79. Decentralize and Thrive: AthenaDAO’s Blockchain Boosts Women's Health with Laura Minquini.

[00:00:00] Ray: Welcome to Health on Chained. Today's guest is Laura Kinney and she's the CEO of My Key Guy, which is a longevity community, and she's also a longevity advocate. But today we're gonna be talking about her most recent endeavor, which is Athena Dow, which I'm really interested in, and it's a decentralized collective to fund women's reproductive health research.

[00:00:24] Ray: So Laura, welcome to the show.

[00:00:28] Laura: Ira, thanks so much for having me today. Very much looking forward to this conversation. It.

[00:00:32] Ray: Me too. Absolutely. Before we get started, could you give the audience just a brief background about your career so far, and uh, just, any personal information you wanna share with them.

[00:00:42] Laura: Yeah, so I love longevity because it gives us the opportunity for many lives, and I feel like I've had many lives. I actually started my career in fashion publishing. I was um, editor, fashion editor and creative director when I came out of school. And that led me to actually getting more on the business side of things.

[00:00:59] Laura: Eventually when I moved to Europe, I was doing trend forecasting for companies like lvmh branding and brand strategy and going to market strategies. So that was very interesting. And it was a while back because tr when trend forecasting was a thing, it was very different from now how everybody has access to everything through TikTok, Instagram, you name it.

[00:01:20] Laura: So that led me to a huge opportunity to launch my own company I had a co-founder who were doing accessories for Apple product. And it was licensing. We were the first ones to do it on fashion with fashion brands. So we had distribution around the world, Amazon, Apple also fashion distribution, Harvey Nichols Neman, Marcus, you name it.

[00:01:41] Laura: We were all over. We were the distributor globally and that was a great time in my life. We did that about eight years. It was great, but I also discover a lot of what we do with the environment as I was going to China four or five times a year. And I got to see how all the stuff that we consume has made.

[00:02:02] Laura: So a couple of leads. I mean, seeing that thinking, is this what I'm gonna do forever? My business partner Also, thinking of other business ideas, we decided to sell the company. So we did that and it was great because after that, after that, it gave me some time to think about what is it that I wanna do next?

[00:02:20] Laura: That it's important, it makes a good impact in society and also this and destroyed environment. So you have to think a lot. Oh, and there's the aspect of us, which is making money, right?

[00:02:32] Ray: Yeah. Just to,

[00:02:32] Ray: audience, to be clear, when you say how you saw things being made in China you're talking about all the plastic material

[00:02:38] Laura: Yeah. So the plastic materials, I mean specifically I'm referring to that I'm not an expert in production, but what I saw with the plastic, the cables, I remember going into places even seeing young women working and smelling those fumes and thinking there's no way that these women are not gonna be sick later from smelling this 12 hours a day, five days a week.

[00:02:59] Laura: So I really wanted to do something that had a positive impact. And it's not that easy if you think not producing things, not selling things for people just to consume. So by pure flu, I discover the world of aging and I say discover cuz I wasn't thinking about it by volunteering my dog, our retirement homes and hospitals.

[00:03:20] Laura: And I was shocked by it. I realized that the, so innovation was not happening there because we were aging the same, that we had been aging since the turn of the century. The model had been the same. And the more research I did on it, I did a market study. it led me to finding longevity biotech. And then I thought, this is where we can make the difference in prevention and regeneration.

[00:03:47] Laura: Like people, 80% of Americans right now want to age in place. How do we do that? I think by people staying healthy as long as they can and how do we stay healthy? But having a preventive mode, care of health, not a reactive, because once you're in reactive, you're just taking care of symptoms. How do you prevent Alzheimer's?

[00:04:06] Laura: How do you prevent sarcopenia like muscle mass? How do you frail to all those things? Longevity, biotech, I think has the best um, Shot at doing that. And I, got involved because looking at the field, I thought they had a problem in branding and communication. And the role I've been playing for the past two years is really trying to um, spread the word with the consumer, trying to make uh, the science understandable as well as elevating the word of scientists.

[00:04:37] Laura: I'm sure you know from Covid, I mean your podcast is about how people became almost more distrustful about science. It can become a polarized issue. It's not just we believe in science now, there's politics attached to it. There's a distrust to pharma. There's so many things that play into it that um, we have a long way to go into getting people more interested in even understanding longevity.

[00:05:02] Laura: But just to rush to how it got to Athena do was While I was working in longevity, I discovered Vida Do obviously they became like a big player about last year,

[00:05:13] Ray: Mm.

[00:05:13] Laura: exploring that. I thought what they were doing was, cuz I was sort of so already curious about crypto, I was already buying some e and bitcoin just to, not as an expert, but to have, just test how that worked.

[00:05:25] Laura: And when I realized what they were doing, I thought, okay, this is like a really interesting, amazing model trying to fund unfundable. And now I say unfundable not easy to fund longevity research or things that get overlooked, or more importantly, things that are very early on. And really focusing on the academia and researcher side rather than the, just the general startup, because a lot of these biotech startups, their genesis comes from research that somebody who's passionate about science is doing at a lab or in academia.

[00:05:57] Ray: All right.

[00:05:58] Laura: And making the transition from people that love being at the lab to something that could potentially be translational for people. it's quite a jump, especially if they don't know how to go get funding or they don't know how venture funds work. So I learn more about Rita Dow and at the same time in my longevity advocacy, I had the fortune of meeting Dr.

[00:06:21] Laura: Jennifer Garrison. she's the co-founder and president of the Global and Consortium for a Productive Longevity.

[00:06:28] Laura: So through that meeting and interview, I learned a lot. I obviously, I had to do the research for the interview. And what I found really shocked me that the first concert was founded in 2018, that, uh, reproductive longevity or aging is not that funded either.

[00:06:43] Laura: So if you think longevity is a tiny sliver, reproductive longevity, and specifically female women's reproductive longevity, it's like, It's a drop in the ocean and what we're looking at, and the crazy thing about it is that it's a great model to study the ovary to figure out even aging in general, but for some reason we're not looking at it.

[00:07:07] Laura: So I became more obviously more passionate about this because I also learn other things like women age faster during the period of menopause or cellular aging it's about 6% faster than in other Before that, and this is one of the reasons women come out of menopause with cardio, more propensity for cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's and neurogen diseases, and then there's postmenopausal os osteoporosis through your bone mass reallys.

[00:07:37] Laura: So all these things made me think, okay, how can I become a bit more grand or in my mission of aging better? Because as a woman I want to also sort of bounce women's courses. And to me I started a project within Vita Dow that I thought it has to be its own dow. We need to really just dedicate resources the same way that Vita Dow did for longevity, for women's reproductive health.

[00:08:02] Laura: I extended it to health because I realized there also that endometriosis and P C O S is also not very well funded in terms of research. There are not that many solutions. Women feel like they're left alone with these conditions.

[00:08:16] Ray: was P C O S? Sorry.

[00:08:17] Laura: Oh my God. It's like, I always forget how to say it properly.

[00:08:21] Laura: And so it's polycystic ovarian syndrome

[00:08:25] Ray: Okay. Thank you. It's good.

[00:08:27] Laura: just to like, to say it properly, but it's pretty much your ovaries produced like an abnormal intergen and this causes like hormonal problems as well as pain. During your period or just different kind of symptoms that are you're living with on a daily basis.

[00:08:44] Laura: And endometriosis is basically obvious. some more people are more familiar with it because it does have more more of I wouldn't say reputation, but I think people speak more about it

[00:08:53] Ray: I think it's a growing, I mean, people are becoming more aware of endometriosis is what I understand.

[00:08:59] Laura: Well, specifically also because very young women get it, it doesn't have to do with age. You can be also in your twentie and have it, and imagine having like the limit choices your entire life. So

[00:09:12] Laura: these are conditions that women are living with. And I'm now gonna be quoted on the data, but I know that some women in this space in reproductive health speak about how there's more money going into.

[00:09:30] Laura: Erectile dysfunction then there is into this. So it tells you about how money's flowing and where research is going. And why is this? I don't think there's an impetus to say, let's not there. I don't think it's dipping down on purpose. It's just people themselves with the things that affect them.

[00:09:51] Ray: Yeah. But I feel like now, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like the large pharma companies and people that are probably investing money into this research I'm assuming it's somewhat more balanced these days in terms of gender. there's males, females and then others who prefer to call themselves whatever they want to.

[00:10:10] Ray: But I, feel like there's enough women who are leading these companies, I think where there should be more research. But I, guess I'm wrong here. So like, why is it really difficult to secure funding for women's health research?

[00:10:23] Laura: Because a lot of the changes that one assumes are already there are not really there. And I know that. I mean, if you spend enough time on Twitter, where I see as the concentration of tech innovation, health professionals You would think that when you see like a woman, a female founders CEO racing 10 20 million is like a big win that you think for that one win.

[00:10:47] Laura: There's like the equivalent of 98 other wins for men.

[00:10:53] Laura: When you think that 2% of venture capital goes to women, right? A female founders. And of that percentage, so I'm gonna give you some, this is on our pitch log. 3% of digital health investment goes to fem tech companies. So we're It's very similar

[00:11:09] Laura: to the 2% of venture.

[00:11:10] Laura: Yeah, it's quite low. Women researchers and we're very, we're not saying that what we're doing, we're focusing on female researchers. We want to support that, making sure that more women get into getting these grants into CR Web three. But just to put it in context women get 24% less than the male counterparts on NIH grants. So even that, it's like lower. And then the biggest thing is there's a data gap.

[00:11:40] Ray: Can I ask you a question actually about that? And I don't know if you know this off the top of your head, you might not, but has the trend for funding for women's research and women researchers, has that been going up? Is it getting better or is it getting worse over the last like, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 years?

[00:11:58] Laura: it's, getting better,

[00:12:00] Ray: Yeah. At least that's a good signal,

[00:12:02] Laura: I mean, I think for instance, for us, because of what we're doing with Athena down reproductive health, we take us a barometer. For instance, what I mentioned Dr. Garrison is doing at the consortium, I think there's a pivotal moment in the 2018. Moment period in which I know from my time being in longevity, there's been more funding going into companies that are focused on riparian aging and like big amounts of money too.

[00:12:31] Laura: So to me, that's progress. Obviously the idea is Dr. Garris and herself so that there's still so many unanswered questions that it is still droplets and like how much we need to get done. And even finding the researchers that are wanting to do this, it's even hard as

[00:12:50] Ray: It's a marketing problem too.

[00:12:52] Laura: well, people maybe don't know as much.

[00:12:55] Laura: Maybe it's not an area of interest. I don't know what it, like we have to get to the bottom of this, right? Because knowing a bit more about the work she's doing and some of the projects they've put on hold, given that she cannot even find enough companies that could be a, you know, let's say let's do from grants then to.

[00:13:14] Laura: Company formation. There's not enough even out there to say, let's put our money into venture capitalist. They also want to put their money into companies that are close to bringing something to market, or that at least they're gonna get into clinical trials. Right. And we're maybe some steps behind. But I've talked to a lot of people in the field for the, the past little while and we know there's new strict list and we know that it's important right now.

[00:13:40] Laura: And I think people are more excited about it, that they've been, in general, it's a bit surprising to me because women make up half of the population and we're just getting excited about it

[00:13:49] Laura: now.

[00:13:49] Ray: Yeah.

[00:13:50] Laura: at least we are getting excited. But it's ironic. And there's the other aspect that, for instance, women, females were not mandated into the NHA trials into 1997.

[00:14:03] Laura: So they didn't have to have female subjects or even animals that were female. And the law was properly passed until 2007 where it was made more robust. But if you think that clinical trials had no data on women that's like a big thing because that means that for all those years, a lot of things were being tested on male subjects, but not female.

[00:14:29] Laura: And females react differently to a lot of things, including medicine.

[00:14:32] Ray: Yeah, there's probably a lot of drugs on the market now. That I've been in the market for a long time, and the clinical trials were, what you're saying is potentially mostly with males and we don't really know the potential risks and side effects for females, for those drugs and, and they're in the market and they're being prescribed to women, like it's no big deal.

[00:14:52] Ray: So that is interesting.

[00:14:53] Laura: To be fair, Ray, I have to say something. One of her advisors, she's like biotech Founder and very well respected person in the field. And I mean, she, she's out of Europe in Germany, but she said that one of the reasons women were not included in a lot of trials is because you have to be mindful of their reproductive years.

[00:15:13] Laura: And the other thing that I've talked with researchers is when you bring women into trials, there's a layer of complication because of their monthly administration. So you have to consider all these things. Things become more costly or more complicated. And already some of these trials have very limited budgets.

[00:15:33] Laura: So

[00:15:33] Laura: it was not done in like a way to be. Discriminating against women. It was just a practicality thing that unfortunate systems weren't built in to consider this and say, instead of giving a budget that is this amount, we need to consider having women and capping those budgets to make sure that we can also do this, including women.

[00:15:57] Ray: I see. Thanks for sharing that. It's good context as well. I'm glad that the trend is, getting better, but obviously there still needs to be some more improvement. Athena Dow, which is still sort of like in the early stages, right? I don't think you have built out the smart contract system for it yet or anything like that, but you know, the conversation has started about this idea.

[00:16:16] Ray: So maybe can you tell me more about The steps you've taken to learn how to launch a Dow properly. Cause I know there's a lot involved and nobody's done it perfectly, I think it's still, a pretty new thing, but do you wanna discuss that a little bit,

[00:16:31] Laura: I've seen it when that launching a do is pretty much just getting a group of people together. Getting a multisig, having a, like a discord and you're off to the races.

[00:16:42] Ray: That sounds about right.

[00:16:43] Laura: Yeah. It's a bit more involved, like especially the specific kind of vow that you wanna do, right? There are different mandates.

[00:16:51] Laura: Like I have a friend who did the pizza dow, so that's like sort of a more playful take of things. And there are defi, Dows a focus on treasuries and obviously token coin launches. This is a decentralized science dow that we're trying to do. So similar to Vita. or basically the same mandate as Vida Dow, which is a bio do obviously, or focus is going to be in bringing translational obviously supporting translational research into reproductive health as well as eventually do the same as Vida Dow, which is investing into very early research or very early companies in this area, and help them support them to get them to the next steps.

[00:17:33] Laura: Specifically because I spoke to you about how their mandate was to try to get more research in areas that people did not put money in. And this is what we wanna do. It's also support research that maybe traditionally has been overlooked and it's women's health research and specifically reproductive health research is currently underfunded and undervalued, as I told you, some of the figures.

[00:17:57] Laura: So our idea is we're a decentralized science style and our focus is to support. Institutions that exist already, like the consortium and figure out how we can work with at those kind of places to actually grow the field, get more funding into it, for us the most important aspect is also, I'm not a scientist or a researcher myself.

[00:18:24] Laura: So my spectrum is always how do we get things to the hands of the user or consumer or some doubts, call them the patient. To me, I don't wanna say that we're all patients, but how can we really make a difference in women's lives as soon as possible? And um, when you are doing a dow this way, you have to actually do a lot of leg work in terms of how are you going to do your science working groups, what is going to be the focus?

[00:18:52] Laura: So, for instance, reproductive health is really big in the terms of, it starts from the moment you have your first mest cycle till the end of obviously you're in menopause, right? And that ends. So to say that we're gonna figure it out for all of reproductive health, it's a very ambitious task. To even say we're gonna do it for one area of it, it's already ambitious.

[00:19:14] Laura: So to start off, we are going to focus on ovarian aging, endometriosis and P C O S, and we chose those because fertility, when you look even at funding for for fertility problems, menopause gets this, this, this slowest sliver being like the end of your life's fertility. So we don't need to do as much as figuring out new methods of ibf, people are already putting a lot of money into that.

[00:19:43] Laura: We're putting, we're trying to focus our mandate on things that don't see as much funding or as many solutions. And there are a lot of actually researchers that the thing that even IVF or how we do the process is not even, it's still a bit brutal and that we could even do better. So that even still could be improved.

[00:20:04] Laura: But let's start with the things that, let's start with specifics and then see how we can, what we can do there.

[00:20:11] Ray: Sure. I'm gonna ask you a question. We don't have to get technical about it. I know you're not a blockchain developer or technologist per se and you don't have like extensive scientific research background either. But I am curious, and I think the audience will be curious to know why do we actually need blockchain to reach this goal?

[00:20:27] Ray: Is there a way to raise funds or create a fund for women's research, medical research in a centralized typical way that you would and then just fund those researchers?

[00:20:39] Laura: So there is a way, because it already exists and the way that there's already foundations, there's the consortium, I mean, they raise someone like the consortium

[00:20:48] Ray: Which consortium again?

[00:20:50] Laura: The reproductive longevity at the back institute, the one that I was mentioning, Dr. Garrison, they raised money from philanthropists or foundations, right?

[00:20:58] Laura: So that area is covered. They're already working with researchers and raising money in that manner. There's also VC funds that focus specifically on fem tech, right? I mean, they're doing that, they're putting the money into fem tech and in different areas, not just what we're focusing on. Then there's also obviously the communities, the Facebook groups, the like different menopause associations.

[00:21:23] Laura: I think the interesting thing about Web three or these communities is that you could play a bridge between all three. The community, the investors, And the researchers in the same way that Vita Dow has, which is very interesting. And in all fairness, the centralized science and blockchain in a way, it's still very much an experiment, right?

[00:21:46] Laura: You can't say that we've all cracked the code already uh, it's still in the works. And the aspect about blockchain without being an expert that I find interesting is people are already curious about things like NFTs, right? And now the whole IP n ft is like another layer, and to me is the most interesting one because it changes how ownership takes place.

[00:22:11] Laura: It puts them more in the hands of the researcher. It tries to break systems that maybe they're not, maybe we'll figure out that they're not unbreakable. But there's the, why not try and Vita DA is already on the way to doing this, right? So why not even do this also for women's health or research or try to figure out.

[00:22:30] Laura: Other systems in which you are supporting more the scientists and the ownership of the IP that is less skewed towards the institutional IP holdings, which are very difficult. I know because I've had this discussions. Universities don't like the idea of giving up ip, which is understandable. And even you, when you speak to people, it's like, why don't you just create an NLC and like, you avoid the whole blockchain thing. you could, but the fact of the matter is that the ball gap rolling in blockchain and it's not gonna stop.

[00:23:04] Laura: It's just we're figuring it out how to do it bad. Like eventually every doubt fail is going to build and a story is going to form. It's like a new system and it's now gonna go away.

[00:23:18] Laura: There's gonna be different ways of doing it. Cuz even within the ecosystem, which is tiny, there's already sort of different platforms pro like coming out. So we're still all figuring out how it's going to be like the most efficient, ultimate eventually, but it's going to happen.

[00:23:36] Laura: It's going to be part of how science happens. You can't, it's going, it's not gonna stop.

[00:23:42] Ray: Yeah. There's a lot of momentum behind it, for

[00:23:44] Laura: my thing is how do you get women's health or women researchers to also benefit from this? Because, crypto is 80, 90% map,

[00:23:55] Laura: well, web three crypto, and then you bring it to Desi and it's exactly the same.

[00:24:01] Laura: It's and I love all my friends and web three the friends like, but I know a lot of them are also very supportive in trying to figure out how to get more women involved. And I didn't think that NFTs, like for some, for the women that are very tech savvy investors they are into NFTs and crypto, like the celebrities that, you know, the whole craze of all the celebrities that came on board.

[00:24:24] Laura: But for regular, everyday women is not necessarily the NFT picture that's going to sell them into being curious about this ecosystem. And I think reproductive health, something that matters to them, if we onboard them on web two, which something very tangible and valuable to them, they could be like a bridge to web three into that ecosystem and support um, communities as well as research.

[00:24:50] Ray: Yeah. It also gives opportunity for women who are patients to invest in a certain research area that might affect them or their family member or something. So it opens up that community ecosystem that we didn't have before or that we had in separate world before the VC people, the patients community and the researchers.

[00:25:11] Ray: We're all kind of living separately now.

[00:25:13] Laura: it's collectively own, right? I mean the whole idea is that you have uh, is participatory instead of, passive. And if you have particip, that's more exciting. Then if you are just watching, if you know the Venture Fund is investing into something like super cool and amazing that you think, Oh, great for the Venture Fund and the LPs, but imagine like you were in a situation where you're like, Oh, this is super exciting research and I'm so glad that I own an Athena do token cuz I'm at least participating in this like

[00:25:45] Laura: world. Yeah,

[00:25:46] Ray: some people might correct me here, but it's sort of like owning stock in a company that's doing something that you think is important. It's sort of like that, but now, instead of being owned on a centralized system or it's peer to peer, so that makes, that's what makes it unique.

[00:26:01] Laura: Well, you'll be very corrected because you don't wanna be as secure

[00:26:07] Ray: You don't wanna be security.

[00:26:08] Laura: It depends. I mean, it just depends on how the do is established and it has to do with the legal entity or the setup, the, all of that. So that's why dows are very, and it varies from do to dow what you call that token and what the mandate of that token is.

[00:26:27] Laura: So it's almost, depends how. You set up the Dow it could be fully within securities regulations. So that token is the securities, or it is just a token for voting and it's more of like, Oh, I'm part of this change, but not necessarily seen as investment vehicle.

[00:26:46] Ray: Interesting. There was a proposal on Vita Dow. We've talked about Vita Do a Lot. There's a proposal for a collaboration between Athena Dow and Vita Dow. Can you talk to me a little bit about that and what were the results or what could happen in the future?

[00:27:01] Laura: Yeah. So that happened about three weeks ago. there's going to be an announcement happening the next two weeks about our um, participating. I guess we're in the final stages. I don't wanna like jinx it,

[00:27:14] Ray: By the time this episode comes out, it might be

[00:27:18] Ray: already announced,

[00:27:19] Laura: Yeah, well hopefully it's the NA is on September 21st, so we are on the final stages. I guess if this episode happens then, we were just in the finalizing everything to be part of the first cohort of Bio X, Y, Z, which is I guess sort of an Inc accelerator, a bit more like co-founding of r d that it's a platform that is being started by the molecule team and I guess it's supporting different doubts and bio dials, all of them.

[00:27:50] Laura: It's focus on obviously scientific research and from those discussions that we've been having with the team there and the back and forth. Vincent, we, who I know you had on your podcast, he's big, big supporter, love. He's being very enthusiastic about, about reproductive longevity since we've been discussing this now for months, even within like Vita Dow starting something there, like a project with a consortium.

[00:28:16] Laura: That's a lot how I learned even more about how the system of the research and setting up things works. He thought, what, let's do also Vita Dow token swap, like just to support you and also like do some of our, so that you can use some of our resources there also for,

[00:28:33] Ray: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:34] Laura: So he put a proposal up really fast, like literally super fast.

[00:28:39] Laura: It was up, everybody was excited, Core was excited. it's was a 50% vita token for 2% value when the Athena Token came out vested over four years. Like it was a really good deal for Vita Do cuz. They weren't give us liquidity, they were giving us tokens, right?

[00:29:00] Laura: So it wasn't like they were investing something that we could use and go buy, like

[00:29:05] Ray: Mm.

[00:29:06] Laura: go purchase tickets to get us ourselves to Everyi conference or anything like that. It was something that we had to utilize within VI Dow for 2% of the future Athena token. I know it's not existent, but it could be very valuable in the future if you think in that sense.

[00:29:24] Laura: So I thought, okay, I mean, it's a bit expensive for Athena, but it makes sense. Let's try it. So it was being voted up and then overnight the voting went down, like in a way that everybody in the court team was talking about themselves amongst themselves. Like what happened? Tim Peterson from like, Vita Dad was like, message is like, this is so crazy.

[00:29:47] Laura: We think it's like an attack, like a troll attack because he doesn't make sense. All of us are like supporting this. So then they were asked to raise this stake to 3% for set, 50%. And I, literally wrote on the message board, it's like, well, thank you. But it becomes impossible at 3%. Like I think we just need to go back to the drawing board and try this and the other matter later.

[00:30:12] Laura: So we haven't tried yet. I think we're, you know, it's been busy trying to already figure out the other part,

[00:30:18] Ray: you still have negotiations. I guess it's not, blockchain won't remove negotiations. In fact, it'll probably make those conversations even more important. But again, this was just a start, right?

[00:30:27] Laura: it was, and especially because they told me it's part of having a dow that you can have a, like they totally thought it was like a control attack. They're not sure. It's part of being on the internet. It's part of being on decentralized. It's part of being of like a new system and specifically a decentralized, autonomous organization.

[00:30:45] Laura: Right? It's it's up for voting. I think thanks to this, they're talking about changing some of the voting structure, making sure that they had been in discussions about it already, that people have to give a why a yes, why or no. So to make it more accountable. And then if you're going to go do that, then you have, we know how or why you make that decision and who made that decision.

[00:31:07] Laura: And in a way, it's a more open way of doing things because you're not like some, a non just, Oh, I don't like women ding or , something like that. Cause it's just shocking to me, the thing that I said it to them guys. It's just shocking to me because this is a really good deal for you. Like if you were communi a token holder, I would totally like, Yeah, this is beneficial for us.

[00:31:31] Laura: It's like a no brainer. But there was something about reproductive health or, I don't know, maybe the name or, I don't know. It could have been a series of things that we don't know about, I mean, we're going to obviously do something with Vita Dow. Given the very close relationship, it's just about negotiating.

[00:31:49] Laura: Something else eventually.

[00:31:51] Ray: What makes sense the most sense. That's fair. And I know you had some activity with Bitcoin as well. Can you talk to us about that experience and some of the pros and cons of using Bitcoin to raise funds?

[00:32:03] Laura: well, it's our first one. I've helped put some Bitcoin grants together before, but this is the first one that I do obviously lead it. And it was for Athena Dow. I would say that it's quite easy to do. The only thing was the verification process. Granted, maybe I was a bit uh, because I hadn't done it properly all myself before, I was a bit freaked out.

[00:32:27] Laura: When they give you this message, like you have to verify it's you or it's like a scam notice. And I, think everybody gets this where you have to actually send the message through Twitter for them to like make the verification. And then you get like this message on email that you tweet to say, Yes, you are the owner and everything else.

[00:32:48] Laura: But because I was such a, like, we put together or get con grand like a week ahead. So when it came up I was like messaging. I was like, What is this? Why do we get that? And this was like, don't worry, it's the way it works. And I even went to their first call and everybody on the team was super helpful.

[00:33:08] Laura: So we got verified. So I'm very excited. We're there, We're already getting Small donations, which is great because what people don't realize is that with the quadratic funding, it's better to even get one, two, $3, many of them. So like, it just keeps you can get him the, the fund, like just the algorithm playing with your grant than getting one 200 or one 300.

[00:33:32] Laura: I mean, I would love to get something from a big donor that is like, Hey for this round we want to produce a public good, which is a reproductive health report that it would be available to everyone for free. And we're doing obvious, we're gonna be collaborating with different institutions so that the science is really solid.

[00:33:55] Laura: And it's kind of like we're coming out and saying, Okay, Athena Dow, like this is what we're doing and this is what we're focusing on and these are the more interesting areas of research in join us in our mission.

[00:34:08] Ray: So I'm sure you've talked to so many different women, health researchers, women's health researchers what is their take or what is their feedback on this? I'm sure they want more research funding. Have they been excited about the idea far?

[00:34:20] Laura: Yeah, super excited. I get two things and I get the women that already have the startups have are well on the way where we have to prove that we are using the right science, that we know what we're talking about. That they're like, Okay, who are these? I mean, specifically myself, I'm either a scientist, not a block checking expert, right?

[00:34:45] Laura: Like who's this random that comes and says like, she's going to like, figure thing. I'm like, I'm not coming to say I'm figuring anything out. I'm coming to say I'm gonna support My interest is always being to support science. How do I make I'm more interested in female PhDs and researchers also starting companies, cuz I think there's also like a chasm to cross and how men feel more compelled or find their resources faster than maybe sometimes that are female colleagues, but they women that are already in the field, we have to prove to them that we're using the right research, that we're doing things cohesively for the women that are at labs or that, this is like a new thing.

[00:35:26] Laura: They're very excited and I met both ends of the spectrum in terms of they think this could be amazing because they think of so many ideas what they could do. So they don't know. I mean, I'm talking to a researcher in Sheila who she already has something that she's working on with a professor in Harvard, but she hasn't been able to figure out how to get it funded.

[00:35:47] Laura: So this for her could be like, Could change everything, right? And she's never heard of anything like that. And she's the only researcher and Sheila doing this. So lo and behold, having like this centralized aspect of things and being a Dow that is not only, not so much an institution could really get together people that, or researchers or scientists that were, did not have this resources before.

[00:36:16] Ray: That makes sense. I also understand that, as a way to encourage these women to start companies, you'll be helping them with company formation as part of Athena Doubt. can you talk about that or is that

[00:36:27] Laura: that's too early on in this sense that that would be like effectively an accelerator and let's just say with the company information when you think that you're part of our network. And you are already connecting them to somebody who's like at the top of the train. And when we say company information, the way I'm thinking of it is the same way that it happened in Vita D is there is a community where there are VCs, where there are researchers, where there are people who are just into longevity.

[00:36:59] Laura: And by simply being in that community, you already get connected to so many different people that you already expanding your network to actually be encouraged to go further. And I have a perfect example of this. D d who is part of her science lead team. what she looks at is very different that it's just say ovarian aging or or specifically things through reproductive health.

[00:37:25] Laura: But I met D through Dows. In these, her like trajectory over the last six months has changed so much because she joined a Dow for the first time as, si at D Side Dow, which led her obviously now to be part of our team. But it's open. She already was doing very well in academia. She at Imperial College in London.

[00:37:48] Laura: But this has opened like another huge layer for her. Like she went to a fellowship with Vida Dow to a camp in San Francisco for longevity. And the connections she made, the inspirations she got has like made her think, okay, I need to take her to the next level. And now she knows the people that can help her get to the next level.

[00:38:08] Laura: So this is the opportunity that a decide do where you gonna not just be with academics or in that institution, but meeting people that are also trying new things, doing different things. Maybe you're gonna be an investor. That has been looking for this area for a while and they're gonna support you. And it's not necessarily that we are the accelerator, it's just how the ecosystem is built to support the notion that you'll find the resources you need to get to the next step.

[00:38:37] Laura: And I find that the most exciting aspect.

[00:38:40] Ray: I see. Okay, that makes sense. So it's not necessarily that you're giving the resources, the administrative resources or legal resources for starting a company for these women, but more you're creating the environment where there's potential for them to meet the right people and get the right access to the right resources.

[00:38:57] Ray: Fair. That makes

[00:38:58] Ray: sense.

[00:38:58] Laura: And especially because I think in the long term, we really want to work with other, whether it is an institution, accelerators, anyone that's in the reproductive health field, we want to compliment what they're already doing. It's not it shouldn't be a zero sum game like I'm gonna do.

[00:39:15] Laura: Everything and we're gonna be like the biggest one. I don't like replication of efforts. I think that's like one of the worst things that we do in business. I know the competition is healthy, but collaboration in fields that are so underfunded, it's super crucial to move things forward. So if we can even eventually work with accelerators that focus on this and refer, or researchers that have ideas, stuff like that.

[00:39:44] Laura: So it doesn't have to necessarily stay within the doubt, but really moves the needle forward. That's super important too. And I think Vita do. With all the longevity prices, collaborations that they've established with other orgs has been crucial, right? I mean, there's the Foresight Institute, there's a ME foundation, Longevity for us.

[00:40:06] Laura: We're probably gonna do similar things also in the pipeline just to collaborative and with other dows Vita Do Lab do.

[00:40:16] Ray: It's amazing how many Dows have been. Popping up. And I, mean, I think it's great. They all have slightly different models, but most of them are very much the same. I wonder, actually, this is a question one of my community members asked for you. When I mentioned I'm gonna be interviewing you, was about, if this is just another Vita Dow spinoff, like what lessons have you learned from Vita Dow that you're trying to apply at Athena Dow?

[00:40:44] Laura: I love the question because one of the things in the negotiations or back on discussion with the team at Molecule for Bio X Y C is how do we just not make this? Like, I don't wanna be a copy paste of Vita Do, or you know what I mean? But I think their thought process is, we've experienced so much with Vita Dow.

[00:41:09] Laura: The MVP has to be a model that we already know works in terms. Why try to like experiment like a maniac at the beginning when we can just set you going in a way that's very cohesive and we know the track record on things. So to be like a bio doubt, they're very specific metrics and milestones that you have to meet.

[00:41:30] Laura: And they would be similar to some of the milestones that be a Dow Met already. That's obviously their theory in terms of like how things would work, which to me makes sense. How for us one of the big things that would be different from the vita down model is obviously we really need to make the crossover to the general public.

[00:41:50] Laura: How do we create a ecosystem or how do we do onboarding that really focuses on onboarding women or a community that's not traditionally on web three. So you need, in Dallas, the things that are crucial ares governance. Onboarding and tasking and bounties, right? So the onboarding for us will be like a very crucial aspect on how we need to do things a bit different from Vida do.

[00:42:22] Laura: But that comes on later because our focus is the mvp, which is how are you a bio do, right? how do you establish the science and the roadmap and pipeline for you to be able to onboard enough research projects to obviously raise a treasury? And then from raising a treasury, how do you keep that treasury going?

[00:42:42] Laura: But the second aspect and layer is and obviously this is gonna be in the discussions when we do the governance andos, how do we keep things open-ended in a way that it's easy for us to think of different ways in which we really focus on onboard. Not just en enthusiast and web three, not just researchers and web two, web three enthusiasts, but also just female communities, women communities out there that are interested in resources.

[00:43:10] Laura: I mean, finding out more about evidence based science or a community that could help them, refer them to, the best options, potential clinical trials,

[00:43:21] Ray: Yeah, that's a big one actually. Clinical. Cause if you think about a lot of these early stage research that Athena Dow or via Dow or other dows are funding these people that are investing early on, especially the patients, they are potentially perfect to be part of the clinical trials for these drugs in the future, years down the line after the basic research is completed.

[00:43:42] Ray: Or they may know somebody at least, so there's already an interest about the treatment, right? Because they've invested early. So getting recruit, subjects for the trial might be a little bit more simpler or hopefully more easy to find people to be part of that.

[00:44:02] Laura: Well, there are tons of female clinicians or women researchers, clinicians, even male. Also not, I mean, there are tons of clinicians, not just female ones that they could be running certain very small trials with their patients or patients that arrive with them. They wouldn't tell cost a lot of money, but the reason why they don't get the funding is because these would have to be public good trials, meaning there's not gonna be an outcome where a pharma pharmaceutical company can make money off it.

[00:44:32] Laura: It's just to like, prove something or improve a treatment. And I think there's a lot of opportunity in that because those are things that really touch people's lives. Maybe the pharmaceutical's not gonna make money, but the patient is gonna be treated better. So how do you device a system where you can have part of your treasury putting money on things that are like investments so that you see returns or putting funding into things that you'll see are returns.

[00:44:59] Laura: So you keep your treasury and then you can put more money again after to other things, keep it flowing. And how you put part of your treasury to public good fund public goods funding, meaning things that you know is not necessarily a return for anyone, but that it's going to actually help people. Cause it could just improve.

[00:45:18] Laura: It could be like a big difference in how you treat a certain condition. However, because it's not a pill or it's not something that you can put an IP to, then you might not see a return. But there are a lot of things that we're living on the floor that are not happening. We're always looking for returns.

[00:45:36] Laura: And I think the difference with the centralized science, if we truly look at some of the more, I call it utopian or ideal vision of it, there should be a part of it that is always dedicated to public goods. That you are not just caring about the returns.

[00:45:57] Ray: Interesting. There was another question from a community member. It was about the Bitcoin grant. And they're wondering how does this benefit early investors? Like is there anything that early investors get from investing in the grant, or is it more like a donation type of thing?

[00:46:15] Laura: So the grant, it's a donation by its nature. That's why it's called a a grant. Because when you invest into, you're not investing into token when you go through Bitcoin, right? You're putting in whatever coin, like you're using, and then it goes into a pool, then it goes into the Quadra, like the algorithm for the quad funding.

[00:46:36] Laura: And at the end of the grant, those funds are like dispersed us with that. It's just how it works. For instance going back to Foresight and Vied out, they did their longevity prices within the Bitcoin grant and so did impetus grants, which is a longevity one. So that is just money that you donate because you believe in the cost or you think it's important.

[00:46:58] Laura: And I think when you and I had our first discussion one of the things I say is that reproductive health is not something that only affects women right now. It's something that affects all of society. It's something that affects all of society because two things we're aging fast. So by 2030, there's gonna be 1.1 billion women in menopause.

[00:47:20] Laura: Menopause is debilitating to a lot of women. This is lost men. This is lost productivity, loss years bad health for women for a long period of time. That also affects the treasuries over healthcare. So this is not just something that because your mom has like menopause far away from you, it doesn't touch you.

[00:47:42] Laura: It touches all of society. If women are not healthy, and there's, as I said, half of the women in the world, like the, it's 49.8 of the population of the world is women just, not quite half, but almost half is the same across the board. The US Europe. If you think that so many women are gonna also be aging and they're gonna have like conditions that are gonna make them more eventually from aging, Having to have more healthcare, less time to work, become more dependent.

[00:48:11] Laura: This is bad. I balance, and this is already a problem with the aging world. Not only women, but all of us. That's why longevity is so crucial too. The other aspect is fertility rates are declining and there are scientists that are calling infer like fertility, a modern age problem because women are having to have more IVF to have babies to conceive.

[00:48:37] Laura: There's just because women are also putting off having children later, having them later, we're pushing back this time, they're finding that IV that freezing your X is not the insurance that you thought you had. I mean, there's a plethora issues that I know everybody's favorite. Tech and I, Musk keeps tweeting about this and it's like a whole joke about him having 10, I don't know how many children has already

[00:49:04] Ray: Yeah.

[00:49:05] Laura: Yeah.

[00:49:05] Laura: About populating the world. But he keeps tweeting about this. And there are a lot of people economists that are actually raising the alarm and they say, I know there's like so much where we think we don't have enough resources, but just imagine the imbalance of most of the world being quote old by 2050 and not enough people, adults to help support that older world.

[00:49:32] Laura: And I'm not just saying the economical side, but people that are sick need help and already finding retirement homes is hard already. Finding staff that work in those homes is hard. I can imagine with most of us being older by 2050, what it would be like if we don't have. A population balance. So reproductive health should matter to everybody.

[00:49:54] Laura: And that's why the grant, it's a donation and I really want to appeal to peoples doing good side of things. It's not just, Oh, wait a minute, no, It's literally this matters and we should pay more attention to it. Every man should care about this too. And just as a side note, fertility is starting to become a problem for man as well.

[00:50:18] Ray: Great points. These are really important points. I think you're right in many cases here it's not just a woman's problem or woman's issue. It's a people issue that we need to collectively think about and try to solve. So thanks for sharing all that with us. yeah, just, I wanted to ask you about the roadmap for the d like what's, your plan for the rest of the year and, maybe next year.

[00:50:38] Ray: And then if there's anything else, I have a few other personal questions I wanna get to as well,

[00:50:42] Laura: The other last thing, why reproductive health is important is because this is something that ties back to longevity and the work that I've been doing with that is, so I believe anybody who's 25 right now, pretty much, if they're healthy, they work out, they eat healthy, they could potentially do 100. this is kind of like a contradiction because over the past three years, the mortality rate, I mean basically the health span has, the lifespan has actually decreased in North America simply because of covid and people, it's ironic because we are on the way to living longer, but at the same time, this three years saw a decrease of life.

[00:51:21] Laura: However, I do think that there's gonna be a lot of 25 year old people that lived 100. So my question is, if we are going to live now on average, the hundred plus year life, and a lot of tech entrepreneurs talk about this, longevity enthusiasts, how is it that we're keeping the options for women the same as in cave times,

[00:51:42] Laura: which is well, your best years for like having babies is literally from 16 to 25.

[00:51:49] Laura: One woman in this day and age is going to be able to afford a child at that point. Want to not many. And this is one of the issues the more conservative guys are like, oh. women, I want to be like working well, maybe they don't want to, but we live in a time where you have to . it's dynamics have changed.

[00:52:09] Laura: So for women to have their best years at a period where they're not financially stable are, Man, I wanna have children. It's an imbalance to that a hundred year lives. So we need to find these solutions because we found we can do transplants, we can have incubators. We've changed so much over predestined biology that there's no reason cannot change those.

[00:52:38] Laura: the roadmap,

[00:52:39] Ray: That's the roadmap, . No, that's, good points. I think there's a lot of good people like yourself trying to work on it, trying to figure out how this can,

[00:52:48] Laura: Oh yeah, there's a lot of. Amazing company. A lot of researcher. It's a lot of I mean, I know that for instance, things like the, I know a lot of my friends in this space and they're not excited about their artificial womb. I am. So, I'm like a tech bro that way. And I think it's also because a lot of women, my and then past 10, 20 years probably made, the decision not to have kids.

[00:53:12] Laura: And maybe they wanna have them later. And a lot of these women will be economically and financially secure by the time it's too late. A lot of gay couples you know, I mean, there's just so many people that are not able to have kids because biology's not on their side. Meanwhile, I'm Mexican. I was born in Mexico.

[00:53:31] Laura: I saw 13 and 14 year old children, women having children simply because biology.

[00:53:38] Ray: Wow.

[00:53:38] Laura: And you think of that. Women that can have a child give it a good life. They have a hard time adopting. They have a hard time and because of biology is too late. But then biology predicates that women that are like poor have no education and no way of maintaining a child are having a child just because.

[00:53:58] Laura: So in this way I think technology and science helps, puts a balance to things that sometimes are not balanced.

[00:54:08] Ray: Wow. That is interesting.

[00:54:10] Ray: Well, again, I wanted to end with a few personal questions about yourself. Do you have a favorite book that you would That maybe has influenced you

[00:54:19] Laura: I have so many, but I think the one that I keep going to, and it has nothing to do with science or anything interesting or smart as the confederacy of the

[00:54:32] Ray: the confederacy of

[00:54:34] Laura: The nuances.

[00:54:35] Laura: Yeah.

[00:54:36] Laura: So this book was written in the sixties, I believe, fifties, sixties. There's a really crazy story about the book. Every time I read it, I laugh so hard and I've read it like three or four times. But the very interesting part about this story is that this story is written by this guy who lives with his mother, and he's like this kind of like loser guy.

[00:54:56] Laura: And the book is, I think loosely based on him. He lives his mother, the book, He dies, the mother shops around the book like crazy. Finally, somebody says like Text Mercy of her, or I don't know how, I can't remember how it happens. The book wins a Pulitzer Prize. And I enjoy the story behind the book. And when you read the book, this guy had never written anything in his life.

[00:55:23] Laura: The intelligence in which this book was written. It's just, to me, it's also like a testament of there's so much human creativity that we don't know about because it never makes it to the top. And then you get these gems that had no bearings in society, nothing to do that are like a gift to culture. And I just find it very attaching the whole read it, laugh like crazy.

[00:55:51] Laura: I think this is one of the smartest thing I've ever read. And the guy was like, not a scientist. I mean, not a writer, not a reporter, nothing. He was just some dude living in his mom's basement. Pretty much.

[00:56:03] Ray: Interesting. Yeah, it's called the Confederacy of S. Right.

[00:56:08] Ray: So definitely by John Kennedy tool.

[00:56:10] Laura: Yes. Read it. And the other thing is, there's a crazy story that They tried to make this movie many times and it's almost like cursed. Because if people look it up, if they wanna get into rabbit holes, they, it's like a crazy one. So there's many layers of it, but I highly recommend it as something that you would laugh so hard and it's so smartly written

[00:56:33] Ray: Maybe they need to make a, dow for this to raise money for this movie

[00:56:38] Laura: or no, they already did it for the orkis. Do and that didn't work out so well.

[00:56:44] Ray: Fair enough. Do you have a favorite role model? It could be like a scientist or business leader that inspires you.

[00:56:49] Laura: I did think about that one and I would say that I have a lot of admiration for Madam Ku.

[00:56:57] Ray: Hmm.

[00:56:57] Laura: When I was actually looking for the name, I looked at Ku Dow and Cori Bio and actually a very famous startup founder in the space in health Tech already has. Korea bio. He's doing, I'm not sure it's something that it support like biotech founders, but um, she's one of the women that led science in incredible.

[00:57:19] Laura: I mean she won what, two novel prizes. She was the force of that marriage. Had like a scientific life for her entire like life. And the other part is she exposed herself to radiation during World War. I like did, I mean she also was like doing advocacy. She continued to work. She was like the most incredible, powerful woman when you think when she was doing this.

[00:57:47] Laura: And she also had an affair when her husband died, which she was vilified for. and drag through like what you would be like the TMC of that area in Paris, France, like all the newspapers. So being an independent woman who could have a life pass, the marriage was like, I think there was an affair because the guy was married.

[00:58:08] Laura: But when you think that that woman did all of that and the turn of the century, you're like, wow. Incredible.

[00:58:16] Ray: Yeah, that's definitely a risk taker there. But thankfully she provided a lot to society, so I'm grateful for her as well. Laura, this has been a really great conversation. Learned a lot about Athena, Dow, Dows in general and then women's reproductive health and research. So I just wanna thank you for joining me today and if there's anything else you wanted to share with the audience, I wanna give you some time to last kind of takeaways for, the show here.

[00:58:40] Laura: Yeah. So one thing that I don't think we went very clear on the roadmap right now that what we're gonna focus on, obviously. Because we're gonna be, our core mention is obviously to get more funding into reproductive health is establishing ourselves as a clear bio do in the centralized science and Desi.

[00:58:59] Laura: So meeting certain milestones that clearly show that our area that we're gonna go out the door to focus on is how to find how to have a pipeline, a build for onboarding researchers, focusing on those areas that I mentioned to you. And then the second part to that is once that gets going, once we raise the treasury, that's, you know, after we did, we establish the pipeline is raise the treasury, depending on where the market is at in 3, 6, 8 months, whether we go right off the bat, right away with onboarding.

[00:59:34] Laura: Venture or GU token, that's gonna, we're gonna define it obviously as we build the pipeline. And the other big aspect for us is getting more of the community in general. So from your community members, from other communities. It's so crucial that we get more people involved in this cause. And I think, as I said, it's not just a doubt for women.

[00:59:59] Laura: And it's a doubt that should work, should matter to anyone, everyone, because reproductive health doesn't just affect women. And eventually, hopefully we can also touch in men's reproductive health, because I know this is like a thing that it's an issue. Women's men's fertility is also declining.

[01:00:20] Laura: There's now startups freezing. Also your sperm. And I would recommend that to men that are quite young tools to start doing that because of endocrine factors and many other things. We live and with much more toxicity. We have more chemicals in our food. Were not living the same as our grandparents or great grandparents.

[01:00:40] Laura: It's like another life. You can compare life then to life now. So we have to be more proactive on being involved in the science of health. And that's what we want to make sure that people also understand we're not just. Oh, this is just a community for women and it's just a cause that affects women. It's something that wor that affects everyone and hopefully more people can get involved.

[01:01:04] Laura: And also people that are into just blockchain, new technologies. Cuz there's so much to do. I meet so many other people. There's so many other projects going on that are so exciting and complimentary to this that we need to work together and have participation, active participation, not only from women, but from men and from different kind of

[01:01:29] Ray: What's the best way to reach you if anyone listening wants to get

[01:01:32] Ray: in touch?

[01:01:34] Laura: we have a discord. You can find it. We also have a Twitter at Athena dow. Please join. Do look it up and put the, spell it properly. Cuz we've been tagged lately with just the Dow and I couldn't get the Athena Dow just like that. We had to do the funky underscores, but I don't know.

[01:01:50] Laura: Discord. You can find our link tree, which has our sorry. On our Twitter, you can find our link tree, which has our discord. And we also are doing a lot of web two stuff with Zoom workshops. We're gonna start doing a lot of more reaching out on web two. Obviously using other tools for where you can find more women.

[01:02:07] Laura: There's an inclination to do more Instagram and TikTok at later stages, but you can find Uhthe dot on Twitter, myself, Laura Kinney, I'm there. Very active. And obviously the disc core will love to welcome you and anybody who has any ideas, any projects, complimentary things. We are looking for collaborators and obviously to build an ecosystem, the benefits, not just reproductive health, but to then move science forward.

[01:02:38] Ray: Laura McKinney, Thank you very much.

[01:02:40] Laura: Thank you so much, Ray was a great conversation.