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- [00:01]
Jonathan Fields
Hey there. Every Monday in November and December, we'll be featuring our Future of Medicine series where we'll be spotlighting groundbreaking researchers, cutting edge treatments and diagnostic innovations for everything from heart disease, cancer, brain health, metabolic dysfunction, aging and pain. And also sharing breakthroughs in areas like regenerative medicine, medical technology, AI and beyond. It's a brave new world in medicine with so many new innovations here now and so much coming in the next five to 10 years. I mean, and we're going to introduce you to the people, players and world changing discoveries that are changing the face of medicine today and beyond in this powerful two month Future of Medicine series. So be sure to tune in every Monday through the end of the year and follow Good Life project to be sure you don't miss an episode. And today we're bringing you a fascinating exploration of two remarkable innovations and innovators that are transforming how we monitor and understand our health. What if your body could tell you it was getting sick before you even felt the first symptom? Or what if a beautiful tattoo on your arm can actually monitor your health? 24, 7 Changing colors to alert you when something needs attention. These aren't science fiction scenarios. They're real innovations happening right now in labs across the world. My first guest today is Dr. Michael Snyder, a pioneer in precision medicine who's transformed how we understand personal health Data. He's founded 17 companies valued at over $6 billion combined and published more than more than 900 scientific papers, making him one of the most cited scientists in the field. We're also joined by Professor Ali Yedison from Imperial College London, who's developing remarkable biosensing tattoo technology that could revolutionize how we monitor everything from diabetes to mental health. His work has earned international recognition. It's been featured on CNN and the BBC. And together we explore how these innovations could detect illness days before symptoms appear. While why your body's response to food is completely unique to you. And what happens when we start monitoring thousands of molecules in our body in real time. And we also discuss a fascinating question. What if we could shift from treating illness to preventing it entirely? So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.
- [02:24]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Ready to order?
- [02:25]
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- [02:32]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Everything.
- [02:33]
Jonathan Fields
Fire, everything. The Capital One Saver card is at table 27 and they're earning unlimited 3% cash back.
- [02:39]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Yes, chef.
- [02:40]
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- [02:41]
Jonathan Fields
Had a feeling you'd want 3% cash back on dessert.
- [02:44]
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- [02:45]
Jonathan Fields
Earn unlimited 3% cash back on dining and entertainment with the Capital One Saver card. Capital One what's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com for details.
- [02:54]
Professor Ali Edison
So good, so good, so good.
- [02:56]
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- [03:26]
Jonathan Fields
Good Life Project is sponsored by Gab. So it's that time of year again. The holidays are coming fast and if you have kids, those wish lists are already starting to take shape. For a lot of families, that now includes something big, a phone. Our producer Lindsey has two young kids and her family's embraced what they call slow technology, giving their kids connection but at the right pace. They got the gab watch 3e and it's been the perfect first step. With this kid's GPS watch, Lindsay's family gets safe connection and plenty of Fun. Through the MyGab app, parents can set focus or silent modes, create safe zones and improve every contact. Gab helps families really stay connected while freeing up time for what really matters, real experiences and real relationships. And when it's time for a first phone, Gab's tech and steps approach grows with your child. From watches with GPS tracking for the youngest explorers to the perfect first phone with no Internet or social media to the teen phone with parent Approved apps. Visit gab.com goodlife and use the code goodlife for a special holiday offer that's G A B B.com goodlife Gab Tech and Steps Independence for them. Peace of mind for you so our first guest today is Dr. Michael Snyder, a pioneer in precision medicine who's revolutionizing healthcare through his work with wearable technology and advanced molecular monitoring. His he's the first researcher to gather unprecedented amounts of personal health data, up to a trillion times more than what doctors typically collect. As the founder of 17 healthcare companies and the author of over 900 scientific papers, Dr. Snyder is showing us how tracking thousands of molecules in a single drop of blood could transform the future of preventative medicine. I mean, what if your smartwatch could tell you that you're getting sick before you even feel the first symptom? It's just one small part of how technology is transforming the way we monitor our health. We're shifting from occasional doctor visits to continuous real time health tracking that could help us prevent illness long before it even starts. Here's Michael. I feel like we're in this time in medicine right now where it's a combination of just frontiers expanding in the blink of an eye. All these different things are dropping in and we're reexamining so much of what we thought was the practice of medicine, diagnostics, treatment and the way that we go, the devices that we use, the technologies that we use. You have been deep into this as well as a whole bunch of other things for years now. So a couple things I'd like to drop into. One of the phrases that I'm hearing batted around increasingly in the space these days is this thing called omics. Take me into what this is in layman's terms so we can really understand this.
- [06:04]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Sure, yeah. Om really refers to a collection of things. So your genome is your collection of genes, basically your DNA, your transcriptome is a collection of your rna. You may know that genes make rna, makes proteins, which in turn wind up leading to metabolites. And each of those collections becomes an ome. So as I say, your transcriptomes, your collection of transcripts, your proteome is your collection of proteins, your metabolomes, collection of metabolites, then all of them together are called omics. The bottom line is it's really a collection of all as molecules as you can measure. And that's actually what we do. We do very, very deep measurements out of people's blood and urine to get a much better picture of their profile. Their health profile.
- [06:51]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. So basically, if I understand, then broadly, it's a way to look at a wide range of molecules in the body that really matter to our health and then find ways to quantify them, to measure them. And is the intent of this then to get a better grasp on what's happening inside the body sooner so that we can understand what's going well, what's not going well, and then figure out what to do about it.
- [07:15]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Absolutely. So what happens when you go to a physician's office today? They'll measure maybe 15 things and we're capable of measuring much, much more. Tens of thousands of molecules. And from that, those deeper measurements, we think we get a much better picture of people's health. So if you think of your health as a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle, with omics, we're trying to cover 800 of these, I would say, whereas in a physician's office. I would argue you're collecting you know, five or six. We just get a much, much better picture of people's health. And so we started a project a number of years ago profiling people just this way, collecting very, very deep data on them from their blood, from their urine, even their poop. Your so called microbiome has a lot of information in it and from that detailed profiles, we actually got a better picture of people's health. And in fact in the first three and a half years of the 109 people we were following, 49 learned something pre important about their health. And some was a big deal. Like we call early cancer to people with serious heart issues, pre cancers, all kinds of different things. So we think these deep profiles really give you insights. I should point out these are all found pre symptomatically so the folks didn't even have symptoms yet. Yet we could see something was off and then they developed and these things were caught and in virtually all cases then they came out healthy as a consequence. We didn't wait for them till something really became catastrophic. And that's how medic practice today is what we're trying to transform. You know, today most people go doctor when they're ill. I call it sick care. We're trying to do true health care.
- [08:52]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. If this is so effective, why aren't we doing this on a larger scale?
- [08:57]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Part of it's because who pays? Nobody pays to keep you healthy. At least in the US especially we, you know, again the incentives are totally misaligned. People usually go to the doctor when they're ill and then they get paid for that. Who's going to pay to get your genome sequenced? Now what we do know is that if you do sequence your genome, there's a chance we'll see what you're at risk for. Like BRCA mutations, if you've heard of those. But women at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer, that's useful information to know. But unless they already know you're at risk for it, you won't get that test. So nobody pays for these things while you're healthy. That's the problem. So we really need to change financial incentives. And I would argue the wearables, these, you know, these came out of fitness trackers maybe a dozen years ago. We you started putting them on people realizing they're pretty powerful health trackers. And it's pretty clear that for example now we can show when you're getting ill from an infectious disease, say Covid your heart rate goes up Ahead of time, we can pick that up. And so we actually have early alerting system for infectious disease from a simple smartwatch. And it turns out these pick up other things as well. Afib and things like that mostly discovered anecdotally, but they're not yet incorporated in their health system, and they should be. And here's a good reason why. If you go get your heart rate measured in a physician's office, it's almost always elevated. For most people, it's called white coat syndrome. They get nervous, their heart rate goes up. So the measurement's not terribly accurate. But if I pull a heart rate measurement off you first thing in the morning, that's a pretty good measure of your true heart rate and what your actual health state is. And heart rate, by the way, and heart rate variability. These are two parameters that are very, very powerful for monitoring health. And we think they should be incorporated and you get them right off your smartwatch. I think we should be giving every person a smartwatch to be tracking their health and just to be part of their enrollment plan.
- [10:53]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, I mean, it is fascinating, you know, when we go to a doctor, as you described, hey, we pretty much only go when there's something, quote, wrong and observably, or when you actually can feel something is wrong. It's like, okay, so now it's time to actually do the thing. And then we get a measurement taken, some sort of diagnostic measurement, blood test, whatever it may be. And it's a snapshot in time. Right. Which is valuable for that moment in time. But then we're ignoring what about the 23 hours and 45 minutes outside of that moment in time. And like you just described, often the simple experience of being at the visit changes our physiology in a way that may affect the measurements.
- [11:32]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Yeah. So I'm a big believer we've got to get a be measuring people while they're healthy and catch, you know, any problems early pre symptomatically, because then it's easy to fix people if you wait till the symptoms arrive. Cancer is a good example. Once cancer is metastasized, moved to other sites in the body, it's very hard to cure. But in contrast, if you catch cancer early stage, you can almost always manage it quite effectively. So we really need to go to true health monitoring and not sick care treatment. And so that's a good example. And I think on the wearables, they're just so great because they measure you continuously 247 and so they're always tracking your health. An analogy I like to Use. You know, we all drive cars with dashboards. The dashboards are talking about a car's health. Race cars have over 400 sensors on them and they relay the information in the dashboard so you can see what's going on. Yeah, here we are, you know, as people, we don't have any dashboard for our health. It's more like a sick dashboard dashboard. And we could be tracking this stuff all the time and catching conditions at least getting a sense if things are off and then you go in and get a proper follow up to actually see what is off.
- [12:49]
Jonathan Fields
It's such an interesting analogy, right? Because if you think about your car, nobody would imagine getting in their car or buying a car without any indicators, any dashboard, even the most basic. Do you have gas left in your tank? Is your battery okay? Is your engine overheating? Do you have oil? Like we wouldn't imagine driving a car without some sort of fundamental indicators that are always on and active when we're in it. And yet we're kind of doing the exact same thing with our lives and our bodies.
- [13:12]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Isn't that crazy? It's nuts because we really should be tracking our health. And it's very easy, right. If you wear these rings and you may know I have a lot of these devices here, my four watches, my rings, even my hearing aids, I do wear them for hearing, but they're sensors as well and they're powerful. Right. They'll detect when people fall. These days that's almost standard in fact for most hearing aids. But which I don't need it for that, but I like the fact I use it for hearing, but I do like the fact it measures other things. And I think ultimately we can just incorporate these into leading better lifestyles. And I think one of the best set of devices out there are these continuous glucose monitors. They measure your glucose every five minutes. Those are like totally life changing because it turns out that a lot of so called normal people and people are pre diabetics. They actually still have glucose dysregulation as you get older. This goes up, by the way. And so if, and it turns out, it turns out that. So glucose, you get these spikes after you eat a meal of glucose and it's been correlated. These spikes are actually associated with cardiovascular disease and such if they're too high and too many of them. But now you can measure that just by these simple monitors that you can get in a drugstore. You put these on and you'll see what foods spike you. And it turns out it's very, very personal. That some people spike the potatoes, others the pasta, some the white bread, some the brown bread were all. And it's not 100% clear what that's due to. Some of it's due to our microbiome, but other things are due to other factors. Undoubtedly. And the nice thing is if you know what spikes you and what doesn't spike you, we'll eat the things that don't spike your glucose and avoid those that do. And now with AI machine learning, you can actually make predictions quite accurately to say, all right, well, if this food spikes, you avoid these other foods too, because they're very related. And these other foods that don't spike, you eat those kinds of foods. And we could tell you very explicitly what to do. And you can even take this one step further. If you are going to eat something that spikes your glucose, do a 15 minute brisk walk. That'll suppress your spikes. So there are things you can do to adjust your lifestyle so that we can all lead happier lives.
- [15:28]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. And I mean, I think this is really important also. Especially let's take the case of continuous glucose monitors. These are these little things where you pop them on your. Generally, most people wear them on the back of their arms. It's right. It's painless. They keep going and reporting in every five minutes or so for a couple of weeks often. And I think one of the big wake ups with this, and I've experimented with a number of them. In fact, there was a time where I was wearing two different brands in the same spot on different arms because I kind of wanted to compare how they were each reporting. And interestingly enough, they were reporting different numbers and I thought that was fascinating. And then because I'm a little bit nerdy, I also was measuring blood glucose using a natural blood meter and poking my finger and that gave me yet a third reading. So talk to me a little bit about the accuracy of these devices.
- [16:19]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Sure. Well, first of all, the ones that you wear on your arm, these patches, if you will, they're measuring what's called interstitial glucose. So that's the glucose essentially in your tissue, whereas the blood glucose is in your bloodstream. So there actually is a five minute lag. It varies a little bit from person to person, so they should be shifted a little bit. Whereas the blood glucose rises pretty quicker, the interstitial is a little bit delayed. You're right that the devices themselves are off a bit and it's usually about 10%, could be as bad as 20%. It's not so much more than that. But the things that you're really looking out for are these giant spikes anyway, that, you know, are essentially, they're not 20% spikes. They're more like factors of 3 or 4, 300% spikes that you're watching out for. So people's, you know, if you have perfect, perfect glucose control, you're around say 85 or 90 is the number that people use. But it's very easy. Like, it turns out I'm a type 2 diabetic. I'm an unusual. And we can talk about that. But your glucose, like in my case, if I eat the wrong food, it'll spike to 380 even more. So it just goes totally nuts. And those are, those are the things you're looking out for. You're trying to look for things that take you called out of range. If you're healthy, you want your glucose to be under 140. And you know, if you eat a grape, it's like eating sugar that'll spike you maybe temporarily out of that. But if you have, don't have good glucose control and you eat a potato or rice, rice especially, you'll see it can go up and stay quite out of range for some time. And that there's a formula that actually translates into a more standardized measure of glucose levels. It's called hemoglobin A1C that it's modified your hemoglobin, of all things. And that is the standard measure most people use today. Although, ironically, the better measure is this glucose monitor. Believe it or not, that's a much better measure of your glucose dysregulation. And so my prediction is down the road, that'll become the gold standard, even if they are shifted off by 20% or what have you. Yeah, but the most important thing about these things is, and we've shown this, so I have a company called January I. We showed just by wearing a monitor for 10 days, people improve their, what's called time and range, getting their glucose better under control. They're very visual. When you see what spikes your glucose out of control, you eat differently. One of my favorite stories is a reporter was talking to me. He said, I thought I was eating the healthiest lunch. I had salmon on salad every day for lunch. What could be better than that? So then he puts a glucose monitor on his. And his glucose just goes totally out of range. And you can guess what it was. He put a dressing on a salmon that had sugar in it. And it's an easy fix. Right. Once you realize that, well, you leave the Dressing off and sure, maybe it's not going to taste the sweet. Probably tastes better actually. You don't mind leaving out sugar once you start leaving it out. Like I cut out sugar as years ago and now I find it distasteful if there's too much sugar in anything. So anyway, he basically left that out and he got the healthy lunch he wanted.
- [19:43]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, and it's like the real time feedback is really powerful and I remember this back from many years ago and I remember hearing basic data on when somebody would start to work with a nutritionist and very often the opening move is okay, so they send them home and say keep a seven day food journal. And without any other guidance at all, the simple act of then tracking what was going into their body. By the third day they were completely modifying what they're eating simply because of the first time they're saying like, wait, what? This is what I'm actually putting inside of me.
- [20:16]
Dr. Michael Snyder
And once you realize they're not very good for you. Yeah, right.
- [20:20]
Jonathan Fields
So when you have something that's actually automatically looking inside your body and reporting what you can't easily see from the outside and showing what's happening inside of you when you behave in certain ways or consume certain things, I know for me it's been incredibly powerful. I'm curious also and I think, I'm guessing you would say this is one of the benefits of these wearable devices, CGM in particular. There are foods where people would say, or professionals would say, these are good for you, these shouldn't affect your blood glucose all that much. I would eat them and I would see a spike. So this is much more individualized than maybe we're led to believe, isn't it?
- [20:58]
Dr. Michael Snyder
It sure is. And also the way things are labeled can be very misleading. Have you seen things, protein bars, kind bars, some of them are just totally loaded with sugar in spite of the name. So this kind of tips you off. Now in principle you could probably read a fair amount of it from the package, although as you point out, it's very personal. So there's no better way to know what's going on than seeing it. You eat the thing, you see what it does to your glucose and it's very, very behavioral modifying, as they say. It's incredible. Everybody wears one of these, changes their eating habits and in a good way.
- [21:39]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, absolutely. It was interesting for me because I did an experiment where I had a sweet potato, which in theory was supposed to be better for me. More fiber, it's a different thing. And then a white potato to see what? For me, there was actually zero difference. They created on almost identical spike. I was like, oh, there's something about my body that's reacting almost exactly the same to these two different things, even though one is supposedly designed to create a lower spike, to have a lower glycemic index. So it's interesting to see the individuality.
- [22:07]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Yeah. I have a good one for you. Some people will spike more to white rice than ice cream. So, yeah, it's very personal.
- [22:17]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Thrill Life Project is sponsored by BetterHelp. So the holidays have this way of bringing everything to the surface. Joy, memories, maybe even a little chaos. And for me, it's a time to slow down and ask what traditions do I actually want to carry forward. And some I hold tight to, like, time with family and that first mug of hot chocolate. Others, I've learned to rewrite to make space for what really matters. Therapy has been one of those new traditions for many people I know it's that moment each week to pause, to breathe and find clarity amid the swirl of the season. So whether you're navigating big feelings or simply want to start the new year grounded, talking with someone, that can really help you create the space for yourself on purpose. This December, start a new tradition by taking care of you. Our listeners get 10% off at Better Health. Help.com goodlifeproject that's betterhelp.com goodlifeproject or just click the link in the show notes. Good Life Project is in partnership with Airbnb. So last month we actually hosted the very first 2 by 20 retreat 3 days with an amazing group of midlife explorers all gathering to reimagine what the next season of Life could look like. And where do we do it? In a stunning home we found on Airbnb. It was tucked into nature, filled with light, warm wood, and spaces that just invited reflection and connection. Mornings started with coffee on the deck. Afternoons around a big table where conversations just flowed, and evenings under the stars. It wasn't just a place to stay. It was the container that made the entire experience possible. That experience reminded me how special it can be to create spaces where people come alive. And it got me thinking. If you've got a home or even just some extra space, you could host it on Airbnb while you're away. It's an easy, practical way to earn a little extra toward your next adventure. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much@airbnb.com host or just click the link in the show. Notes this holiday season, Capital One reminds you to give yourself the gift of 1.5% cash back with the Capital One Quicksilver. Can I earn 1.5% cash back on birds? Birds? What if you sent your true love two turtledoves plus a partridge and a pear tree?
- [24:44]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Sure.
- [24:44]
Jonathan Fields
But why would anyone want that? The song was very convincing. Earn 1.5% cash back on all your holiday purchases with the Capital One Quicksilver Card.
- [24:54]
Dr. Michael Snyder
What's in your wallet terms apply.
- [24:56]
Jonathan Fields
See capitalone.com for details. Let's talk about smartwatches. Also, because you started out by talking about them as you raised your arms in the image, you wear what, six, seven, eight different devices on your wrist?
- [25:12]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Just four. Let's see if I get them all on the screen there. And my ring is another one. Yeah, right. My hearing aids is yet another sensor. So, yeah.
- [25:20]
Jonathan Fields
So talk to me more. Take me a little bit deeper into smartwatches and what they're allowing us to see. Now, that that is really helpful.
- [25:28]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Oh, they're super powerful. So they'll measure resting heart rate, heart rate variability, pretty accurately for most devices. Actually, they may not be as accurate when you run really hard and your heart rate goes up, but we often don't use that as much in routine health monitoring. But they'll also measure your blood oxygen, some accurately, some not so accurately. Skin temperature is another thing they measure. There's something called galvanic stress response, which is conductance on your skin that actually is not usually used in a doctor's office, but it turns out it has medical value. So, meaning when you're diabetic, your skin gets drier and you actually have less conductance. And you can pick that up. And likewise, when you're stressed, you'll sweat more and your conductance goes up. So there's a measure for stress that you would otherwise necessarily get from a doctor's office. What else should I measure with? Not continuously, but usually when you put your finger on it, you can measure your ekg, your heart patterns, if you will. And some of the devices will measure blood pressure. Some of them are accurate, some are not. Now, even when these measurements aren't accurate, like skin temperature, some devices are quite good, some not so good. But even if they're not accurate, they'll measure the shift, the change from baseline. And that's what's most important, knowing your healthy baseline and seeing when things shift away from that. That's so key.
- [26:56]
Jonathan Fields
So like for example, when you said earlier in our conversation that you were able to detect the early onset of a virus in somebody, maybe before they even were experiencing symptoms. What were you looking at? What did the devices tell you that let you see this?
- [27:09]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Yeah, well, backing up a minute. The reason we got into this, we started putting these on the folks we're following, these smartwatches, including me. And early on I discovered when I first got Lyme disease because my blood oxygen drop there had a blood oxygen monitor. Because they weren't on the watches back then, now they are, and I saw my heart rate go up, those two parameters change. I later saw my skin temperature shift. So that was from Lyme disease. Again, it was very clear signal, all pre symptomatically, by the way. So I had not yet had symptoms, yet I saw these shifts. And so that's what got us into the space picking up Lyme disease. And then we went on to discover that you can tell respiratory viral infections, including asymptomatic ones, from that. And then, and then we actually published this in 2017. Then Covid came, as you might imagine, we ramped it up big time. And the number one parameter we were following at the time is resting heart rates. Very sensitive measures, little as two beats per minute. We'll pick that shift. And that can be a respiratory viral infection. It can be other things triggering it as well, including, by the way, workplace stress will increase your heart rate. So I think these devices, they're very powerful for physical stresses like respiratory viral infections, but they're also going to be powerful for mental health markers as well, which we do not have good markers for. So I think this is going to be very, very important in the future for all kinds of measurements. So these back then it was resting heart rate. These days, it's probably not appreciated heart rate variability, which is so your heart rate has a pattern. You hear, you know, oh, I have 61 beats per minute or something like that as my resting heart rate. Well, it turns out your autonomic nervous system is always firing it. And actually there's slight shift in that. And a highly variable heart rate is good. Believe it or not, if your heart rate is not variable, then that's actually bad. It's a sign of disease. And so when you get an infection, when you have cardiovascular disease, even cancer, your heart rate variability drops. And so your watches can actually pick that up for cardiovascular disease and for respiratory viral infections and we think for some other things as well. So again, they're tracking some pretty important health parameters. And the other thing they do is they do modify people's behavior as well. So I'm a believer that everybody should get a smartwatch when they first enroll in a health plan, because you will actually improve your data. Now, most people learn their patterns, throw the watch in a drawer after three months. But if we could actually incorporate this into their healthcare, hopefully they would wear it all the time. And one example I like to give is that a lot of people, they've trained themselves to walk these 10,000 steps a day. And everybody who gets the 9,500 will walk that extra 500 just to get that 10,000 milestone, if you know what I mean. So I think they also give some behavioral improvements just by wearing these devices.
- [30:21]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, I completely agree. I know that's been the case for me as well. What's the future of these types of devices? If you're looking ahead, say five years now, and you're looking at the evolution, what do you see either in development or coming? That would be the next evolution of these. That would be just the next also order of magnitude of being helpful and giving us really good information.
- [30:44]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Yeah, well, we certainly need to adjust our healthcare system, become true healthcare, not sick care. And I think as a consequence of that, if we can incentivize people when they sign up, you get a $10 a year, even just something trivial, maybe $50 a year discount if you wear your smartwatch or a CGM once a year. I think that would then make these things commonplace. So I would love to see that. What other kinds of technology are coming? Well, retinal scanning is turning out to be very, very interesting either and I think that can be done very, very quickly either, you know, more sophisticated device, say right outside of your grocery store, or maybe at work, or even from your smartphone. And these days you can certainly pick up a lot of eye conditions from a retinal scan, but you can start to pick up things like early sign, kinds of Alzheimer's, dementia, cardiovascular disease, all from an image of your eye. And I think we're going to see that accelerate in five, ten years from now. That could become a routine part of your medical exam again. It's another window into your health. And I predict there'll be other things as well. Facial recognition, voice recognition are also health monitors. I think the combination of all these things is going to be super, super powerful again for passively tracking people's health. Make it low energy so it's very easy for them to do this. Another area that our lab pushes on is remote monitoring where you do little droplets of blood, you collect them on a device. We actually spent seven years perfecting this. I know what this is going to sound like, but ours actually does work. You give these little drops of blood, you mail it in to our lab and we can now measure 7,000 analytes off this drop of blood. 7,000 molecules if you will. Very, very powerful. And we've commercialized this so this company Gaiolo, that actually can do meas 650 metabolites again from one of these mail and drops of blood and they read out all these 20 different categories. Oxidative stress, inflammation, heart health, kidney health. They're measuring all these metabolites again that are windows into what your biochemistry looks like. That's very, very powerful. And again part of this whole thing will be using AI to actually take the data around you, plus all the data that's out there, where did medicine is data now. And you actually incorporate, incorporate that and make very personalized recommendations about this. And it's not just exercise more, eat better, it's really, you know, eat this. And we talked about this with glucose monitoring, about how it really tells you what to eat, not to eat. But if you're up for oxidative stress, there's things you should be eating that will probably help mitigate that and other things as well. So I think we can use information in a way that's never been possible before to help us live long healthy lives. And that's really the goal. I might just add one other fact which is you probably know that at least in the US and Europe, there's a big difference between people's health span, the amount of time they live healthy and lifespan. And it depends how you measure that, but it's basically 11 to 15 years people would say, meaning the last decade of life people live is unhealthy and we want to change that. We really should have people living long healthy lives and then pass away. And not only would that be more fulfilling, but I think it would save a ton of money. And so I think by health tracking we can achieve that goal. At least that's what I hope. And probably at the same time you'll extend people's lifespan a little bit too.
- [34:27]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. Is there a risk of what's the right language? Not over tracking, but when we start to quantify everything that's basically happening within us and we have devices that reflect report it in real time, is there a risk of actually being able to give ourselves so much real time information and feedback that it kind of sets us into a neurotic spin that Actually becomes unhealthy.
- [34:51]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Yeah, that might be true for some people. I predict that's not going to be true for most. I think you have to educate people. I have to. You know, when people first wear their watch, they start getting. They're very attentive. But I think you learn how to work with that information in a positive fashion. So I think it can actually help allay some of your concerns. Like people are risk for certain cancer. If they get whole body MRIs, they can see whether some of the stuff is there or not. It reminds me a little bit when genome sequencing first appeared. People getting their genomes, their DNA sequence and then predicting risk. Physicians were very much against that. Most were. Not all. Most were. And they were worried we were going to turn everybody into hypochondriac. It's going to cost millions of dollars. Well, they've warmed up to this idea now. Most have. Because imagine you see you have a BRCA mutation, well, then you go get screened more often. You can use this information in a positive way. And I think that's how we have to approach it. We have to educate people that way, both physicians and patients that, yes, this may expose things. You should assume you're at risk for something. We all are. And so you want to know what those somethings are again so that you can better manage your lifestyle. Know what to get checked up on. We don't even know how often you should get measured. Right. For your health. That's not really clear. And so I would argue it depends what you're at risk for. If you are at risk for diabetes or something, well, then you get that measured a lot more often. If you're at risk for breast cancer, make sure you're getting your mammograms, this sort of thing. So I think we could just incorporate this into what we normally do. Much back to the car. If you see things going off well, then go get it checked up. And you don't wait till your car breaks down to get things fixed or you shouldn't. It would not be the best way to operate.
- [36:44]
Jonathan Fields
Yep, feels like a good place for us to wrap up. Super useful. I'm excited to share all this with our community.
- [36:49]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Great. That was my pleasure.
- [36:52]
Jonathan Fields
And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life project is sponsored by Nutrafol. So you know that moment when you look down and see more hair in your brush than you expected and your heart just kind of sings a little. Well, my wife Stephanie remembers that vividly around menopause, her hair started thinning and shedding a lot more. And it was emotional because I mean, come on, hair is personal. And when she found neutrophil, everything really changed. She's been taking Nutrafol Women's Balance for about five years now. Her hair feels healthier and fuller and there's just less shedding. Nutrafol is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement brand trusted by over one and a half million people. See thicker, stronger, faster growing hair with less shedding in just three to six months this holiday season. Nutrafol is the perfect gift for anyone on your list. Your mom or your aunt going through menopause, a friend who just had a baby and is experiencing postpartum hair shedding, or your husband or father who relies on his baseball hat to cover up yourself or anyone else looking to support their overall hair health. Give the gift of confidence this holiday season with Nutrafol. Whether you're treating yourself or someone on your list, visibly healthy or thicker, hair is the gift that keeps on giving. Right now Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription plus free shipping when you go to nutrafol.com and use the promo code Good Life. That's nutrafol.com promo code Good Life for $10 off. Good Life Project is sponsored by Drip Drop. So when I am hydrated, everything just works better. My energy focus, even my mood. And a while back I started treating hydration as essential, like my morning medicine, meditation and breathing routine. That's when I discovered Drip Drop and honestly never looked back. So Drip Drop is this doctor developed proven fast hydration that helps your body and mind work better. It uses a precise ratio of electrolytes and glucose for rapid absorption, delivering three times the electrolytes and half the sugar of leading sports drinks. You actually feel the difference fast, more focus, better energy, improved mood, even glowing skin. And it's trusted by firefighters, medical professionals and over 90% of top college and pro proteins because it's engineered to rehydrate you faster and more effectively than water alone. And the best part? It tastes amazing. My go to is the lemon flavor right after a long hike or sometimes during the hike. But I actually love every flavor I've tried. And right now Drip Drop is offering podcast listeners 20% off your first order. Go to dripdrop.com and use the promo code goodlife. That's dripdrop.com promo code goodlife for 20% off. Stock up now, go to dripdrop.com and use that promo code goodlifenow.
- [39:25]
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- [40:21]
Jonathan Fields
Terms apply.
- [40:22]
Professor Ali Edison
Lounge access is subject to change.
- [40:23]
Jonathan Fields
See capitalone.com for details. Our next guest is Professor Ali Edison from Imperial College London, who's creating remarkable biosensing technologies that merge art with medical instruments innovation. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Institute of Physics, his work has earned international recognition, been featured on CNN and the BBC, and after earning his PhD from Cambridge and training at Harvard, he's dedicated his career to developing medical diagnostic devices that could transform how we monitor our health, making sophisticated medical tracking accessible to everyone. And imagine this. What if a beautiful tattoo could monitor your health health and alert you to rising stress levels or blood sugar changes just by changing color? Imagine having a piece of art on your body that not only looks cool, but could actually help prevent health issues before they become serious problems. This isn't fantasy, it's real technology being developed. Right now. Here's Ali. I think maybe a good place for us to start out if you could maybe just provide a bit of general background more broadly about the research that your lab is focusing on on now.
- [41:31]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, so my background is in engineering and my lab is based in Imperial College London in the Department of Chemical Engineering and we work on a number of medical devices, biosensors and other types of key wearable and implantable platforms for medical applications.
- [41:49]
Jonathan Fields
And what led you into this?
- [41:50]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, it's primarily my curiosity and having a propensity to do something good for the world.
- [41:57]
Jonathan Fields
Tell me more about biosensing technologies. Walk me through what you're talking about here in sort of, you know, like layman's terms.
- [42:04]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah. Biosensors are crucial technologies, and they are usually a part of a medical device that allows us to measure the concentrations of a target biomarker. So this target biomarker can be glucose, it can be protein, it can be hormones, can be cortisol, for example, a stress hormone, or other types of key important markers that allows us to determine the health condition of an individual. So such devices can come in different forms. They can be, for example, electronic, they can be optical, or they can be magnetic. And they're usually integrated within a medical device that allows us to track these biomarkers, usually in real time.
- [42:44]
Jonathan Fields
So if somebody's hearing this, my sense is, if they have experienced this, it may be the easiest sort of, like, thing that they might envision is some sort of wearable device. Or even for those who have been curious about glucose monitoring, I think millions of people now are familiar with the concept of a continuous glucose monitor, that little round thing that often you see on people's arms. Are those examples of what you're talking about here?
- [43:08]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, that's exactly right. So we are talking about glucose monitoring systems and continuous glucose monitor monitoring platforms, Actually a relatively new technology that has emerged about 15 to 20 years ago, and they are currently the market leader for applications in type 1 diabetes monitoring. But these devices can also be used in point of care settings. So they can be handheld devices. For example, they can be a COVID 19 test. We call them lateral flow assays. Or they can be even implantable chips that can be implanted subcutaneously just right under your skin.
- [43:43]
Jonathan Fields
So among the different projects that you're working on, one of them is you've developed a biosensing technology that can take the form of, effectively, a tattoo. Take me into this.
- [43:53]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah. So this was a project that was developed in collaboration with the MIT Media Lab, and we worked with a number of designers and artists at that time. And the project emerged in early 2000s. And our vision for this project was to think about the next generation of wearable platforms. So, as you know, the current wearable platforms can be in the form of a smartwatch or it can be a temporary tattoo. So this in the form of some type of patch system. But what we really wanted to do in this project is to design a seamlessly integrated platform that can be utilized for monitoring the concentration projections of biomarkers in real time in a continuous manner. So we have developed a tattoo platform. So these are injectable Materials just like your traditional tattoos. But the difference is that these tattoos can change their color or they can change their color intensity, or we call this a fluorescent intensity in response to a wide range of target markers. So this target markers markers can be glucose, so that's for diabetes monitoring. They can be for proteins, hormones, or other types of important biomarkers that we really need to track in real time. So this allows us to do, for example, real time or continuous measurements by the naked eye. So you can just look at the colors and you can determine whether you have high glucose, high sugar levels, or you have high stress levels. So these are usually based on colors. And the colors, for example, can change from blue to green to red. And based on those color changes, you can visually inspect the tattoo and make your your own informed decision. And we can also utilize additional devices, for example smartphones or a smartwatch to capture an image of these tattoos. So once we capture the image using the smartphone camera, this your smart one will automatically unlock, analyze those images and provide a quantitative data. So exact values, for example, your glucose concentration may show up as 9.0.
- [46:00]
Jonathan Fields
I mean, that's pretty incredible. So effectively, I want to make sure I'm getting this right. Basically you've developed a way to incorporate biosensor kinds of materials into. I'm going to use sort of like rough terms, effectively an ink that can be tattooed onto somebody's skin. So maybe you have something that appears at first glance to be just a really cool tattoo design, but the biosensors that are embedded in it, they're correlated with whatever the particular thing you're trying to track in your body is, whether it's glucose or stress or the different things you talked about. So you could have a tattoo of, say, for example, a butterfly on your forearm. And you're somebody who's concerned about your glucose levels. And rather than wearing the sort of a device that you wear on the outside of your arm, you've got this tattoo. And on any given moment you could look at this and maybe the wings of the butterfly are green, or maybe it's red, or maybe it's somewhere in the middle. And the color variation would tell you what your glucose levels are and also alert you to when you're in range or out of range. Is that about right?
- [47:07]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's the sort of the vision that we had behind this project. And we put believe that this can be realized at least in the next five to 10 years and integrated into commonly used medical diagnostic technologies or platforms. So as you have just mentioned, the color changes are critical and those color changes can be used to alert the patient, in this case patient with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. And the patient will be informed right away as the concentration of glucose spikes in their blood glucose levels.
- [47:42]
Jonathan Fields
I have so many questions. One of my curiosity is when you're developing something like this. So this is a new technology and you're talking about something that is effectively injected into a person's skin. So I'm guessing it's not the easiest thing on an experimental basis to get permission to just do this on sort of like living people while you're doing it. How do you develop and test this? Is there some other substrate that you use to sort of like develop the idea before you actually get to a human being?
- [48:10]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, regulatory hurdles is a big challenge in our field and this is usually done in a number of steps. So the first usual step is to validate the technology in laboratory conditions, making sure that all the sensors are working correctly and they report on the concentrations of target biomarkers with a given sensitivity and selectivity values and correct detection range. So once this has been determined in laboratory conditions, the next stage is usually to carry out testing in blood samples. So we usually obtain blood samples from the patients and we spike those blood samples with a target biomarker. So in this case we can increase the concentration of glucose or let's say we are sensing a protein using these patient samples. So once this process is complete, the next stage is usually to carry out live animal experiments. And recently FDA has issued a guideline to reduce in fact some of those animal experiments. So we are moving towards more laboratory based assays rather than utilizing the highest amount of animals that needs to be sacrificed in laboratory conditions. So but today such experiments are still required for having compliance with fda. So once that process is complete, we can determine the tattoos or these materials, as you call inks, smart inks, are validated, we can move to the next stage in these are human trials, so we can carry out small human trials. So these range usually from one to 10 patients. And if these technologies are shown to be successful in human trials, early stage treatment trials, then we can move to a more complex double blinded or clinical trial. So these are multi centered trials that includes lots of patients, around 100 to a thousand patients that provide definitive measurements regarding the performance and sensitivity of the sensors.
- [50:08]
Jonathan Fields
I mean, when you're doing something like that, especially when you get to human trials, you know, when you get to the sort of the gold standard, the, the double blind placebo controlled trials. And for those listening, what that means is we've got a group that actually has the active treatment and then another one which has a sham treatment, which for all intents and purposes they shouldn't be able to distinguish. They shouldn't know whether it's the real or the fake one. And the double blind part is that the practitioners also don't know whether they're delivering. So you're trying to eliminate bias from the whole process. In the context of attached to two on somebody's skin that changes color, how do you do the fake part of it?
- [50:45]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, so what you just described applies to traditional pharmaceutical drugs, experiments and clinical trials. So in medical devices we need to benchmark the technology to a current platform. So this may include for example, finger prick blood measurements or the blood measurements simply that can be sent to a central centralized facility. And the current clinical standard at the moment is the wearable platforms. We call them electrochemical sensors and they are usually marketed by Dexcom or Medtronic. So usually it will be benchmarked against a wearable platform like the Medtronics system or it can be a continual monitoring platform such as the Flash glucose monitoring systems from a Bot Libre system.
- [51:32]
Jonathan Fields
Got it. So it's a different sort of like design than what I was describing, which is more for pharmaceutical based intervention.
- [51:37]
Professor Ali Edison
Correct. So it's a slightly different approach, but the aim is the same. So the idea is to determine whether your technology is safe and it's performing as it's advertised. Basically, yeah.
- [51:50]
Jonathan Fields
So we've referenced glucose monitoring a number of times. What are some of the other big things that this might be able to to be used to help detect?
- [52:00]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah. So beyond glucose monitoring, one of the areas that we are working at moment is related to mental health monitoring. Currently staggering statistics. There are 997 million people around the world who lives with mental health disorders and challenges. So one of the projects that we are undertaking at the moment is to monitor the concentration of cortisol. So it's a stress biomarker that can be correlated with a number of mental health conditions. So this may include anxiety, depression and other types of critical conditions. And this technology that we are working at the moment aims to measure the concentration of cortisol in real time. At the same time, you're looking at some other biomarkers including serotonin, adrenaline and dopamine, which could be useful for applications in mental health monitoring. Such such devices can also be utilized as I call it device because I consider it as a medical device. These are so called inks are monitoring the conditions for fitness. So for example, an athlete can utilize these devices to monitor the concentrations of electrolytes. This may be sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium and other important ions in their blood. So as they're exercising, they can determine their dehydration, hydration status in real time.
- [53:16]
Jonathan Fields
I mean, it's amazing because you're talking about health on the one side, we're talking about performance. And are these the type of things also where I'm going to go back to that butterfly on my forearm. Right. And we've got the smart ink in there and it's tagged a particular type of whatever it is that we're monitoring. Let's use the stress, the markers for stress. Is this a type of thing where you would potentially be able to see a color change change on a tattoo on your arm before, because it's picking up, let's say, an increase in cortisol before you're even consciously aware that you're actually becoming stressed. And it can alert you sooner than normal. So you could do something about it to try and downregulate your nervous system.
- [54:00]
Professor Ali Edison
Exactly. So the whole idea here is to move from a single snapshot image image. I'm talking about clinical diagnostics in hospital settings to real time or continuous monitoring platforms that we can alert patients in real time. So in the case of the cortisol sensor, the color will change, for example, from blue to green to orange to red. So these gradual changes in colors will be able to alert patient in real time.
- [54:30]
Jonathan Fields
I mean, it's amazing because effectively what it sounds like you're also creating, it's about a feedback mechanism. So if you see you're heading into a meeting or you've got something stressful going on in the day and you kind of look at this, you look at that tattoo in your arm and it's starting to go from blue to the next to the next. And then let's say maybe you have a breathing technique that's your go to for stress management or whatever meditation. You could literally start to do your. We'll use breath breathing as an example. Like engage in your slow breathing and potentially visually see from just the change in the color of the tattoo, visually see the markers for cortisol going down in your body. So it's this immediate feedback mechanism based on your behavior or intervention. Does that track?
- [55:20]
Professor Ali Edison
Exactly. So what you're talking about here is the real time feedback, visual feedback. This really falls within the realm of what we call the quantified self movement.
- [55:30]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah.
- [55:30]
Professor Ali Edison
So I will briefly unpack what that is, so there's a growing number of individuals who are tracking their bodily biomarkers, biomarkers in real time. This may be glucose, their blood pressure, their heart rate. And there's a huge growing community around the world who's engaged in this community. So the idea here will be to provide quantifiable measurements to an individual in real time so they will be able to engage with protective actions. So it may be a breathing, for example, exercise, it can be taking a medication or just taking some time off and relaxing. So we will be able to in the future we'll be able to provide some of that actionable information to an individual until it's to too late maybe. In the mental health conditions the patient may undergo a gradual, what you call a crisis. So it's an inclined level of crisis. So we will be able to intervene or the patient will be able to self diagnose themselves and monitor their condition in real time.
- [56:36]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, I mean it's fascinating because I feel like so many of us, we're not super tuned into our state of mind, we're not super tuned into our physiology biology and we often don't realize something's going a little bit off the rails until we're deep enough into it that we're almost in crisis mode. So this presents an opportunity potentially to have something that can alert us a lot more quickly so that we can come back into a better place of regulation long before anything becomes crisis mode.
- [57:03]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, so this is basically the future of what you're talking about, the future of medicine. And if you don't make measure it, we don't know what's happening. So that's one of the challenges why a lot of people end up in emergency rooms and in clinics, especially not only mental health, but any other, you know, health disorders or diseases, is that we don't know what's exactly happening. And not everyone also can track the, some of the symptoms and in a quantifiable manner. And we don't really know what's happening until someone ends up in an emergency room. So what we are do, trying to, trying to do here is to develop technologies that can be utilized for early detection of some of these disorders and diseases. But at the same time we can build a bigger picture of the patient's health using continuous real time monitoring platforms.
- [57:50]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, that's so amazing. One of my questions, curiosity is floating around my mind now also is I'm guessing that even once you have these smart inks well developed and validated and you go through the all of the FDA processes to bring them to market. This is not going to be something that your typical tattoo artist is going to be doing. So how does this actually get implemented?
- [58:09]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, so the way that we envision the implementation of this technology will be through a healthcare professional. So just like the current continuous glucose monitoring technologies, you're going to have an applicator technology. So based on the pattern that you choose, the applicator will be able to apply that pattern to your skin with a push of a button, single push of a button. So you basically press the button and there will be a microneedle array platform that will inject the tattoo ink into your skin and that will just be within just a couple of seconds.
- [58:44]
Jonathan Fields
That's amazing. And for anybody who's not familiar with the way that CGMs continuous glucose monitors work these days, generally you get a little deliberate delivery mechanism and you put it against your skin, you push a button and it pushes a needle out of this little device and into your skin. But it's a micro needle as you describe. It's painless, you don't feel anything. I've done it many times myself. So you're talking about basically having something similar, but instead of one, there would be a pattern of microneedles that are injecting this into you and it would be pretty instantaneous also. So maybe a doctor's visit, you do the thing when you're there and then you walk out and you've got your tattoo.
- [59:21]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, that's exactly right. So the difference in this case, instead of inserting about half an inch small prop, a sensing prop, just right under your skin, here we are talking about utilizing a micro needle array which is much, much smaller. And the array will be able to determine the concentrations of these targets. Biomarkers using color changes.
- [59:45]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. I know we're having this conversation sort of in the middle of the research phases. Do you have any sense for when something like this might actually be available for people?
- [59:57]
Professor Ali Edison
So we are envisioning that this technology can be available in five to 10 years. And the reason for these time differences and why so long is that such technologies needs to be go through very detailed clinical trials and usually multi centered and clinical trials that require patient recruitment and also establishing that this technology is also performing better than the current existing technologies. In the case of the electrochemical glucose monitoring technologies.
- [60:28]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, I mean that makes a lot of sense. And then in the context of all sorts of other things you might measure, you know this, there aren't easy technologies where somebody can Just quickly put it on their arm or their belly or wherever it may be. They have to literally keep going in to a practitioner or to a healthcare center to get new numbers. The possibility of this just providing continuous data for different types of markers, where it's actually pretty burdensome to keep getting new numbers and new numbers, that sounds like it would be pretty game changing.
- [60:59]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, yeah. So this is really the future of medical diagnostics we're talking about here. And currently we can do, for example, one biomarker that's glucose, but in the future this is going to be much more. So we will be able to monitor many other biomarkers that can be related to a health condition or that some of these biomarkers can also be utilized for preventative health care. So you will, for example, be able to know the concentrations of key biomarkers, let's say serotonin or dopamine, adrenaline or cortisol, and you'll be able to make informed decisions before it's too late. Sometimes.
- [61:37]
Jonathan Fields
Amazing. Anything that I didn't ask you that you feel like would be important to share.
- [61:43]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah. So one of the important points that I would like to cover is related to the stigma associated with having a tattoo or any type of medical diagnostic data. You know, stick to your arm and anyone else around you is able to observe such information. Now, one way that we can get around such stigma issues is related to design of this platform. So we can design these devices to operate in near infrared so we can have invisible tattoo inks. Only your smartwatch or your smartwatch will be able to see the signal coming from the tattoos, but you will be able to maintain the full privacy utilizing this type of platforms.
- [62:25]
Jonathan Fields
Oh, that's wild. So invisible to the naked eye. But you hold your cell phone up to it and your cell phone will be able to see whatever the reading is.
- [62:33]
Professor Ali Edison
Exactly. And another advantage of these platforms is for people who are using regular medication. So if you're using, utilizing a medication, medication for your heart condition, or it may be for, even for your mental health condition, you will be able to track the concentrations of key biomarkers or actually the, the dosage of your medication, whether it's effective or not, in real time, utilizing this type of wearable platforms.
- [63:01]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah, that's, it's just so incredible. I want to sit here and just wind the clock forward five or ten years so we can just have this, you know, publicly available for millions of people. Because it really sounds like it'll be a game changer.
- [63:12]
Professor Ali Edison
Yeah, indeed. That's the vision that we have for this project.
- [63:15]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate the conversation you sharing the research you're working on.
- [63:19]
Professor Ali Edison
Thank you very much for having me on your podcast.
- [63:22]
Jonathan Fields
Yeah. Hey, before you leave, a quick reminder that this conversation is a part of our special Future of Medicine series. Every Monday through December, we're exploring breakthrough treatments, diagnostics, diagnostics and technologies transforming medicine, healthcare, from cancer and heart disease to aging, pain management, and more. If you found today's conversation valuable, you won't want to miss a single episode in the series. Next week's conversation is with Dr. Ross Levine, chief Science Officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer center, where we dive deep into the revolutionary advances happening in cancer research and treatment, from AI powered diagnostics to breakthrough immunotherapies and the increasing ability to detect and prevent cancer. Before it starts, Dr. Levine offers this inspiring glimpse into how we're fundamentally transforming our approach to this disease. It's a conversation that brings both hope and clarity to one of medicine's most challenging frontiers. Be sure to follow Good Life Project wherever you listen to podcasts to catch every conversation. Thanks for listening. See you next time. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producer producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did because you're still listening here. Do me a personal favor. A seven second favorite. Share it with just one person. I mean, if you want to share it with more, that's awesome too. But just one person? Even then, invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter. Because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project.
- [65:16]
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- [66:11]
Jonathan Fields
Terms apply.
- [66:12]
Professor Ali Edison
Lounge access is subject to change.
- [66:13]
Jonathan Fields
See capitalone.com for details.
- [66:15]
Professor Ali Edison
So good, so good, so good.
- [66:17]
Commercial/Advertisement Voice
Give big Save big with Rack Friday deals at Nordstrom Rack For a limited time, take an extra 40% off on red tag clearance for total Savings up to 75% off. Save on gifts for everyone on your list from brands like Vince Cole Hahn, Sam Edelman and more. All sales final and restrictions apply. The best stuff goes fast, so bring your gift list and your wish list to your nearest Nordstrom Wrap today.
- [66:45]
Professor Ali Edison
Oh hey. Welcome to gift wrapping.
- [66:47]
Jonathan Fields
Whoa. So is Saldana.
- [66:48]
Commercial/Advertisement Voice
Hey, can you wrap these please?
- [66:50]
Jonathan Fields
Wow.
- [66:50]
Professor Ali Edison
IPhone 17s.
- [66:51]
Commercial/Advertisement Voice
You splurged at T Mobile. You can get four iPhone 17s on them. The new center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. It's the perfect gift for everyone.
- [67:00]
Professor Ali Edison
I'm the worst.
- [67:00]
Jonathan Fields
I only got my mom a robe.
- [67:02]
Commercial/Advertisement Voice
Well, it's better than socks.
- [67:03]
Professor Ali Edison
So I have to trade in my old phone, right?
- [67:06]
Commercial/Advertisement Voice
No AT T Mobile there's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
- [67:11]
Jonathan Fields
Incredible.
- [67:12]
Commercial/Advertisement Voice
In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my Aunt Rosa.
- [67:15]
Dr. Michael Snyder
Forget that.
- [67:15]
Commercial/Advertisement Voice
Aunt Liz will be jealous.
- [67:16]
Jonathan Fields
Sounds like my family drama.
- [67:18]
Commercial/Advertisement Voice
Oh I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with hey where are you going?
- [67:22]
Professor Ali Edison
T Mobile.
- [67:23]
Jonathan Fields
The holidays are better. AT T Mobile get four iPhone 17s on us. No trade in needed when you switch plus four lines for just 25 bucks a line. And now T Mobile is available in US cellular stores with 24 monthly bill credits and four eligible board inside essentials for well qualified customers.
- [67:37]
Professor Ali Edison
Dollar pay plus taxes fees and 35 dollars device connection charge credits and imbalance due if you pay up earlier. Cancel contact US Finance Agreement 256 gigabytes $830 required. Visit tmobile.com.