Darshan
Hey everyone, welcome to the DarshanTalks podcast. I'm your host Darshan Kulkarni. It's my mission to help patients trust the products they depend on. And that usually includes talking to really smart people like I'm going to talk to you today. As you may know, I'm an attorney. I'm a pharmacist, and I advise companies with FDA regulated products. So if you think about drugs, wonder about medical devices, ponder about nanotech or obsessed Oh, pharmacy is the podcast for you. Both of us are lawyers. So we have to say this is not legal advice, not clinical advice. But I do these podcasts because they're a lot of fun. I find myself learning something new each time. So it would be great to know if someone's listening. If you like what you hear, please like, please, please comment, please subscribe. And please share. If you want. If you want to find me, you can reach me on DarshanTalks on Twitter, or go to our website at DarshanTalks calm. Our podcast today is actually really exciting podcast today is going to be about a few different things we're gonna talk about really coming down to the crux, which is ethics and philosophy, and how does all this come together? So we're going to tie that to things like technology, things like bio, so everything from bioethics to sort of Life Sciences in general. So if you are in the life sciences, and you're going, just because we should just because we can, should we do so anyways, so today's discussion is gonna be really interesting and exciting. For that reason. Our guest for today is the CEO and co founder of encryption and Research Associate Professor at the University of Buffalo. And and Before we continue, how can they actually reach you again?
David
So you can go to my webpage, David capsule COMM And that has a contact form for me. Or you can email me through that. I that's the best way to do it. You can also follow me on Twitter and DM me.
Darshan
There you go. And, in case that wasn't evident, our guest today is David capsul. David, how are you?
David
I'm doing well. How are you?
Darshan
Good. Good to have you on again, I believe it's an exciting time for you because you're now finally in the green? And do you want to explain what that means? Probably Mexico, Mexico.
David
Mexico has has done pretty poorly during the pandemic, we had the fourth highest number raw number of deaths, and we're not that big of a country, we're about a little less than half the size of the US. So Mexico City, of course, has been sort of the epicenter because there's, well, there's a million people in the city and there's 20 million people in the, in the general metropolitan area. So we've been we were, we were in yellow for most of the pandemic, which meant that there were, you know, a fair number of restrictions. We were in red, right around the turn of the year. So because of the Christmas holidays, and laxity about, you know, during the red, we went into red for two months. And then this two weeks ago, we went back into green. And that was a big deal. Because our kids have all been home, doing zoom school for that period of time. And there were severe restrictions on numerous activities. And now we're in green, while we're actually just went back to yellow, after two weeks in green, but there's they're keeping kids in classes with lots of precautions. And that's been a big deal for my wife and I who are both, you know, trying to do our jobs as well as supervising our kids classes. And it's been helpful, and we've had a productive couple of weeks as a result, and our kids are extremely happy to see their friends in school.
Darshan
That's so great to hear. Here's a question for you. Yeah, this is gonna sound really obvious for someone who's living in Mexico. What does green yellow and red mean? Well, yeah,
David
I mean, this is this is the Sumatra, the light system, right? So red was obviously were pretty much they locked us down. You know, there was nothing was open, you couldn't, most people were not. If they could help it, we're not going anywhere. And, you know, as an attempt that other countries have tried to use to, you know, sort of create some sense of civic responsibility and, you know, ensure that people were helping to contain the spread of the Coronavirus. So, the, the stoplight system is imperfect and you know, there's a lot of politics around it as well, because there's a lot of pressure on businesses who have done poorly here as well as in the States. I'm also I spent part of my year usually in the States. So it's an interesting so sociotechnical experiment. But yeah, it seems it seems to be possible to bring the levels down using that system. And that's what particularly the Mexico City has been able to do. They have very good leadership, I think.
Darshan
So so that's awesome. So what you're telling me is that you're finally sort of getting getting around the bend, if you will. And and people are finally coming out and can do this in a responsible way.
David
Does that? Well, I mean, so I think people have tried to be very responsible here, I spend part of my time in Florida part of my time in Mexico City. And I was actually in Florida, getting vaccinated a couple of months ago. And I see a lot more mask usage in Mexico City than I do in Florida. And so there are differences, obviously, in the way the societies have addressed this. And that's true, I think, in the states from state to state as well. But you know, there's a, there's a lot of pressure from businesses and individuals who have no choice but to work, to, to keep things open as part as much as possible. Of course, we pay the price for it here, having, you know, almost, well, they estimate it's, it's closer to 400,000 200,000. That's in Mexico. So that's based on excess death statistics, which
Darshan
it reminds me of what's going on in India, and a family there. And a lot of people serve, that you can trust the numbers the government's putting out, because it's just terrible in every scenario. So it sounds like most world governments are trying to underestimate the extent they can earn money from political standpoint.
David
Yeah, The New York Times ran and I think actually The Economist sorry, the economist wrote an excellent piece a couple of months ago on excess deaths, statistics, because you know, you can you can we know, absolute numbers of people who die every year. And you, this is a, this is something they can't hide, because all of that is measurable. But the reasons why they die haven't always been fully explained. So if economists looked at excess deaths around the world, and although the world statistics now if you go to world, there's a world cat, and I look at the current statistics, it's about 3 million dead, I think. But economists, based on the excess deaths worldwide, is closer to 6 million, and you can go country to country and see where the variation is. So these are interesting forensic accounting techniques that we'll be doing for, I think, next decade to try to understand what went wrong. Because we allow went wrong with how we handle this pandemic,
Darshan
which is kind of interesting to me, because you start thinking about the pandemic itself, and you're one of the arguments you keep hearing is, well, we had no flu, or we had people didn't go in for their cancer checkups. And overall, people just didn't show up in the hospital as much. That doesn't mean that we have, yes, we may have paid for it in the cost in the cost of a pandemic, we've sort of recovered that cost and everything else. And what you're really saying is, we did that we have account of what we would expect, and what we have, and you can attribute it in any way you want. But the fact is, these are excess. That's,
David
that's right. And, you know, the every year, you know, there are deaths from the flu worldwide, too. But they were never, they were well outnumbered by the deaths from COVID. By all accounts, so I mean, in the worst year, there, there have been flu pandemics, where maybe a million people died worldwide. But those are the exceptions and it's like once every couple of decades, so that they just know that no comparison here. And you know, we have a flu shot and the flu shot has been effective. It's not always as effective as you know, as it as it might be. But it does work and has brought down our deaths every year for clues.
Darshan
Now the good news is, while this was obviously a terrible period for most of the world, you actually got a chance to work on some of your books, you actually got a chance to take a step back and go, what am I doing? Can I concentrate focus on it? Could you talk a little bit about the books you're working on and what you're doing and how's that been going?
David
Sure. So I added and contribute chapters and two books pretty much all the time. But this year, there's been a lot of I think, the publishing world has picked up a lot during the pandemic because writing is something you can do at home typically. I have a number of chapters and one book I'm Editing I've been you know, I'm, I'm a, I'm a philosopher and I've had a very sort of varied publishing career. And I've been contributing to these books on philosophy and popular culture. For about 20 years a friend of mine from graduate school bill Irwin was a distinguished professor at King's College is the editor in chief of the of a series that me he really started this trend, I am very impressed by what happened. It's it's writing books on philosophy and popular culture. So the idea is you take some better popular culture and you you can ask philosophers to talk about it. And we do that with the first one he did was a Seinfeld and philosophy book. And I think that sold half a million copies or more, which is amazing for a philosophy book. And, and he, and then, you know, a bunch of other presses and other authors. And editors have created similar books. So I wrote, I edited one with a fellow with my friend, Robert ARP, on Breaking Bad and philosophy, which came out, I guess, more than 15 years ago, I don't even know, it's the times pass so much. Anyway, so breaking down and philosophy came out, I can tell you in a second, it's right here. Back, it was open court. And they used to have this series of first that was to 2012. So that was a fun book to write and better living through chemistry as the subtitle. And I am doing chapter now for book being edited by another fellow from King's College. And it's on breaking, it's on Breaking Bad in philosophy. So a general introduction to philosophical issues and Breaking Bad philosophy.
Darshan
So so let's, let's put that one first. Because let's be honest, that's kind of interesting. As you put it right before we started, you are one of the preeminent researchers and thought leaders around the philosophy of Breaking Bad, which I think is both awesome and hilarious at the same time. So let's start with the premise. What exactly is is the premise of Breaking Bad? And then what kind of issues did you get into?
David
Oh, that's level. So that's the chapter right there. Breaking Bad, was, you know, this chronicle of a guy who's a real nebbish, right, Walter White, who, you know, becomes a drug king in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and takes on Mexican Mafia and, you know, becomes this legendary figure. And it's in a great examination, numerous ethical issues, even bioethical issues. Because he was making a pharmaceutical compound, you know, high grade methamphetamine. And just a great opportunity to explore numerous concepts about duties, obligations to family to state and society. The notion of, you know, philosophical issues like Neel ism existentialism, and other sorts of things that we could talk about for hours. But anyway, as a result of that book, in the second one I edited with on the subject for another press, we've, you know, been interviewed by a number of newspapers and TV shows about breaking bad and philosophy. But it was it, that's something that, you know, I think, is very important. So once I, when I was at, when I was a Associate Professor Holland, my chairman said, Well, why are you doing this stuff? What may as well not have bothered with that that's not really, you know, intellectual. And I, you know, I said to him, Well, more people read this than any other philosophy article out of this department. So and that's true, because most people don't read philosophy. It's just philosophers should read philosophy. So we reach regular people, ordinary people who happen to like a particular show, and the first one was Seinfeld and now there's, every facet of popular culture has been covered in these great books. And they're really, you know, high quality articles from actual philosophers with important things to say and centering it around discussion of, of something in popular culture gives something for ordinary people to care about. Otherwise, I mean, if I just, you know, try to lecture about ethics to people in general. You know, they're gonna tune out probably, but if it's about something, they're cared, they care about, like TV show. I in my son's case these days I'm doing it about Minecraft. So I'm, I'm using Minecraft as a way to explore ethical issues with him and, and teach him values. So you can I think this is a really important way for philosophers to contribute to our discussions in society.
Darshan
So let's ask this question because because I'm curious and and you've already sort of seen the SEMA show and written literally a book chapter about it. If you're talking about the philosophy of Breaking Bad, the entire series basically starts because Walter White can't afford the cost of treatment
David
of healthcare, right?
Darshan
What what philosophical issues do you raise from that? Do we have a duty to enable people to be able to take care of themselves? And and what comes out of that is obviously what's going on right now politically, where President Biden, I'm still having a hard time going down the path of whatever you present, I struggle with this. But same President Biden, but President Biden is coming up, and he's trying to struggle with whether we need to have Medicare for all, and would walk away to been covered and ethically do we, as a society as a society owe him that duty? Right, so
David
one of the means at the time that I recall was Walter White in Sweden, right? He needs money for his while he has to have his cancer, he needs treatment, he gets it because, you know, that's, it's provided by his government. And that's the end of the show. It's a very boring version of the show. But it does, I mean, that was the whole theme, right was what are the duties that he is owed by the state, because he feels like he's been owed something and he has a sense of being wronged, because he's not provided with whatever it is, he thinks he was owed. And then, as a result of that, you know, he I obviously make some poor decisions. And, and, but for maybe, you know, the right reasons, because he wanted to take care of his family, and he realized he had failed them. So it's so complex, and it's such a wonderfully done piece of fiction, Vince Gilligan, you know, crafted it so thoroughly around ethical issues, that it was really a great opportunity for us to explore that. them in numerous books. So the one I'm editing now is on Mad Max and philosophy. So that's, you know, now there's another Mad Max movie that'll be coming out. So we're just we just put out a call for chapters for that. And to get back to the question about other things I'm writing so yeah, I'm doing some blockchain stuff, too. I have a chapter I'm working on for book that's coming out from Springer, edited by Wendy Charles, on blockchain and medicine. My chapter, of course, on genomics, actually, our chapter, so I'm co authoring it with my spouse and partner and co founder of encryption. So that's going that's going to be coming out early in 2022. other pieces of writing that I'm catching up with now are on ethics and intellectual property, and it technologies, which is a theme I've been working on for decades. And I think about I think that's it. Yeah, that's it.
Darshan
Just having crazy, what is it for books?
David
chapters for three of them. Oh, and another article I'm working on with a friend of mine has to do with personal identity, NF T's and artificial intelligence, and then I'll leave it on that.
Darshan
Okay. I'm gonna come back to that one in a second. But let's start with the one you mentioned on genomics, you're doing that with your spouse? Right? Could you tell us a little bit about how it is? So first of all, more importantly, could you tell us about your spouse first so that people see the context and why that's important? Yeah, that
David
Dr. Gonzales is the is a scientist in genomics, specifically pharmacogenomics, and she is who got me interested in genomics in the first place about 15 or 16 years ago when we met. And she is doing work at the National Institute of genomics and medicine. It's called in my head. And her research has focused on the interaction of various medicines with populations here in Mexico. So this is a really important field pharmacogenomics, as a Tremendous application to personalized medicine. Because not everybody metabolizes the same drug the same way. And this can lead to real problems and your dosing your whether you should even give it to people can should be first in many cases, determined by genetic study. So doing, you know, a study of that person's genetics. And so she's really the the expert in genomics of the two of us, I contribute what I know about bioethics and ethics and law. But I always rely on her for to fix my misconceptions about the science and continue to educate me every day.
Darshan
So she is the true blue scientific expert on pharmacogenomics. And you get to talk about the ethics and the and the philosophy associated with it. So let's start with the first question associated with me. I actually, as you know, I'm a pharmacist as well. And I'm not quite I just realized that my time comes up as Kulkarni law, I need to change that in a second. But I'm a pharmacist as well. And I actually have clients who are working through the CO growing law firm, but I'm helping them with one because, you know, it's my first question, Who owns the data of the research and the testing that's done, as it as it currently exists? Good.
David
So that's, that's the thing that perplexes people all the time. Data, II can't be really owned, as you know, it can be owned only in certain forms. So in order to own data, it has to be expressed in a, in a unique expression. Right. So this is one of the things that's hung up a lot of people about all sorts of uses of data and the nature of blockchains. And then a lot of misconceptions about, you know, the application of NF T's and things like that, to data. But you know, you don't own the data about you. The best we can say is that under certain regimes and and you correct me if you're, if I'm wrong, because you're also a lawyer, best we can say about certain regimes as they grant certain privacy rights to some of your data, as the best example, and but then again, you know, the, the, the limits of those are significant. So let's take, you know, all of the, your face, your face is, is data points, right? If you're in the public, and you're walking around, and I take a picture of you, you know, ordinarily, you don't have a right to say, you know, delete that picture, I don't want my data in your hard drive, or whatever, or I'm on the web. But there are certain restrictions of how I can use your face, obviously. So I can't commercialize it, I can't put it on a billboard, and sell my products with it. But these are, you know, very limited restrictions, I have a, you know, free speech, right to take pictures and publish them. And you have very limited rights over the use of public data about you private data to, again, there's some exceptions, there are no state laws and some rules, like in the GDPR and other jurisdictions that limit what people can do with personal data about you. But that isn't an ownership, right, that that they're granting, it is a restriction on the use of data about you, that doesn't say that you are the owner, nor does it make you the owner. So these are all, you know, this is a this is a theme that I could talk about
Darshan
for hours. But we're gonna get into it right now, because that's so much fun to talk about. So but here's the question, it comes down to the concept of ownership in the business. And that if if you're saying that you can limit the ability of someone else to do something else with the data, aren't isn't that a type or one of the functions of ownership. So I can see a court saying, You're allowed the ability to prevent someone else from accessing it, you're allowed to cause someone else to believe it, you're allowed to fix data, that's mistaken. You are allowed to like, I mean, that the many quality of the let's say, GDPR allows for the ccpa allows for so is it really that far to say that you therefore own the data, since you control the data, and therefore I know you're going to practice it, I'm waiting for that in a second. But but but if you own If you own or control, you control so much of those functions, Is it wrong to say that new functions that you haven't thought of will still belong to you? Then?
David
Yeah, no, it is wrong to say that's an ownership right? Well, ontologically, and historically, the the nature of ownership has to do with rival lists and exclusive possession of things. So my possession of this little doohickey here is a, you know, exclusive to everybody else, okay. Nobody possesses it at this moment. So you know, as lawyers, we know, this position is nine tenths of the law is founded. And if we look historically, at it with the nature of property rights come out of acts of possession, and the need for states to create peace around those acts. And you have to, you know, there was a lot of duty for owners to indicate, you know, through indicia of ownership, that they are the proper owners. And eventually, we got around it like, title, you know, registration and other acts that the state got involved in, in showing that you are the proper owner. But you know, the thing about things like this, and a piece of real estate, is that my current possession of it is that exclusive to others, I can defend it, I can take x, showing my ex, my possession of it. And the law of follows that by recognizing the peaceful possession, shouldn't be maintained. But in the case of ephemeral things, like no data, or expressions, right? There, there's no way to be exclusive. Naturally, so states created intellectual property law, like about 300 years ago, very recently, compared to other property law, and said, Okay, we're going to give limited monopolies for a certain period of time, over original expressions of ideas. And, you know, but that's it, very limited. And copyright and patents started with terms of something like seven years, and then it kept going, getting bigger and bigger, and a copyright now, because of Walt Disney is, you die, and basically, seven years later, you still own it. Your state owns it. Patents, of course, expire now in 20 years. But there's ways to fiddle around with those edges to data. On the other hand, it's so important for societies so important for science, that there's very few ways you can bottle that stuff up. And likely your Personal Genome, for instance, there's that once I get a hold of your genome, there's no way for you to exert any control over it, either legally, or practically. And there's a good reason for that, I think. And that is because then, you know, practically, you know, you're sloughing off skin cells all the time, I could just Hoover him up, right? sequence that, that and I get interesting stuff. And we don't want to make scientists afraid to find and use data. And you know, you didn't make that data is not your original work of authorship. You didn't, it's not an expression. It's nature's expression. And that's why gene patents were overturned back in 2013. Because, you know, they're not inventions. Genes are part of nature, and we should be able to investigate them freely. So yeah, I mean, there are privacy rules and privacy rules also are historic, historically, very recent, you know, you know, in the I'm probably going on and on a little more than I should. But I think if you look historically, and the way that societies were organized in both Europe, and at least in Europe and the US, early in the early days, like 200 years ago, everybody knew what everyone was doing publicly and sometimes even privately. In fact, in parts of New England, you weren't supposed to have curtains on your house. And this is true in Northern Europe, too, because it was an indication you had something to hide.
David
You know, this notion of privacy is very reason. And then the idea that states are involved in protecting privacy is extremely reason. Now the big debate about Roe v. Wade, was that the Supreme Court created a privacy right out of the Penumbra These other rights. So yeah, I mean, you want to say that, you know, you have ownership over your data over the whole even over the, you know, your DNA and things like that, but it's the wrong term. Wrong analogy.
Darshan
I'm gonna challenge you. Okay? Because what I want and again, I usually aim for about 1520 minutes, literally 30. So this will probably be our last Molly only because we could just like you said talk about this for hours. But here's, here's my question, why is it not more similar to me having property rights in my cell phone and lending you my cell phone? In the end, I expect you to either give me the cell phone back or destroyed. In no scenario my going now that's a phone number for you to use, and a cell phone for you to use for the rest of the time. Why is this not a similar analogy,
David
because as Thomas Jefferson said, If I use my candle to light yours, it deprives my candle or deprives me of nothing. So do something, no it so the mind when I use my candle to light yours, I have spread that fire, it hasn't deprived me of anything. And the fire, you can go light somebody else's candle with it. ideas. And, you know, even expressions can multiply perpetually and infinitely, without depriving you of anything. Okay, it took this action on the state to say, okay, we're going to give you some limited monopoly for a period of time over an expression to change that. But the fact of nature is that, if I, you know, if you learn my genetic code, it hasn't deprived me of anything. And that is the exclusive and rivalrous nature of property. That property law protects against the loss by somebody of something when somebody else has it. So if I hold your cell phone, you don't have it. But if you know my genome, I still have it.
Darshan
I really want to get into Henrietta Lacks case, but let's hold off on that for now. But this was so much
David
fun. We should do an episode, I we definitely
Darshan
need to do a whole episode. How fun would that bait? I'm trying to set up something around that. But we'll talk about that for the next time for sure. As you know, we do four questions at the end of every talk. Based on what we spoke about, what is the question I'd like to ask the audience?
David
Yeah, I want to know, what your what your experiences in participating in public science. So I have a real interest in opening up science, making it participatory for everyone, because I think if you're involved in it, you're gonna understand it better. And then our product is built around that notion. We think people want to participate in science. We think they want some recompense for it. But I think that this is the great challenge of our ages to is to get people excited by interested in and participating in public science, which is, after all, we're counting on that save us from pandemics in the future.
Darshan
I usually try to answer the question of the guests. So I will respond in my way, which is I've actually worked with biohackers before. And that's been very interesting, because when you look at the data suggests that almost exclusively Masters and PhD level people doing incredible stuff at the fringes of science so that they can break through and sort of find something new and different. advising them is very interesting, because if you do it right, it does not fall under the jurisdiction of the FDA, the NIH or any of them, fascinatingly enough, it actually ends up falling under the jurisdiction of I believe it's the FBI, which I think is fascinating. So my experience is advising them and sort of discovering these niches that that no one has seen before. Fascinating conversations around that. So that would be my experience. However, I also see the ramifications of that, when you start seeing some of the stem cells is situations that are happening, especially when you talk about things like places like Arizona, where there was just an article recently, I want to say to the Wall Street Journal, but essentially someone coming out and talking about how unproven science was being peddled to patients with the expectation that it's going to help them well at best, it's unproven, And at worst is dangerous. So, so I love the concept of, as you call it participatory science. I worry about how quickly it can go in the wrong direction. Yeah. Fair
David
for parents. Yeah. So I coached the iGEM Team adelphia. And that was exciting. They were doing work on synthetic biology. One of them now runs a company in the Netherlands on synthetic biology. So and I and I met a lot of sin bio folks, including a woman who does symbolic bio art, and she was making fabrics out of cells. It was fascinating.
Darshan
Oh, we just had a comment, by the way from dash Canada, I'd love to do more with public science. But often these endeavors need more social media influencers. To get the word out. I'm not quite sure I see the point he's making because why would a social media influencer have an impact on public science? But what's your take on that?
David
Oh, well, I think it does. I mean, actually, social media is now such a dominant part of our everyday existence, that you really need to use it. To reach people, we do it with our company, to try to get people to be involved in encryption. And, yeah, I mean, I noticed what happens with my kids. My kids are very much influenced by social media. And so I really look up.
Darshan
But does it stop you from actually doing what you want to do to yourself anyways? I don't know what the word public means
David
it can help convince people. So yeah, I think you need to find smart influencers and work with them. I mean, Bill nine, for instance, is a very important public science media influencer. He doesn't have a TV show anymore. But you know, him and Neil deGrasse Tyson and others have a strong social media presence, that does have a positive influence on public perception, science.
Darshan
Fair point. The two questions we ask, what is something you learned in the last month?
David
So what I've learned in this past month, okay, Oh, okay. This is really cool. So I think I mentioned Well, before we, I think I mentioned in this talk about Minecraft. My kids are really into Minecraft. And I was just thinking full of it. I was like, I don't want to hear about it. That's all they want to talk about it. They watch all these YouTube videos on mine. But then I realized my son who's six years old has learned math because of Minecraft II. The other day said to me 16 times four is 64, right? I was like, yeah, How'd you know that? And he said, Well, that's the number of slots you have 64 slots and Minecraft and he's like, how he's doing all his math because of Minecraft and, and he's really learned to read because of it. So I learned with my kids how to set up a private minecraft server using a Raspberry Pi, in our in our home. And we're running it as a sort of mini society where we have our own little rules and, and such. So I learned that games and toys and things that children are involved in are interested in can be really positive influences. And maybe as a father, I need to be more attentive to their interests. And let's dismiss it. I think that was a real breakthrough for me because I I'm now developing a closer relationship with my kids through Minecraft.
Darshan
Second question, what is something you are really excited about? I'm really happy that you participated in within the last seven days.
David
Um, well, Father's Day was this past weekend, you know, being a father and has has been probably the most important thing I've done in my life. Most life changing thing I've ever done, I did it started late, you know, I'm 52 now and I have a 66 year old and a 10 year old. And I have to say, getting up and down from the ground to play Legos and such would have been a lot easier 10 years ago. But Father's Day is always touching. And it was unlike last year, we were able to go out and have dinner together and enjoy the day. You know, a little more traditionally. So that was just this past weekend.
Darshan
Very, very cool. As you know, I do a quick recap of our conversation before asking the next question which is, during this conversation, we landed up talking about just your experiences being in Mexico as it goes from yellow to red to yellow to green, and hopefully will stay in green. We talked a little bit about how Mexico's dealt with it. He talked about it has The fourth highest run number of deaths, and then ended up using that as a jumping off point to talk about your experiences in the books you'll end up writing. So you talked about just the excess death statistics, which I thought was interesting. I've never heard of that as a, as a concept to follow. And that was fascinating to me. You talked about the four books, you talked about the one on Breaking Bad philosophy, blockchain medicine, we talked about the old book of nanotech, and then the philosophy of it, and IP, if you will, which I thought was fascinating. I really want to get into it with lack of access issues, we actually had, one of the guests actually asked if we'd be lined up talking a little bit more about game of function research, which I've never heard of, until he or she mentioned it, which I thought was really interesting. He or she wanted to ask us whether that gain of function research should be regulated by an international body. So it sounds like a great conversation to have next time. If that's, that's within your scope. We also landed up talking about genomics and how you're working with your spouse to actually write the book on genomics and how she is especially pharmacogenomics and how she is actually well renowned leader in the space anyways. And this just sort of the the intersection of both of your knowledge bases, it's going to create a really interesting, I can't tell if it's a book or a chapter, but one of those two chapters. And we very briefly touched on your book, that's going to be the ethics of self, which I thought was kind of interesting. So I have no idea what that means. But I'm fascinated. But I think that covers most of what I can remember them is anything important.
David
No, I think I think that covers it. Awesome.
Darshan
So David, where where can people reach you if they have questions or want to work within encryption, by the way? And can you tell us what encryption is?
David
Yeah, encryption was started by my spouse and I, as a marketplace for de identified genomic data, to encourage people to contribute to science by uploading their data to our site at encryption comm where they can create a profile and then see if researchers want to buy that data from them, and they keep most of the proceeds from those sales. And this is a democratic, centralized disintermediated market for genomic data that we think competes with the other monopolized versions of it. When you do direct to consumer testing that's what you're dealing with is monopoly. And you can you can look for us on Krypton calm. It's, but you can also look for me David cupsole, does that mean they're calm? and find all my contact information there? reach out to me if you want. I'm always happy to respond. You can also find me on Twitter at at Dr. capsul calm and it's David Richard cupsole. No Dr. cupsole. In total,
Darshan
accurate though, technically, with our JD you get that we don't we just aren't allowed to call ourselves that. Yeah. Fair enough. And for those of you who like this podcast, please like leave a comment. Please subscribe. If you know someone who actually may enjoy this podcast, please share it because I know I enjoyed doing it. You can find me at DarshanTalks on Twitter or just go to our website at DarshanTalks calm, David, thank you so much. This was so much fun.
David
Anytime, man. I really enjoyed it.
David
This is the DarshanTalks podcast, regulatory guy, irregular podcast with hosts Dr. Shaun Kulkarni. You can find the show on twitter at DarshanTalks or the show's website at DarshanTalks.com