Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 55– Dr Dan Williams - CEO SynaptixBio

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Episode 55– Dr Dan Williams - CEO SynaptixBio · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:04
  So welcome back to the episode of the Bio Hub.
• 0:07
  Today we're delighted to be joined by Dan Williams, who is
• 0:10
  the CEO of Synaptics Bio Dan's had over 25 years drug discovery
• 0:14
  experience from Immunocore to Adapt Immune and now at the helm
• 0:18
  of Synaptics Bio, a rare disease biotech that is pioneering
• 0:21
  groundbreaking treatments for severe leukodystrophies.
• 0:25
  So join us today as Dan talks us through his journey, the funding
• 0:29
  environment in the rare disease, rare disease space as well as
• 0:32
  operated as a virtual company. So Dan, thanks so much for
• 0:35
  coming on. How are you?
• 0:37
  Hi, I'm fine. Thank you for having me.
• 0:39
  Yeah, it's an absolute pleasure. So let's start off with a little
• 0:44
  bit about you then. So can you talk us through your
• 0:46
  journey in the biotech field and what inspired you to pursue a
• 0:51
  career in the biotech industry? Sure.
• 0:54
  So I, I've always been interested in, you know, the
• 0:58
  life sciences, the welcoms of the body really right away from
• 1:02
  school. You know, I did my, you know, I
• 1:05
  did science as a GS, e.g. CSE, sorry.
• 1:08
  And then I did my A levels in sciences and I went straight on
• 1:13
  into a degree in Physiology and biochemistry up at Dundee
• 1:17
  University and enjoyed that so much that I stayed there and did
• 1:23
  my PhD again in the Physiology department at in Dundee.
• 1:29
  And I, I moved instead of going into academia at that point, I
• 1:33
  decided to go into industry and I got a job with a company
• 1:38
  called Avadex back in 2001 as a bench scientist who was doing
• 1:43
  cell biology. And I, you know, I, I enjoyed
• 1:48
  being the scientist, but I always wanted to do a bit more
• 1:51
  and start managing people. And I worked my way through from
• 1:54
  cell biology into some molecular biology and then back into cell
• 1:59
  biology where I ended up running a part of the cell group.
• 2:04
  And one of the things that was really, really interesting at
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  the time is that we were looking for potential molecules that we
• 2:12
  can use as therapeutics and oncology, as an immunology
• 2:15
  company. And as the company developed, I
• 2:19
  was able to really look at the whole process and work in
• 2:24
  different areas across it and allowed me to follow a
• 2:28
  particular molecule from what we were doing in the lab into
• 2:33
  development. And I I moved from a research
• 2:37
  bench position into more of a project management for clinical
• 2:42
  and setting up a clinical trial for this particular molecule.
• 2:46
  The company then moved from being Avadex, it became medicine
• 2:51
  and then it split into two companies, which was Adapt Amine
• 2:56
  and Immunocore and I originally followed Immunocore and followed
• 3:00
  the molecule placing, helping to place that into the clinic and
• 3:04
  gained huge amounts of experience from doing that.
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  Once it was in the clinic, I then was asked if I wanted to do
• 3:12
  something very similar within Adapt Amine.
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  And it seems like a a good way to progress both my career and
• 3:20
  to to learn a bit more. And I moved from was bispecific
• 3:24
  molecules into cell therapies and I moved across to adapt to
• 3:29
  me and started to set up the beginnings of their development
• 3:34
  group. And we're working with the
• 3:38
  internal things like process development, assay development,
• 3:42
  etcetera, but also managing outsourcing of a whole load of
• 3:48
  assays for the company. And then as that company kind of
• 3:53
  matured and took over its clinical program from Penn
• 4:00
  University, the company had to then really push to take on a
• 4:06
  clinical trial and have everything in place.
• 4:08
  And they gained a huge amount of experience travelling back and
• 4:11
  forth to the US, setting up consultants and companies to be
• 4:17
  able to take on that trial. And I then had a group mainly in
• 4:23
  process development, both the viruses and for the cell
• 4:26
  therapy, which were talking with the manufacturers and making
• 4:31
  sure that things worked. So I started to rebuild that
• 4:33
  development experience for drug development.
• 4:37
  And then the opportunity came up to really get some really good
• 4:42
  management experience within Adapt Mean and I stepped back
• 4:46
  from development into research and I was really looking after
• 4:50
  the whole of the research group at the time.
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  Again, keeping, you know, my main interest has always been in
• 4:56
  the science and I love learning new things and new science.
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  And I was able to build some of that management experience up
• 5:03
  and I became interested in how operations work.
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  And I was able to move from that management into operations and
• 5:12
  eventually became the VP of research operations, Adapt
• 5:18
  Immune. It's kind of after that point, I
• 5:21
  did that for a few years and then I left Adapt Immune and I
• 5:27
  found a position as chief product officer in a company
• 5:31
  called Meetable. Again, it was all for me.
• 5:33
  The science was amazing. And what meatable we're doing,
• 5:37
  we're trying to use cell biology and cell, yeah, cell biology
• 5:42
  practices to try and produce meat.
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  And that was really, you know, taking stem cells,
• 5:46
  differentiating them to make muscle tissue, and then using
• 5:49
  that muscle tissue to then grow essentially meat.
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  And I did that for about 6 months.
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  And then COVID hit. I was actually working across in
• 6:01
  the Netherlands at the time. And I came back home to see my
• 6:04
  family and one week, one weekend and couldn't go back out.
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  And I worked from home for quite a while.
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  But it gave me some time, some space to really think, actually,
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  do I want to be in the meat industry or would I prefer to go
• 6:18
  back into therapeutics? And I made the decision to go
• 6:21
  back to therapeutics and I was approached about setting up
• 6:27
  Synaptics bio, which has been a really interesting journey from
• 6:31
  there. But you know, the, the thing
• 6:33
  that I've been trying to do is keep with the science, keep on
• 6:37
  learning. And that's been, you know, as
• 6:39
  long as I can, I can keep my hand in the science.
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  I don't need to be doing it. I'm I'm very happy.
• 6:46
  Awesome. And you touched on Synaptics
• 6:50
  briefly then, then, but can you give us a, a bit of a background
• 6:54
  story into the company, the inspiration behind it's found in
• 6:58
  some of the team and the core mission and vision of of
• 7:01
  Synaptic? Absolutely.
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  So synaptic bio set up to develop, you know, it's kind of
• 7:10
  our, our mission statement is to develop life saving therapies
• 7:13
  for severe leukodystrophies. Really we're looking at a single
• 7:19
  leukodystrophy called Top 4A leukodystrophy or also called
• 7:23
  HABC, which stands for hypomyelination with atrophy of
• 7:28
  the Basal Ganglia and Cerebellum, which I shall refer
• 7:32
  to as HABC from now on as well. And the way the company was
• 7:37
  really set up. But he comes to one of the Co
• 7:41
  founders of the company who is the parent of a patient with the
• 7:45
  disease. And she had been trying to,
• 7:50
  she's also a scientist. She worked not at the same time
• 7:54
  as me, but she worked at Immune of course.
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  So we knew a number of the same people while she was, you know,
• 8:01
  well, we were both there and she had set up a charity, a
• 8:06
  foundation to try and raise money so that there was some
• 8:10
  research that was going on in HABC.
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  And, you know, obviously for her and for all the other parents
• 8:19
  that, you know, were involved with the, the, you know, the
• 8:21
  foundation, it's extremely important that there's some
• 8:24
  progress forward for that. She set this up in COVID, which
• 8:31
  is amazing anyway, and then raised I believe a couple of
• 8:36
  100,000 during that period. Again, absolutely amazing.
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  And had used that money to really kick start research over
• 8:46
  at the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia where there was a
• 8:49
  big Lucca Dystrophy centre. And she was having a
• 8:54
  conversation with a person that used to be my boss, was also her
• 8:59
  boss. And you know, you were telling
• 9:03
  him about the science and telling him about the money
• 9:05
  raised and what they were doing with the money.
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  And he really said, well, if you really want this to go through
• 9:13
  from research and move towards the clinic and towards the
• 9:16
  market and be freely available, the only way to do that is
• 9:20
  really through setting up company.
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  And so I know someone that can help.
• 9:26
  And he contacted me, he reached out to me, we'd worked on the
• 9:30
  NUM, you know, number of projects in the past.
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  I, as I, as I mentioned, happened to be in a position
• 9:36
  that I could do something and wanted to, to set this up.
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  So between the three of us, we started to figure out how this
• 9:44
  would work and whether there would be a viable market at the
• 9:48
  end of the day. And we started talking to
• 9:53
  another person who is also on our board who became our first
• 9:58
  at seed investor. So Michelle, Michelle Tang is
• 10:03
  the the the mother of the child with the disease.
• 10:08
  Ben Jacobson is the person who set up Avadex in the 1st place.
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  So I'd worked with him for a long, long time.
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  He's also very heavily involved as the CSO of both Immunocore
• 10:25
  and Adaptomine and he runs another company as well now.
• 10:31
  And the, you know, the, the 4th person was Nick Cross, who has a
• 10:36
  huge amount of experience as an entrepreneur and as an investor
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  and working on boards for biotech companies around this
• 10:45
  area, around this area being the Oxfordshire area.
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  And we, you know, we, we got the company going four years ago, it
• 10:54
  was April 2021. We started the company up and
• 10:58
  got it, got it rolling, got our first investment in, we started
• 11:03
  working with the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia at that
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  time and we entered into discussions which led to us
• 11:12
  getting an exclusive license to commercialize a therapy that
• 11:16
  down regulates the top 4AG. And that's that's really how it
• 11:20
  all started. We are, you know, we looking to
• 11:27
  try and produce a therapy for one disease at the moment if we
• 11:34
  can, we'll expand, expand that pipeline and we'll we'll move
• 11:37
  that into other things. But as a a relatively young
• 11:42
  company that has the ability and the opportunity to move
• 11:47
  something very quickly. We are pushing through our
• 11:51
  research and preclinical into the clinic as quickly as we
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  possibly can and using all the funds that we can to do that.
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  The the great thing that we've had over the last few years,
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  we've had some support from some other shareholders that have
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  come in which has enabled us to move things very quickly, fast
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  to you know research. We have that link with CHOP who
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  you know, were producing and are still producing absolutely
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  fantastic data which we can use to move forward.
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  And yeah, that's, that's how we got started.
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  And you know, that's our, our vision and how we're, you know,
• 12:32
  how we intend to to move towards the clinic.
• 12:36
  OK, awesome. And you guys are primarily
• 12:39
  focused within the rare disease space.
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  Can you talk us through the pipeline at the moment and how
• 12:44
  that could help to address a critical unmet, unmet need in
• 12:47
  the space? Yeah.
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  So HABC is, is both rare and it's, you know, verging on the
• 12:56
  ultra rare. There's not huge amounts known
• 13:00
  about it. It was first discovered in
• 13:02
  around 2010. And the gene that caused it was
• 13:06
  discovered by Professor Vandiver at the Children's Hospital in
• 13:10
  Philadelphia. And I believe it was 2015, it
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  affects about one in 84,000 live births, which I think really
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  translates to about 100, one 150,000 people.
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  So there's not not huge numbers of patients that are out there.
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  And as you find with these diseases that until someone
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  really starts to look into them, there's not much known in
• 13:38
  patients. They get diagnosed and then
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  they're told they have the disease and there is not much
• 13:47
  that can be done for them. It usually comes down to various
• 13:50
  physical therapies, feeding tubes or, you know, depends on
• 13:54
  the progression and you know, how, how that disease has
• 13:58
  progressed. So it's a, it's a really, really
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  unmet, you know, it's a critical unmet need.
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  And, you know, we're, we're really trying to find something
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  that, you know, provides these patients with a therapy that,
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  you know, can stop progression, you know, build, you know, give
• 14:22
  them a better quality of life, you know, even potentially, you
• 14:26
  know, may be able to reverse the the disease.
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  But you know, we're looking at producing something that there
• 14:34
  is nothing else there for them at all.
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  Where we currently are with that is we have molecules that we
• 14:42
  have discovered and we are developing and we're in
• 14:45
  preclinical at the moment. We've had some really, really
• 14:49
  good data. You know, I'm really pleased.
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  As I said, the science fascinates me and excites me and
• 14:55
  motivates me to move on. Working in a rare disease as
• 14:59
  well really motivates me. And when you get good data, you
• 15:02
  really want to push these things forward.
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  And I would love to see this, you know, going into these
• 15:09
  patients and, you know, both from a scientific and, you know,
• 15:14
  from that personal, you know, personal book point of view of
• 15:19
  there being a therapy that may be able to help.
• 15:24
  Yeah. And I yeah, I think you echo
• 15:29
  very similar to a lot of people across the industry that it's,
• 15:32
  it's all for the patients and yeah, personal motivation link
• 15:37
  as well. Yeah.
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  I think one of the, so I was working in oncology prior to
• 15:44
  this and you were quite separated from patients
• 15:49
  actually, you know, a bigger company.
• 15:52
  I think the clinicians really did get close to the, you know,
• 15:55
  the docs they were using in the clinic.
• 15:58
  They maybe got a bit closer to the patients.
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  I think where this has been fantastic, you know, for me is
• 16:05
  that we get to work with the patients, well, not they're
• 16:08
  certain patients, but with the parents of the patients and we
• 16:10
  involve them. In fact, I've just got off a
• 16:12
  call with two parents and we involved them in our clinical
• 16:18
  design. It's really important for them
• 16:22
  to be helping us understand the progression of the disease and
• 16:28
  how different patients will be different to each other within
• 16:32
  this disease as well. So, and it's very rewarding to
• 16:36
  be able to do that and involve them as well, right?
• 16:39
  Good. And I think at the moment the
• 16:42
  fundraising market is is tough in all areas.
• 16:46
  How have you found that being of a rare disease focused company?
• 16:51
  Yes, you're, you're absolutely right.
• 16:54
  It is tough, I think right the way across and has been tough
• 16:58
  for a little while now for biotech.
• 17:02
  Yeah, we're, we're trying to raise funds to, you know, take
• 17:05
  us through and into the clinic and you know, you need to have
• 17:08
  those funds there to commit to the patients to, to move things
• 17:11
  forward. Rare diseases I think can be
• 17:15
  quite tough simply because the way that a number of a number of
• 17:22
  investors I'd say look at you know, companies is how big is
• 17:27
  the market at the end of the day.
• 17:29
  Although there are a number of Vesters that know and understand
• 17:32
  rare diseases and invest to move forward this type of therapy.
• 17:41
  But I think the, the thing that's, you know, the things
• 17:44
  that come in that are really difficult is when you go out to
• 17:48
  talk to investors, you talk about the number of patients.
• 17:52
  There's always not huge amounts sort of information about the
• 17:56
  disease that's there. There's less awareness of the
• 17:59
  disease, which, you know, things like this and, you know, various
• 18:04
  bits of publicity are really helping to, you know, build,
• 18:07
  build that awareness. And then, you know, they look at
• 18:11
  the business case and it has to fit with their business case to
• 18:14
  move things forward. And I think the, the really
• 18:17
  difficult thing at the moment is this, we're seeing things like
• 18:20
  NASDAQ has decreased by about 20%.
• 18:23
  Maybe it's a bit more at the moment over this year as you see
• 18:28
  these tech companies are decreasing in value.
• 18:32
  There's less of a willingness to invest money into tech just
• 18:38
  reflecting on what's happening within the stock markets and
• 18:42
  there's less money available because of that as well.
• 18:45
  So you really are fighting quite hard to try and find funds and
• 18:50
  say we're we're right in the middle of that at the moment
• 18:52
  trying to bring things forward. But there are good, you know,
• 18:55
  there are a few things that they do help and that's, you know,
• 19:00
  you've got some really good science and a number of
• 19:03
  investors really look at good science to, you know, to invest
• 19:08
  in. We're on a genetic or, you know,
• 19:11
  the disease is 1 gene. There's not multiple genes that
• 19:14
  interact that cause it. We know that things like either
• 19:19
  the disease develops slowly, which gives us the best chance
• 19:22
  in the clinic, which reduces risks.
• 19:24
  And I think it's that reducing risk for the investors, which
• 19:27
  allows them to then really invest and move things forward
• 19:32
  and past that is timing and what stage you're at.
• 19:36
  It's tough, but there are investors out there.
• 19:41
  And you know, I've, I've got to kind of mention there's grants
• 19:45
  as well. You know, we currently have two
• 19:48
  grants from Innovate UK which have really helped us and will
• 19:53
  continue to help us, you know, move forward both with
• 19:58
  understanding the molecules that we're using and for the clinic.
• 20:03
  And they're not insignificant graft grants, they're quite big.
• 20:07
  So as always, I always like to mention them because they have
• 20:11
  really helped and I'm sure they'll help lots and lots of
• 20:13
  other companies. Also, and you guys largely
• 20:18
  operate as a virtual company. Talk us for why you decided to
• 20:23
  make that decision. How how that works for you guys?
• 20:28
  So this really came through from working what I'll call semi
• 20:32
  virtually when I was working with Immune Core and Adapt
• 20:37
  Immune and I was dealing with a lot of companies in contract
• 20:43
  research organizations, contract manufacturing organizations and
• 20:50
  occasionally bringing in consultants where I needed to
• 20:52
  bring them in. And really, you know, not doing
• 20:57
  the work in work internally, but managing all of those companies
• 21:01
  that we had to push things forward.
• 21:05
  And when we set up Synaptics bio, it occurred to me that we
• 21:10
  didn't need to be a small to a big company to be able to do
• 21:12
  this. We didn't need to have lots and
• 21:14
  lots of people involved in the company.
• 21:16
  We needed a few very specialized people who could really manage
• 21:20
  things well. So you can, well, I came up with
• 21:27
  the, the virtual model. I had a lot of, you know, a lot
• 21:30
  of experience and contacts that I could pull on to do this,
• 21:35
  which was great. But you know, we can pull it
• 21:38
  together. Started to figure out what we
• 21:40
  need and then started to get consultants involved.
• 21:43
  The team Synaptics bio, other than the board who I'd
• 21:48
  mentioned, there are five people within the team.
• 21:52
  So there's myself, there's Evie, who is the Chief Medical
• 21:56
  officer. We have two people, Laura and
• 22:00
  David, who are working on the science and the preclinical
• 22:03
  stuff and managing all the work that goes out there.
• 22:06
  There's Tracy, who's in operations and of course myself.
• 22:11
  Not all of us are full time. And what that does for the
• 22:14
  company is it means that we we don't need to have lots of
• 22:18
  office space. We don't need to have lots of
• 22:19
  labs. We can very nimbly move from one
• 22:24
  part of the project to the next part of the project without
• 22:27
  having to repurpose staff or labs or office space or factory
• 22:33
  space or you know, we because we're using other people's, we
• 22:37
  can, you know, very nimbly move from one point to the next and
• 22:42
  move the projects forward. It also means that our overheads
• 22:47
  are minimal and the money that we get from investors comes in
• 22:53
  and really goes out into the research and into the science.
• 22:56
  When that data comes in, we can then look at that data and we
• 22:58
  can use consultants to look at that data to then progress to
• 23:01
  the next step. And you know, we've been we've
• 23:06
  been functioning for four years and it's been working very well.
• 23:09
  There are some disadvantages with doing that and that can be
• 23:13
  that you have to really manage some of the, the companies and
• 23:16
  the consultants that you're working with.
• 23:18
  Well, once you start to build up good relationships with them,
• 23:21
  that becomes, you know, quite easy.
• 23:24
  So, you know, we as a company, you know, where it's not
• 23:30
  expensive to run, that's all. We've got one office which we
• 23:33
  all use. You know, there's, there's not
• 23:36
  huge amounts going out on salaries, but there's lots of
• 23:40
  fun things that goes straight directly into the research and
• 23:43
  moving this forward. And then just another question,
• 23:49
  this is first as ACEO. Is there any advice that you
• 23:54
  could give to like maybe other up and coming potential CEOs in
• 23:58
  the future? Like how have you found that?
• 24:01
  Yeah. Have I found being ACEO, that's
• 24:04
  a that's an interesting question.
• 24:06
  It's, it can be really tough. It can be really quite scary and
• 24:12
  lonely as well at times, particularly as you're trying
• 24:15
  to, you know, set things up and then all of a sudden if things
• 24:18
  are going well, you've got an absolute ton of money that
• 24:21
  you've then got to look after and make sure you're doing the
• 24:23
  right thing with it. But then other times it's
• 24:28
  absolutely fantastic, especially as you start to see progress
• 24:31
  being made and, you know, data coming in and you're, you know,
• 24:36
  you can start to put together that strategic planning to move
• 24:39
  the company forward, you know, towards its goals.
• 24:43
  You know, that's absolutely brilliant.
• 24:46
  I think the, you know, the main thing that I learn is that
• 24:51
  there's a lot to do and there's a lot of decisions that need to
• 24:54
  be made and some of them are really difficult.
• 24:58
  But, you know, everyone that moves into ACEO position starts
• 25:03
  somewhere and comes across the same things.
• 25:09
  Not, you know, the same issues at least, but maybe not the same
• 25:12
  questions or the same decisions to be made.
• 25:15
  And actually I found there's a lot of people out there that are
• 25:18
  happy to talk to you about it. You know, you're willing to
• 25:21
  offer their advice or just to listen.
• 25:24
  You know, sometimes that's enough and I hope that
• 25:27
  continues. And, you know, I found that
• 25:30
  through networking I have ended up on, you know, various calls
• 25:34
  with other CEOs just to have a chat about what's going on with
• 25:37
  their companies and how they've got, you know, 4 things through
• 25:41
  how I've been able to do them. And there's also groups you can
• 25:46
  join as well who you know will give you advice and, you know,
• 25:50
  help. And I think the also being able
• 25:54
  to lean on people within your board.
• 25:57
  And I was extremely lucky because my board, I've got 2 CE
• 26:02
  OS and a CFO who sit on my board, not for my company, but
• 26:09
  for other companies. And they have a lot of
• 26:12
  experience. So I could ask questions and
• 26:16
  talk things through with them and get guidance as well.
• 26:20
  So, you know, there's, there's a lot out there that you can go
• 26:23
  out and find, you know, to help you move forward.
• 26:27
  But you know, I think one of the mistakes that I made was I, I, I
• 26:32
  sat for months and months at my desk, tried to figure out
• 26:36
  everything and do it all myself and barely talked to anyone and
• 26:42
  didn't go out. And then all of a sudden went
• 26:43
  out and started talking to people about it and thought,
• 26:46
  actually, this is wonderful. You know, I can, I can get
• 26:48
  through this. So don't, don't make that
• 26:50
  mistake. You know, do talk to people.
• 26:52
  Do, you know, find out what they're doing, Because I think
• 26:56
  it all, it all helps. I think the other thing that I
• 27:01
  would suggest as ACEO is always to have a backup strategy.
• 27:07
  I think with companies things, you know, we always hope that
• 27:11
  everything will go, you know, sell through and be perfect and
• 27:15
  go very well. Sometimes they don't is all I'll
• 27:20
  say. And you know, if you've put the
• 27:23
  thought in upfront about what your backup and what you're
• 27:27
  going to do is you're going to have to have a tough
• 27:30
  conversation with your board or with the shareholders at some
• 27:33
  point to say that things have gone wrong.
• 27:35
  But that is absolutely helped by a right, this is what we're
• 27:40
  going to do and this is what we have in place already.
• 27:43
  And, you know, having that backup strategy ready to go has
• 27:46
  something that I found invaluable where it's extremely
• 27:50
  important to her. Awesome and and then this is a
• 27:53
  question that we finish with on the bio hub.
• 27:56
  I know I gave you a heads up on it, but if you were to have
• 27:59
  dinner with the three people past or present, who would there
• 28:03
  be and why? Don't necessarily need to be
• 28:05
  biotech innovators, although it can be if you like.
• 28:08
  But yeah, three people for dinner.
• 28:10
  This one I found really difficult to, to think about and
• 28:14
  to get through. I'm afraid they're not biotech
• 28:17
  innovators. I, I really kind of dug deep to
• 28:20
  try and find three people to talk about.
• 28:24
  I'm the first one came to mind. And this is, you know, it was a
• 28:30
  bit of an old one because I, I was a few years ago, I, I
• 28:37
  remember going, OK, what's out there about me?
• 28:40
  And I, I googled Daniel Williams or Doctor Daniel Williams.
• 28:46
  And I wasn't the first person that came up, which didn't
• 28:48
  surprise me at all. But there was a person called
• 28:51
  Doctor Daniel Williams who did come up, Daniel Hale Williams.
• 28:56
  He was a surgeon and he was born in 1865 and he's been accredited
• 29:02
  with being the first person to perform a successful open heart
• 29:08
  surgery. And he did that in around 1891.
• 29:13
  And I, I kind of dug a bit further into him and he was
• 29:16
  actually an African American and he was at the, he went to
• 29:22
  medical school in Chicago and he was involved in setting up
• 29:27
  numerous hospitals in America. And he had some really high, you
• 29:33
  know, he's really high appointed, you know, high level
• 29:36
  positions that within a number of hospitals.
• 29:40
  And I kind of, you know, thought, wow, the 1800s in
• 29:45
  America weren't particularly easy time.
• 29:48
  They certainly weren't an easy time for a surgeon and, you
• 29:54
  know, because the technology wasn't there.
• 29:57
  And on top of that, definitely not an easy time for an African
• 30:01
  American to be a surgeon and to be educated and to get through.
• 30:04
  And I just thought actually, that would be really, really
• 30:06
  interesting to be able to sit down and talk to him about his
• 30:10
  life story and how he got there and the how difficult it was and
• 30:15
  how he felt about actually being successful, you know, without
• 30:19
  heart surgery. I mean the person he did the
• 30:21
  surgery on survived for 20 years after it was done.
• 30:24
  Oh wow. That's, that's a that's one
• 30:27
  that's just, it's intrigued me. I, you know, I really ought to
• 30:30
  know more about him. The other two, you're actually
• 30:34
  still alive and they're interesting.
• 30:37
  And I think the first one, it's always good to laugh.
• 30:43
  And, you know, I kind of thought who would be currently the
• 30:48
  funniest person that I would like to have dinner with.
• 30:52
  And I ended up with Bob Mortimer because if you have a lesson to
• 30:56
  him, he has some brilliant and funny stories.
• 31:01
  I, you know, fascinated by how his mind might actually work.
• 31:05
  But every time I listen to him, he makes me laugh.
• 31:07
  And it's always really good to laugh.
• 31:10
  So there's, there's two of them. Now.
• 31:11
  The third one is actually someone who I've, I've watched,
• 31:16
  I haven't read any of her books, but I've watched her on YouTube
• 31:22
  and I listened to her on the radio and things and it's
• 31:24
  actually Hannah Frey, the mathematician.
• 31:28
  And some of the stories and the things that she, you know, talks
• 31:33
  about, you know, is isn't actually quite fascinating.
• 31:37
  Now, I'm not particularly good at maths, never really happened,
• 31:42
  but she's talks about how, you know, mathematical concept
• 31:47
  concepts are actually used in real life and in everyday things
• 31:53
  and how things like algorithms impact our lives, which they do,
• 31:58
  they impact everyone's lives at the moment.
• 32:00
  And I don't know much about it. And I do think that, you know,
• 32:04
  she would be interesting to have a conversation with.
• 32:07
  But actually on top of all of those things, she's extremely
• 32:10
  clever and she's also funny and she did do some comedy training.
• 32:17
  So she would really help me bring the other two people at
• 32:21
  dinner together. Questions as well as my stuff.
• 32:25
  So anyway, my 3. Good.
• 32:28
  Well, I love, I love the thought that's gone into that and I'm
• 32:31
  sure that being a joy also, John, it's been an absolute
• 32:36
  pleasure to have you on and thanks for making the time.
• 32:38
  And yeah, Synaptics is certainly a company I'll be, I'll be
• 32:41
  following in the future for sure.
• 32:42
  So thanks for giving us a room for you and and the company.