[00:24:49] Karl: But prostate cancer is, is because of the people making the funding decisions and it's just not fair. so I think that having these alternate funding mechanisms is really important. And what I think about when listening to you, Shelby, I always just think about all these other great science projects around the world that are just not.

[00:25:08] Karl: Getting funded, but could be funded through crypto. on one level it becomes like a marketing exercise, unfortunately. But if you get enough people who are passionate enough about a topic, about a disease, about a health intervention, and you can get. Those people passionate enough about it, then you can get that thing funded.

[00:25:28] Karl: So I think that's really exciting, to just have that alternate. So

[00:25:32] Karl: that's meap.

[00:25:35] Shelby: Yeah.

[00:25:38] Shelby: What about you? I.

[00:25:39] Erum: Oh, I'm a big fan of

[00:25:40] Erum: it. I mean, I

[00:25:41] Erum: agree with Carl. it's exercise in community building too, marketing is one thing. You're getting the message out, but people that are passionate and they need it they just wanna be able to take action and do something versus.

[00:25:55] Erum: letting the systems that be create a product that might work and likely will fail or treat certain population of people. I just love the fact decentralized. Approach allows this to happen. And crypto in general, I it's exciting. it's just too bad that there's a lot of degens out there, just making this crazy, making it seem crazier than it is, the meme coins.

[00:26:16] Erum: it's not branding crypto in a good way. It's taking away from the possibility of it really unlocking a new way of living and being in society and empowering individual people. Um. I hope that changes. I hope pump.science does allow some more people to come in. I know there's other efforts that might not be as, in your face.

[00:26:37] Erum: pump.science is cool, it's going after a certain type of person. but for it to be operational in the background and keep the ux just what people are used to, meet the consumer where they are and let whatever happens in the background change. Let it. that's my take.

[00:26:53] Erum: what I really liked about some of these companies was that it really, they really help. unveil how your body works and empowers individuals to see what's actually going on. So the testing part I think is very interesting because I was doing that myself. I would go to, quest Diagnostics and get my blood panel done and read the report and now of course use chat, GP PT and try to figure it out and stalled out with some of the predictions and it was just one test.

[00:27:22] Erum: some of the startups that presented, we had, rhythm Health was there, mito was there, and the way that they're positioning it, they're building out personalized longevity platforms, enabling more testing so you can have more data points so you can have, better understanding.

[00:27:36] Erum: Standing of the evolution of your biomarkers and what direction that they're going in. So do you see this as a new model of healthcare? You mentioned, the United Healthcares of the world. Do you see mito and rhythm health falling into that with the monthly testing, the clinician in the loop?

[00:27:51] Erum: I love that the human in the loop, the clinician in the loop. talk to us more about that aspect of biohacking.

[00:27:57] Shelby: Yeah. just to give context, both MI and rhythm blood testing companies, they test metabolites that, can be in different disease. Their form factor is pretty different. , With Mito Health, you go to a place like Quest Diagnostic to get the actual test. And with Rhythm Health, you do it at home.

[00:28:20] Shelby: I think both of them have, complimentary roles in the future because when you get a big.

[00:28:31] Shelby: To get as much blood as you need to test a hundred metabolites or what have you. Whereas rhythm health is what 20% of metabolites give you 80% of a picture of how your health actually is, and since it's at home, I think they really thread the needle of being useful and fitting into someone's life to where there can be seamless,

[00:28:54] Shelby: seamless. Aspect. blood testing is definitely part of it. We're really excited for companies that, do these blood panels and then go a step further as well. , We've seen some papers about the prote and. The highest resolution view on, , disease incidents and disease prediction. I think these companies are proving out that there's demand for blood tests, by consumers, but we're really excited to see if they keep adding more metabolites to their tests, if there's.

[00:29:33] Shelby: Adding broader screens.

[00:29:35] Karl: Yeah, to me, it's super interesting because I guess most people who go and do like a annual, physical, maybe you're only getting your blood drawn once a year I do it twice a year because I have triglycerides. So high triglycerides are something I manage, but I often question why so frequently?

[00:29:54] Karl: I do appreciate having a broader panel 'cause then you're able to have a baseline. I think that probably people should have those panels done at a younger age, in your mid or late twenties so that you can of understand how your body's changing.

[00:30:08] Karl: But I really question how frequent they should be. Any insight on that Shelby?

[00:30:12] Shelby: Yeah, I think it depends on. Metabolite and what's going on with your personal health. but I think some trends in data you can't pull out unless , you've been tracking it for a very long time and have a lot of data points on it. I think the world is going towards more consumer health data generally, and I guess my primitive view is just more data is better and the more snapshots you have on your health, the better you're able to see if your interventions are actually working.

[00:30:42] Shelby: but yeah, I definitely realized there's constraints in terms of how much these tests.

[00:30:49] Shelby: Their own, cost benefit analysis

[00:30:52] Shelby: for these

[00:30:54] Erum: Yeah, I, on Rhythm Health, their business model is a monthly subscription and he was like, the cost of our service is the same cost as Athletic Greens, which I thought was a funny comparison 'cause it's a pricey, product. but I think, with the frequency, One of the philosophies you pointed out, Shelby, was that we are going from the sick care system, then we have this healthcare system, and then we have health optimization. it sounds like depending on where you are in your journey, if you're tracking biomarkers to, resolve a disease, then to get to a baseline.

[00:31:26] Erum: Then to optimize those biological processes, you'll wanna be able to get a reflection of your health. But the side thought is that, at least when I go to get blood tests and I don't know if I should be giving you my PHI out, Carl, you did.

[00:31:40] Erum: So I feel em emboldened to share my personal health information. I genetically have higher cholesterol. they're like, alright, well. Don't eat any cholesterol for all this time and then come and get your blood taken. I'm like, that's not how I live my life. why are you, forcing me to adjust my data, I want to be able to get data that is a true reflection of my lifestyle because then if I see it. Okay. I have really high cholesterol because I had Chinese food yesterday. Not to say Chinese food's high cholesterol, but I'm just pointing out, just picking one. and then I'll know like, okay, maybe I shouldn't eat that much because I see that my cholesterol's so high.

[00:32:17] Erum: That I'm not gonna do that as much because then you start seeing reflection like that. Mirroring I think, is so important because then you're like, okay, no one's preaching that I should eat, less cholesterol. I see the data for myself, and there's no lies.

[00:32:31] Erum: There's no bias, there's no agenda. It's just the truth. And then I have to make a decision.

[00:32:37] Karl: And I think what'll happen? And Shelby would love to get your, point of view on this is that, having more of that data and having ai, interpret it for us, will make those interventions easier to add to our lifestyles. I'd like to think that's the direction we're gonna go.

[00:32:54] Karl: What do you think?

[00:32:56] Shelby: Yeah, mean, I definitely agree. and off use a consumer continuous glucose monitor. That was really the moment that I became a true believer in biohacking because you could see the difference in blood spikes if you ate a salad where it flat lines versus ate ice cream where there was a really sharp peak and then a drop where you felt drowsy after.

[00:33:19] Shelby: But being able to correlate how well I felt and how drowsy I was to. My blood glucose in real time. that's when I was like, okay, what we're doing here for glucose, we can do this for everything in our bodies. , this is really like what you were saying, e room with cholesterol this cause and effect It's just easier to take people's advice if you can see yourself that it's working how

[00:33:43] Shelby: people say.

[00:33:45] Erum: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[00:33:47] Erum: So speaking of interventions, the king of biohacking and interventions beamed into the demo day. Brian Johnson was there and he shared some of his latest interventions.

[00:33:59] Erum: There any takeaways from his talk that surprised you or resonated with you? It was very interesting speak to him.

[00:34:05] Shelby: Yeah, I think the biggest thing was his shift in what changes people's minds. he thought having the best biomarkers in the world or the slowest aging, score would make him famous. and make people like really jump on board to. What he came up with in the end is that people just care about looking hot and feeling good, and those are pretty good proxies for how healthy people are.

[00:34:35] Shelby: So I really liked how candid he was in terms of sharing his internal thought process and his internal evolution for how he thinks about and markets what he's doing. and then, the hyperbaric oxygen therapy, for him to have maxed out his biomarkers, all that he could, doing his blueprint stack, doing, his pretty intense exercise regime.

[00:35:01] Shelby: For him to be able to materially move his biomarkers by doing hyperbaric oxygen therapy was, . Something that was pretty interesting to me as well. But I wonder what you

[00:35:11] Shelby: thought.

[00:35:13] Erum: Yeah, I agree with you and I love that, you shared how candid he is. He's always candid. I think you were there too. We saw him talk at, That's in bio beta, and if you really, hear him speak, I think he's, actually a very authentic person. He's not trying to sell you any of his products.

[00:35:29] Erum: He doesn't actually ever talk about his products when he's at a conference or a talk. Maybe at the Do Die. I haven't gone to those, but he did say about the hyperbaric chamber. He is like, look. I am in a privileged position to have one in my house. I have one that has a desk inside of it so I can just do work and get the treatment.

[00:35:47] Erum: He's like, it's not realistic for a lot of people. he's like, Just wanna, share that with you 'cause it's expensive. And he also talked about even if you were to commute to a, wellness spa or somewhere that has a hyperbaric chamber, traveling back and going home afterwards might reduce the effects of it.

[00:36:02] Erum: So, he was being. Very thoughtful about it. I don't foresee that he's like, okay, I'm gonna create, a whole suite of hyperbaric chambers and try to sell it to you. people think he's just saying these things to sell his product. Of course, he has products. he's trying to provide something to people to give them, , a place to start and think about it.

[00:36:21] Erum: he still has the microplastic testing kits, which I think are very interesting. Again, we talked about the mirror of being able to see. The data and see for yourself how much microplastics you have in your body.

[00:36:34] Erum: and one metric he pointed out was that when people are getting IV treatments, the plastic IV bag emits about 40,000 plastic particles that goes through the IV bag into your body.

[00:36:48] Erum: So that's something that he said and I was like, oh, interesting. I didn't look deep into this number, but it was basically pointing out that, hey look, plastic's pervasive and it's used in the medical establishment and none of this is intentional, but now we're discovering that, microplastics are in our body and they have different effects in our body, so we just need to be aware.,

[00:37:09] Erum: But then he's gotten his, microplastic exposure down to one particle. Exposure and I was just like,, wow. well, good for you. It makes sense. I'm glad everything he's doing is working out. he's do his blueprint stacks, all the products that he's created that are tested for microplastics to make sure that they are sourced while they're the cleanest.

[00:37:28] Erum: cause he is putting it in his body too. So, he's living his truth, he's sharing it. and it's always a pleasure to hear him talk because he is a big. Thinker too. 'cause it's a big takeaway is like, look, someone asked a question like, what's something that's going to surprise you?

[00:37:41] Erum: what do you think is gonna surprise us? and people when it comes to biohacking and he pointed out, now AI's gonna surprise us because it's just, we can't surprise ourselves anymore. AI has to be the one to surprise us, but, we have to just make sure that, It's human centric, make sure it's not AI dominant, but that takes humans into consideration. We still have control over the situation. I appreciate that. It's great that you got 'em. I just felt like it was icing on the cake of a bio academic day cake.

[00:38:05] Erum: so it was great.

[00:38:07] Shelby: Really grateful he could join. And, I think just to maximize fun for these events as well, I think having someone that is really a visionary in the field. Last time at a previous demo day, Josie Zaner spoke, who was one of the first people to crisper themselves, now has a really amazing company that's, optimizing animal traits to make companion animals.

[00:38:34] Shelby: more interesting, more cute. and it's great. Josie at our previous demo day talked about the feasibility and that her goal really is to make fire breathing dragons with biology and engineered complex traits in organisms.

[00:38:52] Karl: I'm also with Brian I think with Brian specifically, I'm always interested in what's the MVP I think what's interesting about the whole don't die move. Is the people who get into it, but do their own hacking and figure out what really works best for them. I think that, people should realize that it's not necessarily that you've gotta take all these supplements and eat this crazy diet and do this crazy exercise.

[00:39:15] Karl: staying healthy is. Tends to be something that's pretty simple. a lot of our, civilization wide lifestyle makes us unhealthy. So being more aware is often, all that it takes. But I love when people talk about the simple things. be super curious from Brian's point of view, what are few things that really made the biggest impact for him.

[00:39:38] Shelby: yeah, probably just nutrient maxing and exercise and sun,

[00:39:44] Karl: Sleep is a big one.

[00:39:45] Shelby: Sleep. Yeah. That would be neat if he, just went with the everyday person's blueprint. what would that

[00:39:52] Shelby: look like?

[00:39:52] Erum: Basic and then the middle's tier and then the premium tier. Well, what are the tiers?

[00:39:58] Karl: Yeah.

[00:39:59] Erum: Yeah. I love it. I love it. So moving on, clearly compound is looking at some of the cutting edge science and technology that's out there. So do you guys weigh scientific risk?

[00:40:11] Erum: Versus cultural momentum when you're investing. ' this is a very interesting area. It's biohacking space because you're talking about human bodies, but there are people that are doing it. So how do you think about that?

[00:40:25] Shelby: Yeah, I think that's what makes it so hard to build in this space because you need legitimate, novel science and you also need to be excellent at market and branding and serving a real need for customers that they can immediately feel. for us, founding teams become very important of who is driving home the science, who is excellent at marketing and branding.

[00:40:47] Shelby: in many ways we diligence consumer, bio companies in a similar way of this is actually checkout. Are there priors of different technologies where you can get data readouts it? at this point, But having answers to go to market, margins and also scale of companies, scale of these products and ramp of, shipping is, something that, we look at as well.

[00:41:12] Karl: And there's this whole thing where people say, biohacking. Is inaccessible or it's, elitist or super niche, what do you think needs to be changed for that to not be the case, for it to be really widespread and everybody have access to it and realize that they are in charge of their own health.

[00:41:30] Shelby: Yeah, that's. I think one thing that New York does pretty well is subsidized fruit and vegetables. the fruit STR stands on the street, are pretty cheap. and give pretty great big population, access to really healthy foods. In some ways, I think as these things commoditize as well as blood tests become cheaper, as it becomes easier to make new supplements that we find are effective, capitalism and competitors coming into this space also drive cost down as well. but in order for it to be financially viable for a lot of companies today, I think they have to start at a higher price point.

[00:42:08] Shelby: And then, drop it as they fight to keep their market position. just like iPhones were for really wealthy people initially, and then five years later started to be at a price point that was accessible to the audiences. I see biohacking taking a

[00:42:22] Shelby: similar route.

[00:42:24] Erum: Nice and biohacking is very, broad. There's a lot of things that people can start using today. There's some things that are a bit. Weird people are trying different things. you were at Aya Beta on a panel and you talked about the world of great peptides and how that culture is today how you participated in it.

[00:42:43] Erum: But maybe you could talk to that a little bit, but what are some of the weirdest or most delightful interventions you saw or tried? What can you care to share? Shelby.

[00:42:53] Shelby: Yeah, I mean I think the continuous glucose monitor is the one that's given me the best feedback loops to how measuring your health data can lead to better nutrition because you just do have cause and effect right there. I think anything that gives you cause an effect immediately. I know we've talked about this a lot before, but z biotics, hangover cure, the fact that you can feel the next day that you're not hungover is real incentive to keep buying.

[00:43:19] Shelby: I think there's a massive opportunity in skincare because you see your own skin multiple times throughout the day and always tracking I have blemishes today? Do I have acne? do my wrinkles look more pronounced? one of the, serums I use is by dde, the debut biotech consumer arm, that's using anti-inflammatory small molecules to increase skin health.

[00:43:44] Shelby: But I think that's been my favorite skin intervention because within a week of using it, my pores did look visibly smaller.

[00:43:52] Karl: Wow.

[00:43:53] Shelby: and that's something that really changes how, Your whole face is perceived. So yeah, I would say Dday, continuous glucose monitor. I guess another one is, Inmin, the supplement, Inmin.

[00:44:06] Shelby: nicotinamide. Nucleotide, which is a precursor of NAD, which is important for cellular energy. I take, that supplement, I really feel a steady energy increase throughout the day. and then nicotine. I use, nicotine patches in pouches in the afternoon instead,

[00:44:25] Karl: Did you say pouches or patches?

[00:44:28] Erum: Nicotine pouches,

[00:44:30] Erum: elaborate.

[00:44:31] Shelby: Yeah. Yeah. someone I use is a healthy version of Zi the base is an oat fiber and they add fast and slow acting nicotine to that. package that in a little white. I. My gums and use it to help me with alertness and, acuity and nicotine is, great for optimizing focus.

[00:44:55] Karl: How does it impact your sleep? does it at all?

[00:44:57] Shelby: It doesn't, I only use them in the early afternoon and for me, the effects last for a couple hours. Problem sleeping.

[00:45:08] Karl: I've heard it's a travel hack to avoid getting sick on airplanes, is, wearing a nicotine patch. and I haven't gone down the rabbit hole, but I'd heard that, COVID. Much less than other populations. I if that's true. So if this.

[00:45:26] Shelby: Yeah, I have seen small, long COVID studies where, people have hacked out of their long COVID by nicotine patches or pouches. and actually one of my friend moms that and. Seemingly cured herself of long COVID with nicotine. but, I think the peer reviewed studies that I saw were small.

[00:45:47] Shelby: so definitely do your own research before you try using it.

[00:45:51] Karl: and what's one, biohack you think should become completely normalized in the next five years?

[00:45:57] Shelby: I think it is prote

[00:45:59] Shelby: sequencing.

[00:46:00] Erum: I hope.

[00:46:01] Shelby: Because since proteins are the chemical effect, they're the machines of our bodies the papers that I have seen suggest that they're the most predictive of your overall health state. Everyone having access and sequencing their body's prote I think is really helpful.

[00:46:21] Shelby: with that, I'm really interested in companies that help biobank people samples over time. I think young people should be biobanking their samples. I want someone to take my blood every month. And then store it for me so I can give myself blood transfusions when I'm 60 years old of my younger body's blood.

[00:46:42] Shelby: so I think there's all of these things that would be safe, probably would help my body as well. So there's a lot of these things that aren't. Scientifically, but, could be a big helper in the

[00:46:54] Shelby: future.

[00:46:54] Erum: Yeah. How would someone get their prote sequenced? Are there any services today? know that there's some whole genome sequencing services. Could you use the same ones in different analytics on that? tell us a bit more about it?

[00:47:08] Shelby: Yeah. So, there people are using n to sequence proteins instead of DNA and RNA. You do have to do some adjustments to the Nanopores, I believe. but there's also ways through Olink and Soma logic through, antibody technology where you can get a picture of what your prote looks like. And those are the technologies that the UK Biobank and all of us have used in order to get protein profiles of patients.

[00:47:40] Shelby: But those are somewhat limited. we have 20,000 unique proteins that we express. I think Soma Logic and Olink they're in the low thousands of proteins that they monitor. so really interested in technologies that allow us to do pan prote monitoring. I think Nanopore could be a good tech in the

[00:48:01] Shelby: future to allow that.

[00:48:02] Erum: you heard it here first. People, if you're creating a sequencing. Hit up compound.

[00:48:10] Shelby: Yes, please, Shelby at vc.

[00:48:16] Erum: Oh my God. That's awesome. I think we're at, the stage, we're doing something new, Shelby, and you're the first person to experience this grow everything. Quick fire questions. Okay. Carl, you and I will go back and forth. I will start. All right. All right.

[00:48:29] Erum: first biohack, you ever

[00:48:31] Erum: tried?

[00:48:33] Karl: Amazing. coffee, cold plunge or creatine. What's non-negotiable?

[00:48:39] Erum: What's on your nightstand right now? Book. Wear a Bolt or Supplement. She's looking What? book?

[00:48:47] Shelby: the book is actually about, boundaries and having boundaries and relationships

[00:48:52] Shelby: and how that can help.

[00:48:54] Erum: Okay, so this is very funny because I mean, it is a boundary to ask, so I broke that boundary, so

[00:48:59] Erum: apologize. So.

[00:49:02] Karl: Okay. What's the weirdest thing you've ever seen in a pitch deck?

[00:49:06] Shelby: for me, the weirder, the better. outside of pure biotech might be surprised is shark antibodies. Shark antibodies are really small. They're about a 10th of the size of ours. people are trying to use

[00:49:18] Shelby: those to make new biologics.

[00:49:20] Erum: Oh wow. Sharks live a really long time. Very interesting. okay, last one in one word. The future of health is

[00:49:29] Erum: Yes,

[00:49:32] Karl: So awesome.

[00:49:34] Erum: Oh my goodness. You're so amazing to speak with you. You're the leading thinkers in the space, seeing it all. You're investing in the space. We love talking to you about biotech. Thank you for coming on the Grow Everything podcast to share your thoughts. We'll have you back on, you've been on the podcast before.

[00:49:50] Erum: You've helped co-host a podcast. We'll have you back on again for sure.

[00:49:54] Karl: Thank you, Shelby. Yeah.

[00:50:04] Erum: All right, Carl, what'd you think of that episode?

[00:50:07] Karl: like I said at the intro, Shelby's a super deep thinker and so I really appreciate that. We know her and she's a friend of ours and that we have her in our network. And she just thinks very deeply about these subjects and brings a really interesting, fresh perspective.

[00:50:21] Karl: I super enjoyed the interview. I regret that I wasn't able to go to the biohacker day number two. I did have FOMO that day. You and I were texting each other, but I had other things I had to take care of. What about you?

[00:50:34] Erum: Yeah, well, you missed a lot, but then at the same time, we gave a great recap. So it was like you were there. and of course I met with a bunch of people that. We're presenting and we'll connect with them. We might have a couple of them on the Gring Podcast to go deeper into what they're doing when it comes to looking at how to optimize biological processes.

[00:50:55] Erum: I just loved the way that we navigated the different interventions, the different ways of testing, really making data more visible to us consumers, us individuals, so we can make better decisions when it comes to our health. people are sharing. To see that if they are talking with chat gt a great use case.

[00:51:15] Erum: Hey, look, if chat GT's a atrophying my brain, which is this article that's how they positioned it. it's also telling me how to improve my brain at the same time. So if you've used ai, you know that hey, look, being able to see the data and well, if you're using AI for your health, let's just say that you can be asking simple questions.

[00:51:31] Erum: But then if you're sharing data and it's. telling you something about your health, that's a very profound experience because you're like, all right, well, the information's there. So I have to make a decision. Am I gonna continue living my life like X or should I go living my life like y which is, going to result in healthier outcomes for myself.

[00:51:50] Erum: And I think that it's super great to be able to see what's out in the market because there's so many things that are gonna come out, some really, authentic things at work. And some things that are gonna continue to be snake oil, which by the way is Brian Johnson's Olive oil brand.

[00:52:07] Erum: It's called Snake.

[00:52:08] Erum: yeah. yeah. it's called Snake Oil. So he's playing into it because people think it's the whole controversies, oh, he's doing all of this as a way to sell product. But I think, Seeing Brian Johnson speak in, small environments like we did at this biohacker demo day.

[00:52:27] Erum: he was at the DCI NYC event. he was at Symbi Beta. So like at these events where we've seen him speak, comes off as very authentic and I'd be curious to know how much money he's actually making from this product lines. But again, I think he does need to put a roof up her head, even though, it's a very expensive roof.

[00:52:45] Erum: But, but still, anyway, it's cool that we get access to types of thinkers we need to be vigilant. people have good intentions.

[00:52:56] Karl: yeah.and one other thingI would just say to listeners is if you haven't. seen Shelby's writing compound at their website, has a collection of things that Shelby has written about. and, Shelby, like I said earlier, she's a deep thinker, but she's written last year she wrote a whole manifesto about what the biohacker future looks like.

[00:53:15] Karl: It's got some very interesting scenarios as to what could happen in the next 3, 5, 10 years, 20 years. she's also written very deep. Lee about, protein dynamics and bio platforms and autonomous science, which is a thing, and cell therapies. We just talked about cell therapies at the beginning of this episode, so it's worth looking into the things that, Shelby writes about because it's very much in line with the things that we talk about here at Grow.

[00:53:41] Karl: Everything.

[00:53:42] Erum: Yeah, it's super interesting and we're lucky to have a physical copy of her manifesto, which she created. It's a lot of work to create, physical zions, but she did it, and it's really beautiful. it's really well done. the cool thing is it's a look into the future based on all of her experience, looking at what's going on in the market, how things enter the market.

[00:54:03] Erum: So, It helps you think about what's life gonna look like for us when we get older. and for me it's a personal because in my previous life, I was a founder and I sold into the senior living industry, which today. Is not that cool, you know? so how does that change for people like us?

[00:54:22] Erum: And I still have friends that work in this space and they ask me , what does senior living look like to you? And I'm like, it looks like traveling and being mobile and doing all the things that I wanna do if I'm not working, although I do wanna continue working. You and I talked about this, You are like, I don't really see myself not.

[00:54:39] Erum: Being curious and wanting to do things. Maybe not, nine to five,

[00:54:44] Karl: right.

[00:54:44] Karl: I completely agree with you. I mean, that is what we all hope for when it comes to becoming aged, staying active, doing interesting things, having good friends, and maybe doing a little bit of traveling.

[00:54:54] Erum: Yes.

[00:54:55] Erum: that's the pod. We have some great guests coming up, stay tuned. People that are working in, of course, the space sector, space, biotech we love and people that are, running large community events in the world of biotech.

[00:55:09] Erum: We have Suzanne Lee's episode coming up where she's, Doing a new type of bio fabricate. We have our friend, Casey Larner of Jen Space Executive Director. They're onto amazing things, so please stay tuned. please, like, subscribe, and of course reach out. We love hearing from you.

[00:55:26] Karl: Yeah, make sure you like, and subscribe us on YouTube. We are doing a lot more posting there and we're seeing a lot more activity on our YouTube channel.

[00:55:34] Erum: Yep.

[00:55:36] Erum: