Biotech on the Blockchain: Rare Disease Solutions with Dr. Ethan Perlstein

Hi. Welcome to this episode. My guest today is Ethan Perlstein. He is a founder and CEO of Curetopia, and he is on a mission to end rare genetic diseases. This conversation took me by surprise.

I didn't know where it was gonna go at the beginning, but we went through some crazy places like blockchain and web three. And I think what you're gonna learn is that Ethan is not just a business builder, investor, and scientist, and and even a doctor of philosophy, but he is a very heart centered and driven person who is looking to solve solutions for people who have rare genetic disease. So I'm looking forward to sharing this, episode with you, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Hi, Ethan. Thank you for joining me today.

It was a great surprise to see your to see that you'd signed up for the for the call today. So, yeah, welcome. And I'm I'm looking forward to hearing more about you and Curetopia.

Yeah. Eager to be here. That's why I grabbed the first available spot. Alright.

So fill me in. Where what's what's brought you to this point in your life where I love your hat, by way. Make biotech great again.

You gotta embrace the formula. You know? It's not going anywhere. So you can make it your own.

Awesome. Okay. Let's hear hear your story.

Well, I'm a scientist, a builder, and an investor. And it's taken me a while to accumulate all all of those experiences. And it it it wasn't that order, but I still remain a scientist. And I I have been inspired and captured by a cause for over a decade now, and this is the cause of rare diseases. And, specifically, the call to action is to end rare diseases.

And it can get more into the story of rare diseases, but, unfortunately, the the problem starts at the very beginning with the name because you hear the word rare, and you immediately turn off some parts of your brain and turn off, turn off others, maybe turn on parts of your heart instead of parts of your brain. Maybe you just assume that rare means charitable or humanitarian or or just simply not something that is is gonna affect you or or the the average person. But

Or newly discovered newly discovered too. Diseases that, you know, we've never heard of or or haven't surfaced in in large quantities. Right?

Totally. And now that we can surface all these mutations in genomes, you know, where we've uncovered now 10,000 plus rare diseases. When I started out in in this space about a decade ago, it was the number had just bumped from five thousand to seven thousand. Don't. You know, what is the upper limit?

I don't I don't know. This is not the type of inflation you you wanna be seeing, but there is a lot of surface area to the human genome that is vulnerable to these genetic lightning strikes. And that's kind of the story of rare diseases is that they're not actually rare. They're actually really freaking common. And in totality, they you know, rare diseases affect more people than cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's combined in in a given year.

The people only hear about the common diseases because that's where the the money can be made. So I got called into this this holy war, because I I encountered a parent one day, one fateful day, and it was in in DC at in at the in Bethesda, actually, at the end of the National Institutes of Health. And it was on a day that I now know, but before did not, called rare disease day, which I don't know if you know what rare disease day was. It just passed. That's that's the hint.

It's the logic is let's pick the rarest day in the year, which I guess they thought would be the February, which, of course, every four years is is a new day.

It's only every four years. Yeah. That's pretty rare.

Yeah. So it's sort of like, yeah, let's double down on on how niche we are, guys. Let's see how effective that is as brand marketing. And, you know, surprise, it's not. So, anyway, I'm just

pick February 29 is the date.

Well, it's February 28. But yes.

Oh, okay. Is the last

it will. Yeah. No. That would have been just completely, I wasn't trying to make a joke there. But Okay.

Okay. Any case, I'm just trying to grasp the reasons why this this this was was thought was a good marketing ploy. But I'm referencing it because I met this mom at rare disease day in 2013, and I was just amazed that I I was talking to someone who sounded like a scientist to me, but was very, very, very focused on their child's she had twin daughters at the time who were affected by this fatal rare disease. They have since passed on, but this mom ended up just moving mountains and doing things that she started her journey back in 02/2006, you know, early Internet days, you know, pre social media even, and was able to rally information online and was just able to become a scientist and studied. And I just thought, wow.

I mean, on the one hand, this is terrible that a parent has to be sort of forced to do this because the establishment and the experts actually don't don't know what to do or or, you know, doctors only seen this rare disease once in their career. Or so you you you I I I realized in the light bulb a light bulb moment that that this was a repeatable thing that that fan that some of these parents are gonna essentially unleash their inner entrepreneur, and they were going to make their lives work this solving their kid's disease, saving their kid's life. And I was just obviously so inspired by that, and I decided I needed to work arm in arm with with such parents. So that's kind of the genesis of of of my my my story, and that's that's why, you know, Curtopia will make sense when I explain it. But, yeah, real everything comes back to that one light bulb moment and realizing they need to partner with these incredible families that are moving mountains and proving people, proving the establishment wrong.

Right. And possibly, they their their passion, obviously, the drive behind why they're why they're diving into that scientific world. Plus, they also don't have any blinders on that perhaps get get established as you become involved in a certain industry or or or area of of interest. But you they're going in with a completely different perspective. Like, they are focused on they're laser focused on trying to save their their child's life.

So you can imagine how they don't see the same obstacles. They're moving beyond them. That's really interesting that that's been your motivation. And so that led to Curetopia then. That's.

Well, there were some steps in between, because that that that fateful meeting was in 2013. So there were there were

some steps in between. Right. Okay. Of course. Right.

So so kind of the first step was to create the world's first biotech PBC or public benefit corporation. And so I created Perlara, and that was in 2014 and is still a going concern. It has evolved and taken taken many shapes as startups do if they if they survive. And, but it was its its corporate DNA was inscribed with this public benefit corporation ethos. Right.

What did that mean, though? What did that actually mean in practice? So I ran the PBC experiment at Perlara for a better part of a decade and, you know, had had several major learnings. But but one of the major learnings was there was going to be there was gonna be difficulty really achieving scale and leveling the playing field of access. So it wasn't just the wealthiest and savviest families.

Right.

Running the Prola experiment proved that inevitably you were gonna end up partnering with families who had some amount of means and sophistication because they're the ones that sort of select themselves for ability to do this research, the ability to take no for an answer, the ability to not listen to, you know, experts, to become the expert. You know, those are very, you know, unique traits. But at the end of the day, you you you sort of have, this selection bias. And so I I ultimately, decided that, you know, Prolaro needs to focus on metabolic diseases, and and we have a a strategy for how we're going to do that. But then there's there needed to be some way to realize that original vision of a public benefit community, let's say, if we wanna take a web three, lens.

And could that that same mission of working with families and communities and driving forward research, could that happen in a in a new type of vehicle? One where economic incentives and participation incentives and rewards and risk are all shared and and benefited from it, you know, by mostly by the patients who are directly, guiding the research, sometimes by providing the samples that makes the the research possible by granting data access that allows research to make insights. So I thought the only real way to make a scalable level playing field solution for rare diseases that's also global in view, not just focused on elite families in in America or in developed countries.

Mhmm.

I've realized I think I think we have to embrace blockchain. I think we have to embrace this technology both for financing, for for for, as sort of the contractual layer so we could have smart contracts that build in provisions that can't be skirted or avoided or or or or feet can't be dragged by various types of stakeholders in the trad bio world. So there just were a lot of compelling reasons why I thought it's time to build biotech on chain natively. And so everything about that biotech process, which we know fully well in the off chain world, could we now start to migrate bit by bit starting with IP, starting with, you know, other forms of contracts that govern data sharing and participation in clinical studies and and then governance by the community, getting getting feedback and getting getting, approval for for decisions about research projections and and monetization strategies and so forth. So long story short, I I think it's not just I'm I'm not just into Web three and design out because it's, you know, because it's popular, because actually

it's Right.

It's not necessarily you know, we're going through this kind of weird period through crypto now. You know, we're doing doing this because there's a real reason to build on this fresh canvas.

It's interesting. And they because, I mean, if you're thinking about this, are are you finding or, originally, did you find a lot of obstacles to to moving into that into that blockchain world with biotech? Or, like, I mean I mean, rules, regulations, navigating that space, or did did you kinda find out a lot of hurdles in your in your path?

Well, in the past, right, Perlara, for example, it never had to worry about crypto because it didn't you know, we didn't take payments in crypto. So the crypto world didn't you know, DeFi, all of that didn't you know, it's completely separate from what we did as a biotech company. And and would say that almost a % of biotech therapeutics companies platforms are in the same boat where up until, say, now, there was no utility function of crypto other than maybe on some kind of DeFi or financialization side.

Mhmm.

There was no there was no benefit seen or or there was no implementation of of smart contracts. You know? It just it just not something people think about doing in trad bio.

Right. Right. Right. So then now you're so now you've so cure Curetopia operates entirely in this in this on that on the in the in the Web three and blockchain. That's very interesting.

Is this is this is Curtopia unique to other companies, or are there is there anybody else trying to work this space? Or what?

Well, there are other bio DAOs, biotech decentralized autonomous organizations.

Mhmm.

And they are doing amazing things. You know, AthenaDAO is focused on women's health. VidaDAO is focused on longevity. You've got a number of other, you know, fill in the blank DAOs with their with their science focus. And it spans truly everything from cryopreservation to to programmable, fungi and, and and, you know, hair loss prevention and, you know, ton you know, focusing on particular types of of therapeutic modalities like peptides.

Like, it's it goes on and on. Right? It's endless. There there is there's there's this imminent explosion of biodals that's coming, and so Kirtopia is part of that. I would say that what differentiates us are are several things.

I guess one is we do have a focus on rare diseases in a way I think that other other groups don't. There are other groups interested, I think, in, health care and in decentralized clinical trials and support, but we really are exclusively focused on on rare diseases and are truly disease agnostic. I would say also, you know, I I have a track record and experience coming from the, quote, unquote, trad bio world. So, you know, I'm not just a weekend hobbyist scientist. No offense to any of those.

I wasn't just like a DeFi trader who was, you know, watching YouTube videos about biotech and then deciding to launch a community or Discord. Like, no offense to all of those folks and and to any who have kind of entered DeFi that way, but, you know, I I I'm coming at it from having run, and started two biotech companies, and, you know, taken an asset from inception, to phase three. The phase three didn't work, but we we did it for only $5,000,000, which is a fraction of the cost to to getting to that to that no, and the learnings we learned are already being recycled into our our next program. So we know how to be super, super capital efficient. We know how to execute.

And I think a lot of other teams out there in D side, I think there's more, you know, frankly, I think there could be seen as more execution risk. But with me and Pilar and in my experience at Pilara, what I bring to Utopia is, you know, twelve twelve years of operator investor and scientist experience in the trenches, and actually have have moved things in the in the real in the real world in the clinic. So, I hope that that's that differentiates us and I hope it attracts other founders like me from the tribe by world who never would have maybe thought twice about crypto or Web three, but now might be thinking, this could start out as a way where I get access to funding, and then maybe from there, it's sort of a gateway into into the full sort of, you know, Web three, community experience. But, you know, it's gonna be one step at a time.

Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah. You're bit of a triple threat with, these three, areas that you're diving into, which is really cool.

And, I mean, no, I'm sure you're you're having your set of challenges. What what are you, what's your biggest challenge right now? What are you trying to what what are you trying to get? What hurdle are you passing through right now?

I think, you know, if I'm being totally level with you and and the audience and and listeners out there, This is my first sort of crypto community project company biotech, and I'm still learning what it means to interact with a a Web three native community and learning what it means like to participate with a very diverse and sometimes boisterous and opinionated group of individuals, you know, most of whom are by design and and totally embrace for this, you know, are pseudonymous or anonymous. And so getting used to that culture of interacting with with, with this community versus if you're running a a trad bio startup and you have a relatively simple cap table, Even if you have a party round, you may only have a few large investors, that you sort of need to keep apprised of things for

Right.

For major governance issues. And then otherwise, you're sort of not really tending to to them. And a lot of early seasoned investors know not to sort of kinda, like, you know, keep asking, how's it going? How's it going? And so I get it.

It's a different culture in Web three, and you do have to open yourself up to that level of transparency and responsiveness. But then I'm it's also like, okay. I get that. I gotta get acclimated to this. But, yeah, at some point, there's also gonna have to be some some boundaries set here where it's like, you know, research takes some time.

You know, I know you wanna hear something every day and that you sometimes interpret you you might interpret silence for something bad, but but, you know, we're we're not gonna you know, we're gonna try to fill a lot of content out there about Keytopia's mission, our science, rare stories. We're gonna highlight a lot of personal rare disease hero stories so people really understand why we're doing this at the end of the day. Not just science and and and miss, like, we're not just robots here. So we we plan on definitely filling the space with a lot of positive content, but also people have to realize biotech takes time. We're gonna move a lot faster than traditional biotech, but it's still gonna take some time.

So the biggest challenge for me now is just learning the the rules and the the rhythms of of interacting with a web three native, community.

Right. And you're actually probably got one foot in each world too. Right? Because you have your roots are you know, you're trying to drive roots into web three and the and the blockchain area, but you still actually need a presence on the on web two because how are people gonna learn of your brand? Because that's where more people are primarily spending their time.

Right? Particularly, parents who have children with rare diseases who are doing research. They're looking for information on a lot of people don't even know what web three is anymore.

Yeah. It's true. No. It's it's yeah. A lot of families are still on Facebook groups.

You know? They're still in private Facebook groups or they're in their own kinda WhatsApp groups that are completely invisible to other people. So, yeah, there's a lot of fragmentation. But, I think ultimately, we found a lot of community and cohesion on on X on Twitter and Great. And on on Telegram as well.

And between those two spaces, I think we have over 800 Qtopia has over 800 members in the in the Telegram group. And Mhmm. Think, you know, yeah, close to 4,500 followers on on X. So I think there's there's a there's a decent sized community there and, you know, there's a lot of people hungry for updates. And there's a lot of, internal champions.

I can see people who are spontaneously just like saying, you know, congrats on this or good job with this and just saying we got your back. And so it's good to be reminded that when you build in web three like this, you can't be everywhere. But at least on x and telegram, people can see each other and Right. And they can see the positive, you know, they can feel the positive sentiments.

That's right. It's kind of the bridge between the gap. Right? Right. You've kind of been focusing your energy then in in that channel of communications is on x.

What else are you doing? How else are you how else are you reaching your getting your message out?

So I'm part of the things I've been doing now that the auction's closed and, now starting to put together a team of consultants because I wanna operate super lean, but I'm gonna bring on a marketing team and some storyteller and some community manager support. So there's going to be, some folks who are gonna be joining me soon, and I think we're going to probably hit well, we're gonna try to hit as I think you have to be just like your sort of multi chain or poly chain. You have to be multi channel when it comes to content distribution. So Yeah. I I kind of use x and telegram as shorthand, but I think, you know, we envision cross posting on Insta.

And, you know, I haven't sort of come up with a TikTok plan, but definitely want to engage folks that are native to that audience and likely going to need to have, like, platform native marketers. Right? Who also get web free. So yeah. So I I wanna kind of keep marketing, to to a reasonable amount because I wanna balance, you know, filling the filling the silence, but also, like, I don't want you know, those are dollars that could be spent on research.

Yep. So I need to balance that stuff. And, but, yeah, I'm excited that we can hopefully be cross channel posting a bunch soon. And I think hitting on, like I said, three pillars, the mission of Curetopia, the science of Curetopia, meaning even like I don't know if you've seen pump.pump.science when they are looking at molecules that extend lifespan in in worms or flies or or mice. They actually have the mice live on the rotor rod, you know, and you

Oh, and you're doing

a livestream watching. Yeah. So, you know, you can imagine that, that there's ways where it's still x or, you know, it's a livestream, but you can show people science, right, in real time. And you can Right. So I'm I'm definitely hopeful that, Utopia can establish, a lab meeting culture where we say, here are some here are some results.

You know, obviously, some things we kind of don't disclose in an open environment because there's IP concerns, but when it comes to a lot of stuff, can just share share results and get feedback. And so I wanna, you know, promote that. And then we wanna promote the third pillar, which is rare stories, like really personalizing. Who are these kids, their families? Where do have to go through?

Where do they live? What's their day to day? What's the glimpse of their day? You know? And, hopefully, there's a lot of vlogging and, yeah, we wanna have as much video, I think, in in in these, in these posts to keep engagement, high quality.

Well, I think I think you, talking about the case studies or the rare studies. I like the way you said that, actually, the rare studies is that Mhmm. Or the rare stories. Mhmm. Yeah.

I mean, that's where you're really gonna touch on the emotional side of things and where, you know, even if someone isn't experiencing that, but they they can imagine what it would be like to have to have to have to experience that to know, particularly when it comes to our children, right, when we're trying to that's our job is to protect our children. And if you, you know, you can't even find, a scientist or a doctor who has a solution, then really, are on your own. You you've gotta you've gotta make it happen. You gotta find it. So those are the stories I think you're you're that are gonna inspire, like you said, inspired you.

I think that's the origin of this that's the origin of this story is that what inspired you was that that mother and her drive and determination to to find a solution. And, you know, and not maybe not always successful, but the part about it is it what it drives as far as, inspiring people like yourself to create organizations and businesses and and do the science, do the research, and to to make headway and and bring it to light. I think that's really I think that's very, very cool. I'm really there's way more to this than I anticipated. So I'm I'm really enjoying hearing you explain this.

Now the how how about growth for you? What does that look like when at some point I mean, these this is early days. I mean, I think you launched Qtopia in December of last year. Correct?

Correct.

So what does growth look like for you? What's your how are you how are you phasing this out? What is the what is the growth of this company look like?

So we've talked about a 2025 research road map, and I'm gonna start putting flesh on that bones on those bones. And then, you know, we're just finalizing a proposal and figuring out what the right platform is to share with the community. But that will that will happen that share will happen next week, but we've been kinda telegraphing that we have a plan for '25, and, obviously, I wasn't sure, how much the auction would would bring in and whether it would even be successful. With five days left, we haven't hit the minimum threshold yet. And a lot of people were telling me it's it's sort of it's over.

This is the worst time to be doing anything in in markets like, you know, just try again. And, but I I remembered from that mom that I go back to that inspiration candle and have to kinda relight it every now and then. Yeah. And, and so we powered through. And so we have we now now that we know what our treasury is and we're also mindful of crypto markets and, and, you know, balancing, like, being having minimal burn, but also getting stuff done quickly because sitting on things and drip drip is is not the answer.

We gotta get to some value inflection points. And this is my experience as an operator in biotech come kind of coming to the fore. So we have a we, you we we started with one project when when we launched in December. The auction started in Feb on Feb eighteenth and ended, on March 11, but we we actually received a hundred thousand dollar grant from Bio, which is the the platform where we launched, and that allowed us to start moving before the auction even started. And we were able to convert that hundred k within two months, and this is mind you during Christmas and into the New Year.

And the auction started on February 18. On February 5, we had results from from this pilot screen, And we selected this this this one rare disease that we thought was going to be emblematic of a whole group of related disorders. And so we thought we had this ability to scale up pretty quickly. And then we also had a patient family and a and a and patient community that was behind it that was ready to take the science and and move on it. So all the pieces were aligned.

And so within two months, we get two clinical candidates, two drug repurposing candidates for for a hundred k, and we're filing IP NFTs or filing provisional patent on on the discovery, and then we'll we'll mint an IP NFT, as sort of our first real web three sort of native, you know, you know, contract foundation. And, but we're we're we're really excited now with our roadmap for '25 to scale up drug repurposing for for metabolic diseases using this yeast platform. And so I've been talking about the number of trying to scale up to 60 this year. We're not gonna get there in in one shot given sort of the size of the treasury and and the uncertainty in markets and wanting to be judicious, but we're gonna I'm rolling out a plan next week for, scaling up for to ten ten diseases that are related to the original one that we just got results on. So we're gonna 10 x, and, and then we should be able to accomplish that by and get the results by mid summer.

So we'll move lightning speed, basically at the same speed we moved when we did one one disease because, you know, our system is just so well worked out that we just need capital to to put fuel into it. Everything else is just is just ready to grind. So we're really excited to, parlay some of their auction proceeds into real results and show that we can also be scaling and getting cost savings as we're doing this and moving quickly. And then kind of forecasting through the rest of '25, you know, it will depend on markets and so forth and, frankly, what the price of sole sole is itself treasury is denominated in Seoul, but if we get a nice tailwind, then we may be able to accelerate faster. But we still have a plan to, get to sort of 60 diseases through the rest of the year, but we're gonna be kind of going in this first wave of 10, then we have a plan to scale up to do a wave of 20, and then we would try to knock out the last the last chunk.

Because we're also just getting more efficient with our process as we go and we we wanna make sure we don't almost drive too fast off the rails. Right. But, yeah, we still set this target for scaling up to 60 metabolic diseases over this year, but we're gonna take out this first chunk of 10, really prove that we can go from one to 10 and then and then start to start to share those results and start to, have have, you know, these organic And then one study start where where parents just decide they're going to in consultation with doctors to try some of the recommendations that come out of our drug repurposing screens and and then actually put them to the test in kids.

Very cool. Very exciting. Hey? Yeah. Would you can you explain the auction process and how integral that is to this whole ecosystem that you've created just because of, you know, the familiarity with that process and with blockchain may not be all that

So I had to learn kind of this stuff all myself. And I and and Yeah. In truth, deferred a lot to to Bio in terms of their recommendations because I wasn't the first bio DAO that they launched. There were several others, including, q q bio, quantum bio, long COVID bio. So I I was watching their auctions and watching that process.

So we did a couple of changes. We tried to sort of keep to the same template and and and sequence of events that those other auctions were done in. And I know I've gotten some complaints I've seen on x and other places about the auction and the bonding curve, and and some people have have complaints there. I don't have all the answers to that, but I I can address some of it. But one way that so so in terms of tokenomics, which we were very comparable, you know, you look at the Curetopia tokenomics page compared to, you know, if you buy a long COVID, it's it's quite comparable in terms of the the distribution.

We made a diff we made a change instead of launching on, on Ethereum, we launched on Solana. So we're the first bio bio DAO and decide to to to launch natively on Solana. And, we're really excited about that. And, actually, I was at the Solana Foundation last week in New York and, got to, got to check out their wonderful space, and I'm really excited for for their May, May Accelerate event. But, yeah.

So we we we we chose a different chain to to kind of launch on, but I think it's consistent with what you're seeing with pump.science today announcing, you know, their move on Solana and and and having community support longevity, longevity treatments and back them as individual compound coins. So I think Solana just feels like it's the most performant chain. It's where the volume is. You know? And just, you know, I'm not I'm not picking winners or losers, but it just felt like Ethereum has a lot of drama going on.

And so we changed that bit up. But, yeah, in terms of the auction mechanics and bonding curve, I I tell I I I can I can't get into the details there because I am not an expert? I I learned enough just to sort of survive the auction. But I I guess I would comment that it does appear that BIO is going to be launching a different, or has a new launch pad now that doesn't rely on, I think, the same exact auction setup that we had been using. So I'm not sure if that gets deprecated or changed or what happens.

That's really not my call.

Mhmm.

At this point, I'm really interested in just in building. And, but, yes, I I do know that people do have some, I think, complaints about the auction model. I think especially if they had been planning to sort of, frankly, dump the coin after the auction. Right. And and we're disappointed when we didn't release a lot of funds in liquidity pool because we told people the whole time that these are these are the treasury is for research.

It's not to Research research. Find liquidity so you can dump your coin. So I think there was some misunderstanding and some miscommunication, I think, there, but I think that just happens in in web three. But I think it's, it's a learning experience. As I said, my biggest challenge now is learning how to how to work with and, understand the the accents and the, you know, sort of the the hidden the hidden messages or the or the reading between the lines when it comes to kinda web three community.

Right. Right. Well, it's a brand new world. You're pioneering still, you know. This the forest has hardly been cleared.

You know? There's a lot there's still a lot to learn out there. Because the auction process is something it it's ongoing too. It's not you don't you don't you don't just stop there. You do it again and again, don't you?

Oh, yeah. We have another allocation for another, token sale. 10% supply has been set aside for, quote unquote, institutionals. But at this point, you know, like a lot of a lot of founders, you know, you you're in fundraising mode, you do it, and then and then you go back to then you go to executing mode. And then you go back to fundraising when you've done something with the money, and you can get a better evaluation.

So that's kind of the the formula that I have stuck with as a founder. At this point, especially because we're gonna stay ultra lean, I don't need to hire anybody else full time. I can run this Right. With with with a group of consultants supporting me, then we can we can stay super lean and and figure out what our options are as as the year goes by.

And conceivably, every time you sort of, you know, discover a new a rare an another rare disease that you wanna do research on, that would be an opportunity to have another option specifically for that.

Potentially. I mean, I wanna be mindful of, like, yeah, I think we wanna be focused more on platform approaches Right. And knocking out multiple sort of programs at once. But I also wanna be mindful of not just necessarily funding top of funnel stuff like discovery work, but also potentially more later clinical stage, more mature programs and helping

Right.

Push them to the finish line. So sort of diversifying. Yeah. Creating some little bit of balance there. But in the beginning, I think, like, we have we have a focus in '25.

We have a a a well vetted research plan. Definitely happy for the community to suggest things, but frankly, there isn't funding to support it. And I think also there is something that you said about focus and execution. And then once once we've done that, we've earned the right to to scale.

Are you exploring traditional funding measures as well? Or are you

I mean, I've had great conversations with, you know, both crypto and non crypto VCs, you know, tech VCs that that understand this, know, token networks. So I'm continuing those conversations. You know, no institutionals, you know, that are not web three native. I don't think participated in the auction as far as I know, but I I don't know. Like, I don't know everyone's wallet address.

But I think, yeah, I I think ultimately we're, you know, we we have a pretty diverse base of of, sort of cure utopia, you know, cures holders and it's it's a dynamic, you know, living thing. So, hopefully, I would love there to be some organic, you know, price action where we can have positive positive results. Right? And say we're moving down the field and and not just starting things, but but completing things. And then if that can justify, you know, platform expansion, by all means.

But I think, let's sort of just my my theory is let me just let me just show you what I can do when I cook. And then and then we need to scale. We can we can get a bigger kitchen.

Right. Exactly. Bigger chicken big bigger kitchen, bigger appliances, the whole whole bit. Right?

If you want a bigger chicken, you need a bigger kitchen.

Okay. So I can't ignore the fact that you are a doctor of philosophy. Right? Is that correct?

Well, it's a PhD, but it's in it's in molecular and cell biology. So I'm not sure how excited you were gonna get there.

Okay. Well, I was gonna ask you for your leadership philosophies and how as you're as you're moving forward in this in this new this new company, Drutopia, how are you implementing your personal leadership and personal philosophies and values into this into this company?

Yeah. Since I was just thinking about this because I I was you know, I have a set of values, I think, in life experiences and mentors, but I realized, I think I I was listening to, like, Scott Bessent, the new treasury secretary on on the all in pod, and he mentioned some of his his mentors, and people that he learned from. And I realized, wow. I I sort of have a gap in my business leadership knowledge canon because he was quoting all these famous and I know the names of the various great investors and such, but, like, you know, I had never read their great books on business or management or whatever and realizing I started to second guess myself, my god, I've been missing all this knowledge, because it sounds you know, I've heard some of these expressions that that have filtered down. But, yeah.

So I had a moment there where I thought maybe I need to spend a weekend reading the best business management canon, but, just to see what values I, you know, I can aspire to. But I think just in terms of my compass, you know, I think I said at the beginning, you know, I have a very simple animating drive. It's I want to end rare diseases. This is what I've devoted my life to, and and the why can trace back to this very specific moment in time, this very specific encounter with a very specific person. And the specificity of that is kind of, you know, what I go back to.

It's like the

Right.

It's the root of the well and Mhmm. The base of the well, and that's where I go back and draw inspiration. And so if anything, my values as a leader just come from channeling this this pure the pureness of the mission and why. Why are we doing this? And, and I you know, can I do it better?

Have I done it well? All I know is I've I've I've attracted great teams around me, and we've accomplished great things. And it's not because they like my sense of humor or, like, the way I dress. I think it's it must mean that I'm channeling this mission because I'm bringing these amazing people along with me to do really stressful things, and we could be doing easier things. And so yeah.

So I definitely wanna grow as a leader and know there's next levels to keep going, but I I do feel of a rock.

Well, it's very heart centered. That's my vibe is that it's very heart centered and, you know, I think that's what's getting you through doing all the tough things. You know? I mean, that's where

Totally.

That's how any of us do anything that's hard is, you know, when we're when we're led by our heart. So you're I mean, the story you told was right out of the gate, and it was obviously it's very meaningful to you. And I think that's you know, your compassion is is, is shining through all the time. You know? You're I mean, not everybody's gonna climb these kinds of mountains and, you know, you're doing things not only are you doing, you're tackling something that's already rare, you're actually doing it in a very rare way.

And so Right. You know, and you are you're you're you're you're forging into landscapes that some people haven't gone yet. So I don't know. I think huge kudos for you for taking this on, and and I've really enjoyed hearing where you're going with this. And I I, yeah, I'm gonna I'm a fan already.

I'm gonna be sticking close and and seeing what you're doing. And, yeah, it's very exciting to very exciting stuff. Do you have any do you have any inspiration or or advice for somebody who's, you know, maybe in your shoes or looking to do something spectacular or has some sort of mission or passion for their life as to how to move forward and and what steps to to take?

Yeah. It's funny. Someone just tweeted what I'm about to say, which is never be afraid to say that thing to somebody, you know, if you if you wanted to talk to a person at a conference and you're asking yourself, do I do I go? Or do you send that cold email? Or like, the answer is always do that.

Yeah. And as long as you lead with your passion and if you're and if and if you're of the kind of person I'm thinking, then you can't help but lead with your passion, then you're going to you're going to be noticed. And and when I was 16, I emailed a scientist with my dad's email account because I didn't have my own. And, and, like and then ended up kind of finding my first scientific mentor that way. And and I just thought, what do I have to lose?

So if I have anything to say to anybody and that that has led to, you know, getting investments from people like Martin Shkreli, the notorious pharma bro, to people like Mark Mark Cuban and and Y Combinator and Novartis. So,

yeah. It That's cool. Wow.

That that's a whole another set of stories. But, like, yeah.

Yeah. No kidding. That's an that's three or four more episodes. Episodes.

That's the unplugged, really unplugged version.

That's great advice. I think that's, that's important.

Just send the email. Do not hesitate. Just do it. You don't you just you do not put yourself out there. Your sheer genuineness will shine through to that person and even if it doesn't you strike out that once, just you never it will pay back in spades.

Just Yeah.

Just do it.

Just light the spark. Right? Yeah.

Mhmm. Light the spark.

Awesome. Well, is there anything else that we haven't discussed? Anything you would like to share, or any other information you like to, provide the audience with about what you're doing or what they can do? How they can get involved?

Yeah. Thanks, Heath. I would say just check out curetopia.xyz, and our site is going to go through some expanding of content soon now that we're post option and, a new project is is coming on online and other other pipeline prospects are are developing. So you can just get kind of information centralized there. Find Curetopia on Telegram, find Curetopia on X.

The handle is end rare diseases. I thought it was good to put the mission in the name. Plus some sneaky sneaky person took Utopia, the handle. So I was left with no other choice.

That's great. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Ethan. And it's been a pleasure to chat with you and to meet you. And, yes, I'm gonna stay in touch and keep track on what you're what you do over the coming months and years.

Sure. Thank you for the opportunity.

Okay. So that was pretty awesome. I did not know I was gonna be talking about how Ethan is bringing biotech to the blockchain, but his passion for wanting to, find cures for rare diseases and and what, brought him to utilizing the web three as a way to not only finance, but distribute the information about about his vision. It's certainly gonna come with its share of challenges for him, but I don't know if any if anyone's gonna be able to pull it off. I think it's gonna be Ethan.

So I look forward to hearing and seeing what he does in the coming weeks, months, years, and I hope you check him out. Thanks for listening, and stay tuned.