Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 171 - Amin & Chad - Resvita Bio CEO & CTO

Transcript

Episode 171 - Amin & Chad - Resvita Bio CEO & CTO · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:06
  So welcome back to another episode of the Biohub and Avetix
• 0:09
  podcast. Today, I'm joined by Amin Zagar,
• 0:13
  CEO of Res Vita Bio and Chad Miller, who's the company's
• 0:16
  Chief Technology Officer. Res Vita is building a new class
• 0:19
  of treatments for skin diseases by using engineered bacteria to
• 0:23
  deliver continuous, sustained protein therapy on the skin.
• 0:27
  Amin brings deep expertise in synthetic biology through
• 0:30
  training in Jake Easling's lab at UC Berkeley, while Chad has
• 0:34
  an extensive background in protein design through time in
• 0:36
  David Baker's lab and previously founding NOSES Bio.
• 0:40
  We talk about how Rosvita started, why Chad joined the
• 0:44
  mission, the science behind continuous protein therapy, and
• 0:47
  what's next as they push forward towards the clinic.
• 0:50
  So let's get into it. First of all, pleasure to have
• 0:53
  you guys. How are you?
• 0:54
  Great, great. Thank you for having us.
• 0:56
  Yeah. Thanks Max.
• 0:57
  Amazing what we'll start with you, Amim.
• 0:59
  So right at the beginning, how did Res Vita Bio come to life
• 1:05
  and what was the original idea behind building a continuous
• 1:09
  protein therapy platform? So really it's when I decided to
• 1:14
  join Jay for my postdoc. So Jay had the first FDA
• 1:19
  approved synbio drug, artemisinin, where he uses
• 1:22
  synbio to make a drug. And when I was in my PHDI knew I
• 1:27
  always wanted to do synbio as a drug where you engineer cells to
• 1:31
  do some therapeutic action. And I, when I joined Jay's lab,
• 1:36
  I spent four years really understanding metabolism and
• 1:40
  changing cells because he's the world's best at that.
• 1:43
  And when COVID hit, I had a unique opportunity to where I
• 1:49
  was finishing my papers and to really think about a different
• 1:54
  form of therapy because Symbio as a drug primarily as existed
• 1:59
  in the bacterial sense in the gut.
• 2:02
  And so I, my perspective was that there was an opportunity in
• 2:08
  skin which wasn't there that if, if you could make something,
• 2:13
  there were better targets. That's functionally it in the
• 2:16
  gut. We've done some really great
• 2:18
  things, but there aren't great targets.
• 2:20
  You end up with hoping that the microbiome has some correlative
• 2:24
  effect while on the skin. I thought there could be.
• 2:28
  And So what I ended up doing was I, you know, I used what I
• 2:34
  learned to essentially make the most efficient way of doing
• 2:39
  continuous protein therapy on the skin.
• 2:42
  I took this non-native bacteria that we had studied a ton and I
• 2:47
  made a moisturizer and I literally just applied it on my
• 2:51
  arm and I waited essentially. I drew, I drew these boxes on my
• 2:55
  arm and I applied this bacteria. And the point was, could this
• 2:59
  bacteria that nothing to do with the skin, but was super safe and
• 3:02
  could make a lot of proteins? Would it be there in 8 hours?
• 3:06
  And could it be bio active? And so literally it was COVID
• 3:10
  times. The lab was dead empty.
• 3:12
  I did it deep at night. Nobody knew.
• 3:15
  And what was also funny was at that point I had received the
• 3:19
  faculty offer and so it really was one where if it was there, I
• 3:25
  was going to start a company and if it wasn't, I wouldn't.
• 3:29
  Well, obviously, spoiler alert, the bacteria were there.
• 3:32
  It was active. I thought at that point I could
• 3:35
  do everything else. This native bacteria that could
• 3:38
  survive in a moisturizer and be active.
• 3:40
  Well, this is what my background is.
• 3:42
  I can change cell metabolism to then make proteins.
• 3:46
  But the part of that story that is funny is a few months later I
• 3:49
  made a different moisturizer because I'm I'm not a
• 3:52
  formulation expert. It dried out and died within
• 3:56
  like an hour. And so it really was one where
• 4:00
  it was a bit of serendipity to actually make it.
• 4:03
  But once that could be made, that was 3 1/2 years ago and now
• 4:09
  we're Ind stage with and we can make virtually any protein on
• 4:13
  the skin continuously and at high concentrations just at the
• 4:17
  skin and undetectable anywhere else.
• 4:21
  I mean, it's it's a really cool story and Chad, you know, your
• 4:25
  background is training in David Baker's lab.
• 4:27
  Your your previous founder yourself as well.
• 4:30
  You you could have gone a number of different ways.
• 4:32
  What what convinced you to join Resbeta with with a mean?
• 4:39
  So we're friends. We actually met here in bio.
• 4:44
  Yeah. OK, yeah, we, we met while I was
• 4:49
  working at Gnosis. We were actually cubicle
• 4:51
  neighbors here in the incubator on Berkeley's campus and became
• 4:56
  friends. He became my personal trainer.
• 4:59
  That's. True.
• 5:00
  And. He became my personal designer.
• 5:03
  He he is now why I dress so well.
• 5:06
  So during that friendship, I learned a lot about what he was
• 5:10
  building here. And over time, when I was
• 5:14
  looking for my next role, it became clear that, as I mean
• 5:18
  said, we can make almost any protein on the skin.
• 5:21
  Now the question just becomes which protein?
• 5:24
  And every time you answer that question right, you essentially
• 5:27
  create a new therapeutic. And there are 500 genetically
• 5:31
  defined diseases of the skin where usually what you're
• 5:35
  looking is at is a loss of function.
• 5:37
  And for every single one of those where we can replace that
• 5:39
  function with the constraints of the platform and getting
• 5:42
  penetration to the skin, we can cure a disease.
• 5:46
  And that is just a really exciting place to be as a
• 5:49
  protein designer because there are hard constraints.
• 5:53
  You do need to meet certain requirements.
• 5:55
  You do need to build these proteins with some like
• 5:58
  characteristics to supplement that loss of function.
• 6:02
  But it is essentially a plug and play platform and a protein
• 6:06
  designer's dream. I, I like to think of it as we
• 6:10
  solve delivery. That's where Synbio came and
• 6:13
  was, was a drug delivery challenge.
• 6:16
  But in those first three years where we did delivery, I am not
• 6:20
  a protein designer. And so we used a wild type
• 6:24
  version of the protein and we showed that we could do this and
• 6:28
  that the, the value of making proteins on the skin versus
• 6:31
  applying them topically, you see that very clearly.
• 6:34
  It's it's impossible to feel the topical biologics does not
• 6:37
  exist. But then we started working
• 6:41
  together last February and really the, the reason why is I
• 6:46
  could have the world's best protein designer now use the
• 6:49
  delivery challenge that is solved to then really he only
• 6:53
  has to worry about, well, what do I make?
• 6:57
  So that's I, I, I, I think that's where synbio and protein
• 7:02
  design make a lot of sense where you can get cells to essentially
• 7:06
  solve all those components. You're just making it where you
• 7:08
  want. And now you don't have to worry
• 7:10
  about off side effects. You just have to worry about on
• 7:13
  site therapy. Yeah.
• 7:16
  I mean, yeah, I mean, it sounds amazing, right?
• 7:18
  Like, how big a deal could this be?
• 7:21
  Like why could it be such a big breakthrough for for skin
• 7:25
  diseases? So, you know, I, I think of it
• 7:28
  really in a lot of ways the way just Chad just broke it down.
• 7:31
  But you know, a perf somewhat of a perfect therapy on the skin is
• 7:38
  is the way I envision it. I thought of it from the very
• 7:41
  beginning as a mass transfer advantage.
• 7:44
  And if you had that component for delivery, you know, 10 years
• 7:49
  ago that could have been beneficial 10 years ago that
• 7:52
  this this could have been beneficial.
• 7:54
  But now with the advances in protein design through machine
• 7:59
  learning and these new tools be essentially pioneered at the
• 8:05
  David Baker lab, you can really do things for people who had
• 8:09
  suffered with no hope. And so, you know, I, I think you
• 8:14
  can make, give people a normal life where once sadly, they
• 8:19
  wouldn't have made it out of their first year of life.
• 8:21
  I mean, it's amazing. I actually want to.
• 8:23
  Sorry. Go ahead, Chubb.
• 8:25
  Yeah. I was just at the Durham Summit,
• 8:28
  which is a collection of experts and dermatology that meets right
• 8:33
  before JPM. And it was interesting
• 8:36
  reflecting on what we're building in context of what is
• 8:40
  discussed there, because almost everyone there, and these are
• 8:43
  the bleeding edge of dermatology, clinicians have to
• 8:48
  think inside out. So they have to think of how
• 8:51
  these biologics, which are injected systemically, are
• 8:55
  affecting the outermost layer of skin and that is where they are
• 8:59
  constrained. And that is essentially what
• 9:01
  they can use to treat and help their patients.
• 9:03
  But then when you talk to them individually and discuss what if
• 9:08
  we could treat at the level of the skin, they light up, right?
• 9:12
  This is something that dermatologists and clinicians
• 9:16
  want and have and their patients want, especially when it comes
• 9:21
  to these more difficult diseases where those inside out biologics
• 9:24
  could never work. And so for them, it feels like a
• 9:29
  huge breakthrough. And it was just extremely
• 9:31
  exciting to engage with the community at that level and
• 9:36
  start thinking outside the box, essentially of the tools that
• 9:38
  they have today. Yeah.
• 9:40
  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I mean, you just
• 9:43
  mentioned the machine learning aspect as well.
• 9:46
  I really want to throw that onto onto Chad.
• 9:49
  You know, you, you lead the the machine learning guided protein
• 9:52
  design work, right. So Yep.
• 9:54
  What? What does machine learning
• 9:56
  actually unlock for your platform that that wasn't
• 9:59
  possible before? Absolutely.
• 10:02
  So one of the biggest things that the protein design world
• 10:09
  has seen is the use of the more modern machine learning
• 10:15
  algorithms, particularly like jumps that reflect convolutional
• 10:22
  neural networks, as well as LLMS and the types of neural networks
• 10:27
  that are used there. Applying those to protein design
• 10:31
  has led to a huge jump in not only the protein folding
• 10:35
  problem, which was also recognized in the Nobel Prize
• 10:38
  last year for chemistry, but also in the protein design
• 10:41
  problem. Now, David's group, which you
• 10:44
  mentioned at the top, is largely focused on building proteins
• 10:47
  from scratch that don't exist in nature.
• 10:49
  What we do here at Res Vita benefits from nature because
• 10:52
  often we are using the templates that nature has given us to
• 10:57
  supplement that loss of function.
• 10:59
  The real benefit is often multiple organisms, humans and
• 11:04
  others have solved the same problem.
• 11:07
  And what machine learning lets us do is incorporate all of that
• 11:10
  information simultaneously to build a protein that is guided
• 11:16
  by nature and how nature has solved this problem over and
• 11:19
  over again, and then put that into a ideal chassis to be
• 11:26
  delivered deeply enough into the skin to be functional.
• 11:29
  And so essentially, by being able to use a machine learning
• 11:32
  algorithm to read the Book of Life comprehensively, it saves
• 11:37
  us a ton of development time that evolution has already
• 11:41
  solved pieces of in different times and in different
• 11:45
  organisms. Yeah.
• 11:47
  And also like machine learnings of what, like a fairly new
• 11:51
  concept as well. Like how much further could it
• 11:53
  go? Like how much more beneficial
• 11:56
  could it be? Well, I would argue the machine
• 12:00
  learning is a fairly old concept.
• 12:02
  Machine learning, sorry. So I mean, it's an old, it's a,
• 12:06
  it's an, it's quite an old field.
• 12:08
  There are many different algorithms that are trying to do
• 12:12
  this exercise. I have this data, I can predict
• 12:15
  this output. I have an algorithm that does
• 12:17
  that efficiently and I can train it to become better at that
• 12:20
  prediction task. What we've seen recently are
• 12:23
  algorithmic changes. I mentioned them at the top
• 12:26
  convolutional networks understand images and large
• 12:30
  language models to understand language.
• 12:32
  Those algorithmic changes, just a way to look at the data and
• 12:35
  predict next words are the thing that you're observing is a huge
• 12:40
  change. And we all are observing and
• 12:42
  really just like in awe of. But I would say that thinking of
• 12:48
  a protein from the level of primary sequence like an LLM
• 12:52
  would, predicting the next token or the next amino acid, just
• 12:55
  like they predict the next word isn't the ideal way to
• 12:59
  understand proteins. And I think that as these
• 13:01
  algorithms continue to develop, especially in the protein space
• 13:04
  that can understand 3 dimensional characteristics of
• 13:08
  them in chemistry, they're going to get even better for this use
• 13:11
  case. That is where I think we're
• 13:15
  going to see biomedicine going. I think there are a lot of
• 13:18
  foundational models being built in that space.
• 13:21
  And as they come out, the Baker Labs part of this exercise as
• 13:26
  well, We are incorporating all of those new types of ways to
• 13:30
  look at the natural world and proteins and incorporating them
• 13:36
  into the next set of designs that we build here.
• 13:38
  But it's an extremely exciting time to be a protein engineer
• 13:42
  and protein designer because we're teaching the algorithms
• 13:45
  how to look at the data better and better basically every year,
• 13:49
  and that is what is giving us the big leaps.
• 13:52
  Yeah, it's super exciting and I want to, I'm going to do a big
• 13:57
  pivot here and, and move over to you.
• 14:00
  I mean, you, you made the move from straight from academia,
• 14:04
  which you, you kind of mentioned earlier into building a company.
• 14:09
  What What was the biggest mindset shift in becoming a
• 14:12
  founder and CEO? I think the answer to that
• 14:16
  actually is the way you do science.
• 14:19
  That is dramatically different in academia versus a startup or
• 14:25
  drug development, which I recognized even in the
• 14:28
  conception. You know, a lot of people when
• 14:30
  they try to go from academia to industry, they're working on
• 14:33
  something in grad school or postdoc and they're like, I
• 14:35
  think there's a commercial application that I did not do.
• 14:38
  I very clearly was like, I have to make something that will be
• 14:43
  have rapid advances quickly and is de risked and I can develop
• 14:47
  it, which I was very good in selecting that because you know,
• 14:50
  again, we've gone from a concept to essentially the clinic in
• 14:54
  about 3 1/2 years on a new modality.
• 14:57
  But what was the mind shift that did change and took me a little
• 15:02
  while is how you build teams and how you have them work together.
• 15:07
  So, you know, in academia, you're hiring a lot based on
• 15:10
  potential and individuality and you know, individual brilliance.
• 15:17
  Frankly, in a lot of ways in, in, in startups, you can't wait
• 15:23
  on someone to develop. Unfortunately.
• 15:26
  You need people that are ready to go and what's, what's, what,
• 15:31
  what's interesting there is startups generally are the most
• 15:35
  financially constrained, right? We, we have a budget and we, we,
• 15:39
  we, it's, it's very fine-tuned. But I promise you in a lot of
• 15:44
  ways, every, every startup CEO is always hiring.
• 15:49
  I some of them like Chad, for example, like, like he
• 15:55
  mentioned, we were, we were friends.
• 15:58
  I wasn't looking for a CTO. I, I was, I was going to, you
• 16:02
  know, we, we had started, we'd hired someone to start
• 16:06
  developing our, our protein. But Chad, you know, I, we were
• 16:12
  friends and I was telling him about what I was struggling
• 16:14
  with. And Chad was, you know, I was
• 16:16
  like, wait, Chad, can you help us out?
• 16:17
  Can you like, you know, speak with our scientists and, you
• 16:20
  know, put something together? And literally, I got on the call
• 16:24
  to make sure that, you know, everything went smoothly.
• 16:27
  And it wasn't just Chad's like, individual brilliance that
• 16:30
  signed through, but his EQ was off the charts.
• 16:34
  It was that he could make our scientists feel heard and, you
• 16:40
  know, go back and forth. And very, very quickly, I got
• 16:44
  what I wanted, which was to push forward, but the scientists got
• 16:48
  what they wanted to as well in terms of like understanding the
• 16:53
  level of risk versus gain in, you know, essentially taking
• 16:59
  more time or less time and, and, and, and being on board with the
• 17:03
  plan. And so that is really the, the,
• 17:06
  the shift that I think a lot of people when they think of
• 17:10
  science and academia versus science in industry, that is
• 17:15
  very different. You know, you will do 5
• 17:18
  experiments verifying the same thing in a paper because you
• 17:23
  need to overwhelmingly prove it. Whereas in, in, in, in, in
• 17:28
  startups, you're like, no, no, you showed that thing, show the
• 17:30
  next thing, build, don't flatten the base.
• 17:34
  And I think that is actually a huge difference between the two.
• 17:38
  And a big part of, of our culture is we, we maintain that
• 17:44
  scientific basis, but it's all about building.
• 17:47
  And, and, and one thing I, I, we, we try and instill is that
• 17:51
  by building, you're strengthening the foundation
• 17:54
  like you're showing all the different ways that your
• 17:56
  foundation was true. Yeah.
• 17:59
  I don't know if you've got anything to add to that, Chad.
• 18:03
  Yeah, I I would say that you think of a postdoc lab as a lot
• 18:09
  of individual contributors who are somewhat siloed, and
• 18:14
  superstars are going to show up as superstars, and the lab can
• 18:17
  succeed with several superstars. But a company is a team sport
• 18:24
  and superstars are great, but what matters most is that the
• 18:28
  team is functioning well together.
• 18:31
  And I love it when he makes sports.
• 18:33
  It just makes, it makes me so happy.
• 18:36
  I, I'm, I'm, I'm going to interrupt.
• 18:37
  I'm going to interrupt his metaphor With, with, with, with
• 18:39
  once with. Something I always like to say
• 18:41
  is you always hire LeBron, You always hire LeBron James.
• 18:46
  You don't always hire Michael Jordan five LeBron James will
• 18:49
  win you the championship every year because LeBron is a
• 18:53
  collaborative can play any position person.
• 18:57
  Michael Jordan and his documentary will tell you about
• 19:01
  that is a cutthroat, ruthless, success driven person.
• 19:08
  But you can't have twelve of those on the team that will
• 19:11
  result in something very different.
• 19:14
  And so superstars are are different.
• 19:17
  And so that, but like having that team superstar, that
• 19:21
  person, you're always looking, you're always looking for
• 19:24
  LeBron, you're not always looking for MJ.
• 19:26
  But in a, in a lab that is exactly, you always want MJ.
• 19:31
  You never want LeBron in or not never.
• 19:33
  But that's MJMJ. You can add MJ after MJ in the
• 19:37
  lab. They will drive each other, they
• 19:39
  will work on each other's projects.
• 19:42
  But the point is they will get that nature paper that, but our
• 19:46
  point is not a nature paper. Our point is an incredibly
• 19:50
  multidisciplinary, complicated cell and gene therapy that
• 19:54
  addresses of extremely complicated disease.
• 19:57
  And you need everyone working together.
• 20:00
  Sorry, I couldn't. You started sports and I got
• 20:02
  excited. I accidentally said team and now
• 20:05
  we're on sports. I don't know how much of your,
• 20:08
  you know, listener base is going to understand as intimately as
• 20:11
  Amin does the sports references that were made.
• 20:14
  I'm learning. I'm still catching up, LeBron.
• 20:16
  And MJ I think. Are.
• 20:19
  Yeah, they're pretty high, bro, I think.
• 20:21
  I think you'll be fine, right? You know, the route that I
• 20:24
  thought you were going to go down and everything you said is
• 20:26
  so, so true. But I thought you would maybe
• 20:29
  talk about like the fundraising aspects.
• 20:31
  You, you, you mentioned briefly, like the, the financial
• 20:34
  constraints being in the start up, the, the pressure of
• 20:37
  investors on you as well. You you may feel this more as a
• 20:41
  as a CEOII, that's the route I thought you may go down.
• 20:45
  Yeah, that, that is also different in the sense of like
• 20:49
  the biggest difference frankly, you know, past obviously
• 20:52
  thinking about product market fed and investor market Fed and
• 20:56
  those those kinds of things. But past that, you, you, you do
• 21:00
  have to start a, a, a big mindset change is not even
• 21:05
  solving the problem, but like telling stories in a way that
• 21:09
  investors get excited, which is almost like somewhat divorced
• 21:13
  from those components. And so that is something that is
• 21:18
  different because you know, you, you, you on the one hand, need
• 21:23
  to show de risking. On the other hand, you need to
• 21:25
  show pattern matching. On the other hand, you need to
• 21:27
  show that this is fundamentally different and unique.
• 21:31
  And so there is a story there which I think we fit in, you
• 21:36
  know, in, in a lot of ways, but that is a fundamental shift.
• 21:40
  And that, and that definitely is a journey, especially for people
• 21:46
  that come from a very scientific background where, you know, I, I
• 21:50
  breakdown how we started at, you know, in vitro.
• 21:54
  Just can we make a protein that inhibit like that was unknown.
• 21:57
  Can our bacteria make this humanized protein that inhibits
• 22:00
  the target just like in a test tube to then build from there to
• 22:04
  we can make this living on the skin, inhibiting our proteins at
• 22:08
  picomotor levels, which results in the skin regenerating within
• 22:12
  a week. Like to go from A to B.
• 22:14
  That is a for me, a very step by step function in in fundraising.
• 22:21
  If you try and tell that story, there are some, you know, there
• 22:24
  are VCs are never are never one thing.
• 22:28
  But that is that's less compelling than kind of the way
• 22:31
  that we started this where we described a really a therapeutic
• 22:36
  modality that did not exist. That is at the tailwinds of
• 22:39
  synthetic biology and and protein design and even
• 22:44
  regulatory changes at the FDA. Even those like we're you, you
• 22:49
  tell these kinds of stories and people are like, oh, I can see
• 22:53
  the cusp of a therapy and another therapy and another
• 22:55
  therapy. And so it's not the science,
• 22:58
  it's the, it's, it's the story of therapies are coming.
• 23:02
  And that's, and, and and that's the the the thing investors want
• 23:06
  to hear. So how do you think about
• 23:08
  prioritizing programs and shaping the pipeline?
• 23:11
  So at this point, my, my scientific contribution is no
• 23:16
  longer needed. We can make proteins on the
• 23:20
  skin. So that's that's where my
• 23:23
  science background is like we can do that robustly and all of
• 23:26
  that. So now that the two pillars are
• 23:30
  unmet need, which we have a murderer's row of clinical
• 23:33
  Advisory Board members and protein design.
• 23:38
  So it's really those two worlds coming together.
• 23:41
  And so unmet need we look for rare diseases that are extremely
• 23:48
  challenging, high burden, many are fatal unfortunately, but
• 23:53
  extremely high morbidity which which frankly is very under
• 24:00
  appreciated. I think the the challenges that
• 24:04
  patients have to go through. I've spoken for our lead program
• 24:07
  and Netherton syndrome. I've spoken to a dozen Netherton
• 24:09
  patients. Beyond their challenges
• 24:13
  day-to-day, they highlight of extremely high mental health
• 24:16
  burden. And it's, it's something you
• 24:19
  know, they're, I, I, I, I don't want to list the numbers because
• 24:22
  I feel like that's insensitive, but it is extremely challenging.
• 24:25
  And so we, we want to, we want to make people better.
• 24:29
  So who don't have any other options.
• 24:32
  So that's where we start in terms of our, our, our, our
• 24:36
  matrix. In terms of unmet need, there's
• 24:38
  1000 rare diseases, varying levels of prevalence, varying
• 24:42
  levels of of unmet need. And then from there, that is
• 24:48
  where Chad you know, essentially ranks OK.
• 24:51
  This is this is the the time frame, this is the resources
• 24:56
  that we need. Yeah.
• 24:58
  It becomes an engineering challenge at that point, and it
• 25:02
  is a blend of unmet need and estimated development time to
• 25:08
  get to that that key protein that's going to supplement the
• 25:11
  loss of function. Because for some of these
• 25:13
  diseases, that loss of function is easier to supplement and more
• 25:17
  near term than others. Which might not be surprising
• 25:20
  considering how complex an organ the skin is and how many
• 25:24
  functions all of the different interlocking proteins serve.
• 25:28
  Yeah. And then I think you, you guys
• 25:30
  are always looking to the future, right?
• 25:32
  Big, big picture, what's next? You know, what does the next
• 25:36
  phase of growth really look like for you?
• 25:38
  Well, we're, we're headed to the clinic.
• 25:40
  So you know, that is we, we are, are, are looking to enter the
• 25:46
  clinic in summer of this year. Amazing.
• 25:49
  We you know, we're starting with Netherton syndrome.
• 25:53
  We believe we are going to transform that therapy and then
• 25:58
  that indication. And once we've shown that in the
• 26:01
  clinic, which we feel very strongly that that that change
• 26:08
  is going to be dramatic and quick, which is just exactly
• 26:12
  what you would want in a skin therapy.
• 26:16
  And so once we've done that, I think that really puts the
• 26:20
  tailwinds around Chad's design of these other rare diseases
• 26:27
  because a lot of them aren't even being worked on because
• 26:30
  they're, they're, they're, they're just too challenging.
• 26:33
  If you try and do delivery plus, you know, other, other
• 26:38
  approaches have a real hard time with that.
• 26:41
  So, you know, by having solved the delivery example, you really
• 26:46
  let the protein, the protein designer focus just on the
• 26:49
  problem. And so by, you know, no levels
• 26:53
  of protein anywhere other than the target, we want to, you
• 26:58
  know, be essentially use the tailwinds of the FDA, you know,
• 27:03
  not not fully given, but plausible mechanism pathway
• 27:08
  where we will treat not just the rare diseases, but even the
• 27:13
  ultra rares can come and actually become viable as as as
• 27:17
  financial as financially benefits, beneficial to startups
• 27:21
  to develop and drug developers to develop, but more
• 27:25
  importantly, get to get to patients, people who are like,
• 27:27
  oh, no one, no one will ever work on my disease.
• 27:30
  It's too rare. Not anymore.
• 27:32
  We, we will. We, we can do that.
• 27:35
  That's amazing. That's a really nice story.
• 27:39
  I don't know if you've got anything to add to that chapter
• 27:41
  before we move on to our last question.
• 27:43
  I, I remember when I was younger, I had a pretty severe
• 27:48
  skin reaction and a dermatologist prescribed me
• 27:50
  steroids, which are not a fancy therapeutic, but it's the only
• 27:54
  one I've ever interacted with that felt like magic because you
• 27:58
  just put it on your skin where you're affected and then within
• 28:02
  a week you're healed right And you can see it happen.
• 28:06
  And it's just like that is what I essentially want for every
• 28:10
  single one of these essentially fully untreatable skin diseases.
• 28:14
  Like it's before, these patients who've had nothing, they've
• 28:18
  tried this their entire lives. They were born with this.
• 28:21
  You know, I'm just envisioning that moment where they put the
• 28:24
  thing on that is new, put it on their skin, and then their skin
• 28:30
  becomes healthy in just a few weeks, right?
• 28:32
  That is really possible now with topical continuous protein
• 28:37
  therapy. And like, we can bring that to
• 28:42
  everyone who has suffered from these diseases their entire life
• 28:45
  across the world. And that's just an extremely
• 28:48
  exciting thing to be on the cusp of.
• 28:50
  Yeah. And just to be clear, Cortico
• 28:51
  steroid do not work in any in any respects on these rare skin
• 28:55
  diseases. And that is true.
• 28:57
  What what one of our one of our persons that we worked with had
• 29:00
  described the very toxic effect that they had reached from even
• 29:03
  trying to use more because these people are actually have very
• 29:08
  compromised skin barriers. So the topical Cortico steroids
• 29:10
  end up becoming systemic. You have very severe functions
• 29:14
  with literally the thing that people think of as that's not
• 29:17
  that bad. No, it's unfortunately quite
• 29:20
  bad. It's just, yeah.
• 29:22
  But these patients have tried every single possible thing that
• 29:26
  is on the market, including all of those inside out biologics,
• 29:30
  including every topical steroid, including every molecule that
• 29:33
  their dermatologist can throw at them.
• 29:35
  And they are left with nothing. And that it like to give them
• 29:38
  that moment of healing is just something that like drives me.
• 29:43
  Yeah, I think. That's a really nice place to
• 29:45
  leave, to leave those those questions.
• 29:48
  So we're down to our usual final question, which we ask each
• 29:51
  guest, which is if you could have dinner with any scientist
• 29:55
  or innovator, past or present, who would it be and why?
• 29:59
  But let's start with you, Chad. Can it be an ancient scientist?
• 30:04
  Yeah, let's go. Yeah.
• 30:05
  All right, so I'd pick Lucretius.
• 30:09
  And so, I mean, he's rolling his eyes, all right.
• 30:13
  Yeah, So Lucretius is probably better known as an Epicurean
• 30:18
  philosopher. However, interestingly,
• 30:21
  essentially philosophize atomic theory and said, and what I
• 30:28
  would love to kind of grapple with and with him is walking
• 30:33
  through how not only was he right, he's like validated this
• 30:37
  philosophy. It does underpin our full
• 30:42
  understanding of the world, chemistry, biochemistry, yet
• 30:46
  then also just discuss with him what the implications are.
• 30:51
  Because what he philosophized was if this were true and
• 30:55
  everyone understood that the world could be reduced to atoms
• 30:59
  and their interactions, it would change the way humans behave,
• 31:04
  work together, think about the future, think about their place
• 31:08
  in the universe, and it would do so for the better.
• 31:11
  And so I would love to see how he thinks modern humanity has
• 31:16
  dealt with the fact that we have essentially validated his
• 31:18
  premise, but perhaps not the following implied changes in
• 31:25
  society. I'm so glad you asked him first.
• 31:29
  I'm so glad you asked him first. It's so much better.
• 31:34
  So just just for all, for all the listeners as well.
• 31:37
  Like Chad also has a degree in philosophy.
• 31:42
  My but our our our chief medical officer and I were talking and
• 31:46
  then it was also Chad also plays five instruments.
• 31:50
  And at that point our CMO was like, this is starting to get
• 31:53
  annoying. And I yelled out.
• 31:55
  I completely agree. This is a little obnoxious.
• 31:57
  All the things Chad is good at. So in this in this vein, I am, I
• 32:03
  am just going to give a very much very brief answer and a
• 32:07
  very on point answer and say Niels Bohr.
• 32:12
  And I choose Niels because he was, you know, in that era,
• 32:16
  probably the second most influential scientist of that
• 32:20
  era. And but he was he was a big
• 32:24
  sports guy. He was super athletic.
• 32:27
  He was really really he was he was the one that could do at do
• 32:32
  play. He literally played six sports
• 32:34
  all at the same time and he was really good at it.
• 32:36
  And so since I would have dinner, we could also talk about
• 32:40
  sports and I could tell him about the new sports that are
• 32:42
  out and and say like, listen, you thought baseball was boring
• 32:46
  too, right? And so that's what that's what I
• 32:48
  would do. And so.
• 32:51
  He'll turn at the end of the episode calling out baseball.
• 32:55
  I do actually like it when people take the question really
• 32:58
  literally that it's like, yes, I want to learn from this person,
• 33:01
  but also like, you know, we're going out for dinner.
• 33:03
  Like I want common interests. I want I want to be able to talk
• 33:06
  about things. So I do actually like that that
• 33:08
  view on. It Neil Neils and I can then
• 33:10
  play ball afterwards. We can, we can, we can go shoot
• 33:12
  hoops. I'll be like, look, this is
• 33:14
  where you put your arm. Keep that elbow in, yeah.
• 33:16
  Be fun. Or is this person coming back
• 33:18
  from the dead in their physical prime?
• 33:21
  I have a question. I took it.
• 33:23
  I took it the way I wanted. I took it the way I wanted.
• 33:26
  No, I like it. Look, it was a pleasure having
• 33:28
  you guys on like it was fun. It would be super easy as well.
• 33:32
  So thank you so much. Thank you, it was really really,
• 33:36
  really enjoyed it. And everyone please like and
• 33:38
  subscribe to the Bio Hub brought to you by Avetics and and thank
• 33:41
  you again guys. Thank you.
• 33:43
  Thanks. Max bye Max.