[00:00.000 --> 00:00.340]  Thank you.
[00:01.040 --> 00:02.080]  Say again?
[00:03.340 --> 00:03.860]  This one?
[00:04.020 --> 00:04.140]  All right.
[00:04.460 --> 00:05.300]  Oh, this isn't mine.
[00:05.540 --> 00:06.480]  This is an extra mic.
[00:06.800 --> 00:07.520]  Is this audible?
[00:08.160 --> 00:09.920]  You guys hear me or should I hold this?
[00:11.600 --> 00:11.960]  Yeah?
[00:12.180 --> 00:12.280]  Okay.
[00:13.180 --> 00:13.560]  All right.
[00:13.660 --> 00:15.520]  So let's see if I can get some slack on this.
[00:16.440 --> 00:16.980]  All right.
[00:18.100 --> 00:19.220]  Hi, my fellow hackers.
[00:19.760 --> 00:21.140]  I'm so honored to be here.
[00:21.260 --> 00:21.720]  It's really great.
[00:21.780 --> 00:22.980]  This is my first time talking at HOPE.
[00:23.280 --> 00:23.900]  Been here a bunch.
[00:24.200 --> 00:28.200]  And although I can't see any of you because of the bright lights, I know you're there.
[00:29.620 --> 00:43.260]  So I'm Dr. Michael Laufer and I am chief spokesman for the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective where we are working to make it so that we can share medication as easily as we share movies and music.
[00:46.420 --> 00:47.580]  This is HIV.
[00:47.960 --> 00:49.100]  It's the little green ones.
[00:51.060 --> 00:52.500]  This is hepatitis.
[00:52.840 --> 00:59.920]  So deaths from AIDS, death from hepatitis, botched abortions, and drug overdose.
[00:59.940 --> 01:04.180]  These four things have two things in common.
[01:06.000 --> 01:10.120]  Each one of them happened multiple times in the last three minutes.
[01:11.060 --> 01:18.860]  And most of them could have been avoided if the people who suffered from these had had access to the necessary pharmaceuticals.
[01:20.000 --> 01:22.240]  So let's look at each of these.
[01:23.560 --> 01:25.540]  This, if I can get it to go.
[01:28.040 --> 01:30.740]  This is GSK-744.
[01:32.660 --> 01:38.400]  It's going to be marketed under the trade name Cabotegravir.
[01:38.860 --> 01:44.200]  This is an antiretroviral of a new generation, an AIDS treatment that was developed by GlaxoSmithKline.
[01:46.780 --> 01:56.220]  Today, for people who are suffering with AIDS, you have to take a regimen, typically, of three different drugs every day in pill form.
[01:56.400 --> 02:00.180]  And you have to take them at specific times of the day and different for each of them.
[02:00.300 --> 02:09.340]  And if you screw any of these up, you have the danger of your viral load spiking and your immune system being compromised and the danger of transmitting it.
[02:09.520 --> 02:12.300]  If your viral load is below detectable, that's not a danger.
[02:13.140 --> 02:21.920]  This, combined with a clever delivery system of nanoparticles in an intramuscular injection can be administered once every four months.
[02:23.460 --> 02:37.120]  And beyond that, not only will it keep your viral load under detectable, and you will not transmit it, if you are not infected with HIV, it acts as a pre-exposure prophylaxis.
[02:37.120 --> 02:45.520]  This is an extremely powerful thing because you can go into a community with a high HIV viral load and not test.
[02:45.860 --> 02:48.000]  You just give it to everybody.
[02:48.280 --> 02:50.760]  And then no more new infections.
[02:51.200 --> 02:54.700]  This could wipe out HIV in a generation.
[02:54.700 --> 02:56.580]  Now, what's wrong with it?
[02:57.060 --> 03:02.980]  Well, GlaxoSmithKline owns this molecule, which is a very strange concept to me.
[03:04.000 --> 03:05.820]  And they haven't released it yet.
[03:06.120 --> 03:10.880]  And knowing GlaxoSmithKline and their business practices, it's probably not going to be free.
[03:15.420 --> 03:15.780]  This.
[03:15.780 --> 03:16.140]  This.
[03:16.160 --> 03:17.300]  This is...
[03:18.460 --> 03:19.500]  It'll give us pleasure.
[03:19.660 --> 03:20.440]  This is Solvati.
[03:21.800 --> 03:23.680]  This is a new hepatitis C drug.
[03:24.860 --> 03:27.200]  This is actually a hepatitis C cure.
[03:27.940 --> 03:33.040]  Now, until very recently, if you had hepatitis C, it was something you just lived with for the rest of your life and you managed it with drugs.
[03:33.800 --> 03:39.940]  This, after a regimen, will purge hepatitis C from your body permanently.
[03:40.760 --> 03:42.200]  Now, what's the problem with this?
[03:42.340 --> 03:43.800]  Well, this is owned by Gilead Sciences.
[03:44.500 --> 03:49.540]  And a full course of treatment, you have to take a pill every day for 12 weeks.
[03:49.920 --> 03:54.100]  And those pills cost $1,000 a piece.
[03:54.100 --> 04:00.480]  So, if you have 80-some-odd thousand dollars to spare, then hepatitis C isn't your problem.
[04:00.680 --> 04:03.860]  But for everybody else, hepatitis C is still a problem.
[04:06.360 --> 04:08.200]  These two, if I can get them spinning.
[04:09.120 --> 04:12.560]  The one on the left is Mifepristol.
[04:12.900 --> 04:16.260]  And the one on the right is Mifepristone, also known as RU486.
[04:17.180 --> 04:23.000]  These, taken in conjunction, give early abortions safely over 90% of the time.
[04:26.060 --> 04:27.860]  These have been used for a long time.
[04:28.460 --> 04:31.980]  The problem is, is that in a lot of places, this is illegal.
[04:32.880 --> 04:37.400]  And in plenty of other places where it is still legal, it is very hard to come by.
[04:37.600 --> 04:41.640]  It's been a bad year for reproductive rights in the U.S., as you all know.
[04:42.400 --> 04:48.760]  And finally, this is Naloxone.
[04:50.820 --> 04:52.980]  Naloxone reverses opioid overdose.
[04:53.460 --> 04:59.800]  Somebody can have a huge amount of heroin or opium or any opioid in their system.
[04:59.920 --> 05:02.960]  And if they're in overdose, this can be administered.
[05:03.240 --> 05:03.820]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[05:03.940 --> 05:05.480]  I just should mention the abortion drugs.
[05:05.480 --> 05:06.880]  Those come in pill form, by the way.
[05:07.120 --> 05:07.420]  Pills.
[05:08.260 --> 05:09.780]  This comes in a nasal spray.
[05:09.780 --> 05:16.700]  And if somebody is in the middle of an overdose, you spray this into their nose, and it ends it.
[05:17.800 --> 05:23.080]  Now, this is legal, and it is technically available in the United States.
[05:23.220 --> 05:28.460]  But the only two places that you can get it for the most part are police stations and hospitals.
[05:28.460 --> 05:38.460]  And not to make too many generalizations about people who might be overdosing from drugs, but typically those types of people don't want to go to hospitals or police stations.
[05:40.460 --> 05:42.640]  So, how do you get around all of this?
[05:43.560 --> 05:56.860]  If you have these problems that you can't get to the drugs that you need because they're either too expensive or they're illegal or you live in a third world country and you don't have the infrastructure to get the drug to you, how do you get it?
[05:59.320 --> 06:02.980]  Well, as we all know, recently technology has done some great things for us.
[06:02.980 --> 06:04.580]  Automation is this amazing thing.
[06:06.600 --> 06:13.160]  Hardware programmability, CNC machines, 3D printers, laser printing, laser cutting.
[06:13.520 --> 06:25.820]  All of these things are really great because what automation does is you trade setup time and attention for active time and attention.
[06:25.980 --> 06:27.120]  Just like programming, right?
[06:27.320 --> 06:31.280]  Whenever you write a program, it's like there's some menial task that you don't want to have to pay attention to.
[06:31.280 --> 06:34.140]  And so you say, hey, I can get this computer to do this.
[06:34.480 --> 06:38.200]  So the question is, how do you make a drug?
[06:39.720 --> 06:41.900]  Well, it's done by chemistry, right?
[06:42.040 --> 06:42.960]  Chemists do it in a lab.
[06:45.180 --> 06:46.320]  Can we automate it?
[06:48.280 --> 06:49.320]  Well, sure.
[06:50.180 --> 06:59.980]  So the thing is, is if you ever read through a procedure on how to make something in a lab, it's typically pretty boring.
[06:59.980 --> 07:08.860]  You have a thing that says something like, in this solvent, add material A, and then add material B, and then stir at this temperature for this amount of time.
[07:09.860 --> 07:10.520]  And then, okay.
[07:10.660 --> 07:11.900]  And then it continues.
[07:12.160 --> 07:14.340]  And that's usually on the order of hours, right?
[07:14.440 --> 07:18.520]  So it's something that you would leave overnight or you'd leave and you'd go to lunch or...
[07:18.520 --> 07:25.120]  And so historically, research chemists have a graduate student do that because that's who you give all of the horrible work to.
[07:25.700 --> 07:34.340]  But eventually, some clever professor somewhere said, well, you know, I really could have my graduate students doing better things.
[07:34.480 --> 07:35.980]  Why don't we just automate this?
[07:36.700 --> 07:39.660]  These are commercial automated lab reactors.
[07:39.660 --> 07:43.300]  Now, if you look at them, they're not super complicated, right?
[07:43.680 --> 07:46.700]  You have a reaction chamber in the center, right?
[07:46.840 --> 07:47.820]  So this is a glass enclosure.
[07:48.240 --> 07:51.640]  And you can see that these two versions, and there are a lot of different versions out there.
[07:51.860 --> 07:54.120]  These two versions are jacketed.
[07:54.480 --> 07:54.680]  Whoop.
[07:54.740 --> 07:55.520]  I'm getting some feedback.
[07:55.540 --> 07:55.820]  Sorry.
[07:56.360 --> 07:57.720]  These two versions are jacketed.
[07:57.900 --> 08:08.120]  So what you've got is you've got an outside glass enclosure and then the inside glass enclosure where the reaction is actually happening.
[08:08.120 --> 08:15.720]  The outer one has a fluid pumping through it at a set temperature to try and hold the temperature of the material.
[08:16.760 --> 08:20.520]  There's a bar that comes down in the center that stirs.
[08:21.580 --> 08:24.760]  And then you can see there are ports in the top for various things.
[08:25.040 --> 08:28.740]  So if you have to do something under a particular gaseous atmosphere, you can do that.
[08:29.900 --> 08:39.880]  And you can see on the one on the right, the top thing, that's a thermocouple that's coming in to test the temperature to provide a feedback system so the system knows that it's being held at the proper temperature.
[08:40.840 --> 08:46.080]  And then the other ports, you can do things like add a vacuum and inject new reagents.
[08:46.520 --> 09:04.560]  So some of these are sophisticated enough that you just load all of your reagents, your catalysts, and your solvents into tubes at the top, and you literally stick a USB key in and go boop, run, and you go home, and it takes care of everything.
[09:04.720 --> 09:08.700]  And you come back and you have your end product, pretty much, which is pretty cool.
[09:09.860 --> 09:19.420]  The problem with these is that they're extraordinarily expensive because they're only sold to hot, hot research labs.
[09:20.620 --> 09:29.180]  And although I know all of you are going to go to the social engineering talk later, but they're technically only supposed to be sold to labs.
[09:31.700 --> 09:34.740]  Even so, if you had the cash, it's still a little tricky to get.
[09:34.920 --> 09:39.720]  So the question is, can we do this ourselves?
[09:41.040 --> 09:45.700]  Sort of, why isn't there a DIY version of this or DIY not?
[09:46.020 --> 09:46.760]  Well, there is.
[09:46.760 --> 09:54.040]  And so for those of you who can't see up here, I'm going to switch over to a document camera so you can see some of this gear.
[09:54.160 --> 09:57.900]  But this is a picture of the beta unit that's on the left side of the table here.
[10:00.400 --> 10:01.560]  Actually, this was the alpha unit.
[10:01.680 --> 10:01.940]  I'm sorry.
[10:02.040 --> 10:04.540]  This is on your left over here.
[10:06.080 --> 10:07.080]  So this is the top.
[10:07.840 --> 10:10.120]  And it's very rudimentary, right?
[10:10.180 --> 10:10.700]  It's very simple.
[10:11.080 --> 10:14.540]  I've got two tubes coming in that run to a pump.
[10:15.520 --> 10:16.960]  This circulates the liquid.
[10:18.040 --> 10:21.340]  On the left there, you can see the power cable coming in.
[10:21.500 --> 10:22.980]  That's just a T-warmer.
[10:23.880 --> 10:26.700]  And then on the right, there's a thermocouple.
[10:27.180 --> 10:29.980]  And that's sending to a feedback system.
[10:30.140 --> 10:38.300]  It's sending to a PID controller, which is a proportional integral derivative controller that's just trying to keep the temperature at a constant rate.
[10:38.300 --> 10:42.040]  And if you want to... if you can see over here on the right, it's running.
[10:42.980 --> 10:53.560]  And on the top, that's just a bicycle tube nipple so that you can control pressure or inject an atmosphere of something else if need be.
[10:53.640 --> 10:56.800]  And I have a little baby compressor pump that runs that.
[10:57.640 --> 11:00.200]  That can also be reversed if you're running under vacuum.
[11:00.200 --> 11:01.440]  So this was how it started.
[11:01.640 --> 11:03.340]  It was like, well, that really shouldn't be too hard.
[11:03.480 --> 11:10.300]  We should be able to stir and heat for set periods of time without needing to spend tens of thousands of dollars.
[11:11.660 --> 11:14.120]  So, again, here's the control circuitry.
[11:14.580 --> 11:16.100]  That's the PID controller on the left.
[11:16.600 --> 11:18.320]  And on the right, that's the compressor pump.
[11:19.580 --> 11:26.980]  On the lower left, that's a light that blinks because it's important to have user feedback to know that something's happening.
[11:27.660 --> 11:28.820]  Is the light blinking over there?
[11:28.960 --> 11:29.180]  Yeah.
[11:29.440 --> 11:29.860]  Awesome.
[11:30.040 --> 11:30.180]  Cool.
[11:30.380 --> 11:31.060]  So something's happening.
[11:31.220 --> 11:31.680]  It's working.
[11:33.140 --> 11:35.940]  So this was a very basic setup.
[11:36.500 --> 11:43.060]  It worked fine, but we didn't do anything super sophisticated with it, right?
[11:43.140 --> 11:46.200]  We managed to make aspirin, which is a very shake-and-bake reaction.
[11:46.200 --> 11:48.300]  This is very simple, but it works, right?
[11:48.440 --> 11:49.740]  It's able to maintain temperature.
[11:49.960 --> 11:53.620]  It can circulate the fluid, et cetera.
[11:55.160 --> 11:57.740]  The next step, of course, is how do you automate it?
[11:57.980 --> 12:02.560]  Well, we now have really nice hackable drivers.
[12:02.660 --> 12:05.460]  So this is the start of the beta unit.
[12:05.580 --> 12:09.920]  This was sort of an earlier version, but you can see this is just a breadboard, and it's an Arduino Micro.
[12:12.200 --> 12:16.800]  The Arduino Micro is wired to these relay banks.
[12:17.040 --> 12:22.620]  Now, if, like, actual wiring that's a mess like this makes you nervous, like, don't let it, okay?
[12:23.160 --> 12:28.580]  The only reason that there are a bunch of relays is because we wanted it to be able to handle a little more current.
[12:28.580 --> 12:40.600]  So, essentially, what you're having, what we had it do at this juncture was it would trip this transistor, and then the relay bank would switch.
[12:41.100 --> 12:47.640]  And so, one was for the stirring apparatus.
[12:47.640 --> 12:49.720]  One was to kick on and off the heater.
[12:51.220 --> 12:59.200]  And then the third one was going to run the device that actually would inject new reagents.
[13:01.460 --> 13:03.000]  So, here it is running.
[13:03.420 --> 13:06.680]  And as you can see, there are blinking lights.
[13:07.040 --> 13:08.240]  So, things are happening.
[13:10.200 --> 13:11.520]  Really important, blinking lights.
[13:13.360 --> 13:14.460]  Oh, I need...
[13:14.460 --> 13:15.400]  Oh, this one's blinking, too.
[13:15.500 --> 13:15.860]  Okay, good.
[13:17.340 --> 13:23.520]  So, you can also see, coming off the side, there's a temperature and humidity controller, or sensor.
[13:23.880 --> 13:27.820]  We didn't end up using that, but this was sort of just a test run to make sure that we could actually make it work.
[13:30.480 --> 13:32.320]  So, that's basically all you need, right?
[13:32.440 --> 13:33.340]  The elements are there.
[13:33.620 --> 13:38.120]  You need to stir, you need to control temperature, and you need to be able to inject reagents.
[13:38.220 --> 13:41.140]  Now, the question of injecting reagents is a little touchy, right?
[13:41.260 --> 13:41.920]  You have...
[13:41.920 --> 13:46.660]  In the old version, there's this pump that's continuously streaming liquid in and out.
[13:47.880 --> 13:52.060]  In the new version, we had to have something that would actually shuttle it in.
[13:52.060 --> 14:00.340]  So, there's this, which was developed by some open-source biohacker types.
[14:00.400 --> 14:01.860]  This is an open-source syringe pump.
[14:02.720 --> 14:11.660]  And, as you can see in the back there, there's a stepper motor, and then there's a coupler, and then this is just a threaded shaft, and then these are 3D printed parts.
[14:12.300 --> 14:16.220]  And I have sort of my version here, which is this.
[14:17.260 --> 14:20.380]  It's a little jankier, but this was a...
[14:20.960 --> 14:28.980]  This was yanked out of, like, an 80s cassette driver that a friend of mine who helped me prototype this and 3D printed the parts for me gave.
[14:29.100 --> 14:30.880]  And he's like, yeah, I think this would just drop in.
[14:30.960 --> 14:31.920]  So, I got lucky with that.
[14:33.680 --> 14:37.200]  The syringe itself, if you go to build this, right?
[14:37.260 --> 14:40.860]  The open-source syringe pump is out there, and you can download the files and everything.
[14:40.860 --> 14:56.000]  The syringe, they don't give specifics on, but it's a 60-milliliter syringe, and they're typically used for feeding baby calves, so you can get it at, like, farm supply stuff.
[14:56.280 --> 14:59.060]  This took me a while to figure out, so there's a tip on that one.
[15:01.500 --> 15:15.020]  So, the whole idea is we've got something that's off-the-shelf parts, free open-source, everything's ready to run, and we want to make something with it.
[15:15.100 --> 15:19.220]  So, who wants to see me make something?
[15:19.960 --> 15:20.520]  Yeah?
[15:21.380 --> 15:22.220]  All right, cool.
[15:22.220 --> 15:25.940]  So, first we have to talk about what it is I'm going to make.
[15:29.090 --> 15:31.110]  So, yeah, I hear murmuring.
[15:31.210 --> 15:32.410]  I bet some people have some guesses.
[15:33.170 --> 15:37.130]  So, this is Gertrude Ellion.
[15:38.270 --> 15:47.970]  She's one of my big heroes, and although she was recognized in her time, I still think she's not sufficiently well sung.
[15:47.970 --> 16:00.450]  She was in a PhD program for molecular biology, I believe.
[16:00.750 --> 16:03.370]  She was studying pharmaceutical medicine, essentially.
[16:03.750 --> 16:06.010]  And at the same time, she was doing research.
[16:07.150 --> 16:13.790]  And her PhD program came to her and said, you're really working too hard, and you need to take this more seriously.
[16:13.790 --> 16:16.450]  And she went, oh, really?
[16:16.970 --> 16:17.730]  Excuse me.
[16:17.850 --> 16:23.650]  And she dropped out, and a few years later, she won the Nobel Prize in medicine.
[16:24.790 --> 16:26.910]  This woman rocks my world.
[16:27.810 --> 16:30.090]  She developed a lot of amazing drugs.
[16:31.170 --> 16:40.170]  Her lab, right before she died, the last thing that she, like, the big one that she did was she developed AZT, which was one of the very first antiretroviral AIDS drugs.
[16:40.390 --> 16:44.570]  It was the thing that created the Lazarus Effect and the whole thing from the Dallas Buyers Club.
[16:44.750 --> 16:45.470]  That's what they were buying.
[16:45.670 --> 16:54.710]  She also developed acyclovir, which is the only or one of the few herpes antivirals.
[16:55.850 --> 16:58.590]  And it's still in very wide use.
[16:58.870 --> 17:02.030]  It's considered by the World Health Organization to be on the...
[17:02.030 --> 17:03.570]  It's on the list of essential medications.
[17:03.650 --> 17:05.350]  And she's got a list of these.
[17:05.350 --> 17:13.650]  And one of them was a malarial drug, an anti-malarial drug called pyromethamine.
[17:16.930 --> 17:20.010]  And so let's talk about malaria just for a second.
[17:20.530 --> 17:22.890]  Malaria is a parasite, right?
[17:23.090 --> 17:25.650]  So it's a tricky thing to kill.
[17:25.790 --> 17:30.570]  You can't treat it the way you would a bacterial or even a viral infection.
[17:30.570 --> 17:31.890]  It's a whole different thing.
[17:31.890 --> 17:33.550]  You've got a microorganism in your body.
[17:33.690 --> 17:40.910]  And you need to find out what his biological mechanism is and interrupt that somehow without doing that to the host body.
[17:41.130 --> 17:42.110]  It's very tricky.
[17:42.430 --> 17:43.870]  So here's another parasite.
[17:44.730 --> 17:48.030]  This is toxoplasmosis.
[17:49.670 --> 17:51.610]  So toxoplasmosis is...
[17:52.370 --> 17:55.250]  It's sort of got a thing about it, right?
[17:55.310 --> 17:58.170]  It's the crazy cat lady infection.
[17:58.170 --> 18:08.430]  So it is carried in rodents and it reproduces in the stomach of cats.
[18:09.370 --> 18:18.270]  And this is the reason why you always hear that pregnant women shouldn't be changing litter boxes because there's toxo in there a lot of the time.
[18:19.110 --> 18:21.230]  Now for most of us, it's not dangerous, right?
[18:22.030 --> 18:26.410]  Like 23% of Americans have toxoplasmosis and have no idea.
[18:26.410 --> 18:28.690]  I probably have toxoplasmosis.
[18:29.610 --> 18:39.410]  And if you want to learn more about toxoplasmosis, I recommend a talk by Robert Sapolsky, where he talks about the actual mechanism for its reproduction and how it works in the brain.
[18:39.550 --> 18:43.170]  So most of us have little cysts in our brain and they're not really doing much and it's okay.
[18:43.310 --> 18:46.870]  But if your immune system is suppressed, i.e.
[18:47.830 --> 19:01.890]  if you are in advanced stages of cancer or if you are HIV positive or, of course, if you have something not yet born that's still building its immune system, this is really, really dangerous.
[19:01.890 --> 19:05.890]  And I will not show you any pictures of anybody actually suffering from this because it's really horrific.
[19:09.440 --> 19:10.960]  So, if I can spin it up.
[19:11.060 --> 19:11.520]  There it is.
[19:11.520 --> 19:13.140]  So this is the drug that she developed.
[19:13.640 --> 19:19.520]  2,4-diamino-5-4-chlorophenyl-6-ethylpyrimidine.
[19:20.580 --> 19:23.640]  Chemists always have the most romantic names for things.
[19:25.700 --> 19:28.360]  The short version of this name is pyromethamine.
[19:28.940 --> 19:30.260]  This is what she developed.
[19:30.460 --> 19:32.740]  And as you can see, it's a fairly simple molecule.
[19:32.800 --> 19:34.260]  And it's so clever.
[19:34.260 --> 19:39.540]  What it essentially does is it interrupts folic acid production.
[19:39.780 --> 19:50.840]  So what happens, as I understand this, is that it makes it so that the microorganisms can't manufacture RNA, DNA, or protein.
[19:51.140 --> 19:52.200]  So they die.
[19:52.520 --> 19:53.780]  It's very, very clever.
[19:53.840 --> 19:55.260]  And it is still used to this day.
[19:55.360 --> 19:57.270]  This is the only treatment for toxoplasmosis.
[19:57.820 --> 20:00.220]  Now, I know some of you know where I'm going.
[20:01.720 --> 20:04.540]  Who remembers this guy?
[20:05.940 --> 20:06.860]  Yeah, come on.
[20:06.920 --> 20:07.680]  What do you really think of him?
[20:08.060 --> 20:08.120]  Huh?
[20:08.940 --> 20:09.280]  Okay.
[20:09.600 --> 20:13.200]  So, for those of you who perhaps do not recognize him, this is Martin Shkreli.
[20:13.700 --> 20:25.180]  And he was CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, who owned the rights to Daraprim, which is the brand name for pyromethamine.
[20:26.340 --> 20:33.940]  Before he worked his magic, pyromethamine was something that you could get prescribed if you needed it.
[20:34.200 --> 20:41.240]  And you paid $13.50 per pill for 50 milligrams, which is not unreasonable.
[20:42.020 --> 20:47.960]  And afterwards, he changed the price to $750 per pill.
[20:50.100 --> 20:51.820]  And this was not well received.
[20:53.920 --> 20:54.960]  I mean, with good reason.
[20:55.140 --> 20:56.440]  So, you know, I mean...
[20:59.190 --> 21:02.400]  So, we thought, let's start there.
[21:04.290 --> 21:04.820]  Thank you.
[21:05.340 --> 21:05.620]  All right.
[21:05.900 --> 21:09.860]  So, the big question is, of course, well, isn't that hard?
[21:09.960 --> 21:10.700]  Don't we have to do chemistry?
[21:11.040 --> 21:12.660]  Well, okay, yeah, we have to do a little chemistry.
[21:12.660 --> 21:13.760]  Oh, yeah.
[21:14.100 --> 21:15.040]  Don't get scared.
[21:15.420 --> 21:16.140]  Don't get scared.
[21:16.580 --> 21:23.180]  So, for those of you who, you know, dreaded high school chem and was like, I don't even remember what a mole is or how to convert units.
[21:23.180 --> 21:24.820]  Like, you don't have to worry about all of this.
[21:25.040 --> 21:29.480]  But this is the original way that pyromethamine was synthesized.
[21:29.480 --> 21:41.240]  So, if you get pyromethamine from a lab or if you get it prescribed, the manufacturing plant that's creating it, they're doing it like this or very close to this.
[21:41.340 --> 21:42.520]  This is a slight adjustment.
[21:42.720 --> 21:44.320]  But this is the typical way that it's done.
[21:44.480 --> 21:51.960]  And it's complicated because they're doing it in huge batches and you have to do all of this stuff with chemical engineering.
[21:52.320 --> 21:55.180]  Doing stuff on a small scale is very different than doing it on a large scale.
[21:55.240 --> 21:57.760]  So, it's hard and it's complicated and there's a lot of stuff going on.
[21:59.880 --> 22:06.880]  So, again, we turn to our friends at the computers and say, help us with the hard work.
[22:09.280 --> 22:14.840]  And we have some very good friends with whom we've been working at this company.
[22:15.220 --> 22:18.140]  Now, if you haven't heard of Chematica, look them up.
[22:18.380 --> 22:19.660]  These guys are amazing.
[22:19.820 --> 22:26.300]  They've developed something that has been dubbed the Google of chemistry, which really doesn't do it justice.
[22:26.300 --> 22:29.640]  This is way cooler than Google for chemistry.
[22:29.980 --> 22:31.540]  What this will actually do...
[22:31.540 --> 22:33.620]  It's not an AI per se, but it's a very smart program.
[22:33.780 --> 22:49.000]  And what it will do is it will actually go through the last several hundred years of chemical journals, all of them, and it will search for anything even remotely related to the reaction that you're trying to put together.
[22:49.000 --> 22:53.900]  And you can give it all manner of parameters of what you want to have the reaction be like.
[22:54.520 --> 22:56.500]  And it will put it together for you.
[22:57.080 --> 22:57.880]  It's amazing.
[22:58.000 --> 23:00.020]  It does this amazing combinatorial search.
[23:00.100 --> 23:03.960]  And then, of course, there's a chemist on the other side who's actually taking a look saying, will this actually work?
[23:04.060 --> 23:09.900]  It's designed to be something that enhances the intuition rather than replacing it.
[23:10.920 --> 23:18.680]  So we went to them and we said, okay, we'd like a synthesis for pyromethamine that's one step.
[23:20.540 --> 23:21.840]  We don't want to do three steps.
[23:21.900 --> 23:23.380]  We want something that's really simple.
[23:23.520 --> 23:24.180]  It's easy to do.
[23:24.320 --> 23:26.200]  We want cheap reagents.
[23:26.200 --> 23:27.960]  We want it to be cheap and easy.
[23:28.100 --> 23:29.580]  We want a huge margin of error.
[23:29.700 --> 23:31.240]  So it's very hard to screw up.
[23:31.400 --> 23:32.640]  And we want it to be one step.
[23:32.920 --> 23:35.020]  And they said, okay.
[23:36.560 --> 23:38.380]  So this was the first one that they came up with.
[23:39.440 --> 23:40.860]  And this is one step.
[23:42.280 --> 23:43.640]  There's a problem with this reaction.
[23:44.180 --> 23:45.980]  So this is what's called a Suzuki coupling.
[23:46.460 --> 23:51.220]  Suzuki coupling is where you use a palladium catalyst.
[23:52.600 --> 23:54.140]  Now the two problems...
[23:54.140 --> 23:56.540]  So this is actually a screenshot of the program itself.
[23:56.780 --> 24:00.020]  I haven't used it, but this is sort of the interface that it gives.
[24:00.240 --> 24:04.440]  And on the right, this is a map of where it's pulling its information from.
[24:04.800 --> 24:06.480]  So incredibly sophisticated program.
[24:07.100 --> 24:09.760]  So this one step here, there are two problems.
[24:09.940 --> 24:15.400]  One is when you use a palladium catalyst, you end up with palladium in solution and then palladium in your end product.
[24:15.940 --> 24:19.600]  Palladium gives you heavy metal poisoning if you have it.
[24:19.600 --> 24:22.560]  So it's very hard to filter that out.
[24:22.680 --> 24:24.640]  And so we were like, okay, we probably can't use that one.
[24:24.680 --> 24:32.100]  The other problem is that one of these precursors, the one on the bottom, is like 450 euros for a gram.
[24:32.580 --> 24:36.860]  So we were like, this kind of defeats the purpose of trying to make it cheap and easy for people to make their own drugs.
[24:37.760 --> 24:39.060]  Have you got something else for us?
[24:39.100 --> 24:40.580]  And they said, okay, well, let's look again.
[24:41.720 --> 24:42.680]  And they gave us this.
[24:48.340 --> 24:53.720]  So if you don't do chemistry or don't like chemistry, you can just sort of think of this like a geometry problem, right?
[24:53.820 --> 24:54.480]  Like just shapes.
[24:54.700 --> 24:58.180]  And you can sort of see how these pieces connect, right?
[24:58.240 --> 25:03.080]  The one with the bromide sort of hops there, and you get this cute one on the top with the zigzag, right?
[25:03.200 --> 25:09.620]  And then this one flips around and attaches, and you get the second ring, and that end product is pyromethamine.
[25:12.300 --> 25:15.060]  All of these precursors are commercially available.
[25:15.820 --> 25:17.340]  They are very cheap.
[25:17.720 --> 25:19.920]  And this is two steps, and they're fairly simple.
[25:20.240 --> 25:25.100]  One's a Grinard reaction, and the other one is a condensation reaction.
[25:25.620 --> 25:28.680]  And so essentially what you have to do is...
[25:29.460 --> 25:31.880]  There's not... I won't get too hard into the technical stuff.
[25:31.940 --> 25:33.100]  You have to keep your labware dry.
[25:33.380 --> 25:35.720]  You have to use the right solvents.
[25:35.720 --> 25:36.480]  You have to be careful.
[25:36.640 --> 25:38.920]  You make this ketone here, and then here.
[25:39.280 --> 25:41.780]  And you have to do it slowly so that things don't heat up.
[25:41.940 --> 25:43.500]  You have to do it in ice, under ice.
[25:43.660 --> 25:48.380]  And then you do the second one, and this one's fairly simple.
[25:48.600 --> 25:51.400]  And at the end, you have pyromethamine.
[25:56.350 --> 25:57.870]  So, yeah, there it is.
[26:00.030 --> 26:09.870]  It takes a few days because when you do your stirring and mixing and allow the reaction, you have to allow for this to go overnight each time.
[26:10.690 --> 26:13.010]  And you have to do a workup where you separate things out.
[26:13.150 --> 26:15.510]  But these all are very, very simple things.
[26:15.510 --> 26:16.270]  They're very doable.
[26:16.490 --> 26:23.730]  And all of the academics we've talked to who are working on trying to implement this in the lab are like, yeah, this is super easy.
[26:23.870 --> 26:29.070]  So, because this takes three days, I can't do the whole thing for you right here.
[26:29.070 --> 26:32.090]  But I will do the very last step.
[26:32.270 --> 26:36.690]  Now, the very last step of any chemical reaction is a purification step.
[26:36.930 --> 26:42.110]  Because, so in this second step that you look at, right, you're going to get pyromethamine out.
[26:42.290 --> 26:44.630]  But you're going to have garbage from before.
[26:44.770 --> 26:46.570]  You're going to have unreacted components.
[26:46.910 --> 26:56.290]  And so you have to go through and make sure that you filter that out so that you don't have the garbage also entering into your product.
[26:59.590 --> 27:02.990]  So, I'm going to sort of do that here.
[27:03.410 --> 27:08.730]  So, I'm going to switch over here and turn this on.
[27:08.930 --> 27:11.210]  So, can we switch over to the document camera here?
[27:11.410 --> 27:12.210]  And I can start doing this.
[27:12.390 --> 27:14.950]  And while that's switching... oh, that was super fast.
[27:15.130 --> 27:15.770]  Awesome, thank you.
[27:19.890 --> 27:24.190]  So, give me just a moment here while I switch over.
[27:24.430 --> 27:26.350]  I just need to do this.
[27:26.350 --> 27:29.730]  So, on the table here is the beta unit.
[27:31.870 --> 27:34.270]  And so you can see it spinning up here.
[27:34.490 --> 27:43.630]  And what it's doing is it's... this is the dissolving of pyromethamine and the unreacted components in methanol.
[27:44.470 --> 27:46.090]  Methanol is wood alcohol.
[27:46.310 --> 27:48.620]  It's the stuff that makes you go blind for moonshine, right?
[27:49.660 --> 27:54.160]  Or, you know, if you watched Dukes of Hazzard as a kid, that's the stuff they put in the car to make you go fast.
[27:56.020 --> 27:58.060]  And you can buy this as racing fuel.
[27:58.420 --> 28:00.180]  So, it's also available.
[28:00.620 --> 28:02.740]  And you can buy it from chemical supply houses as well.
[28:04.400 --> 28:12.860]  So, the way the recrystallization purification works is that you heat it and then you saturate it with the reagents.
[28:12.860 --> 28:25.980]  And then what happens is as you let it cool, the unreacted components stay in solution and your product precipitates out.
[28:27.120 --> 28:28.720]  So, looking over here...
[28:28.720 --> 28:29.140]  Okay.
[28:29.440 --> 28:32.740]  So, here, this is sort of the wet stuff.
[28:33.460 --> 28:35.040]  You can do this through a coffee filter.
[28:35.040 --> 28:38.360]  This is a piece that I got out of, like, an espresso machine.
[28:38.600 --> 28:39.860]  And this is what it looks like wet.
[28:41.080 --> 28:42.240]  And then you have to let it dry.
[28:42.260 --> 28:45.800]  So, you can do that with a vacuum pump or, you know, methanol has a pretty high vapor pressure.
[28:45.920 --> 28:47.800]  You can just, like, wait overnight.
[28:48.060 --> 28:52.040]  And then this magical white powder here is pyromethamine.
[28:53.200 --> 28:53.520]  With...
[28:53.860 --> 28:55.460]  And so, this has been purified.
[28:55.560 --> 28:56.140]  This is down to...
[28:57.180 --> 28:58.480]  This is over 99%.
[29:00.860 --> 29:02.160]  So, how do we put this together?
[29:02.400 --> 29:04.320]  Let me just put the mic over here.
[29:04.320 --> 29:05.040]  Give me a second.
[29:06.180 --> 29:07.180]  I'll do it on time.
[29:14.330 --> 29:14.870]  Okay.
[29:15.330 --> 29:21.530]  So, pills of pyromethamine are 50 milligrams a piece.
[29:21.710 --> 29:27.870]  And when you're treating toxoplasmosis, the first time, what you do is you give a dose of 200 milligrams.
[29:28.550 --> 29:29.090]  Right?
[29:29.510 --> 29:33.850]  So, we're going to make a 200 milligram pill of pyromethamine.
[29:34.350 --> 29:36.110]  If I can get my balance to turn on.
[29:36.310 --> 29:36.730]  There we go.
[29:39.330 --> 29:39.970]  So, first...
[29:39.970 --> 29:40.290]  Let's see.
[29:40.550 --> 29:41.050]  Is this...
[29:41.050 --> 29:41.610]  Is that good?
[29:41.730 --> 29:42.370]  I can't see it.
[29:42.750 --> 29:43.070]  There we go.
[29:43.410 --> 29:43.570]  All right.
[29:43.630 --> 29:46.110]  So, the first thing is we're going to put the empty capsule on.
[29:46.450 --> 29:47.730]  And you'll see that that's...
[29:48.410 --> 29:48.730]  That's...
[29:48.730 --> 29:49.090]  Oh.
[29:49.270 --> 29:50.370]  That's a little heavier than usual.
[29:50.710 --> 29:50.970]  Right?
[29:52.030 --> 29:52.830]  Usually, it's a tenth.
[29:53.290 --> 29:53.630]  All right.
[29:53.650 --> 29:55.010]  I guess this one's a little heavier.
[29:55.110 --> 29:55.810]  I'm going to try another one.
[29:57.430 --> 29:59.650]  So, we just need to subtract that out.
[29:59.650 --> 30:01.990]  So, we make sure that the amount is correct.
[30:02.910 --> 30:03.210]  All right.
[30:03.630 --> 30:04.250]  There we go.
[30:04.530 --> 30:04.630]  Okay.
[30:04.850 --> 30:05.490]  So, here...
[30:05.490 --> 30:08.870]  If I can just bring this up to point three, it'll be right.
[30:09.190 --> 30:10.290]  So, just...
[30:10.290 --> 30:11.230]  Bear with me here.
[30:17.120 --> 30:17.480]  Yeah.
[30:17.520 --> 30:18.480]  This doesn't look shady at all.
[30:18.480 --> 30:18.660]  Right?
[30:23.440 --> 30:23.800]  Yeah.
[30:23.940 --> 30:27.300]  Earlier, it was chunky and I was chopping it up with my hope badge.
[30:27.420 --> 30:27.820]  And I was like, yeah.
[30:28.200 --> 30:29.160]  Nothing to see here.
[30:29.300 --> 30:30.000]  Nothing to see here.
[30:31.260 --> 30:31.720]  Let's see.
[30:31.720 --> 30:32.240]  Whoa.
[30:32.620 --> 30:33.080]  Oh.
[30:33.320 --> 30:33.880]  Oh.
[30:34.160 --> 30:34.600]  So close.
[30:34.980 --> 30:35.540]  So close.
[30:35.640 --> 30:35.820]  All right.
[30:36.700 --> 30:37.380]  Bear with me here.
[30:47.190 --> 30:47.870]  Yeah.
[30:48.350 --> 30:48.790]  All right.
[30:48.950 --> 31:02.490]  So, what we produced here is a 200 milligram pill of pyrimethamine.
[31:02.490 --> 31:13.870]  Now, if a 50 milligram pill costs $750, then four of them, 200 milligrams, is going to be $3,000.
[31:14.990 --> 31:22.370]  I just produced a $3,000 pill for less than 25 cents.
[31:32.710 --> 31:33.570]  Thank you so much.
[31:33.570 --> 31:37.410]  Now, I can't see, but who wants this one?
[31:38.870 --> 31:39.350]  Anybody?
[31:41.870 --> 31:42.570]  See anybody?
[31:43.730 --> 31:44.210]  Here.
[31:44.330 --> 31:46.170]  Will you pass this back?
[31:51.140 --> 32:00.000]  You know, I might have another one that I pre-packed in case I wasn't able to, like, create it on the fly.
[32:00.180 --> 32:00.840]  Does somebody else want one?
[32:01.560 --> 32:02.040]  Yeah?
[32:02.980 --> 32:04.460]  Who wants a $3,000 pill?
[32:04.460 --> 32:04.860]  Let me see.
[32:05.520 --> 32:05.960]  Oh, shit.
[32:05.980 --> 32:06.780]  I'm just going to make it rain.
[32:07.080 --> 32:07.260]  Woo!
[32:09.720 --> 32:12.620]  Now, how many of those do you think I need to get rid of before I can buy the Wu-Tang album?
[32:15.790 --> 32:16.190]  All right.
[32:16.270 --> 32:17.950]  Can we switch back to the presentation?
[32:27.940 --> 32:28.940]  So, yeah.
[32:29.160 --> 32:32.260]  So, I've got more, if anybody wants them.
[32:33.760 --> 32:40.020]  So, while this is switching over, I should just say that all of this gear, I know I've given it kind of short shrift.
[32:40.020 --> 32:46.160]  Anybody who's curious about the technical aspects of all of this, I'm going to need to move everything over to make space for the next guy.
[32:46.380 --> 32:49.060]  But I will be around and I will have this gear here.
[32:49.180 --> 32:49.800]  And you can look at it.
[32:49.880 --> 32:51.040]  You can even come over and use it.
[32:51.360 --> 32:52.160]  Whatever you need to.
[32:52.300 --> 32:53.060]  You can ask me questions.
[32:53.060 --> 32:54.960]  And we'll do a Q&A at the end, too.
[32:55.320 --> 32:59.820]  So, let's just talk about Martin a little more here.
[33:01.000 --> 33:01.380]  Let's...
[33:02.400 --> 33:04.640]  It's really easy to rag on the guy, right?
[33:04.860 --> 33:07.360]  Because of all the reasons we know.
[33:10.340 --> 33:15.380]  But, I think it's worth considering, maybe, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
[33:15.680 --> 33:26.180]  Now, what was claimed by the FBI in his indictment and the, you know, what most people sort of assume, is that he had a hedge fund and he sort of ran it into the ground.
[33:26.860 --> 33:29.740]  And then lied to his investors, saying it's doing fine.
[33:30.080 --> 33:36.880]  And then jacked up the price of dareprim so that he could cream off some extra money to pay back his investors to be like, everything's fine.
[33:37.060 --> 33:37.660]  Everything's fine.
[33:37.840 --> 33:39.940]  I'm going to turn it around next quarter and then they'll never know.
[33:43.260 --> 33:44.500]  His story is a little different.
[33:44.960 --> 33:47.080]  He suggests that none of that happened.
[33:47.720 --> 33:51.460]  And he had a really good reason for jacking up the price.
[33:51.460 --> 34:06.320]  Now, he suggests that the reason that it's not unacceptable to raise the price of a drug 5,000% is because they were shuttling a bunch of money to R&D and they wanted to develop a new toxoplasmosis drug.
[34:06.620 --> 34:08.830]  Again, pyromethamine is the only one out there.
[34:13.140 --> 34:14.850]  So, and it's fairly toxic.
[34:15.040 --> 34:17.100]  There are pretty bad side effects when you take it.
[34:17.200 --> 34:18.680]  And he wanted to develop something new.
[34:18.680 --> 34:21.580]  So, maybe he's really into it.
[34:21.660 --> 34:22.370]  Maybe he's really into it.
[34:22.450 --> 34:23.660]  So, I don't know, right?
[34:23.740 --> 34:26.540]  Maybe he really is this altruist and we're all just being too hard on him.
[34:26.680 --> 34:30.890]  So, I'm going to take a poll because I can't see hands.
[34:31.140 --> 34:31.950]  We're going to do it by applause.
[34:33.170 --> 34:39.460]  I think, like maybe, instead of being like our arch nemesis, maybe he'd partner with us on this.
[34:39.520 --> 34:42.390]  If he really thinks that everybody should have it, he would think that this is awesome, right?
[34:42.520 --> 34:45.370]  So, who thinks I should call him?
[34:47.250 --> 34:47.600]  Yeah?
[34:51.290 --> 34:52.310]  All right, let's give him a call.
[34:55.230 --> 34:58.130]  So, now, this number, it worked a month ago.
[34:58.490 --> 34:59.890]  I'm not sure if... he didn't answer.
[34:59.890 --> 35:00.610]  I got his voicemail.
[35:00.690 --> 35:01.830]  We didn't chat, right?
[35:02.770 --> 35:03.690]  So, this might work.
[35:03.770 --> 35:04.130]  It might not.
[35:04.230 --> 35:04.610]  So, let's see.
[35:06.410 --> 35:07.970]  And, yeah, let's see.
[35:08.350 --> 35:10.210]  Uh, two, one, seven.
[35:12.010 --> 35:12.950]  Two, seven.
[35:13.710 --> 35:14.490]  Eight, three.
[35:14.750 --> 35:16.210]  Yeah, and I know you're all writing it down.
[35:16.410 --> 35:16.490]  Yeah.
[35:16.650 --> 35:17.190]  And that's cool.
[35:17.330 --> 35:17.710]  That's cool.
[35:17.770 --> 35:18.570]  That's why I put it up there.
[35:18.990 --> 35:19.390]  All right.
[35:19.430 --> 35:20.230]  So, let's try this.
[35:21.630 --> 35:21.990]  Let's...
[35:45.280 --> 35:46.340]  Maybe he's playing video games?
[35:46.440 --> 35:46.660]  I don't know.
[36:01.690 --> 36:02.670]  Oh, I will.
[36:04.450 --> 36:05.630]  Uh, hey, Martin.
[36:05.890 --> 36:07.070]  Um, this is Dr. Michael Laufer.
[36:07.130 --> 36:08.470]  I'm down at the HOPE conference live.
[36:08.690 --> 36:13.130]  And, um, I've just been showing a bunch of people how to make Daraprim for pennies.
[36:13.290 --> 36:19.850]  Um, and since you're into the idea that everybody should have access, I thought you'd be into the project and maybe want to partner with us.
[36:20.330 --> 36:25.350]  Um, so I'm going to be in town until August 3rd and we should get coffee.
[36:25.470 --> 36:29.230]  And even if you don't think that we should partner and you want to become arch nemeses, that'd be fun too.
[36:29.430 --> 36:30.390]  So, give me a call.
[36:30.770 --> 36:32.210]  My number is...
[36:32.210 --> 36:32.650]  Four and five.
[36:35.740 --> 36:36.340]  Thanks a lot.
[36:36.400 --> 36:37.080]  I appreciate it.
[36:37.380 --> 36:38.140]  Give me a call.
[36:50.310 --> 36:50.970]  Thanks so much.
[36:51.090 --> 36:52.290]  Yeah, he was probably playing Warcraft.
[36:52.430 --> 36:54.070]  He was probably really busy, right?
[36:54.490 --> 36:54.890]  Okay.
[36:55.270 --> 37:00.810]  So, um, so I'm going to say a few more things and wrap it up and give coffee.
[37:00.810 --> 37:06.410]  I have a few questions, but the key thing that I want to impress is why I'm here.
[37:06.870 --> 37:11.590]  Um, I'm not just here to like, you know, show off and Doc Shkreli, even though that's fun.
[37:11.850 --> 37:16.210]  Um, I'm here because we need more people.
[37:16.530 --> 37:21.630]  As you can see, all of this works, but it just sort of works, right?
[37:22.410 --> 37:24.710]  Um, the hardware works.
[37:24.910 --> 37:26.150]  The software is okay.
[37:26.150 --> 37:27.270]  We have a website.
[37:27.450 --> 37:30.170]  We have all of these things, but they're only just barely functional.
[37:30.170 --> 37:33.830]  To say that this is a beta unit, I'm being very generous to us.
[37:34.010 --> 37:35.850]  This is essentially like an alpha plus.
[37:36.250 --> 37:36.650]  Okay?
[37:37.290 --> 37:38.190]  Um, it works.
[37:38.310 --> 37:38.830]  You can do it.
[37:39.330 --> 37:46.210]  And, um, and at the end, I'll show you, we have all of the files and all of the plans, and you can download them directly or torrent them.
[37:46.390 --> 37:49.530]  And I'm seeding it now, so you'll be able to get it right now.
[37:50.090 --> 37:51.970]  Um, but we need help.
[37:52.390 --> 37:56.310]  And I want help from, like, everybody in this room.
[37:56.510 --> 37:58.350]  And everybody who, like, couldn't make it in.
[38:00.250 --> 38:03.550]  Um, I know that I'm in a great friendly environment.
[38:03.690 --> 38:05.590]  I could feel it when I walked in the door this morning.
[38:05.590 --> 38:12.050]  And I know that people have the same feeling as I do that ideas shouldn't be owned.
[38:12.350 --> 38:22.730]  And the ownership of ideas, even if you do believe that that's not as weird as it sounds, that shouldn't supersede the right to be able to save yourself from a deadly disease.
[38:26.020 --> 38:27.640]  I believe a revolution is coming.
[38:27.980 --> 38:29.660]  And I know that sounds very grandiose.
[38:30.100 --> 38:38.000]  But, in this country, during the Civil War, there was an impasse between economic certainty and morality.
[38:39.620 --> 38:42.660]  People were saying, we need slavery to maintain the economy.
[38:42.980 --> 38:46.180]  And there was another group saying, people cannot be property.
[38:46.460 --> 38:51.740]  And I believe that we are on the edge of something very similar.
[38:54.680 --> 38:59.560]  Where people are saying, intellectual property is necessary for the economy to function.
[39:01.340 --> 39:06.680]  And some of us are saying, ideas cannot be owned.
[39:12.170 --> 39:12.790]  Thank you.
[39:16.250 --> 39:21.750]  And so I'm hoping that this revolution can start and we'll be a part of it.
[39:21.910 --> 39:23.610]  And I want you guys to be a part of us.
[39:24.110 --> 39:28.490]  So please, there'll be links to the website where you can come in if you're sharing.
[39:28.490 --> 39:30.430]  If you're shy, if you're not, just hit me up.
[39:30.630 --> 39:31.750]  I'm hard to miss.
[39:32.330 --> 39:33.970]  And I'll be over here after the talk.
[39:34.470 --> 39:36.890]  Let me just do a few other things before we move on.
[39:37.330 --> 39:38.810]  I want to thank Chematica.
[39:39.210 --> 39:40.410]  This is a great company.
[39:41.350 --> 39:44.810]  If you're at all interested in chemistry, go to their website.
[39:45.510 --> 39:46.930]  It's just chematica.net.
[39:48.010 --> 39:49.170]  Look at the stuff that they have.
[39:49.250 --> 39:52.210]  They have great media links and there are great articles that were written about them.
[39:52.270 --> 39:53.790]  They're not really out there yet.
[39:53.790 --> 39:55.250]  They're also a fledgling company.
[39:56.390 --> 39:59.450]  And they've been very, they've been working very closely with us.
[39:59.670 --> 40:24.170]  And they're going to be, as we then go on from the pyromethamine synthesis on, to make GSK-744 and Mifepristal and Naloxone and Solvati, so that everybody can have all of the medications they need, whenever they need them, wherever they need them, without having to ask permission,
[40:25.190 --> 40:30.190]  go broke, or have to engage in an infrastructure that doesn't care whether they live or die.
[40:33.690 --> 40:34.270]  Thank you.
[40:37.370 --> 40:39.070]  I need to say one other thank you.
[40:39.310 --> 40:41.990]  There's another organization called the Rainforest Connection.
[40:42.210 --> 40:43.530]  Now, these guys are really cool.
[40:43.670 --> 40:46.490]  They're not really related to what we do, but they do really cool stuff.
[40:46.490 --> 40:54.610]  What they do is they take recycled Android phones and they reprogram them to listen for the sounds of chainsaws in protected rainforests.
[40:55.210 --> 41:04.850]  It then sends a real-time message to law enforcement and deploys them via geolocation to say, there is illegal logging happening here right now.
[41:04.990 --> 41:08.650]  And this stops a tremendous amount of illegal logging.
[41:08.750 --> 41:09.730]  It's incredibly powerful.
[41:09.830 --> 41:11.770]  These guys are great, and they need a lot of help too.
[41:11.770 --> 41:24.370]  So, if you're interested, you know, if you do, like, sound analysis or signal analysis or programming and you want to help them or, you know, you want to give them your old phone, like, go check them out too.
[41:24.490 --> 41:25.110]  These guys are great.
[41:25.170 --> 41:27.670]  And they helped us a lot with the early prototyping.
[41:28.550 --> 41:30.870]  So, that was a great help to have them along.
[41:33.650 --> 41:37.290]  So, this is on our website.
[41:37.830 --> 41:39.010]  You can go on there.
[41:39.590 --> 41:40.850]  There's a direct download.
[41:41.130 --> 41:42.250]  And there's a torrent.
[41:42.430 --> 41:43.630]  I'm seeding the torrent now.
[41:43.690 --> 41:44.990]  So, you should be able to pick it up.
[41:45.870 --> 41:46.290]  It's...
[41:47.690 --> 41:48.970]  Now, we're going to have the...
[41:48.970 --> 41:53.390]  We have the domain, fourtheatsvinegar.org.
[41:53.510 --> 41:56.130]  And that should be up in the next few hours.
[41:56.450 --> 41:57.630]  But it's still switching over.
[41:58.650 --> 41:59.070]  Yeah.
[41:59.470 --> 42:05.830]  So, again, if you have any technical expertise or don't, and you like what we do, come talk to us.
[42:05.910 --> 42:06.290]  We need help.
[42:07.030 --> 42:09.010]  Even something as pedestrian as the website.
[42:11.670 --> 42:13.670]  So, I'm going to open it up for questions.
[42:14.010 --> 42:23.350]  But before I do, I'm just going to go through a few questions that always come up, so that you don't have to bother asking them.
[42:24.170 --> 42:25.390]  This is one I get a lot.
[42:27.770 --> 42:28.530]  Yeah, no.
[42:29.670 --> 42:31.590]  I'm not a medical doctor, right?
[42:31.710 --> 42:32.910]  Yes, I have a PhD.
[42:33.690 --> 42:34.010]  That's...
[42:34.010 --> 42:36.370]  But, you know, I get to call myself a doctor, so why not, right?
[42:38.190 --> 42:40.790]  So, the next most common question is this one.
[42:41.650 --> 42:44.570]  And I know, like, some portion of you are like, yeah, that's really scary.
[42:44.630 --> 42:45.590]  And some of you are like, hmm.
[42:49.210 --> 42:51.130]  And the answer is like, not really.
[42:51.330 --> 42:53.030]  So, there are two reasons for this.
[42:53.170 --> 42:55.990]  First of all, this only works in really small batches.
[42:56.270 --> 43:02.210]  You can, like, if you really wanted to make some opiates, you maybe could.
[43:02.210 --> 43:04.490]  But you wouldn't be making very many.
[43:04.730 --> 43:08.730]  And it wouldn't be worth the trouble of building the whole apparatus to just do that.
[43:09.050 --> 43:16.030]  Not to mention, if you ever read a book about how people manufacture narcotics, it's way easier than building all this.
[43:16.270 --> 43:17.350]  It's very simple.
[43:17.770 --> 43:20.570]  Go ahead, read some Uncle Fester books, and it'll all come clear.
[43:22.190 --> 43:25.910]  The next one that I get from concerned people is this, right?
[43:26.930 --> 43:33.610]  We're all very concerned about all the antibiotic-resistant strains of diseases because of the over-prescription of antibiotics.
[43:34.550 --> 43:39.090]  I know I am because I used to have three-foot-long hair.
[43:39.350 --> 43:50.310]  And the reason I'm standing in front of you bald is because I got infected with MRSA when I was in Central America, which is methicillin-resistant staph aureus, a very, very nasty thing that a lot of people die from.
[43:50.310 --> 43:52.210]  And I didn't, but I lost my hair.
[43:52.310 --> 43:53.350]  I'm a little grumpy about it.
[43:55.010 --> 43:59.590]  So, it's worth saying, well, what happens if people make medications and then they take them recklessly?
[43:59.590 --> 44:04.450]  Well, that's a danger, but it's not super likely, right?
[44:04.650 --> 44:16.410]  Because if somebody has, at least at this juncture, the wherewithal and the forethought to make something this technical because they feel it's important for them to make their own medications, it's really unlikely that they're then just going to take them wrong.
[44:17.790 --> 44:26.970]  So, again, yes, of course, it's a danger, but as I think we all agree, better to have information tools out there than not, and it will do more good than harm.
[44:28.430 --> 44:30.650]  So, this is the next one that we get all the time.
[44:31.550 --> 44:32.850]  Oh, chemistry's hard.
[44:33.350 --> 44:33.770]  Yeah.
[44:34.150 --> 44:39.070]  Isn't there this story of, like, some drugs that got out that were bad because somebody just made a little mistake?
[44:39.470 --> 44:41.310]  Well, yes, right?
[44:43.030 --> 44:46.350]  But avoiding this is the whole premise.
[44:46.350 --> 44:54.170]  And the reason that we work with Comatica so closely is that we're trying to make reactions that are foolproof.
[44:54.670 --> 45:02.250]  There are reactions out there where, yeah, if the temperature varies a little bit, then all of a sudden it's horribly toxic.
[45:02.430 --> 45:16.810]  There was a really tragic story of some guy who was cooking, I don't know, meth or ecstasy, something like that, and he made a small mistake by a few degrees and ended up producing this horribly toxic thing, and a whole bunch of addicts went catatonic.
[45:17.550 --> 45:18.830]  Like, just right out of the box.
[45:18.970 --> 45:20.590]  And, yeah, that's scary, and it's important.
[45:20.770 --> 45:26.730]  And so the reason that we put so much work and research into this is to avoid that very problem.
[45:26.730 --> 45:36.990]  One of the parameters that we put into the computer is make sure that there is all lot of room for error in temperature and time and control.
[45:40.650 --> 45:42.230]  So, this is another one.
[45:42.570 --> 45:43.390]  Isn't this illegal?
[45:43.670 --> 45:44.110]  No.
[45:45.290 --> 45:47.590]  It is in violation of patents sometimes.
[45:48.790 --> 45:58.730]  And, of course, sometimes, you know, there are ways to get around that, and there are some people as well, yes, you know, you're practicing medicine without a license, but, yes, here in the state of New York, if somebody says you have a headache, and you say,
[45:58.850 --> 46:00.130]  have you thought of taking aspirin for that?
[46:00.350 --> 46:01.970]  That's practicing medicine without a license.
[46:02.170 --> 46:03.970]  So, seriously.
[46:05.390 --> 46:06.730]  But, yeah, it's possible.
[46:06.930 --> 46:09.930]  So, yeah, I'll take it.
[46:10.890 --> 46:18.350]  That said, if any of you are lawyers or no lawyers, like, please come talk to me, because I'm expecting to be sued, like, by noon.
[46:21.150 --> 46:30.050]  And this next question was the first thing that was asked to me by the head of a legal firm, the first guy I talked to.
[46:34.100 --> 46:38.440]  And, I mean, like, I described the project, and he says that, and I said, excuse me?
[46:38.500 --> 46:46.380]  He said, the FDA, the DEA, Big Pharma, the Catholic Church, is there any superpower in the United States that you're not angering right now?
[46:46.380 --> 46:49.100]  And I was like, well, I don't know, man, maybe?
[46:49.380 --> 46:51.140]  And he was just like, yeah, good luck.
[46:51.320 --> 46:52.060]  I'm not your guy.
[46:52.240 --> 46:52.520]  Boop.
[46:57.080 --> 46:59.100]  So, the project hasn't been public till today.
[46:59.320 --> 47:01.080]  But now, it's everywhere.
[47:07.330 --> 47:10.070]  So, I'm hoping I make it to the end of the conference.
[47:11.910 --> 47:15.530]  If not, I have very fond memories of all of this.
[47:17.930 --> 47:19.910]  So, I just want to thank everybody for coming.
[47:20.730 --> 47:23.850]  And again, encourage you to come up and talk.
[47:24.130 --> 47:25.810]  Even if you don't want to be part of it, just to chat.
[47:25.910 --> 47:26.970]  If you want to know more stuff about it.
[47:27.050 --> 47:30.450]  If you want to try being an alpha-2 tester, a beta tester.
[47:30.810 --> 47:32.290]  If you want to help us with the project.
[47:32.630 --> 47:43.020]  If you believe, as we believe, that the freedom of sharing ideas should include the freedom to manage your own health.
[47:45.500 --> 47:46.980]  Please, come join us.
[47:47.140 --> 47:47.840]  Thank you so much.
[48:00.300 --> 48:04.760]  So, it looks like we have about four and a half minutes for questions.
[48:04.760 --> 48:06.560]  I can't really see if there's a...
[48:06.560 --> 48:06.900]  If you're here...
[48:06.900 --> 48:07.720]  Yes, sir.
[48:08.140 --> 48:12.000]  So, first time, that'll be cool.
[48:12.160 --> 48:12.680]  Thank you.
[48:13.040 --> 48:13.220]  But,
[48:17.190 --> 48:24.770]  because setting aside screwing up the molecular reaction, some drugs, when you synthesize them, have double handedness and one half...
[48:24.770 --> 48:25.010]  Right.
[48:25.130 --> 48:25.210]  Yes.
[48:25.410 --> 48:27.610]  So, this is a very good question.
[48:27.730 --> 48:31.490]  For those of you who didn't hear, he's asking about what's called stereochemistry.
[48:31.490 --> 48:41.010]  And, in many cases, you have complicated molecules that, like, you are not the same, the left-handed version and the right-handed version.
[48:41.110 --> 48:42.330]  You can't turn them into each other.
[48:42.450 --> 48:48.550]  And so, looking back at the molecules here, a great example of that is GSK-744.
[48:48.870 --> 48:50.250]  This has two stereocenters.
[48:50.370 --> 48:53.470]  And I'm sorry to get, like, super technical on everybody, but this has two stereocenters.
[48:53.590 --> 48:59.930]  You see these places where things stick together like this, and they can be this way or this way, and it's different.
[49:00.970 --> 49:02.810]  So, that is a very tricky thing.
[49:03.010 --> 49:18.170]  Now, for this in particular, we have a synthesis that favors this particular handedness by 85%, and then you can filter out the others.
[49:18.430 --> 49:20.050]  So, yeah, it is a problem.
[49:20.230 --> 49:21.290]  It is a problem.
[49:21.630 --> 49:22.090]  And...
[49:22.090 --> 49:22.670]  But...
[49:22.670 --> 49:23.770]  So, again, looking...
[49:23.770 --> 49:24.570]  Some of these do not.
[49:24.570 --> 49:30.810]  So, pyromethamine, our favorite here, is a very simple molecule.
[49:30.830 --> 49:33.970]  As you can see, it's small and it's flat.
[49:34.230 --> 49:39.030]  I mean, it's not really flat, but what it is is you see that it has...
[49:39.030 --> 49:41.470]  Its connection points are all...
[49:41.470 --> 49:44.090]  They all spin, right?
[49:44.270 --> 49:45.950]  So, there's nothing rigid here, right?
[49:46.010 --> 49:51.970]  You have these two rings, and then everything else just rotates freely, if you imagine those as being, like, rotating joints.
[49:51.970 --> 49:53.570]  So, yeah, really good question.
[49:53.690 --> 49:54.010]  And it is...
[49:54.010 --> 49:56.710]  And it is a problem, and it is something that we spend a lot of time.
[49:56.890 --> 50:03.410]  And Chematica is notoriously hot for being able to get syntheses that work well with stereochemistry.
[50:03.590 --> 50:11.290]  And mind you, the 85% figure that I just quoted you is before Chematica's even had their hands on it.
[50:11.390 --> 50:15.150]  So, they're probably going to be able to reduce that by an order of magnitude.
[50:16.050 --> 50:16.630]  So, yeah.
[50:16.970 --> 50:17.390]  Thank you.
[50:18.130 --> 50:18.730]  Who else?
[50:19.810 --> 50:20.370]  Over here?
[50:20.370 --> 50:21.010]  So,
[50:26.500 --> 50:30.740]  can you easily determine that you actually got what you were hoping to get?
[50:30.940 --> 50:31.260]  Right.
[50:31.340 --> 50:32.800]  This is a great question that I get a lot, too.
[50:33.280 --> 50:39.180]  So, typically, in normal chemistry, what you end up doing is you sort of, like, you make a mess in the lab.
[50:39.460 --> 50:44.160]  And then you do a lot of filtration and a lot of analytical methods, right?
[50:44.240 --> 50:52.260]  Where what you do is, you know, you do gas chromatography, and you do spectroscopy, and you do nuclear magnetic resonance imaging.
[50:53.100 --> 51:03.060]  All of those things are fairly hard and fairly expensive, with the exception of thin film chromatography, which is fairly easy, and you can do it at home, and it's super cheap.
[51:03.900 --> 51:06.080]  So, again, there are two things.
[51:06.280 --> 51:11.780]  One is, we've worked very, very hard to front load the work.
[51:11.960 --> 51:24.400]  The synthesis that we use and the syntheses that we use are different, genuinely, than the old ones, specifically so that you don't have to have all of that sophisticated equipment to test.
[51:24.400 --> 51:31.340]  But you can also use thin layer chromatography, and you should be able to determine that you don't have other stuff.
[51:32.920 --> 51:35.840]  So, yeah, that is something worth thinking about.
[51:35.940 --> 51:36.640]  And it is important.
[51:36.980 --> 51:41.980]  And, again, this is the reason why we work so hard with the computational chemists to make sure that works.
[51:42.120 --> 51:43.480]  I think I may have time for one more.
[51:44.880 --> 51:45.520]  Yes, over here.
[51:48.610 --> 51:50.050]  I'm sorry, you've got to just speak up a little more.
[51:50.050 --> 51:51.010]  Pyramatamine is pretty
[51:57.650 --> 52:01.470]  good since everyone is thinking that's going to have a chilling effect on research for better treatments.
[52:01.930 --> 52:02.330]  Right.
[52:02.610 --> 52:05.390]  So, yeah, that's another thing that comes up, right?
[52:05.510 --> 52:07.890]  It's like, aren't you going to destroy the pharmaceutical industry?
[52:08.090 --> 52:09.690]  Like, nobody will ever buy another drug again.
[52:10.430 --> 52:11.610]  I kind of doubt it.
[52:11.750 --> 52:14.690]  Like, I mean, if that happens, I'll kind of, like, sing a happy dance.
[52:14.830 --> 52:23.850]  But, like, but really the thing is, is that we're not trying to supplant the pharmaceutical industry, right?
[52:23.850 --> 52:31.050]  If, if you have insurance, and you can go get toxoplasmosis from a dispensary, go do that.
[52:31.330 --> 52:32.290]  I mean, geez.
[52:33.070 --> 52:35.490]  But, this is trying to fill a very small gap.
[52:35.770 --> 52:38.810]  And, again, like, there's, healthcare is a huge spectrum of things.
[52:39.070 --> 52:40.810]  But there's just a small little step.
[52:40.970 --> 52:49.170]  Like, if you have everything else going on, but, and you know the thing that you need, and you can't get it, you should have a way to take it into your own hands.
[52:49.330 --> 52:50.270]  And this is a jump.
[52:50.390 --> 52:50.930]  So, yeah.
[52:51.610 --> 52:56.350]  But I don't think that it's going to be something where all of a sudden it just makes research collapse.
[52:56.610 --> 52:59.390]  Because, seriously, as you said, it's terribly toxic.
[52:59.990 --> 53:01.350]  Like, this is not a great drug.
[53:01.490 --> 53:03.050]  It's just the only one that's out there.
[53:03.330 --> 53:07.190]  So, really, you know, we should be doing research.
[53:07.190 --> 53:13.330]  And if a doctor came to me and said, well, you could go home and you could make yourself, you know, pyromethamine.
[53:13.330 --> 53:22.250]  Or you could, instead, buy this new drug that doesn't make you, like, nauseous and dizzy and make you go into convulsions.
[53:22.570 --> 53:23.630]  I get the better one.
[53:23.850 --> 53:24.210]  But, yeah.
[53:24.590 --> 53:26.870]  That's an important point on an infrastructural level.
[53:27.130 --> 53:28.930]  It's something we think about a lot.
[53:29.910 --> 53:31.810]  And I think that might be it.
[53:31.910 --> 53:32.710]  Is there one more?
[53:32.850 --> 53:33.470]  Can I just take one more?
[53:33.470 --> 53:36.430]  I have a question about the three-person .
[53:48.730 --> 53:49.370]  Oh, right.
[53:49.510 --> 53:49.590]  Yes.
[53:49.850 --> 53:50.190]  So, right.
[53:50.350 --> 53:51.430]  So, about the details.
[53:51.790 --> 53:54.030]  So, again, it's a pretty...
[53:54.030 --> 53:55.650]  We're sort of at an alpha stage.
[53:55.850 --> 53:58.630]  When you do the download, there is supporting literature.
[53:58.890 --> 53:59.910]  There are research papers.
[53:59.930 --> 54:02.530]  There's the code for the Arduino micro.
[54:02.870 --> 54:05.530]  There's the files for printing all of this.
[54:05.730 --> 54:09.290]  You kind of have to hack it together yourself because it's at this preliminary stage.
[54:09.290 --> 54:10.090]  But, yes.
[54:10.250 --> 54:10.790]  All of that.
[54:11.350 --> 54:12.650]  Where you can order it from.
[54:12.950 --> 54:13.970]  How much it costs.
[54:14.350 --> 54:15.490]  All of that is outline.
[54:16.370 --> 54:16.590]  So, yeah.
[54:16.790 --> 54:17.330]  So, thank you.
[54:17.630 --> 54:19.350]  Thank you again all so much for coming.
[54:19.470 --> 54:21.210]  If you have other questions, I'll be over here.
[54:21.350 --> 54:22.090]  Thank you so much.