Stay Scientific Jerry!

PART 1: IKU @ The 68th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting

PART 2: Life of a Young Scientist: Tech, Comm, Impact Factors, and Funding

PART 3: Conversations with Nobel Laureates

PART 1

To explain why IKU decided to be a principal benefactor of the 68th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, best to give you bit of context and history.

Two Lindau Physicians Franz Karl Hein and Gustav Wilhelm Parade with help from Count Lennart Bernadotte of Wisborg, Mainau Island are responsible for this annual tradition. Count Bernadotte, grandson of King Gustaf V of Sweden, was able to convince 7 Nobel Laureates (winners of the Nobel Prize) to participate in the first European Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Medicine in 1951 on a tiny and beautiful peninsula in Bavaria called Lindau. The meeting was conceived as a European initiative of post-war reconciliation among scientists.

Fast forward to the 21st century, ~30 Nobel Laureates convene on Lindau to meet the cream of the crop in scientific research -~600 undergrads, PhD’s, and Post Docs from around the world, to foster exchange among scientists of different generations, cultures, and disciplines. Disciplines in physiology/medicine, physics, and chemistry are alternative focuses each year with an interdisciplinary focus every 5 years and a Meeting on Economics Sciences every 3 years.

And how does IKU fit in? Let’s just say we’re an organization looking to slingshot biotech and medical research back into orbit, beyond where it belongs(scroll down to What is IKU? for more context). We value science. And the integrity of science — its socio-economic and health implications on mankind. ESPECIALLY in the context of human mortality. Anything IKU could do to support the Council and Foundation in helping solidify the continuation of these meetings was a no brainer.

From what we witnessed in the 68th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, the Foundation runs an extremely well executed program with lectures, discussion sessions, master classes where Nobel Laureates act as mentors to presenting scientists, panel discussions, and sponsored science breakfasts. It really was about the science, the young scientists, and at an extremely high level.

All of the conferences, and hackathons I’ve attended thus far I’ve been typically surrounded by crypto and blockchain enthusiast -founders/cofounders of crypto organizations, developers, VCs, as well as people that just want to get involved. The bio innovation and healthcare forums I attended as well were obviously more informative on current and future states of R&D relevant in medical advancement. But more so cross-promotional and networking opportunities.

The Lindau Nobel Meeting was the first where science in physiology and medicine was front and center. A week-long event dedicated to scientists, the best of the best from the next generation. It was a breath of fresh air to hear about direct physical implications on the human body and life, as opposed to potential revolutionary dApps and protocols that will change global socio-economic dynamics. Oh, and make the world a better place. Give me a break! I do realize we live in the digital age, but the analog world ain’t goin’ nowhere. And medical science is definitely the most important, tangible field as it pertains to our health.

One of the neuroscientists I had the pleasure to speak to, Dr. Immanuel Elbau from the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, shared a similar perspective:

Its great meeting the Nobel Laureates. Just from the perspective of a young scientist its very valuable to get insight into their more personal, less talked about, experience in taking the path in a scientific career. Its consoling to hear the things they’ve struggled with and their advice is very valuable. On the other hand, it was great meeting so many young scientists from all over the world…Senegal, Kenya, to Israel, Finland…And everyone is pretty excited about research.

…I met one guy guy from Israel — he’s a mathematician by background and he works in synthetic biology. He looks at trying to engineer E.coli’s that bind carbon and create biomass as a solution to dealing with increased emissions that we have and also creating energy. This is completely out of my field and very exciting.

Personally, this was an opportunity to familiarize myself with historical, current, and future of research discovery, from mechanisms of autophagy (natural destruction of cells and protein degradation), to implications of the circadian clock on human health, to how we can bypass 15 years of research with computational neurobiology. You think blockchain technology is abstract and revolutionary, wait until you hear a neuromolecular computational biologist explain neuroinflammation implications on altered states of consciousness. Wild stuff.

And what better way to learn than to walk around with a palm-sized audio recorder (a Sony SONY ICDSX2000.CE7 for you journalists out there) to gather as much intel on the life of a young scientist, from experiences with funding, to how large a role technology plays with their research, to the importance of publishing. I finally unleashed my inner journo. But in all seriousness, what they had to share, everyone should know.

In Part 2 I share my interviews with all of the young scientist and their experience with technology, science communication, impact factors, and funding. Stay tuned!

What is IKU?

IKU serves to be a much faster alternative in funding biotechnology and clinical trials. More specifically, it is a public utility where anyone can create a marketplace for their bio R&D or clinical trial data and in exchange, offer a license. Parallel goals are to foster more collaboration between the bio R&D community, make science more open and accessible, and to ACCELERATE DRUG DISCOVERY. This last piece is the real reason why IKU exists and I suggest you read the white paper to fully comprehend what we’re working on.

Why are we working on this project? Why do we care? Choose life — Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting (minus the drug connotation).

Beyond our appreciation for science, is the utter disdain for unethical behavior and consequential corruption with those “responsible” for the development of science and medicine. IKU is mostly reactionary to the Pharma and drug discovery model, as well as the bogus patent framework, and how all three steer market incentives — Pharma more so with the power of monopoly and fear (a loaded statement so expect a future post on this topic). This is not to say associated R&D spend is a waste but let me borrow a term from Nobel Laureate Aaron Ciechanover (Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of ubiquitin and mediated protein degradation) to describe what drives the market — the blockbuster drug. “Why focus on anything else when companies can make billions on the blockbuster drug!?!?” Aaron emphatically stated. Oh and they do. Few corporations make billions and an incredible amount of research remains uncapitalized despite efficiencies in science, capital, and time. Monopoly is inevitable, especially with patents in an industry as lucrative and complex as biotech.

Do I have a background in Medicine? Healthcare? Nope. I shuffled around some dough for high net worth individuals at Credit Suisse Private Banking right after college — boring. Bozo culture as well. Went on to my MSc in Economics and Finance at University of Edinburgh. Came back to NYC to work in Big Tech at SAP. More corporate BS but this time in Marketing. All the power to you if you can stomach that climb up the ladder.

All the while I followed Bitcoin since 2010, without ever reading the Satoshi Nakomoto paper, so it never really clicked — a consensus mechanism, distributed ledger, monetary system based in cryptography and math…terminology that at the time had zero meaning to me. Then a friend recommended I check out Ethereum. Essentially programmable money on blockchain providing contract automation and instant liquidity for marketplaces (easier than it sounds). Now that clicked, regardless of my lack of understanding of the tech.

But still, WTF was blockchain!?

I accepted the challenge in teaching myself and it took me a few weeks to study cryptography in the context of blockchain, the incentive and mining mechanism as it pertains to Ethereum, or any minable coin for that matter, and abstract away from centralized, accepted monetary systems. Then throw in how the digital age has made it extremely easy to monitor transactions and…well let’s skip a few years into the future where we have IKU.

The IKU model can be used in any intellectual property licensing ecosystem, but we initially chose to address the biotech and clinical trials market as both desperately require more capital and resources to fulfill all of the game changing R&D that ultimately can let us live longer. On a personal level, it is infuriating that scientists in general struggle to fund projects, regardless of how important and pivotal the research is pertaining to their field and the world. Nobel Prize winners, as well as young scientists, who I had the chance to interview at the 68th Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings in Physiology and Medicine, expressed the same sentiment. More on the latter in Part 2 and 3.