Teaching the next gen of health CEOs + backing early stage med tech ventures @MIT @UCLA @MITHackMed Father to 3 hilarious engineers and a few medical startups.
Bali, Indonesia
Joined November 2009
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Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
A fascinating UCSF study on psilocybin for Parkinson's.
The potential for psychedelics to reduce mitochondrial stress and inflammation is one of the most exciting areas of emerging research in our field.
If you want to dig deeper into the science, check out the work of Dr. Chuck Nichols at LSU.
IMHO, we should be adding these biomarkers to human psychedelic studies, as the implications are just massive.
If you're a researcher in the field. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the most relevant, cost-effective measures we could be adding to new studies.
cc. @MitoPsychoBio @EllenBradleyMD
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
Investing that’s true. Operating you have to be right about 1000 times across a boatload of small decisions.
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
Put on my best podcast hat to chat with Vineeta in Park City last week, hope you enjoy!
Every conversation we have with @tjparker and the @GeneralMedicine team is a lot of fun. So we recorded one on what it means to build "the healthcare store"
00:00 Intro
00:54 Why health care needs a store
04:51 Getting a biopsy booked in three days
07:13 Lessons from his dad’s pharmacy and PillPack
11:12 Why Amazon Pharmacy was so hard to build
15:40 Why TJ went full-time as CEO
17:10 How do you define a product in healthcare?
20:05 Building a two-sided healthcare marketplace
25:18 How AI works for patients and providers
31:02 Coverage, cash prices and price transparency
37:23 Partnerships and the business model
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
On AI Grand Rounds, Dr. Michal Nedoszytko (@mnedoszytko) explains how AI can help physicians gather better information, improve the quality of conversations with patients, and prototype solutions to problems that clinicians experience every day. 🎧 nejm.ai/ep47
ALT Promotional image for episode 47 of the NEJM AI Grand Rounds podcast featuring Dr. Michal Nedoszytko. The left side includes the title: "Abridge’s Dr. Michal Nedoszytko on Physicians Who Build Software." A photo of Dr. Nedoszytko is on the right.
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
Excited to back @kevinweil and Warp Sciences 🚀
Kevin has been an awesome friend / advisor / investor of ours over the years. Excited to see him and @dpatil build in healthcare / life sciences 🙌.
💥 Introducing Warp Sciences, a new company applying AI and robotics to help the world develop new medicines faster.
We’ve raised a $215M Series A led by @lightspeedvp to bring frontier AI out of the browser and into the lab, and build scientific capacity here in America.
I co-founded Warp with my long-time friend @dpatil, FAIR co-founder @manohar_paluri, and drug hunter Sol Reisberg. The early team is full of incredible people like @bkspears9, who helped achieve Q>1 fusion at LLNL.
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
Just published @ScienceMagazine
Higher medical accuracy at lower cost
A 3-agent AI for sequential diagnosis nearly doubled accuracy compared with physicians for >300 @NEJM CPC cases and >300 ER cases AND substantially lowered cost, also exceeded performance of many AI models, physicians plus AI @HarshaNori
@erichorvitz @Dominic1King @mustafasuleyman
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
youtu.be/JAxkqb-nBWs?is=CH2H…
the owl posting podcast portfolio is incredible. congratulations to coherence, insanely talented team
We’ve raised a $45m Series A, co-led by
@foundersfund and The @OpenAI Startup Fund, to build cancer therapy that learns. Technology is rapidly changing medicine, but data loops and rapid adjustments are still largely missing. When you start cancer treatment, knowing whether what you’re doing is working is too slow. Clearly there is a better way. Build systems to watch cancer in real time, then feed that data into a system that itself can treat the disease. This seeds a future where, unlike drugs, we develop medicine that continuously learns to improve itself. We've been building neurotechnology and BCI platforms to do just that.
@coherenceneuro
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
Everyone across the health-tech industry is closely watching mental health chatbots. Demand from patients is sky-high, and it's a critical space for determining our regulatory future!
With @MikhailAlexa, @pelagohealth
secondopinion.media/people-a…
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
I am flattered and optimistic about inclusion in Forbes’ list of American Optimists. (35). The American ideal is driven by the belief that the future will be better than the past, and individuals, not the State, are the drivers of that change. It is self-fulfilling. Only the State can blunt the optimism and slow the progress.
Optimism is at the heart of the American dream.
In that spirit Forbes is recognizing the country’s 250 Greatest Living Optimists. These are founders who took a big risk on new possibilities, investors who prioritize long-term value over short-term gain, market-minded philanthropists and educational pioneers. #Forbes250
Read more: forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2…
Illustration: Lina Jaradat for Forbes; Photos: Guerin Blask for Forbes, Cody Pickens for Forbes, Jamel Toppin for Forbes, Martin Schoeller for Forbes, Tim Pannell for Forbes
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
The story of your Self also matters, as well as your ability to jazz.
Ben Horowitz on treating your story as your strategy, and why founders often skip writing it even though it's one of the most important parts of the job:
"The story of the company is also the strategy of the company... In your mind, you're kind of adjusting that strategy a little bit at a time every day. But then a quarter later, it's actually pretty different than what you started with."
"So it's really important that you keep upgrading your story. The articulation of your story. I would definitely recommend it be in written form."
"Something that you can share with everybody in the company, and everybody you're recruiting, everybody you're trying to raise money from, all your constituents, every customer."
"The problem that I think founders have is it doesn't feel like work. Like, 'What are you doing today?' 'I'm working on my story.' That doesn't sound like work."
"Because it doesn't feel like work, people don't do it, but it's probably one of the most important parts of the job."
@bhorowitz w/ @speedrun GP @Tocelot
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
Rejuvenate Bio spun out of my lab at Harvard, and I co-founded it. One injection reverses cardiac disease in dogs, with three years of safety data and zero safety issues. They’ve raised $3.2M+ and 1,250+ investors are in, and Kingscrowd ranks the round #1 in the country. It closes soon: wefunder.com/rejuvenatebio
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
Very apt metaphor from Gline: "Biotech is a wood chipper that is built to ingest souls and shred them..."
If you care about biotech and drug development watch this interview with Matt Gline, the CEO of Roivant, a biotech firm that is now worth $24 billion.
He talks about why he thinks predictions about AI from people like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei are overly optimistic.
“If Dario is right and I'm wrong, and he cures every disease in five years, man, are we all the winners from that outcome,” Gline said.
“I think if you work in this industry, it is very hard not to be skeptical of any of those claims. Because, and I've said this in other settings recently too, biotech is a wood chipper that like is built to like ingest souls and shred them. It's just like such a hard business that like someone comes and they're like, oh, but I've built a computer and I'm going to push a button and all of that goes away and it just works. Like that is probably not the way that's going to go.”
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
startup i want to help build/fund: infrastructure for the coming wave of incidental findings.
between consumer screening companies like Prenuvo/Neko and AI detecting more abnormalities in routine imaging, we’re going to find a lot more things we weren’t looking for.
“incidental finding” will become one of the most anxiety-provoking phrases in healthcare. “indeterminate 6mm lesion, recommend follow-up" will leave millions of patients asking whether this matters and what to do next.
they need a system: triage, risk stratification, surveillance, and routing to the right care. there’s a huge opportunity to combine better diagnostics with longitudinal follow-up, using what happens to each patient to improve risk prediction for the next.
who’s building this?
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
Overnight, the Russians used 39 ballistic missiles and more than 120 attack drones and loitering munitions against our energy and critical infrastructure in Kyiv, the Kyiv region, and Kharkiv. A targeted Russian ballistic missile strike specifically against energy infrastructure – the very infrastructure covered by the ceasefire announced by the American President. The strike was entirely deliberate and demonstrative in its scale – Russia has never before shown such ostentatious disrespect toward the United States. Russia does not consider the American President’s statements strong. Unfortunately, at least 600,000 people are now without power. Outages could become even more widespread. Unfortunately, there is significant damage to facilities and equipment – at 26 facilities of our power system and four facilities in the oil and gas sector. I am grateful to the repair crews, all Ukrainian energy workers, and the personnel of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine for all their efforts to address the aftermath of this Russian strike. Tragically, there have been fatalities and injuries.
We ask America and EVERYONE in the world who does not turn a blind eye to reality to respond – and to respond forcefully. Russia has squandered the opportunity for de-escalation and has clearly chosen to continue its insane war of annihilation. We ask President Trump to impose STRONG sanctions on Russia, especially since the Lindsey Graham bill, which was recently passed and signed into law, authorizes and regulates such measures. The American President has all the effective and necessary tools to bring peace closer through strength, justice, and pressure on the aggressor. We ask for additional packages of Patriot missile interceptors for Ukraine. It is entirely fair for us to tell the United States, Europe, and all our partners that no country in the world should be left alone to face such a deranged and pro-war actor as Russia. I am grateful to everyone who helps Ukraine! Peace can only come through strength, and we ask America to remember this principle of Reagan’s. Glory to Ukraine!
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
One of the things I’ve learned from meeting thousands of founders is that intelligence is surprisingly easy to find.
The ability to consistently turn ideas into reality is much rarer.
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
🌾 Decibel Bio — Top 10 Startups to Watch, in Chemical & Engineering News today.
Speaking of better food, Decibel is seeing 10-25% yield increases in corn and alfalfa by upgrading crops in the field, like an over-the-air software update. This decouples plant traits from the physical seed, something that has not been possible before.
From C&EN: they "found a way to modify epigenetic markers on crops’ DNA in a way that could improve yield, decrease the need for pesticides, and enhance desirable traits."
"Decibel applies nucleic acid coatings to seeds or to mature plants via a spray on leaves to alter their traits during the growing season. The nucleic acid treatment activates a crop’s RNA-directed DNA methylation (RdDM) pathway, which many plants use to regulate gene expression in response to stress in nature.
When an RdDM pathway is activated, small nucleic acid sequences guide the placement of methylation markers on a plant’s DNA. The markers suppress gene expression, which can alter the plant’s characteristics. This approach allows farmers to 'effectively download a new trait' to crops as seeds or young plants, CEO Travis Bayer says."
"To date, Decibel has sequenced hundreds of individual plants across a wide variety of crop species to map the locations of epigenetic markers on their DNA. Using complex statistical methods and machine learning, the company can figure out which markers correspond to important crop traits. 'We’ve generated probably more epigenome data than anyone in the world,' Bayer says."
"Decibel is aiming to alter all sorts of traits—pest resistance, shelf life, disease resistance, color. Perhaps most importantly, the company says it can improve yield. 'In corn, we’re seeing greater than 10% yield increases,' Bayer says. 'We also have some projects in alfalfa where we’ve seen 15–25% yield increases.'”
• C&EN news today: cen.acs.org/food/agriculture…
• Company: Decibel.Bio
Zen⚡️Chu ⛑🏴☠️🇺🇸 retweeted
When explaining China's industrial success, Westerners often conclude that it's about central control: the Chinese government picking winners.
In fact, it's about local governments being incentivised to care about the growth of their region, forming so-called "growth machines." These compete ruthlessly with each other. China hasn't shown central planning works, but rather that the force of capitalism is more aligned with public benefits when incentives are right and local rulers directly benefit from the health of their constituency.
The heavy state involvement correctly perceived by observers belongs not to Beijing but to those local governments, of which China has thousands, and which compete with one another for investment and prestige. These local growth machines and the competition between them are what drives China’s stunning economic success, and what the Western world must embrace to keep up.
Read this new fascinating piece for @WorksInProgMag!
China has become the most important manufacturing economy in the world because it is a continent-sized Silicon Valley.
worksinprogress.co/issue/chi…
Every Chinese city govt acts as a VC firm trying to create clusters in its region, because it has both the means and incentive to do so.
Local govts generate their revenues, nearly all of which they keep, from selling leases on land and from stakes they have taken in local companies, which together allow them to capture economic spillovers.
Chinese officials have their entire careers graded and determined by how much growth they have been able to create in the areas they run. Career progression is determined according to a great tournament that pits official against official and gives promotions to whoever has grown their region the most. If they don’t reach a certain stage by a certain age they are blocked from promotion forever.
This is why so many economic clusters have centred on Chinese cities, for high- and low-tech products alike. Shaodong makes 70% of the entire world's cigarette lighters; Danyang makes half of the world's spectacle lenses; Zheng'an makes 1/7 of the world's guitars; Datang a third of its socks.
Whereas many of the West’s most important city governments capture only a small amount of the spillovers from successful clusters, and thus have very little reason to foster them, in China, they get a huge amount of the upside and can re-invest it in further growth. This also gives them a great incentive to solve problems for companies, like when Shanghai's govt got Tesla's factory there built even faster than Elon himself had expected (and twice as fast as his Fremont, CA factory).
But this is not some exotic 'oriental' innovation – this is how America used to do things when it grew fastest, in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Catching up with China on advanced manufacturing does not require a wise and strategic approach, let alone authoritarianism or the end of democracy. It may just mean fixing city government.
This is why I care so much about local in Britain and America: if we give our own local governments the same incentives and means to grow, the crazily dysfunctional entities we have become used to may be transformed into corporation-like bodies that are ruthlessly focused on making their cities rich, safe and prosperous.
Read more in Works in Progress worksinprogress.co/issue/chi…
