#77 Hacking Insulin
Scott Benner
Do it yourself insulin... what will the smart people think of next?
"The goal is to make and purify human insulin, and we want to do that in the simplest and least expensive way possible,” - Anthony DiFranco, Open Insulin Project.
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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Episode 77 of the Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by insulin makers of the Omni pod world's only tubeless insulin pump was so much talk in the news about epi pen pricing and now insulin costs. I thought this is the right time to talk to Anthony de Frankel, I heard you sit in your car, you just said Who? Anthony DeFranco. What does that mean? Anthony's a Yale grad, he is a super smart guy. He is a motivated gentleman. He's also got the spirit of a young man of an inventor of a scientist. And, and he wants to make the world a better place. He also has type one diabetes. And he's trying to make insulin by himself in a laboratory. Well, not by himself. There's something called the Open insulin project. There's a group of people in a lab that's crowd sourced, trying to make insulin. That sounded like an interesting conversation to have, especially with what's going on in the world today. Our conversation, you know, it just got deeper than I thought it was, you know, we started talking about the idea of making insulin and kind of a real scientific nuts and bolts and the patent ideas, and you know, all the intricacies of it. Our conversation quickly switched, and just started talking more about the ideas behind it. You know more about the community and the people. And I even sort of played devil's advocate and argued both sides. Because I have to admit, I also understand companies trying to make a profit. And I understand you not wanting your life to be about profit. So there's a lot of different aspects of this conversation. And Anthony did a pretty good job of talking about most of them. Let's see what you think.
Anthony 1:42
My name is Anthony DeFranco, of working on the open insulin project at counterculture labs in Oakland for about a year. I have type one diabetes myself, which is one of the reasons that it's an interesting question to work on for me. I was diagnosed with it about 10 years ago. So
Scott Benner 2:03
you in your you're in your early 30s. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the open insulin project, is, that's a fascinating idea. So tell me what that is. So
Anthony 2:16
in counterculture labs, I go to the labs, first of all, is a a hackerspace, focusing on biohacking. So people interested in biotechnology and bringing the knowledge and the tools of biotechnology to the people so to speak, letting people tinker with things that they're interested in and solve their own problems with these tools.
Scott Benner 2:48
And then the people who are people who are reasonably qualified to do those things are like, Can I come in and try to turn myself into Spider Man? Or what's the
Anthony 2:56
parameters of everything that happens is kind of bounded by how, how biology works. So I suppose you could come in and say that you wanted to try to turn yourself into Spider Man, and then you would get into some discussions about how that would be pretty difficult. And then if you didn't get the message, then, you know, people might think that it wasn't, it wasn't worth spending time trying to help you out.
Scott Benner 3:27
So so the collective group has conversations about all ideas that come in.
Anthony 3:35
Yeah, the way that you the way that people work on an idea is basically that they they put out a call to the group that they want to work on a certain project, and then others will come. And if they're interested, try to help out. Okay, so if no one is interested, then
Scott Benner 3:58
you don't get a response. Yeah,
Anthony 3:59
you know, you can try to I suppose you could try to go it alone, no one ever has.
That's really too difficult. Or something like this. So, so yeah, there's, there's kind of a built in informal vetting process just in how things work. And there are some guidelines on whether you can do anything
actually dangerous, so you can't. So there are these safety level guidelines that are kind of a facto standard in industry and academia, we follow those so you don't work with pathogens. You can't work with mammalian cells yet. But you can certainly do things in Eco Lyon neuesten, the open hands on project. That's plenty for the vegan cheese project that is also going on that is plenty. So, so those projects have gotten interest and they fall within the safety guidelines.
Scott Benner 5:18
So in this same in the same space, there's a group working on trying to develop insulin. And there's a group working on trying to develop vegan cheese.
Anthony 5:28
Yeah, there's, there's those two groups. And there's another group working on a bacterial sunscreen. So that's going to try to get Ecoli to express ultraviolet absorbing proteins. And
Scott Benner 5:49
that's amazing. Chase
Anthony 5:53
is also not just in our space, but there are a lot of collaborations between our space and BioCurious, which is down in Sunnyvale. Okay.
Scott Benner 5:59
So even from lab to lab, there's there's connections. Yeah, really amazing. The
Anthony 6:05
community is pretty big, pretty well, it's big. But also, there's, there's some to some degree, everyone knows everyone else. So it's like a big small world.
Scott Benner 6:18
So let me ask you one question before we kind of jump into the idea of of your insulin project. Because I've spoken to people in the past, who take something that pre exists, and they tinker with it, to change it or to make it work better for them. They don't appreciate the word hackers, but you guys use the word hackers. So I don't personally care one way or the other. I'm just how come you guys are comfortable with it? What is it about what you're doing?
Anthony 6:46
For me, it was something that ever since I was very young, I was comfortable with. I grew up in, in suburban Cleveland was pretty far removed from any kind of action, especially back in the 90s, when the internet was, you know, the web barely existed. But I was also very interested in computers, in part because it could connect you to this broader world of things going on. So I got into the computer culture and I, I saw this magazine called 2600, the hacker quarterly, and I said, Oh, that sounds cool. And maybe I can learn about things. I'm interested there. And they had editorials that would talk about hacker culture and hacker values. And they pointed me in the direction of some, some even older documents, like the hackers dictionary and the exploits of the hackers at MIT, going back now, like 4050 years. So that was what defines me what it meant to be a hacker was what it meant to the early pioneers of computing, which was not someone who had any kind of malicious intent, but was just someone who understood things at a deep level and good to go beneath the surface to accomplish things that others couldn't.
Scott Benner 8:54
you're diagnosed with type one diabetes in your 20s. And you know, you're going along what were you doing that? Were you? When were you in school? Were you Yeah, it was still in college. It was. It was literally my last semester during my undergraduate, so what was your degree? What was your undergrad degree? And And where'd you go?
Anthony 9:16
I was at Yale, and I studied computer science and math and physics.
Scott Benner 9:23
I was gonna go to Yale, but they didn't want me to come I
Anthony 9:25
should have asked nicely.
Scott Benner 9:29
I should see I probably went about it all wrong. When you when you get out of when you get out of here with that degree. I'm assuming you you continue on to grad school.
Anthony 9:39
Well, it was a little bit interesting for me because I, I got into I was accepted by the robotics program at a robotics lab was your science program at Carnegie Mellon? I was really eager to go but then I found that the last minute that I didn't have any funding and I would need to have gotten my own funding to, to actually go to grad school even though I was accepted. So it was a bit of a surprise for me. And also, I had just had untreated diabetes for six months. So I wasn't in the best of health, and I wasn't entirely on top of this task of going and getting my own funding. And it kind of fell through at the last minute. So I ended up looking for a job. And I, that's ultimately how I ended up to move, moving to the Bay Area.
Scott Benner 10:38
There are a number of companies that make insulin that all by all accounts work, as well as any insolence ever been on the planet so far. And it's really expensive. And not everyone can afford it. And I'm assuming that is that what led you into this idea is the idea that there are a lot of people around the world who don't have access to insulin.
Anthony 10:58
Well, oddly enough, that that came a little, a little bit after we had decided to try to make insulin. And we were trying to see like, well, who might be interested in helping us and I wasn't really, I kind of had a vague sense that there might be problems with access to insulin, but I had no idea the extent of the issue. Initial surance
Scott Benner 11:20
and yeah, hasn't been an issue for you and your wife has never been an issue for us. Well,
Anthony 11:24
you know, it's been, I've noticed that it's really expensive. You know, if I look at the bill, and what would have cost me before insurance, it's like, a staggering number. But I've never actually had to pay that. So I assumed that it was just part of the normal bullshit of how
Scott Benner 11:43
how they make how everyone makes their money. Exactly. Exactly. And how your hospital stay was $9 million. Your portion? 45. Yeah. Yeah.
Anthony 11:53
And so I'm, you know, I'm used to being an excuse for someone to move money from one column of a ledger over to another. And, you know, like, I'm just the middleman and I don't, none of that ever really touches me. But, but then, after we started the project, we discovered that not everyone has the kind of magical status that just makes things happen behind the scenes and makes them work out. Right, so. But anyway, the way we got started on it is, so So I'm in the Bay Area, I'm interested in hacking, and people are finding these things called hacker spaces, that sounds like my kind of place. So. And simultaneously, I was also interested in economic alternatives and community currencies in particular. And so I went out to some of those meetups I, I led a reading group about food back currencies for a while. And a lot of those people were kind of savvy activist types. And they also turned up in the hacker space. And so I thought, Alright, this is really interesting. This is a couple different important things coming together. And there's like a combination of like, the technical goals of going hackerspaces with the social goals and social concerns. So that was especially interesting. And then a group got together to found a hackerspace in Oakland, which is close to where I live in Berkeley. So I was very interested in helping out with that as called pseudo room. And that was more like, as far as the hacking goes, it was more focused on like computers and electronics, so a more standard hacker space, but then some of those people and some other people wanted to found a biohacking space. And that was also was really interesting to me, because simultaneously I'm pretty. I'm tinkering around with a lot of different ways to treat my diabetes, I got an insulin pump, I got a jet injector. I'm reading about all these different kinds of things. And, of course, being of a hacker mind. I'm interested in maybe building my own things because I noticed that all this stuff is very proprietary. A friend of mine introduced me to Barnaby Jack also who was a security researcher who was working on insulin pumps. And he basically found out that with a major brand of insulin pump, it is very easy to wirelessly control all of the features of it without knowing anything specific to the pump like the cereal Number like basically, they just didn't put the security in, you know, that also opened my eyes to the idea that if you someone with the knowledge could could make a really important contribution and advanced things past what all of these weird bureaucratic and economic constraints on institutional actors allow. I went to the Hackerspace. And I was kind of asking around and saying, Hey, does anyone want anyone wants to be interested in working on like an open hardware open software, insulin pump, and I was going around asking people about that a lot. I was also looking into
ways to measure glucose, the wouldn't use consumable supplies. So we used to administer ways to administer insulin ways to measure blood glucose, that didn't require consumable supplies, because that was a big frustration is that I've got this waste train going by me every day. And, you know, every, every little thing that I'm using up and throwing away has a little price tag attached to it. And I'm very aware of that. And I don't want to create this waste. I don't want to spend this money. And this money might be prohibitive to someone else, of course, doesn't have to spend. So I was looking into jet injectors, I was looking into radio frequency spectrum spectroscopy for measuring blood glucose. I'm just throwing those ideas out there and hackerspace to anyone who would listen. And some of the biohackers were people of a biohacking event were interested in that sort of thing. And eventually, well, well, after that some people's attention turns to making the insulin itself. And initially, I wasn't that interested in making the insulin itself, because it's pretty easy to get the insulin seems to me like it would be kind of hard to make it versus buying it.
Scott Benner 17:24
Right. And it didn't, it also doesn't fix a problem as far as as a waste trail. It's it wasn't where your mind was, I guess it in that space? Well, it turns out that
Anthony 17:39
shipping all of this stuff around from these centralized distribution points in refrigerated trucks isn't the most efficient way to do it, necessarily. And it also, that is one of the main barriers to access to insulin in places that don't have good infrastructure that can that can support this supply, chain
Scott Benner 18:04
it cold and support it and move it around about that. So and that
Anthony 18:08
ties into another theme that came up in, in the the economic, alternative economics groups I was a part of, and people who are interested into, like decentralized, peer to peer infrastructure, like it turns out that running these really long supply chains from these centralized distribution points is just very economically inefficient. And a big part of the reason why it happens is that it is subsidized in various ways. Like it doesn't make economic sense to just make stuff in one big factory and then ship it all around the world versus having lots of little factories that would be closer to the point of use. So that was also something that started to work its way into this picture around insulin, those developing my mind. So
Scott Benner 19:05
So, so are you making are you making insulin? I mean, obviously, you can't copy somebody's I'm assuming recipe still a word you would use, but you can't use someone's formula. And so you start from scratch. And are you using the same ingredients, the same processes, or did you just completely start new?
Anthony 19:25
Well, that's that's kind of a complicated question. So the first the first thing that we were trying, that came out of the talks that were specifically about making insulin was to make like a bio reactor, basically just like a fermenting machine that has provisions to like control the temperature and the pH and other things that are important to the yeast growing and you would, like load your yeast in yeast would have the insulin gene and maybe you would have it would put a tag on the end on protein that would instruct the machinery of the cell to excrete the yeast out out of the cells, and then maybe could try to purify it from that solution that the yeast is growing in. So, so that was the first idea for how to make insulin that encompasses part of how someone makes insulin industry, which is the process control part, I guess, then we found that there was this other part that we weren't paying attention to those really important, which is what kind of a gene do you actually introduce? What kind of modifications to the organisms you actually make such that it produces insulin? Which organism do you use? How specifically, do you purify insulin? How do you get it out? Or the purify it? So then we decided that actually it was premature to think about automating something that didn't know what it was you're automating. So switch the focus to these questions that you just mentioned, wishes, what is the recipe in the first place, and so then made the acquaintance through this network of people who are interested in insulin have as a yonemoto, who had Currently he's working on open source cancer treatments. In the past, he had done work in an academic setting with insulin. So he was able to give us a quick overview of how it's produced, what the issues are, and producing it that potentially difficult some sense of how the different major pharmaceutical companies different how they produce it, and what we might try to successfully produce it in our small scale setting with restricted resources. So that pretty much gave us the knowledge, we needed to go ahead and try to figure out our own recipe for this. And there's also a lot of existing literature. And for that, we had to take into account some of these concerns that you mentioned, which is, is some aspect of some process patented, or otherwise. And a patent isn't a barrier to doing something for research purposes. But it is a barrier to producing it for other people to use, since we had simultaneously been learning that this question of access to insulin is a big important one. We thought whatever we did, we should try to do it such that other people could could hypothetically use use the product in the end. Because there's a lot of steps in between working out a new protocol that you hoped would be simpler and having that a commercial product. And some of those reasons are totally legitimate issues of safety and efficacy. And some of them are just huge set of layers of bureaucracy that are imposed on top of those questions. And between the two, we decided we would just focus on testing an idea we had for making the insulin and ecoli in the simplest possible way we could think of and then refer to the existing literature on how you make insulin ecoli. And for all the steps that we weren't specifying and thinking of trying to innovate on and looking at literature that was old enough that there probably wouldn't be patent questions. That's very hard to be sure about whether there are patent questions or not, because it's a very complex area of law. And I think ultimately, that would also be something where we'd have to get, get an expert to look at it if if there was a more concrete reason to have a closer look. Plus, I,
Scott Benner 24:15
I would imagine that people who have patents on those processes aren't making them. I mean, would they do they have to be shared? I guess, because they're patented? Are you able to see them? Or is it? Well,
Anthony 24:27
theoretically, that's the whole reason, or one of the main reasons that patents exist is to get people to publicly disclose their inventions. So that's what a patent application is. It's supposed to be this public disclosure of your invention. It is sufficiently detailed that someone else could be produce it and the idea was that you would, you'd be given a monopoly for a very limited time and in return, you would have to publicly disclose your invention and then, once your monopoly expired, which was supposed to be soon after the pen was made added, then, you know, everyone else would be able to compete with you and produce it and so supposed to be a net economic gain are supposed to be a net increase in the competitiveness of the market. Sadly, that's not how it really ended up working out because the term kept getting extended and the producers started to collude around. Like holding up patents that they could threaten each other with, and it ended up forcing smaller players out of the market, out of markets that have a lot of patents in them entirely. And so it just became this really strong force for creating monopolies and oligopolies and centralizing markets. So
Scott Benner 25:52
you just sort of broke my heart a little bit, because now I'm recognizing that that old Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial where they said the recipe for the chicken was locked in a safe, it's not it's public, I could figure out how to make that chicken right now, if
Anthony 26:03
I don't know that the trade secret is different from a bet. And so a trade secret is something that a company decides not to publicly disclose. And for some reason, these have legal protections to. So and that's like it's really, it's really interesting, because that's, it's like another tactic that you can, that a company can employ to prevent people from competing with it. That, like doesn't even pretend to have any kind of public good in mind, and how, how it works, it's just like, Yeah, you're a company, you can keep secrets, and the law will help you do that. And so that's, I think that's one of these things, as met earlier, I was talking about, you know, subsidies to the centralization of the economy where it might not be economical to have things be as centralized as they are, but institutions help out. And I think that's definitely one of them. And the patent system.
Scott Benner 27:08
How far into the ERP, first of all, it says Fanta, I love talking to you, because this is like the we're like the goofy single line of intelligence, I ask you a stupid question. And for five minutes, you answer it really well thought out intelligence?
Anthony 27:22
Well, it's only because I've been hanging out with these nerves for 10 years, we've been talking about this stuff that I have any idea and regardless of that, like we're still so far away from being able to actually navigate the specific complexities of something like the patent system that does it. It's interesting, yeah. But it's like, we still have a long way to go to.
Scott Benner 27:45
So then, then let's theorize and make ask a question for sexy she, you start out with a bunch of well intended people in a small like crowdfunded lab, trying to make insulin in a way that, you know, is different new, and maybe would make it possible for people to make in smaller labs around the world. So there wouldn't be infrastructure problems around moving the insulin to people who need it. But is the irony that if you figured out how to do it, that you'd have to become a multibillion dollar corporation to get it accomplished. Do you think you'd end up becoming the thing you're working around at the moment? Well, and would because of the way the system is set up, but it almost be necessary for that to happen?
Anthony 28:29
Well, that's a hard question, but I don't. So I think if if our work is going to in any way be the basis of a product, we're not going to be the ones to directly manufacture it is not completely out of the question. But as we've both kind of alluded to, like, setting up a company that complies with all the regulations takes an enormous amount of effort and capital. And that is part of what makes the market not a competitive market. So
Scott Benner 29:02
so if you got to that spot, you would need someone to come in who was big enough, but not too big to want to take that idea and move it to the next slide.
Anthony 29:09
Yeah. And that's basically your narrative manufacturers. And it's a little this is where it's a little dicey, because it's not like a generic manufacturer couldn't work this out on their own. So and we're seeing with the the EpiPen coverage and all of the scrutiny that's going on on generics now that we're reminded of the fact that big companies can actually bribe smaller companies to not compete with them. And this is, this is, I believe, this is protected by law. This is not seen as an anti competitive measure. Which is probably has at least a few economists rolling in their graves right now like the idea that a big player In a market bribing a small player in a market to not compete with them is not just
Scott Benner 30:04
to say, look here, we're gonna be on the up and obvious of money and don't do this. Yeah, you know what, I always wonder if that if it's a wives tale that story of so long ago that a gentleman invented a light bulb that wouldn't burn out. And General Electric had him come in for a meeting had him bring in all of his plans and all of his drawings and all of his all of his light bulbs, and they bought it from him and destroyed it all right in front of them before he left the room, I always wonder if that's a if that's a wives tale, or if it's really something that happened was
Anthony 30:34
not literally a good metaphor for how a lot of things work. So
Scott Benner 30:42
because that because that really becomes interesting, because if you got to a point where it was a scalable sellable idea, you I'm assuming, because of where you started and what your goal is, you'd want to make sure it got it got brought to market but how do you even know that you're selling it to the right person in that spot, like like to the right entity to a company who's really going to take your baby and, and move it along the way it needs to be raised? It's such a it's such a oh my god, I don't know. Let's Let's get off of that because it's breaking my heart a little bit. So so how far have you come have you made insulin and
Anthony 31:16
feels your babies from you? Is the bottom line I guess? So that's
Scott Benner 31:21
the name of this episode. The system steals your baby's bed so have you made insulin? Have you ever brought your own blood sugar down with something you've created? Alright, let's take a break from this futuristic talk about Anthony and him one day making insulin in his kitchen with something similar to a bread machine or a food processor. And talk about today. The now the right now the how to stay healthy today. I'm going to mention this again because I think it just makes the point. So well. Arden's latest endocrinologist appointment Hey, once he was 5.7 standard deviation is fantastic. No crazy highs, no crazy lows, a nice steady blood sugar. How does that happen? Well, it happens with fine tuning insulin, it happens when you understand how insulin works in your body. And when you understand the timing of insulin, you know little Bolus is here little bumps and Basal rates. They're little Bolus, little Basal Bolus. So basically, it's a give and take. It's a process. It's a daily adjustment. Sometimes it's an hourly adjustment. So you kind of just can't make these adjustments. You know, with injections. I mean, I guess you could if you want to inject yourself a ton of times, but if you saw how many times Arden gets insulin during the day, or how many times we make small adjustments to Basal rates, you would see that it's a lot easier with an insulin pump. The Omnipod insulin pump makes it even that much better. Why? Because it's tubeless because it doesn't have to disconnect for activities, or showering or swimming or, you know, sports. So you're constantly 24 hours a day able to make the small adjustments that keep your blood sugar stable, steady. And where you want it to be telling you right now, my daughter's a one C is never ever going to be a 5.7. Without the technology that we use today. He does any huge part. Due to the on the bottom, just go to my on the pod.com Ford slash demo to try a free no obligation nonfunctioning pod today, you try it on you see how you'll like it. You'll see you do like it. And then you'll make the switch my omnipod.com forward slash demo where the links in your show notes to remember the last question I asked Anthony, have you ever injected insulin that you've made into yourself?
Anthony 33:30
Oh, no, no, not even a long a long time before I ever considered injecting myself was something that came out of my own.
Scott Benner 33:43
When it wouldn't be it's not even it's not even legal right to do something like you couldn't use it anymore. I
Anthony 33:47
don't know. I think if I made it and I use it, and no one else is involved. It might be fine. Or at least, I think there was I'm not sure how the law works or you know, the law might even contradict itself on this point, which is often does, but there was a I think there was a public remark by an FDA regulator at like a Biohacking Conference where he said, we're not we don't care about people doing things to themselves, we regulate the market. So it you know, we become interested when you're trying to put things out for the public to use as well,
Scott Benner 34:23
not to oversimplify and to stick with our SpiderMan concept from earlier but I do want to caution you that Harry Osborne was at some point just a good guy who wanted to see if his Green Goblin formula work and so I do want you to be I do want you to be very careful, Anthony. But, and I had to dumb it down a little bit here so so so I could feel better about the conversation for a second. i Your yell hits me right in the face once in a while while you're talking. I was like wow, I thought it was bright. And then Anthony started talking and I realized
Anthony 34:50
I'm like an average guy using using SAP words on you. No,
Scott Benner 34:54
no, it's not that it's the it's the you probably don't to get off topic for a second you probably don't hear But your thoughts are very clear and linear. And when you speak, it's so obvious that you understand from soup to nuts, exactly what you're talking about, and all of the effects that come in from around that, that that subject, it's, I don't know how many people you talk to who aren't like you in the course of a day, but sometimes words just come out of my mouth. And then later, I think, Hmm, that didn't really have any purpose. But but you're in this situation, and maybe listen, maybe I get you at home, I pull out a PlayStation six back, and maybe you don't make any sense either. I don't know. But but your your mind works in a very specific way that I imagine lends to the things that you love to do. And, and probably, you know, is what got you looking for hacker magazines when you were a kid. But it's really interesting to hear you speak because you're not telling a story. You're, you're recounting steps. And it's there's a difference. And it's very interesting. So I appreciate it. But you're just reminding me that I'm not very bright.
Anthony 36:02
No, I mean, I think a lot of it is just that, I've had to understand this very clearly, in order to talk about it with other people, and now completely waste their time. And so I've tried to, you know, get get a clearer sense of, of, of how everything works beforehand, before I go and go on your podcast.
Scott Benner 36:26
I appreciate that. So I really appreciate asked me you did way more than I did not
Anthony 36:29
have? Yeah, if I had had a six pack before this podcast, I probably would not be making as much sense.
Scott Benner 36:35
So maybe we'll try to write about it. Try that one time. So okay,
Anthony 36:40
so anyway, so we're, yeah, have we made insulin? No, here's what we've done so. So we, we decided we would just start with the normal the gene, the gene that produces insulin in humans exactly as it is in humans. And then we have some ideas for how we might tinker with that in the future, to make it easier to produce, but right now we're just working with it. Straight out of humans. Taking that we're putting it into a plasmid, which is a circular piece of DNA that bacteria can use. And we're putting that into E. Coli. And we're growing up the E. coli, we're inducing them to express the insulin and we're trying to purify the pro insulin. I'm trying to purify that out. And see if we've actually done that, because that's the first step that we need to do before we can do anything else. So this is just kind of shaking down our, our technique and our equipment in the lab and going through the basic steps that we need to go through that we need to use to to build out everything else that you want to do on. So we have done that has been what we've been doing for most of the past year, is going through iterations of that and finding problems and starting back over from the beginning, so and
Scott Benner 38:18
so. So a year you've been at it for a year, how do you are you
Anthony 38:22
most of the year, I think we really started the lab work and like January, are
Scott Benner 38:26
we talking about every day, like a full time job? Or are you it's just something you do in your spare time? How does that work?
Anthony 38:34
So I have other work to do, and everyone else does as well. And that's part of what has made made it difficult to make progress. I mean, I've talked to people who have worked in academic labs, and they've said that the rate that we're making progress that is actually pretty comparable to what they've seen. So that's encouraging, but just looking at it, from our perspective, the most, the most talented and experienced people in the techniques that we're using, are people who skills are in high demand. So often they have they have jobs, and if if they don't at the time, then they're gonna go get one very soon because a lot of people are interested in working with them. So
Scott Benner 39:28
what is that is we have a sideways goal of yours like are you hoping someone kind of like in academia comes by and says, Hey, this is a great idea. We'd like to take it in house and fund it.
Anthony 39:39
Well, some, there are some hints that we might be able to collaborate with people in academic labs, so we're still trying to figure that out. But hopefully, yes, it would be great if the this collaboration became bigger and more people got involved in our project and if multiple independent Efforts sprang up around the idea, all of those things would be awesome. And I'm trying to do whatever I can to, to help that along. So that that's something that we're still working on. And meanwhile, in the lab, we're working on just the basics, we want to hit this first milestone of making the human pro insulin. And then just to clarify, pro Insulin is the protein that is coded for directly by the insulin gene. And when it comes right out of the ribosome, in order to turn that protein into the actual active form of insulin, a couple of things need to happen, some enzymes need to look by and cut out the middle part and bring the two ends of it together in a specific way. And then you have actual insulin. So the middle part is the C peptide, which is used. That's what they're testing for, to see if you have type one diabetes, if you have no C peptide, then they know that you aren't producing insulin. So you may have heard of it. No, yeah, that and there's some, some speculation that it might have some some role in in making you healthier in some way. But so I've heard as far as anyone
Scott Benner 41:24
answer now, let me just say I have an older gentleman, who, who I've spoken to in the past said that the C peptide doesn't exist in manmade insulin anymore, but it did at one point. And that he felt that there was a decline in his overall health after those in that switch and insulin happened. And he doesn't base it on any, you know, study or anything like that. It's just it's a feeling he had about his own life. And it's interesting.
Anthony 41:52
Yeah, that's interesting, because, and I know that some people like animal insulin better. But and I don't know if those keep the C peptide or not. But they might. But But yeah, so that was another thing that I was actually interested in was, this is a long time ago. Um, it was one of the things that got me interested in it was, you know, if we were making our insulin, we could keep the C peptide or something. Actually, now that I look at the details, it might, it might be a fair amount of trouble to do that. But suddenly, we could try it, have control over the products
Scott Benner 42:26
interesting. So so the last year has just shown you just from our quick conversation here that you could see why C peptide might have been removed from manmade insulin. It adds to the process to the problem of the process. Well,
Anthony 42:40
if you know, if we weren't like a ragtag group of rogues in an old bocce court in Oakland, trying to make insulin like, it would be a lot, a lot harder to justify skipping, shooting, and I think, because the the marginal cost of, of the, of the drug itself is, is miniscule. It's hard to say how close to zero but I think it's it's zero for all practical purposes. So to put the C peptide in, I don't think that would really change anyone's bottom line very much, especially given these, these insane margins that they have, that they have complete control over where they could just change the price whenever they feel like it. So it makes me
Scott Benner 43:27
wonder to because, because we were talking about before how a drug eventually does go off. Patent, it goes to generic, and then the company who it's funny, Anthony, because I see both sides of it, you know, I I wish insulin was cheaper and more readily available. And at the same time, you know, you're described over the last 45 minutes, the process of just this, you know, trying to get this one idea down, it's obviously it's, it's a huge undertaking. Companies are probably bringing in some really great minds on it, they're paying them the money that they deserve. You know, they're they're getting them their health insurance, and, you know, putting a building up and making labs, everyone's got costs in it, they probably have tried 150 million things prior to this that didn't work out that we don't know about that they had to fund to. And at the same time, they are making pretty amazing profits. So that's hard to argue with but but but I guess the idea is, is if if once they're once they're they finally hit a product that works and it helps people and it's in the market and they're making money on it, then the then they lose their patent on it, then they have to change the molecule a little bit so they can re patent it differently so they can continue to market it, sell it help people make a profit, keep the company going for the next thing. It's a maybe that's how something like C peptide gets taken out. At some point. Maybe it's just the company saying, Hey, we have to change this molecule enough that it's something we can re patent.
Anthony 44:54
Yeah, well, there I don't. Again, this is an area of law. Although it's really complex, and I can't say anything for sure about it, but I do know that they just, they just changed the formulation of Lantus or whatever. I think it's the same company. It makes scientists. You know, this Tojo thing. Yes. Which is totally not the admirals, Japan, World War Two.
Scott Benner 45:21
They're running out of names for drugs. Yeah.
Anthony 45:25
But in any case, I think that was just making it three times more concentrated, right. So. And they did some studies to say that it might be better, but I think it was all inconclusive. But in any case, it was a new formulation. So it's this new thing, and it's got a new name. And I think that, that renews some set of things, it might just be that it refreshes their marketing around it, which is actually a big part of the puzzle. And it's not something that is talked about. Yeah, so So you know, a lot of what keeps the new drugs, pushing the old drugs off the market is just marketing, and not necessarily the IP considerations alone. So
Scott Benner 46:13
it's interesting, because I mean, you know, there's, if you take away if you start, if you put, we've pulled the curtain back, if you put the curtain back, and everything seems nice again, you know, like, on the surface, I can talk about and say, you know, I'm up for people doing anything, because like, my daughter uses an insulin that I don't think as many people use, and it works really well for her. And she tried others before that it didn't work as well for her. So I, I liked the idea that there's more and more than stuff to try the reasons why it happens. I'm stuck between caring and not caring, like, like, Do you know what I mean? Like, like, what do I care why it happens, as long as it's happening, and we're getting different products, and some of them might be better. And at the same time, not caring probably leads to a blind eye, and the Blind Eye probably turns into insulin costing way more than it should, and not just insulin by liver, but other things like that. And so there's a line to walk between living your life and being an advocate, like I guess, in the space, and you're steeped in one side of it pretty deeply. And, and but at the same time, you're a person living with diabetes. And and if we go back a half an hour and listen to you say it again, like, if there was a point in your life where you were just like, look, I've got insurance, I asked for the insulin, it shows up, I give them 20 bucks for it, and it's mine, you know, so and there's, I mean, you have to admit, it was probably more fun living like that than living like this now, right?
Anthony 47:38
Well, I don't know, like, a lot of what got me on this road was I looked at what the academic researchers were doing. And then I looked at what was on the market. And I said, you know, I want some of the stuff that those academic researchers are doing, and I want to try it out. And I think I'm probably smart enough not to kill myself, so. And then I started to look at, you know, there are things that have pretty good evidence that they work pretty well, and they still aren't a product. And, you know, why is that? And why does that happen? Yeah, so. So there's this idea that you mentioned a couple of minutes ago, which is that you just kind of hand these large companies, essentially free money, and that you can trust them to put that into research. And then you can trust them to go over everything that they research and bring the best of it to market. But I have not seen things work out that way. I've seen them take that free money that they're handed and put a lot of it into marketing to support their existing products, which is also them much lower risk strategy. So you can kind of understand why they would do that. But it's, and I've seen them give a lot of that money to their executives as well. But
Scott Benner 49:02
it's funny what you just said, I tried to finish your thought I'm sorry. Yeah. So
Anthony 49:06
so none of that actually is, is I think doing nearly as much as could be done to get the best research done and get the fruits of that research out to the patients. There are a lot of places in in this process that exists where that gets sidetracked. And to the point where if I just look at what people are doing in university labs with way less funding, I see all of these amazing things that I think people should at least be able to try and can't yet. So how do we make that happen? I don't know. But so
Scott Benner 49:43
playing devil's advocate for a second and it's interesting because what you brought up as it's so much money goes into marketing, right? So, on one hand, having different companies in the same space is good because it spurs on everybody to do better to keep trying to Trying to beat each other, but then part of the idea of trying to beat each other and is they have to sell it at the end. And so then so much effort goes into marketing at that. So little effort goes into the rest of it, it almost makes me feel like, you know, to draw a strange parallel, but like the DC Comics movies that are out now, like, you know, like Suicide Squad just came out. And there was so much marketing into putting that movie onto the on, you know, into the world and make sure that people went and saw it. And you wonder, wouldn't they have just gone and seen it anyway, had you just made a better movie, like you don't even like, if you would have put a quarter of the effort into making the thing, as you put into making sure I'd go see it, maybe I would have just heard about it from someone else and gone on my own. And I wonder about that, too, like, maybe if the drugs were just that much better. And the insurance companies, the formularies, and all that other crap wasn't in the way, maybe somebody would just hear from somebody else, like, look, I use this insulin. And to be honest, I don't get as many you know, you know, roll, I don't go on the roller coasters. Often, my blood sugar doesn't shoot up after I eat or whatever it ends up being. And then at the same time, I feel like I see the other side of it, like I get it, like we've got this drug, we put all this money into making it, we need to get in the hands, the more hands we get into, the more money we make, the more we can do more things and, and but then it becomes what you're talking about too. And then But then suddenly, there's some guy at the top who's, you know, whose wife was driving around in a Mercedes on the company's dime or something like that? Or, you know, that's probably the least of it, to be perfectly honest. It's just such a, it's such a strange thing, because infine I think that most of the innovation that exists in this country, comes from capitalism. And at the same time, I can tell you that most of the roadblock to innovation in this country comes from capitalism. So what's the answer? You don't? I mean? Well, I think you might not agree with me? I'm not sure.
Anthony 51:54
I don't know. Like, I don't think I would say that the innovation comes from capitalism, I think that capitalism is really good. And, you know, capitalism could mean a million different things to different people. So I'll say that, for what I mean, right now is a system where you, you have to let the market incentives determine outcomes. I think that's really good at taking a bunch of known quantities and making small decisions to optimize the efficiency of what you're doing. But I don't think it's good for making big leaps and big changes in how you do things that could change how whole portions of the overall system works. Because if you think of the the invisible hand and where it's pushing you, it's, this is this is a really kind of nerdy idea from, like optimization theory, which is something I studied in college, but it's a really important idea, thanks for the discussion is that I think that like, if you imagine that you're imagine you're on this landscape of possibilities, and you're trying to get to the highest point on this landscape, the the invisible hand of market forces is, is going to always lead you to look at where you're standing right now and head up. And so that's going to eventually lead you to the top of whatever hill you happen to start out on. And then you're going to get to the top of that hill, and you're going to look around and every direction is going to be down. So you're just gonna stay there. But if you stop looking just at your own feet, and you look out across the landscape, and try to see as far as you can and look around in every direction, you might find that there's another hill that is much higher, and you might have to walk down the hill you're on to climb up this other one, it is there's a much higher one. And, you know, you have to endure that period of going down for a while, but you're going to be much better off in the long run. And that is something that market forces fight every step of the way. Because as soon as you start trying to go down, they say, No, no, no, go right back up, you're going down. But actually, you know, there's this longer term consideration in play where if you, you know, you have to go down a while to get higher sometimes. So that's where I think I'm taking these short term incentives off of people and just letting them follow their own curiosity is really important. And that's what I think is the advantage of the hackerspace is you can do Whatever you want, whatever crazy possibility you're interested in, if you're interested in it, like, that's all that you need to get started. And, you know, you need to get the resources from somewhere. And that's another place where like, the market forces are kind of fighting you, but fundamentally, like you're in control of where you head on this landscape. And I think individual people are much better than any kind of bureaucratic organization or corporation is in, in looking out on the landscape and just seeing where their imagination says there might be the much higher summit that they could get up to. So I think we need to. And if we look at kind of the history of science, like I'll have to find the historian of science who's actually documented this for you and get back to you. But the most vibrant periods of science and technology, I think, are the ones where you had a lot of small independent actors are working on lots of different things. Fundamentally, science is experimental, because it deals with uncertain things. So you just need to try lots of different things. And just having a few big organizations pushing a ton of resources, after very few ideas, probably isn't the best strategy for uncovering what, where's you know, the general region of the truth lies. Because it's, it's a big space that you're exploring this space of all, all possibilities in some intricate technical field. So you need to spread out when you do that.
Scott Benner 56:51
It just, it seems like, it seems like when it's one person driven by their own motivation, and their motivation isn't to make money, then their motivation just seems to be to find good and what they're doing and do more good and find a way to do good, better. And, you know, it just as you're talking, I mean, obviously, you can't wave a magic wand over the world and make a change. But, you know, if companies that made drugs as an example, or things that helped people in general, I guess, if those things were not privatized, if they were, you know, I don't, I don't even know what to say, you know, if they were an organization that was was run like a business, you know, but not like a business, and they could keep it to keep themselves going and keep doing good, then maybe we would find more things like what you're talking about more more ideas, you know, small ideas that become big ideas, and, you know, ideas off in the distance that that nobody's focusing on, because there's no way to market it and package it and sell it. Yeah,
Anthony 57:55
this is, and this is actually in a way, a pretty hot topic in like the, what do we do about the economy, alternative economic spaces, is like the idea of a basic income or something that we're just free people up to, to some extent, to do what they themselves determined they want to do, or to have at least some idea of, at least some portion of your time is your own. And you don't have to spend all of your time
Scott Benner 58:32
trying to get out of the rat race. Yeah, or doing
Anthony 58:34
what you need to do for money. You know, there's a lot of brilliant lines. I mean, this is something I'm aware of, because I come from a kind of working class background, and the people around me, they were quite smart, but they were so. So like, oppressed by the concerns of, of either trying to get money or trying to turn that into some sort of a status to get get out of the straits, they were in into slightly less desperate ones, that, you know, their minds were just there, they had the minds that could be contributing to something like science or the public good in some way. But they were
Scott Benner 59:18
spent their day making money to buy a loaf of bread so they could eat the bread so they could go back to sleep to get up in the morning and make more money to buy more bread.
Anthony 59:25
Yeah, it wasn't quite a loaf of bread, but it was it was basically that they weren't, they were looking at their own feet then. And you know, if you take a brilliant brain, but the eyes are just looking down at the ground, nothing happens. So I think we need whatever the mechanism is we need to get people looking around at all the possibilities around them and working on that. And for that you have to kind of free people up a little bit and you can't just turn the screws on them with with, you know, strongest possible economy. Nik incentives you can arrange,
Scott Benner 1:00:01
you know, it sounds such, like what you just said made me feel like it'd be so cool if even just the pharma company would just put together, you know, a couple of labs and make them like, after hours accessible to their employees, like, you know, just to just to let them go in and, and tinker, like give them that freedom, like, maybe it's a person who can't pull themselves away from their nine to five job because of their responsibilities, but would still love to be involved in things like you're talking about, and maybe it doesn't even have to stop at pharma companies or science or, you know, like, I don't know, you know, just, you know, you try to imagine all the people that work at a company who are great at social media in their personal life, but have nothing to do with your marketing department, while your marketing departments off spending all kinds of money trying to find a way to reach people. You know, I find myself saying that a couple of times a year when when companies contact me to talk about stuff. And it's funny that in the course of the conversation, what I recognize is that they're asking me, I have this big, you know, I have this big group of people, and they all went to college for this one thing, and we can't reach as many people online as you do at home sitting in a pair of shorts and a T shirt. How does that happen? You know, and what do you think, Scott? And then when you tell them what you think, they immediately say, most of them, there's some that haven't, but most of them say, well, that's not how we do it. And then they just just discard your idea. And I was like, wow, so you came you asked, how do we break out of this cycle we're in? I give you an answer. And you say, oh, that's an Fittler cycle, though. It's just such an interesting, you know what I mean? Like, it's just interesting how people's minds work. They're doing something that they know, is repetitive and silly, and getting them nowhere and costing them way more than it should. And the minute you say, Well, yeah, try this, they go, Well, that's not how it's done. It's just, it's people's minds work that way, for reasons that not all people, but a lot of people's minds work that way. And it's it's maddening.
Anthony 1:02:03
Yeah, no, I think that's just what happens when you put people in this context where, where everyone knows that things work a certain way, and that there are consequences if you don't do things that way. And it has nothing to do with the results that you're getting. And you're not allowed to have your own agency and take your own initiative and take risks. And so that, you know, those people might have just been ticking off a box on the procedure that said, like, look into alternatives. And they looked into them, or, you know, who knows, or maybe they're just genuinely interested, but there's nothing they can do.
Scott Benner 1:02:43
So I also think that sometimes you're, you know, you get into a job and you're a younger guy that we didn't ask, you're married, or you have kids or anything, I imagine you don't. Yeah, actually, I don't. Okay, just because I imagine you don't, because you have a lot of time. And so
Anthony 1:02:59
a lot of time, but I would have even, you know, I couldn't even think of doing this, right? Otherwise, that's what I meant. That happens, like, like, I was hoping that the hackerspace would become this kind of neutral ground where people from the companies can go after hours, and then meet up with people who are in academia and meet up with just random people who are interested and are not part of any institution, and they could all come together and you know, talk to each other work together, see what happens. But the few from the companies are super busy, because they lead this, you know, corporate life, and they probably do have families and kids and like, that's their life. That's it. Yeah. And it's
Scott Benner 1:03:42
not that easy to walk away from once you've got a kid who wants to go to college and a house that they live in, and the car that gets them to where they're going and, you know, everyone needs to eat and have health insurance and, and sort of, maybe it is just a young man's game, like the idea of, of, you know, pushing, pushing limits might be a younger person's thing, because, you know, I've listened I've spoken to people or companies, I just had a conversation recently. I hope the person is listening terrible at their job. Okay, and so you realize towards the end of their career, just look, I just got to come in here a couple 100 More times not screw this up too much. I get a pension. I leave you don't you mean like, I'm just trying to get to the end. And even that Anthony is understandable. You know what, on a human level, like, Look, I've put, I've put decades into this. I'm almost done. I'm not screwing this up now, with your fancy new idea that probably nobody's going to like and I'm going to look like I'm the the author of this bad idea when it's over. And, and it's, it's it's very simple to see how we get stuck into ruts like this. It's easy to understand.
Anthony 1:04:48
It's the wrong incentives for anything involving science. Frankly.
Scott Benner 1:04:55
While you were making me think you're making me think that it's a podcast by I started it a year and a half ago, maybe. And I was just initially trying to just branch my blog out. And I thought people weren't reading as much, I'll try a podcast. And now I might get an email or a note or a message daily from someone who's like, all I'm doing is listening to the stories on the podcast. And trust me, I think I'm no great like diabetes, like genius. We just talking to a lot of people who have type one diabetes, coming up with ideas, you know, around, you know, Pre-Bolus insulin or, you know, or, you know, changing Basal rates, or just kind of, you know, how you think of your blood sugar. And I'm getting notes every day that say, my agency went down a point went down a point and a half went down two points, my kids agency went down two points. And all I'm doing is listening to the podcast, being a little more aggressive with insulin, or whatever it is, we're talking about in the moment. And so it's my inclination to want to take that to more people. And how do you find those people? And then my first thought is, well, I guess I should find a company who wants to, somehow, you know, help me meet those people and get out into the world, because we're talking about going out into the real world. And that takes travel and it takes lodging, and it takes time, and it takes money. And, and it just, it's funny, I I'm realizing as I'm talking to you, I took this new idea of a podcast, this kind of a new way of reaching people. It worked. And then I'm trying to repackage it back into why the people looked for the podcast. And that made me sad just now. So you've made me think
Anthony 1:06:32
you answered your own question there, though, I think like I do, you and you know, coming from the Bay Area, I'm steeped in this culture of, you know, take your brilliant idea and make your own startup around it. And sometimes that's sometimes that is kind of used in disingenuous ways. But right now, it sounds like you're already doing the right thing. Yeah, man, though. It's
Scott Benner 1:07:00
interesting. I just, I'm, again, and I just got done saying this the other day, the, my daughter's a onesie is like spectacular right now. And it's even because of the podcast, it's because I've taken the time out to pause and talk kind of thoughtfully about, you know, diabetes management ideas. And you know, I've, you know, you freeze your life for a minute to talk about this, not just try to figure out why a Bolus didn't work while you're vacuuming the floor, and the dogs throwing up on you and your son needs to be driven across town, but to actually stop for an hour, and talk about it and think about it. And, you know, and now I'm thinking the podcasts just may have helped me understand better how to make the podcast to help people better, which is now a three level thought that that almost confused me. But because of your yellowness here, I'm feeling smarter. So I follow along. So well,
Anthony 1:07:50
that's alright. And if you came up with a pamphlet, that summarize your, your recommendations, I would certainly buy that pamphlet. Because one of the things that I don't spend a lot of time reading about, since I've, I'm trying to grapple with all these crazy things, as I barely worry about just like when I should take my Bolus are really simple stuff like that. Yeah, it's a
Scott Benner 1:08:17
lesson. I think, here's, here's my nickels worth of free advice. And by the way, we don't give advice on the podcast, Anthony, we like to say that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise, but, but just understanding how insulin works in your body and timing it better. It's just such a big deal. Like, you know, it really is being aggressive. You know, when the I don't know, if you have a glucose monitor. They certainly make things they like being aggressive, much, much easier. Yeah, I
Anthony 1:08:48
did when I could afford one. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:08:50
well, that's because I see the same thing. You're spending all your free time not making money we gotta get. Yeah,
Anthony 1:08:56
well, another thing like,
Scott Benner 1:08:59
No, it really is, if
Anthony 1:08:59
you if you want to make money, like you be Corporation egg, you just just don't screw it up and like, kind of phone it in and you'll get your money and you can you can tinker around with the small things, but all of the really important possibilities. They're out of your reach now, so I don't think that is a I don't think it's wise to make people face that choice. But facing that choice, I knew what choice I had to make. So yeah, well,
Scott Benner 1:09:28
it's definitely not wise on a global in a global sense. You know, it just really isn't, you know, maybe the reason we're not moving forward faster, is because we're all focused on moving forward in ways that don't help anything but yourself, really. And I mean, listen, I'm sitting in a fairly nice house and people listen to this podcast and probably been listening the whole time going to Scott hasn't mentioned once that his wife works for a pharma company, but you know, yeah, and she and I, but I don't have a pro I'm within a night my wife went to college, she wanted to be a doctor, she got out, she couldn't afford to apply to medical school, she took a job. She works in drug safety for a pharma company, she's worked in a number of them, I see how much other people's lives mean to my wife, and how much her work is focused on keeping people safe and keeping people healthy. It's a real driving force for her, I just watched her, you know, turn down some opportunities, because she thought where she was, was helping more people. And, and so, you know, I know the goodness in her heart, she's also not, you know, one of the overlords at the top. And so, you know, but, but at the same time, I have children, and they have needs, and they want clothes, and my son's getting ready to graduate from high school, and he wants to go to college, and he's a bright kid. And, you know what I mean? Like, all those things, they, they get up in the morning to make money, you know, and, and so, I, when I told you earlier, I see the other side of it, like, I really do see all the sides of it, because I'm, I'm kind of living right in the middle of it, my daughter has type one diabetes, and my wife works for a company who makes drugs. And so I really do see the I just see both sides of it. And there is no easy answer. That's for certain. I mean, you know, on a, on a regulatory level, obviously, if the government made better decisions about how it regulates things, I'm sure that would be an easy answer. But I'm assuming as long as money exists on the planet, that's not gonna happen. So,
Anthony 1:11:31
yeah, well, we'll see money can, money can take many forms and soak in the institutions that grow up around it. So and that's what you guys
Scott Benner 1:11:40
are basically doing is trying to make this take a different take a different form, I guess. Yeah. And
Anthony 1:11:47
the thing, you know, one of the things, it's really encouraging to hear the, your wife is doing good work, even in the context of an imperfect organization, but we've also had people come to us at the project who are, you know, really frustrated that they can't do good work. And they're, you know, they're even at the lower levels. So. So that's also something they're like, I hope we can give, if people who want to do good work, and can make the time for it an option, but also, you know, it'd be nice if, you know, the, the corporations weren't quite so like total and their ambitions to exploit their human resources and could actually, you know, give people the autonomy to determine what good work is.
Scott Benner 1:12:44
Listen, I kept you way longer than I said, I was going to Anthony, I'm sorry for that. And I know my house started, my house is starting to come alive again, with people who were like he said, an hour, I'm not staying in this room anymore. And so. But I really appreciate you doing this. This was way more enlightening than I imagined it was going to be. And I had some pretty high hopes for the conversation. So it means a lot to me that you took the time to do it. I really appreciate it. Oh,
Anthony 1:13:09
thanks a lot. It's been a real pleasure getting your perspective on things as well and yours personally, and also what you can what you can bring from talking to so many people in the community with so many different perspectives. Yeah,
Scott Benner 1:13:23
I think I think it's important to hear everybody's perspective. And you know, our lives living with diabetes is everyone's life is fairly similar. You hear people tell the stories, and on the surface, they sound very similar. But then when you really start talking, and you get into the details, and you go long form like this, I think then you start hearing you know, personal details that that enlighten and help other people. So, anyway, I really appreciate you coming on especially it's earlier where you are so thank you very much. Yeah, well, thank you, Anthony. Have a great day.
Anthony 1:13:58
Yep.
Scott Benner 1:14:00
Thanks for listening to the Juicebox Podcast if you're enjoying the podcast, please share it with a friend. Show them how to subscribe be a podcast buddy. But I'm I'm so sorry. I got an email right there. Bing Bang Bang it's me someone to delete in two seconds actually watch this. Yep, I just believe it. No one wants this. Unbelievable. Anyway, be a podcast buddy. A party, a party. Pod. There's really no good acronym in there for pp buddy, PB and J. Listen, if you liked the podcast, tell a friend and show him how to get it please. Also, if you're listening online, you know you could get an app. If you got an iPhone. There's an app it's already on your phone. Just look for it's called podcast. There's a good one for Google and Android and I Heart Radio Stitcher and any podcast aggregating app actually, you can just search Juicebox Podcast and there it will be giant thank you to Omni pod for sponsoring the Juicebox Podcast go to my Omni pod.com forward slash demo with the links here in your show notes. To find out more about your free nonfunctioning but totally wicked. Demo pod. Gonna be back next week with a football. Unbelievable who is playing me back in Words with Friends while I'm trying to do to. This guy kicks my butt all the time. I beat him twice, though and a couple last couple of weeks. I'll tell you right now. I'm not sure who was more surprised him or me
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