Utilizing, Building, and Evaluating Digital Tools for Decentralized Science

Hi everybody. Uh we're going to get started uh promptly for the DSI session here at BiddleHub. So if you're lingering out uh by registration or by the coffee in the back, uh do do come to the workshop stage now. Uh we have an e an amazing excellent lineup for you guys today themed around rigorous approaches to the decentralization of science using web3 technology uh which I'm super stoked about. It offers uh a new new way of thinking about uh the applications of web 3 that strictly aren't you know what we're used to as dgens.

I see you guys out there. Uh so let's let's think a little bit about uh and keep in mind how we can move beyond some of the existing narratives and really expand web 3 technology for public uh for public goods and and social impact beyond just uh DeFi apps, right? Uh so the theme for for this year is uh distributed coordination for global science impact. And we're going to be coming at this uh in in a variety of different ways and I'll I'll be sharing that with you really shortly with with the DIQ quest. Um uh if you are interested if you're just popping in now and just hearing about DSI do scan this QR code that'll take you to the site which has the complete schedule there you can find the other events that are happening at DAO Denver simultaneously uh with ETH Denver and then shelling points our capstone event uh at the end of the pretty much at the end of the week here.

So, we're back. Uh, this is the second year of DSI. Uh, what used to be DI ETH Denver. Uh, now it's DII.denver is what we're what the community has has uh has come to call this.

Uh, we're really really stoked to come back. Uh, my name is Shadi Alamati. I'm a founder of Opsai. Uh, it's an open science DAO or framework for Dows and professional societies that are on chain. And we're super stoked to come back uh and and help facilitate a community uh community organized conference specifically within decentralized science so that we can ask the hard questions of what does DII mean?

What is DI even a good word for describing this? Uh how do we take this technology out of these echo chambers and really use it to make a positive impact? So we're super stoked to have the Science Commons Initiative co-f facilitating with us this year. Uh definitely check them out. out.

They're a nonprofit organization uh spun out of the Gridcoin, which is an OG in the scientific computing space. Uh and we're encouraging all the organizations, DI organizations out there to join and be a part of the conversation. And the way that we really move this field forward in a way that capitalizes on all of the human and intellectual capital that's present and flooding into the space every day is get involved. Join the Telegram chat. uh reach out to to your neighbor if you're just sitting down and and meeting someone for the first time and ask them how you can get involved.

There's tons of tons of work to do. We're basically rebuilding science um in parallel to the existing system but building it up from the ground up. So just really quick uh I think you know uh last year it was uh uh you know last year was a very shrew event uh big shout out to Methusela Foundation, Foresight Institute and Scurf uh for helping put that together. literally came together at the last minute uh and somehow we had a thousand people show up uh over 12 hours of content and then there's been 37 DI events since this one. This really I think was the a major inflection or flagship moment for DI as the community coming together uh to build out in public and and and curate what what me what uh mechanisms or vision we really want to have for the space.

So this year uh definitely take uh scan the QR code you can see the schedule we have other sessions uh today's utilizing building and evaluating digital tools for science uh there's a social after this in the back and then tomorrow we'll have more content uh around Dows and specifically for science incentivizing participation without money. Uh then we'll also have a decentralized compute and AI track. So for those that are looking to bidd, go there. Uh there's some amazing companies and and startups and protocols that are building in DI doing things that we can't even imagine yet in in in the Ethereum community. Uh and then lastly, Shelling Point will be our capstone event.

So we'll see you there. Uh today, uh you can definitely take a look at the schedule, scan the QR code to see what we have lined up. Big big shout out to all of our sponsors. This has been incredible. We took a completely different experimental approach this year where we said no tears, no uh quid proquo, everything planned out, well almost everything planned out in public and we really wanted to show that it was possible in the middle of a bare market to raise the funds possible to put on an event like this at multiple venues with global talent uh individuals with real uh uh uh actually performing real science uh coming to the space and moving the conversation forward.

Um, I can't list them all out right now. I don't want to take up all that time, but these are all incredible DI companies that resonate with this mission. And if you're out there and not included on here, uh, do reach out how you can get involved. We would love to uh, h extend the the the tent out to all DI communities that are interested in community building around uh, around the vision and a narrative that's emerging organically. Uh, one one quick thing.

So, the theme is impact and how we think about global decentralized science impact. One thing that we're doing with this event, it's an extension of the of of the experiment that we've that we've put forward here, is we want to we're we're actively collecting data and measuring the impact of this event in real time in different ways, quantitatively, uh, qualitatively, coarsely, and finally, what we're looking to do is publish an impact leaderboard on our site at the end of this event that ranks basically uh, contributors and sponsors of the event based off of the weighted impact that they've had by contributing what pay paying what they can to to the event. This is very much an open conversation. Impacts uh metrics are very much qualit qualitatively defined. We'll be publishing this data open source.

If you want to be a part of the conversation and think about how we can have real applications or use cases of things like hypers certificates, public goods funding protocols parameterizing around impact evaluators, please do join this conversation and if you haven't already, complete the DI quest. We'll be giving out swag for everyone that completes the DI quest. If you complete more DI quests, you get elite swag. So, this is our way of incentivizing and rewarding people that care about the space. Uh, and also, you know, giving them some some cool things to remember the event by.

Uh, come to Shelling Point, we'll have t-shirts for you guys there to if you've completed all all four all four uh DI quests. Uh, you can still complete the DI quest from previous days. But, you know, the the main purpose is uh tell us what you think. If you have an incredible idea that just struck you, write it down, put it in the in the quest. We'll train a chat GPT algorithm on it later uh to do some interesting stuff down the line.

Maybe not. We'll see. Uh, okay. So transitioning to uh the actual content for today. I am super stoked uh to be moderating a fireside uh discussion today uh with Lindsey Cameron.

Uh she's a PhD posttock at Stanford. I've invited her here without telling her anything about anything that's going on. Well maybe a couple things just that we're all crazy really. And I think it's incredibly important for the builders in this space to hear from the folks that they are assuming to be building for, right? Are we doing a good job communicating the content that uh uh communicating the content, the mission, the narrative, and actually building tools that solve problems?

So today's uh first session will be a fireside where we talk about the path rather the treacherous path to intellectual independence and academia uh where Lindsay will share some of her stories uh uh and her her backstory and kind of how she's taken the DI movement in her uh brief exposure to it. So I'd like to welcome to the stage uh Lindsay. Um everyone give her a big round of applause. Be nice to her. She doesn't know about any of this web three stuff.

Cool. Hello. I think uh we're we're live. Cool. Awesome.

Uh so uh thank you for for coming out here and uh how's how's your time been so far at ETH Denver? Give, you know, give us the lowdown. What was your uh first impression coming in, walking through the door? Uh how's it been so far? Awesome.

I love the vibe of of conferences, the energy, the excitement and how people are uh there's always a there's always a vibe and excitement with conferences and I really like that. Um I am very excited to talk about some things that are passionate to me, things like open access publishing, etc., etc., but uh yeah, I'm very confused with all of the the jargon and whatnot. So, I'm I'm trying to learn real fast.

Yeah. Uh, so why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Um, uh, you know, what is it that you do? Uh, what's your brief elevator pitch on Lindsay Cameron as a as a researcher? So, uh, my path I came here, I did my undergrad in pharmarmacology, so drug design and development, uh, with a heavy emphasis on on chemistry and and synthesis.

Uh I then transitioned to do my PhD in neuroscience um with the idea that you really have to understand your system in order to apply those drugs. Um and I and I started studying psychedelics. So I did my PhD studying psychedelics. Um I worked in a chemistry lab. So I I worked with a lot of uh chemists.

We synthesized novel compounds. We uh figured out what parts of psychedelics are good, what are bad, can we optimize them? And then we we go through and we have this pipeline for testing them. Um and now I'm at Stanford at the school of medicine in the department of psychiatry. I still study psychedelics.

I'm focused a little bit more again uh kind of on the therapeutic effects and uh what is the trip? What happens to the brain during a psychedelic experience? Um so my my elevator pitch is I do a lot of uh drug design and development. I'm really passionate about uh open access uh to medicine. I think that's one reason why I really got involved with psychedelics is uh during my undergrad with pharmarmacology, I actually wanted to transition away.

I was really disheartened and disillusioned with pharma companies just tweaking molecules, extending patents, treating symptoms, not treating causes. And I was actually going to totally transition to a different field until I discovered like some very preliminary uh data on psychedelics which actually seemed to have profound effects were effective in treatment resistant populations. They had effects which lasted for year after a single dose. It was really remarkable. So, I joined my PhD lab in 2016 and I I almost didn't do it because I thought that people would call me crazy or I would be delegitimized or just a hippie to study psychedelics.

No one did it. Yeah. It hadn't been legalized at that point or at least hadn't been embraced uh at least in the states. There were so few there were there were a handful of really powerful studies that showed therapeutic efficacy but no one really knew like it wasn't mainstream at that point. And I was like, "Wow, these are really amazing studies."

And I just kind of like jumped on. Um, and I loved the research and I loved the lab and I was like, "Well, I guess we'll see what happens." And I mean, it it could have gone a bad route where I became a hippie and no one liked my science. Um, but it it went pretty the other way, which was everyone uh has now jumped on this train and it's a little more common knowledge that psychedelics are being used to treat mental health. Um, and so in that sense, it's been really great.

Um, yeah. Yeah. I I definitely want to drill into a lot of these branch points in your career and what brought you to where you are today. Um I figure first let though let's start at the beginning. Uh what do you think was at what point did you decide that you wanted to pursue higher education in science specifically?

I think I always knew that I wanted it. I was always like a really nerdy kid that was always building stuff and I like loved doing my homework and like then extrapolating off of it. I remember I was like I think 11. I was standing outside my like social studies class and I was like you know what's cool? The idea that you can have like a cluster of atoms and save someone's life with that.

And I remember just being like fascinated by this idea. And honestly it's just kind of like kept me going. Um yeah. So chemistry. So your love of chemistry, physics, natural world and then uh so then there was I guess this moment where you identified preliminary data and was that the transition for you like oh I'm going to do neuroscience now uh or I'm going to do research primarily neuroscience or where did um you know at what point did you find yourself calling yourself a neuroscientist I would say?

Okay. Um yeah so I was actually always interested in biology and I always like wanted to go in that direction. And I found the idea of so both my my dad's a doctor and my mom's a physical therapist. So this idea of like being healthy was always like important growing up. Um I was definitely more microscale focused than they were.

Um and I always loved math and chemistry. They were always like there were there were rules and then you could figure out what to do and there were problem sets and like those were the things I was good at. It's actually not that good at biology. It involved a lot of like memorizing, but you kind of have to like learn the biology before you can start messing with it. And and that's the part where I'm at now.

It's like, okay, I've learned all the neuroscience that is relevant to me and uh now I can kind of use my skills in in math and chemistry to kind of manipulate those systems. Would you call yourself an interdisciplinary researcher? Absolutely. What do what what uh skill sets do you think are the most important uh for your research? Um that maybe might not be obvious or like what what what does interdisiplinary research mean to you?

I guess I think it means the ability to I think it all comes down to communication, right? So my ability to explain uh my science at different levels um and I can talk really in depth with it with other experts but I can also talk to people outside of my field in a way that they'll understand um and I think that you know and vice versa so that there is a platform for communication and then you can build that platform till you're both experts in this interdisciplinary kind of area. So I would say that I just think like the ability to communicate is is absolutely key. So being able to take the results of a text uh a proof in a textbook maybe or some theorem and then apply that maybe to a methods that you've a method section that you've developed um and being able to communicate and speak to multiple camps and synthesize knowledge. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, that's that checks out. Yeah, I think interdisiplinary is is incredibly uh research is going to be really important and facilitating diversification and would you agree? Do you think that absolutely I think that like the biggest advances in I mean neuroscience but in in science in general are at these uh intersections of of interdisciplinary collaboration right and this also involves like teamwork like it's not just it is like heavily reliant on communication um but the ability to work in a team of all these different people um and I really think that it's like at these intersections like you can be like I could be really good at neuroscience But if I am not good at like anything else, I'm a little I don't know, preaching to the choir or like I'm just good at that one thing. If you really want to make novel advances, you really got to reach across fields, I think, um to really kind of think outside the box and get those new theories and projects and ideas rolling. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like innovation isn't happening in one room at one time. Absolutely. It's happening all this everything everywhere all at once, you know? Exactly.

uh so interdisiplinariness and being able to facilitate that. So I I want to uh before we deep dive deeper into um maybe interdisiplinary research or I really want to come back to the aha moment for you um which I think was like a big moment in your career specifically and uh just a little bit of a preface too I think uh to to contextualize the conversation a bit. So summarizing what we've talked about you would say you were drawing to science out of an intrinsically very curious individual. Um so two questions. Could you share a little bit more detail uh how you came to that Eureka moment?

And then secondly, how do you think about intellectual independence and whether that was important uh and subsequently intellectual ownership uh over over the work that you've done? Okay. Um let's start with the first one which was my Eureka moment. Which Eureka moment are we talking about? Like when I decided to study psychedelics or like Yeah.

Well, maybe there's multiple Eureka moments for you. I think you were working on Ebo. Uh, am I saying that right? I uh and you found a way to synthesize compounds that had the non uh psychedelic effects but still therapeutic effects, right? Yeah.

So, what led I mean that's that's huge. That's like a holy grail for psych, you know, psychiatry. The folks at NIH that have been self-dosing on the down low trying to figure this stuff out uh uh are definitely into that. But um yeah maybe you could share a little bit about that path. Yeah I can give a quick rundown of of that kind of research.

So this was a a big project that I did during my PhD which was I was basically trying to deconstruct like chemically deconstruct uh a psychedelic and figure out which part of the molecule did what. So which part was therapeutic, which part was uh more dangerous, which part was giving side effects, which part made it hallucinogenic, etc. And so I basically broke it down into its component parts and screened did a did did a big screening of all of this. Um and basically then I could like rebuild into the compound that I wanted. Um so so one thing that really kind of pushed forward pushed me forward um and this is kind of coming back to this idea of accessible healthcare accessible medicine um is that although psychedelic medicine is so it seems so powerful and it's gained so much momentum and it really has done remarkable things for psychiatry but it it also uh seems to be serving some populations more than others which is that the people that can afford to do this because right now it's tens of thousands of dollars to do something like this.

Um you require multiple full days off works uh which is days without pay. You know there's no child care and really people from lower socioeconomic classes who are often people who who need these kinds of medications the most are like the most it's most inaccessible for them. So what I wanted to know is basically could I deconstruct these psychedelics and rebuild it into something that was non-h hallucinogenic? If it was non-h hallucinogenic and safer, would people need all of these appointments? Would they be able to maybe take this at home or maybe take one day instead of multiple prep days, multiple drug days, whatever the the current there's there's that's kind of the way the current clinical trials are doing right now with something like psilocybin.

Um so the idea is like do you need the hallucinations in order to have a therapeutic effect? You need to undergo that ego death that spiritual experience in order to feel better or is is the trip something that just happens and the therapeutic mechanism happens a different way. And so what I did is I made a non-h hallucinogenic safer version of ibagane and then I tested it head-to-head with a traditional psychedelic and basically it it works. It works just as well suggesting that uh psyched the hallucinations may not be necessary. So um and and leading up to the aha moment might have been something like micro doing right micro doing you're not having these intense hallucinogenic effects but it seems to work in people right um and they are lower doses so they won't have these insanely profound effects but it was like our first key that like maybe you don't need this experience to just be better um so that was maybe I feel like it was a building of an aha moment where I was like I think this work.

I think this could work. And then I like made all these drugs and tested the ball and I was like, it works. It freaking works. Um, which was very exciting. So, I guess that was that was my aha moment.

Uh, before we get to this the second and third questions about uh intellectual independence and ownership. Uh, how important were were the availability of resources like facilities, reagents, mentorship? What what do you think were the most critical components of support for you as a trainee to do something incredible in your PhD research, right? Um what do you think put you put you in a position of maybe not advantage, but like what what do you think were the right pieces of support that let you capitalize on your talents um uh to to get to this aha moment? That is a great question.

Um, I would honestly say collaboration when uh so I joined my my PI's lab when he first started. It was a chemistry lab. We had a fume hood. We made drugs. We didn't have a lot of neuroscience stuff at all.

And he knew some neuroscience. He's a brilliant guy. Um, and he's definitely like learned a ton along the way. Um but when I joined I quickly outgrew what I learned in terms of neuroscience in that lab and I kind of created a network within the department. Like everyone knew who I was.

I'm just very extroverted and I talked to everybody. So I would invite myself to other people's lab meetings. I went to every journal club. I was just relentlessly asking questions just because that's kind of who I am. Um and developing those kind of collaborations.

Um and I had my my PI's go-ahad by the way. He's also like quite collaborative and so I I had this ability to be like if I if I met someone I could just say hey let's let's do an experiment together and I had his blessing to do whatever I wanted and and and that kind of worked. So I guess it was um like freedom on that front. Uh also collaborations open cores for sure. There were a whole bunch of like microscopy cores that I didn't have access to working in a chemistry lab.

So uh behavior cores uh microscopy cores stuff like that. Yeah, that's that that's fascinating, I think. So, it seems like culture was a huge uh finding your place in a culture that accepted your inquisition, that accepted your extraversion, and was like, "Yeah, come on in into the lab. We'll we'll open it up for you. We'll be able to h let you play."

Um, oh, that's that's yeah, that's terribly fascinating. So, at any point then, would you say uh that somebody have you ever had an experience where somebody said, "No, no, you can't look at my data." No, I don't trust you. No, we're not playing the same game here. Or maybe not even explicitly, but have you ever felt that um perhaps there's a different camp than the one that perhaps that you've participated in or what your experiences have been overall?

Yeah. Um some people just don't want to engage and that's fine. You know, you don't need to engage. Um, I I think one of the biggest hurdles in that vein is I would often go up to people and be like, "Hey, I have this side project. It's very similar to your side project.

Do you want to collaborate?" And we could like combine forces and make like a bigger, more imp [ __ ] if we work together. And is it okay if I swear? I'm so sorry. Yeah.

Can we get an applause for doing cool [ __ ] together, please? If you didn't hear in the back, doing cool [ __ ] is [ __ ] awesome. Um, yeah. And and so I would go up to people and I said, "Let's let's do this cool shit." And and sometimes people would say no.

Like I was like, "Oh, okay, fine." And and and they just they wanted it to be their project. They really wanted ownership over their thing. And sometimes I would even be like, "Okay, well, if that's the case, can you like tell me what you're doing and then I'll tell you what I'm going to do?" So at least we don't like scoop each other or step on each other.

I was like, at least at the very least we can be complimentary even if we're not we don't need to compete. And I haven't had the best response to that. To me, this is a very logical like, well, we're all working together for like the betterment of science, right? And people just don't do that. Um, and I don't really know why.

And I and and so sometimes people say like, well, if you do it and I do it, then it's better for replicability. Okay. But I really think it kind of comes down to like they want their name out there or they want I I don't know. I I kind of like fundamentally don't understand that. So maybe that's a lack on my part.

Yeah. Yeah. So I really want to drill down into uh in this the the scape or spectrum of incentives that might be out there. That's that's kind of like a leading question into that. um you know I can I think maybe the audience if they've been following along they can see perhaps like your incentives might be different uh than some of the other folks that might want to collaborate or not right so um you know I mean it's a tough question but you know what would you describe like your main incentive or drive to want to collaborate or continue down this path is it uh do you want to like um you know be like uh the director of NIH one day like are you looking for that sort of thing or what's your what's your deal or do you just want to keep saying uh I think that I mean okay I love science question by the way I apologize.

No no no no good question. There's just a lot packed into it. So um I love science. I I love doing what I do. Um I want to be you know currently I'm kind of in this academic world with like kind of dabbling with startups on the side and that's uh I don't know I've been like that for a while.

It's kind of how I am. I'd like to kind of keep going down this trajectory. Um, but there are definitely some like infrastructure changes that I think are are an issue and they make me drive. Like I actually a couple months ago I was like I wish I could be the director of NIMH which is the National Institute of Mental Health so that I could change these policies because they're so silly the way that they are currently that they're inhibiting progress on research. I I don't know like I don't really care to be um you know director of NImeh but if I could at least shape the way that people do this science like I can help the community because the way it's structured right now is just not great.

Yeah, I think that's a really good good unpacking. Um so coming back to this novel drug, it sounds like it could be pretty impactful um potentially very lucrative as well. So, did you have any exposure to did did folks folks from the tech transfer office reach out to you at any point? Um, what was that experience like when it came to like when did you start thinking about money at any point if you did? Okay.

Um, yeah. So, my my PI, my uh mentor when I was in graduate school is a chemist and so he knows all the links to the people at the tech transfer office. Uh, we filed patents before we released our paper, which is you have to do that before it's like public knowledge. So, you always have to file your patents before you do your paper. And I found out Oh my gosh, this is a touchy subject.

So, I'm saying anything. Yeah, cuz we are being So, I was I was left off the patent even though I I did the whole thing. Um, you were left off the patent. Yeah. For the drug.

Why do you think you were left off the patent? And who was on the patent? My boss was on the patent. Was he the only one? Did the university get a student?

He was the only one. But well, the patent's through the the University of Davis, California Davis. And how involved were you in the process or how much do you know like about the specifics of the patent? I I just know he filed it without me and it's done. Okay.

I see. So you're just like, "Oh, open close book. We're good to go. It's Yeah. And at one point I was like, "Oh, wait.

You filed it? Am I on it?" And he was like, "No." And I was like, "Why? I did all of it."

and he said that grad students don't belong on patents. So when coming back to your question about when did I start thinking of money was money an incentive for me? Uh I I was kind of not even given that chance before I realized there was a chance. So interesting. So oh there goes my phone.

Um no that's really really interesting. Uh and so do you think that like so there's two ways to think about it right? One is like, "Oh, shucks, man. I did it once. I can do it again.

I just need to be a professor at a university and then I can have my own patent." And then the other option maybe is not as optimistic. I don't think is more like uh maybe something's wrong here. And so do you would you say that's an accurate assessment? Uh and where would you fall if that's like Yeah.

valid binary choice? Um yeah. So there's different options here. One, right? So, so my drug is now going through pre-clinical trials.

It'll be in humans in theory later this year. Um, some people like totally off the record have like made this at home in their bathtub or something and taken it. And so people have taken it. They've survived. It's good.

Appears to be non-h hallucinogenic. Uh, so so that's really cool. Um, but until it goes through those those uh drug phase clinical trials, um, the patent doesn't have a lot of worth as is. it needs to show that it it works in humans through a proper clinical trial. So, uh the the the advice that I've been given is if it works, if it shows a lot of promise, I can go back and argue legally to be put onto that, then it's like worth, you know, worth the appeal going through that process, right?

But right now, what what I might be doing is just burning bridges with my old PI who is helping my career in other ways. um when in the end it might not even be worth anything. So that's one thing. The other thing is like yeah, just leave it, never think about it again. Do do something else.

Um I've also had people uh approach me um trying to get my knowledge of of synthesis and all these chemical structures and stuff to form other startups. Um or I've been offered I'll help you sue your old PI. And I was like I but but it's very interesting right like in this academic culture like my PhD adviser is going to play a huge role in my career going forward and this is not exactly a person that I want to piss off or and if I argue or bring him to court that will piss him off. Um and and if I want a career and like as as I advance through my career you know I started in his lab when he first started his lab but he's actually like kind of well known now. like he he got up there pretty fast and so now he's like a well-known guy and now I like really don't want to piss off a well-known guy.

So it's it's a little bit of a catch 22, I think. Like I I should just leave it and not burn any bridges. Yeah. I mean that seems pretty sane, right? I mean why why rock the boat?

Yeah. Uh so um I do want to talk to you a little bit about uh what's happening here and your kind of like impressions and maybe but I I do want to make sure we drill down a little bit into uh where you are right now. Um and if you went back like would you do anything differently? Like would you just drop out and do your own thing or has your career been self uh like um has been gratifying in of itself that it's like not it's just like a bump in the road, right? I think if I could go back and do anything, I would have argued to be on that patent at the beginning before it was submitted.

Absolutely. Um, but I'm very happy with where I am now and I think that I've worked my butt off. Um, but it's it's paid off. Like what I've put in I've gotten out. Um, and I've had a for the most part pretty supportive crew of people around me.

Um, yeah. Yeah. And and I'm a little bit of a pacifist. I don't really want to have any confrontation. So maybe, you know, other people would take a different approach than me.

Um but I'm just going to lie low, at least for now. That makes sense. Now it totally makes sense. Um cool. So So where would you say right now you are on like the path to intellectual independence?

Um do you feel like you have a lot of self- sovereignty as a scientist? And how how does like the identity that you're creating? Lindseay Cameron, PhD, neuroscientist, etc., etc. How does that kind of play into that?

Great question. And I think to to preface this, I'm going to start a little bit about uh where I am right now as a postoc, which is so uh is anyone here like a scientist like a neuroscientist or scientist. Okay, cool. Quite a few. Wow.

So, I'm a I'm a joint postoc, which means I work through two different labs. One is Carl Daiseroth. He invented something called channel rodopsin. He also did clarity and a couple other really cool tools that we use now. And the other one is Rob Malanka who was one of the the first people to talk about neuroplasticity.

And so I I kind of selected these two mentors to use cool tools to study neuroplasticity to study psychedelics. Um kind of like a bit of a neuroscience mecca. like she's basically working with somebody who can who invented a technique that allows you to mind control uh genetically modified or uh mammals with lasers with lasers. Uh and then uh plasticity is something that's been you know u an really important topic in in neuroscience you know from the beginning. So it seems like you're right where you want to be to make that next breakthrough.

Yeah, I I am in an awesome position which is another reason I don't want to rock the boat. Um, so both of these these two professors that I work with are they they're they're kind of like hot shots and they are too busy to like deal with me, which is fine. I don't want to be micromanaged. They kind of just give me anything that I need. If I ask for something, they usually give me whatever I need to do my experiments and they kind of just leave me alone, which I love.

It's just I just need to like do the experiments that I want to do and no one is looking over my shoulder or micromanaging and I love that. So, in terms of uh independence, I'm having a great time. Um, one thing that I do worry about going forward is that, you know, I'm setting up both of these labs to have so many tools in terms of the rigs that I build or like the the microscopes that I build or the drugs that I make that I give to the labs that like now when I have my own lab, hopefully one day it'll be like a little baby PI with like a little bit of startup and I'll have these massive labs that I've just left them everything to compete with me. So, it's like a different flip side of independent. Like, I'm having a great time now, but I don't know what it's going to be like down the future.

So, and carving out even a um kind of like an intellectual topic that is different from them. I mean, I I can definitely think of some now, but they could pivot at any point and then just totally with unlimited resources basically. Unlimited. There's these are like some of the best funded labs in the world, which is awesome to be a posttock in, but like very scary to think about that I'm going to have to then compete with them once I leave. Yeah.

Yeah. That's freaking terrifying. So, it's so it's like you're in the Citadel, you know, you've got access to the armory, you've got ballista catapults, you know, you can just shatter any problem statement that's in front of you with cutting edge technology. And then once you get to the point where it's time to move on, because eventually there's a a clock is ticking. Um, you're gonna have to go out with nothing but the banners you carry, the name that you've built for yourself, and build from scratch.

Yeah, that's a good uh that's a good metaphor. Yeah. And so, do you think that uh you would, you know, so if you're out there, what what do you think? Do you think like building another citadel is is the right idea or like what do you think you would do differently about your lab that um that perhaps or maybe do the same? I mean, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer here.

I I think I have different uh mentorship uh philosophies than my current I mean I love what I do now and I think that if I have a my own lab like you know if if some people are competent enough to just go do their thing like you can go do your thing but if these people need more mentorship then I will give I think mentorship really works on a kind of individual basis and everyone's different in how they prefer to be mentored um I would love a big lab. I just have so many questions. I just get so excited about science. If we just had like a zillion projects going at once, that would just be very exciting to me. You should talk to uh Amosio Thomas in the back over there who has a giant lab.

He has just one giant lab. You should you should talk to him. Oh, the jogle. Yeah, the joggle. You've heard of it?

Yeah. Oh, cool. Cool. Um so definitely yeah, chat with He's here. He's here.

You can talk to him. Um, and okay, so we're almost at time and I didn't get to a topic because it's been incredibly we went deep. Um, thank you by the way, of course. And for being open and um, so what what is DII? What what is what like what is DI?

What why are we here? Why are you here? Decentralized science. Whoa. Is it a what do you think?

Is it just a hype term or I know it because I know that you do it. You don't have to. You can don't worry about my feelings. Okay. Uh I I think I think you explained to me once like if you had like huge databases that other people that everyone that ran I don't know fMRI could just upload it to a database, you'd have infinitely more data than if everyone just ran their own little studies.

And that is brilliant. That's brilliant. Um, and it it sounds like a very cool, very futuristic way forward, you know, and as technology kind of advances and we have this ability to Yeah. kind of collaborate or like have communication or access to things, especially Okay, I see. I'm getting to why you got you brought me here now.

Nefarious. So yeah, especially as like you have these huge labs with so much money and these, you know, young labs with not as much money that lack resources. If you had access to more resources, um it might equal the playing like level the playing field a bit. Um open up the gates to the Citadel. Yeah, I see why you pulled me on this stage now.

Is this a moment? Is this a Eureka moment? Maybe this is my Eureka moment of this week. Um, before we close off, was there anything that stood out to you in a positive or negative way about what you've seen so far? If you could answer on both sides, that would be great.

But, okay. Yes. I'm going to start off with positive because I come here and I find all these science people who love to talk science. A lot of people really like to talk about psychedelics, too. I love that.

So, don't get me wrong. Um, there's also a lot of uh people from different venues, right? I've heard a lot of like protein folding and docking and and and that's cool. Like let's let's talk about psychedelics and docking on the 2-way receptor because that's a huge thing right now. Um I I love the idea of like different funding mechanisms.

I love the idea of open source publication. This is like to me one of the the biggest next hurdles that scientists have to face. And um you know, ELIFE is kind of one of the bigger journals right now that has some like changes to their policies. I don't know if they're good. I don't know if they're bad, but at least they're trying something, you know, and I and I really appreciate that.

And I uh have published in New Life before and absolutely will again. And I I really support that philosophy and mentality, which is kind of controversial. Would you would you say it's totally controversial, but at least they're changing up the game, you know, like something needs to change and at least they're doing something. Um, so, so this idea of just talking with people from drastically different backgrounds about what what are their views or what are their opinions on open access like sometimes academia can be so insular and like you know we're just used to this is how you submit journals to science or something you know like this is just this is just the way it happens you know so so really getting out of that comfort zone and understanding that there can be different types of publishing models is very useful um I I would say so So, so basically what I'm saying is I think there's a lot of like-minded people here. Um, and and I really really love that.

I would say a drawback is that I have no idea what you're saying. Um, like the other day I asked Shotti, "What is a DAO? I don't know what a DAO is." And he sent me a link and I read about it and now I know what it is. But um I just think if there were a way to kind of bridge um my academic world which is is often quite insular and and the world here this like web 3 world to make everything more accessible um would be fantastic.

I think we got to break down those barriers. I think you know we as scientists have a bunch of jargon. not going to like that's totally a thing too. So I acknowledge that. But if we could just break down the barriers on both sides to build that bridge and then build that bridge up, I think that's where where we should go.

Yeah. Well, that's that's it. You heard it folks. The best and the worst of DI up until as as uh as seen and experienced by someone completely new to the space. uh that we hope we can draw you into some of the many organizations, societies, Dows, and protocols developing tooling.

Um definitely do, you know, uh uh you know, feel free to reach out to myself or Lindsay if you would like to follow up on any of these conversations. And yeah, with that, I'd like to give a big round of applause for Lindsay for coming out here. And yeah, thank you for having me. Um, and with that, I'm going to pass the mic off to Galani, our much vaunted uh uh MC. Uh, and uh we're going to transition into the next set of content.

This mic off? Oh, no. This mic works. All right, here we go. Um, so yes, thank you Shotti and Lindsay for the great talk on essentially how do you trick somebody to getting into DI.

I think Shotti did it quite well. Um, I love this infectious feel. Um, next up we're going to have a panel discussion. Shotty, come for a sec. Yes, we're going to have a pollen discussion led by Ariela once again, our great moderator.

And this is going to involve Raymond Chang, Lori Hack, Ariela is the moderator, Thomas Lre, so the guy from Joo, the Jogal guy, and Allison Dutman from Foresight Institute. And this is going to be a great talk. So, welcome them on to the stage, please. And the topic of this panel is one that I consider to be very spicy not only in the DI space but also in the larger web3 space and we might get some hate from the other side but it is to D or not to D and that is essentially do we need decentralization in science and if so or if not but if so where does it need to be applied to be most effective in a reaching or making DI what we want it to be. Sure.

So it seems like Al Allison is not here. Is there anybody else who would like to maybe come on and join this discussion that may have two cents or two Satoshi? An advocate, right? We have our two skeptics. So we need as an advocate, somebody who is for or pro decentralization in science.

We haven't practiced anything, so you won't be behind. They have no idea what I'm going to ask either. Yeah, it's all it's all be spont. I saw a hand go up, so if he wants to come in. I'll start talking while Shorts that out.

Okay. So, I'm just going to set the agenda while y'all are sorting that out. Um, so the first thing we're going to do is very brief introductions. So, in just one minute or less, like what about you and your background is most relevant to this debate. Um, then I want to do a couple audience polls on the meaning and purpose of DESI.

Um, so if you're zoning out, now is a great time to come back and refocus and get ready for me to ask your opinion. And then we'll dive into some gently moderated discussions. So that means you can kind of freely argue amongst yourselves. But if you start monologuing for more than two minutes, I'll probably step in unless it's like the best epiphany of your life. So um, let's get started with some introductions.

one minute or less. Uh, who are you and uh, how do you feel about DAI? All right, I'll start. Um, hi, I'm Thomas. I'm the juggle guy.

Um, I'm a scientist by training. I'm a biologist, synthetic biologist. Um, had the chance to actually co-ound the first uh, French synthetic biology laboratory, research laboratory. Um, and I went into the DIY bio movement. I helped also grow the DIY bio movement in Europe.

uh created the first biohacker space there in uh in France in Paris. Um and this whole experience uh taught me so much about you know um what was how could we we could do science differently outside academic setting and I just fell in love you know with this level of freedom and inclusivity. Uh so I basically became my life mission to recreate like the best environment possible for doing science and I know that the institutional way of doing it is not the right way. So um so that's why biohacker space was one and now I'm doing juggle. The difference is that it's not a physical space it's a digital space uh and we're trying to build a giant lab where everybody can work together.

Hi I'm Lori Hack. Um I am a trained neuroscientist. So have a PhD in neuroscience. Uh did a posttock at NIH and kind of from there completely shifted out of the lab which was a wonderful day in my life I have to say. Um and moved into science policy.

So I worked at science magazine for a while. Um I worked at the nationalmies in the United States for a while. Um and from there uh moved to a startup um that was trying to take uh you know how do you munchge a whole bunch of data together with policy objectives and uh did a lot of consulting with NIH um over you know how do we understand portfolios and investments and impact and a variety of other things. Um one of the big things I did when I was at NIH was a study looking at um race, ethnicity and gender and grant awards. Um that was a paper in 2011 in Science magazine.

That was a big gamecher for a lot of people um at NIH and and across the United States and thinking about um what the heck is going on? Why are so many fewer um African-American and black uh scientists getting awards um than white um white scientists? Um so that um and then from there um I was um at Orchid um which you guys have heard a little bit about um was the founding CEO at Orchid. So um and now I'm at my own company and so really the thread you know what resonated with what you said the thread for me has really been how do we build infrastructure that supports researchers directly in doing the best that they can do right so I don't do research myself but my life mission really has been how can we create the policy and the technical tools and infrastructure that enable researchers to do the work um that they can do without getting hamstrung by all the nonsense that happens in some of the institutional structures that we have. So, and and you identify as a skeptic, correct?

Yeah, I guess I'm a skeptic in some ways, but yeah, we can we'll get into it. All right, continue. I love that. Totally agree with all of that. Um, love to chat more about it.

Um, so I'm my name is Raymond Chang. I'm also a scientist by background. Um, I did my PhD uh at University of Washington posttock at Berkeley in uh decentralized systems in computer science. Um, so it's more in applied cryptography, distributed systems, scalable systems, etc. Um, so, uh, ended up spinning out some of that work, excuse me, uh, ended up spinning out some of that work into a crypto startup called Oasis Labs.

Um, co-founder of that back in 2018. Now, currently working on a new protocol, uh, called Hyperserts, uh, which, uh, Shotti gave a shout out to, thank you. Um, but we're trying to bring out more impact funding uh, for public goods, especially things like science. I think one of the biggest flaws uh in the way that we currently do science today is the way that science funding is allocated and how uh value is transferred and reputations are are managed. Um and so we're hoping to change some of that.

Um but I am you're also you're a skeptic because you sound very very dai from that intro like crypto native like we need to change the system. Are you sure you're on the right side? Everything is rigged. you know, I I straddle I straddle both sides. There's a reason why I'm here.

Um I you know, I still teach I as a faculty member at University of San Francisco. I'm very uh I love I love science. I love um academia and I have uh strong opinions about you know um the way things should go. I um but uh in on some level I think I am just really passionate about making science better in general and that whether that's using crypto or not. Um, I'll give a quick plug to, you know, the meta-cience conference that's happening in May, um, which is just a different community of people that want to make science better.

I'll be giving a talk out there about, uh, impact funding as well. Um, but I think, you know, maybe one of my messages here is just that we we should be thinking about it cohesively about how to solve the pain points for researchers um, and how to make that better as opposed to, you know, making it a token thing, which I think would make it difficult for a lot of people to to swallow. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll see how it shades out.

If the skeptic side isn't skeptical enough, I can always step in a little bit with some shade. So, all right. And last but not least, our um impromptu guest. Yes. Uh my name is Jason Hartgrave.

I'm in a impromptu third string quarterback by trade. Uh no. Um no, I I am a crypto advocate. Uh I previously worked with Outlier Ventures mainly in a marketing and advocacy condition uh or a capacity. Um I've been a crypto founder.

um tried to crypto edtech startup for a little bit and uh really just a an enthusiast of the space uh big fan of science. Um I think foresight institute rings a bell. I uh went to the University of Houston briefly got a certificate in strategic foresight. um have been like a kind of really more of a singularity transhumanist enthusiast uh with a lot of the different emerging tech and uh really excited about developments uh you know across the board of science everything from you know biotech to AI uh you know really exciting and so I'm just kind of here to uh you know provide a couple of uh insights maybe I don't know we'll see sounds good and quick reminder to the panelists there is a lot of noise because fun fact curtains aren't soundproof Um, so do try to speak up and close to the microphone so that uh everybody can hear you. Um, and for what it's worth, I forgot to do me.

I'm Ariela. I'm an MD PhD candidate at WashU by day and founder of Web 3 Women in Science by Night and uh, happy to be here moderating. So, all right, audience wake up time. Time for our first poll. So, I want to get a general consensus in the room for like what is DII because the topic of the debate is 2D or not 2D.

the sigh, but I think we need to define what that really is. And I think it's more debatable than we really uh give ourselves credit for sometimes. So, I want to talk about is blockchain, we're all here at a blockchain conference, but is blockchain necessary or sufficient for DI? So, I'll repeat and explain. Um, you know, so if there's so is blockchain necessary for DI?

So, hypothetically, if there's an organic, loosely organized, non- hierarchical internet-based community of scientists doing research, but none of them have ever used the words or know what they mean, web 3, DAO, crypto, blockchain, is that internet community of scientists, is that DI in your opinion? So, let's have hands up and panelists, you can raise your hands, too. Hands up for yes, you can be DI without blockchain. Let's see. It's kind of I'm kind of blind up here, but all right, that is a large number of hands.

And what about for no, you need to be affiliated with web 3, crypto, blockchain to be DI. Wow, we all agree on something. Okay, so we're here at uh for those of you watching the live stream, nobody raised their hands. I mean, that could be pure pressure. There's probably a few people out there that do think that blockchain is necessary, but um that's a really interesting place to start.

And so second question what logically follows is is blockchain sufficient for DII. So is anything that exists at the intersection of blockchain and science automatically DI? Hypothetically if you have a for-profit traditional company and they've built some product or service using blockchain technology and are selling it to researchers but they're a fully centralized company with a CEO and you know nothing decentralized about them. Is that DI? And I know it's case by case, but just just for fun, let's see on average where that shapes out.

So yes, raise your hands for a yes, that's DI. Anything at the intersection of blockchain and science. I see one, two hands on the stage. Yeah, a half hand up. A half hand.

The word anything throws me a little bit, but you know. Right. Right. Okay. And then can we get some hands for um No, that's not Dai.

Oh, many many many hands. So, that'll be an interesting one to Wait, did we all What was the Can you guys do it again or you all know or All right, seems like we have some points of contention. So, should we debate is the existence of blockchain technology in the project as long as it is something to do with blockchain and something to do with science, is that automatically DEI? You wanna I'll take a shot. Yeah.

Yeah. I I think that if you think of blockchain as maybe being like uh you know the the source of truth, right? The the supply chain for where the truth is at and if it's in an displayed in an open and transparent way and across like multiple parties so that truth is inverifiable, then yes, it could be a contributor to the DIY movement and the community even if that research or or that source of truth was performed by a centralized entity. If overall it's adding to to the body of knowledge then by default it could be referenced right for decentralized movements that are you know based on some other initiative. Yeah I mean I think it's important to note that just even if if there's that kind of project and we're saying no that's not DII that doesn't automatically mean oh that project is worthless.

You know you can add value and still not be DI. I'm sure there's a lot of things in the world that have value and aren't DEI. But yeah, I'm just really curious to hear more opinions on on uh on this question. Go ahead. I think um there weren't a lot of hands raised and you know, maybe the discomfort comes from the fact that I'm not the one that came up with the term DSI, so I'm not sure what the intention was to begin with.

Um I mean decentralization is by definition a spectrum, right? There's no like clear boundary by which you are clearly centralized and clearly decentralized. You know, we don't talk about it, but like free markets are decentralized. There's all sorts of different ways to decentralize something and it depends what access actually matters to you. Um, I think the reason why I had like a halfand up was because when it comes to blockchains, when it comes to crypto, typically the reason why somebody goes on to one of these systems is because they want some auditable trail.

They want to have some kind of open system. These are open source software, open protocols. Um, now of course it could be used in a way that's like very anti-ethos and I I could see a world where that happens, but I would say probably like I would guess your probable intent if you're trying to integrate with something like Ethereum or or blockchain is probably to make the system more open which probably has indicators of you know being more decentralized but it's a guess. Go ahead Lori. Yeah, I mean I guess my thing would be and what is your intent in the product and it's less about the technology you're using for the product than about the your product design and user interface and for me decentralized science is you know it's about providing agency and ensuring agency for the individual researcher um and and not about blockchain and so yeah blockchain could be a component of a product that is made available to the research community but I think it's the intent of the the product itself that matters so I can't say ask because it depends and I don't see blockchain as a critical feature.

That's smart. Do you want to weigh in on this? So you don't have to. No, I mean um plus one plus plus one. That's that's a great answer.

So, you know, you've started to bring us on to these these important next topics of, you know, defining what decentralized actually means, you know, and in what ways is science already decentralized and in what ways is it not decentralized, you know, and then spoiler alert where I want to go with that is in the ways that science is not decentralized yet, is that a bad thing or is it a good thing? Should we be trying to decentralize it more? And I think that gets at the core of this 2D or not to D. So does anyone want to give any examples of the way that science as an institution is currently decentralized or not or not decentralized? I I can do a not right.

So one of the big challenges in research policy in the United States is that we have uh over seven individual funding agencies uh for research. Right? And so as an individual researcher, you now have to navigate all those different funding agencies. And the policies aren't well coordinated across those funding agencies. And even something as simple as coordinating a grant application interface that could be shared across all those funding agencies just a pain.

And so there's a huge amount of time and effort that researchers expend trying to understand, learn, etc. all the different rules and regulations from the different agencies that makes funding just a pain in the ass. It's just a pain the administration of that and a lot of the overheads you see somebody was talking about this this morning on the grants is because you have to have a whole grants office at your university to manage the arcanity of this process. So I think that's something where we actually do have a very decentralized funding federal funding and philanthropic funding um uh system here in the United States that makes it that much more difficult in some ways to understand what's available and to apply for those funds. On the other hand, the fact that it is decentralized means that, you know, Congress can't cut funding for everybody at the same time, which is why it's decentralized.

Um, it also provides people creative ways and niches to exist and support their research. So, there's pluses and minuses, but from a policy perspective, it's a nightmare. And I think you wanted to weigh in you. Yes, Raymond. You're like pointing at me.

Sorry. I just never know. Maybe I should just step back a little or something. Um, no, I completely agree with that. I think I think there are ways that science is incredibly decentralized and ways that it's not, right?

Um, uh, I'll get back to funding, but let me start with the processes and tooling because I feel like a lot of people in DI focus a lot on making more decentralized processes and tooling for your work. And that might not be the right place to start because in many ways this science is incredibly decentralized. There's archive, there's e-rint, you could like when I started I just started tossing PDFs on my own website, right? like anybody can create a blog and I think more and more scientists are getting a lot better about tweeting about beyond mastadon about writing blog posts about their work earlier on I think these are all fantastic trends that people are sharing earlier and we can create better tooling to maybe facilitate some of that but maybe that isn't really where the pain point is I think like a lot of tooling already exists to make science decentralized and anybody can organize a conference anybody and you know for the most part while we still argue about open access papers and things like that for the most part open access is winning And you know, we we have a lot of PDFs online now, and that's fantastic. Can I can I double click on a couple of those points for a second?

Sure. A tech term that I've learned here. Um, so in terms of publishing your science on your blog, sure, anybody can post anything on the internet, but that's not going to get you tenure, right? So I think that one of the the things that we talk about in DI is maybe trying to bridge that gap. You know, trying to make things that you could do in a more decentralized manner actually still be relevant for career advancement.

And whether that means, you know, making friends with academia or creating an ecosystem, you know, that's outside of academia that actually succeeds, you kind of have to pick one of those paths. You know, posting posting on a PDF. I mean I guess if it's like your hobby but it it it doesn't do the same thing as publishing right I'm I'm going to interject just to because you have archive bioarchchive and a variety and social sciences has an archive as well where you can post your and economics has huge ones uh where you post your research before it's peer-reviewed so I think part of it is also do we accept the institutions as they are or do we push them and say these suck and we're going to do something different and look at the amazing advance es that are made in the physical sciences because they have archive and because you can get conversations about the paper right so I think you know for me DI is all about how do we challenge these structures that are holding us back as scientists instead of saying I need to get promotion to tenure so I'm going to follow the road that everyone else is no come on this is an opportunity to be a little revolutionary here you are very positive skeptic yeah the least skeptical something Um I think the the publication uh aspect is very important obviously but I think ultimately uh science is all it's like a social game you know uh you can be a very good scientist you can have access all these tools but at the end if you don't have like the right network of collaborator you know uh or access to opportunities you're not going to go very far. Um and and so the the current systems make it so that you know we we heard stories uh for is it's it's hard because it's like a power structure. Um so for me the decentralization means that it's like we are making things more grounded like more equal right so it's like an equal chances uh for opportunities if you if you're motivated if you if you um you know are somehow interested in really you know fighting for that subject whoever you are wherever you are you should have the same chance um and and that's that's the kind of things that um you know I've been observing, experimenting with uh with Joo is we we have so many tools uh you know to to you know we we can share so much stuff on the internet but at the end is is how do you make this knowledge like this content that you're producing meaningful you know connectable um and archive is great but archive doesn't have these social components so that you can produce something to archive but then it's maybe nobody will see it right and and maybe that work that would have done uh that know would have conducted to the creation of this pre pre-ublication was done just in your own corner and it could have been much better if you had collaborated much early on with other people that maybe you you never know actually have existed and like when you look at young researchers so much of them like young PhDs and pos there's a lot of loneliness you know it's like you you can really feel alone uh because you you know you don't have this network yet right and people around your institutes are not necessarily like your friends, right?

Or like people that are really connected to your topic and will be helpful to you. So being able to uh to provide the opportunity to uh to interconnect like all talents in the world interested in like similar topic is really meaningful like in transformative and for me that's what the design you know stands for. I would I would add too a little bit about the proliferation of tools that there is a lot of tools but um I think the decentralization and especially through like crowdfunding means means that access to those tools and specifically I'm talking about like instrumentation like there's a great like DIY bio you know lab movement and kind of like the same thing that we did for maker spaces and making access to actual scientific tooling labs you know places where people can go and collaborate together almost like co-working spaces for doing science and that kind of thing. And that could be made easier by like people identifying with other interested parties in the community to then like you know sponsor and you know have more meetups and have more collaboration. So yes, like what you're talking about, the science and the and the social collaborative tools are important and we do have some now, but I think crypto enables, you know, people to come together in new and interesting ways where it really cements that connection between them and you know through a DAO they can pursue specific uh scientific objectives by identifying other people you know through these tools that you know share that same common interest and then that kind of aligns them in a more unified Okay.

Can I ask a question just as like a counter counter question? And also just as a as a caveat, anybody here on the panel can ask a question. And I don't know if we have the infrastructure for audiences to ask their qu do we? It seems we do. So, you know, at any point if anyone raises their hands, I'll try to intermittently look over and you're welcome to ask any questions, but yes, go ahead.

Um, so, you know, my my lens is going to be coming from the academic computer science world. That's the world that I lived in. So I don't know if this equally applies to other spaces but at least in the computer science world um there are autonomous organizations of people who collect together to curate work. Part of the issue is information overload to you know assess work that's good and come together during conferences to connect and meet other people that are interested. And so these PCs, whether you like this structure or not, are self-organizing, autonomous.

They don't call themselves a DAO. They don't have a token, but they do the work and they they meet regularly to assess work and and connect. How is this different? Like what what does DI do that that isn't great question. I would say it's different.

Uh it's I think the same in LG. It's not the same protocol. I mean, Joo is not web three based currently. So we we've built everything in the last four years on web two, you know. uh but uh I see web3 as an opportunity as well like to um to dive much deeper in u know like tooling that would be more adapted to fully decentralized model because right now we are trying to bring centralized you know organizations or mindsets uh decentralize them but what about in 10 years right where we'll have millions and millions you know of uh of of projects individuals that have to interact much more of freely um would web to only be enough and my qu my answer is I don't know.

So I'm taking the bet that we have actually to invest in Webster as well and explore. Yeah, I actually took a dive into juggle this morning after I talked to you and one of the things I really love about it is it creates a talent marketplace for scientists and I think one of the things I've seen that's really toxic in academia is at least in the biomedical field is people stagnating in the postto and feeling like oh my god the only thing I could possibly do that would be meaningful is to have an academic career and I love the fact that juggle is pro is providing this marketplace that says hey I'm working on this really cool project and it it specifically says I need some help and this is what I need help in and I think it provides a very clear opportunity for researchers to like jump onto projects. I love that about it. And whether it's web two or three, I don't freaking care, right? It's just it's a new way of thinking about talent management in the scientific space.

So, high five to you, dude. Yeah. And I would agree with you too that like one of the things besides just you know a token that we share for some material gain. It really becomes more of a communication tool in a like a badge or a po app or an identifying thing where people that are outside the world of academia and the community that you're trying to serve can then participate in in your in your story in your collaboration. And I I think it's a great way to if nothing else but to grow the community of the project itself and the ethos or the mission behind that.

So I just want to say um I hear so much consensus and I agree and I think you know that's really nice in its own way really big happy family but you know not not quite the point. So let's try to dig down into what we can actually debate a little bit here and um maybe just starting with the skeptics. What have you heard um you know in the whole history of your experience of DEI or at this conference where you've been like no you know you don't have to call I mean don't call anyone out like specifically but you know as a concept and you know if you need some inspiration potential ideas include the concept of permissionlessness um maybe regulations and ethics um credentials does science need more equality versus actually hierarchy maybe potentially being useful for some things the role of expertise I think it's something controversial I think for me it's this whole thing of what's an expert and what's a scientist right and I think we're all born being scientists right we are all scientists you don't have to have a PhD in a way to be a scientist right but but you do need certain kinds of expertise to do certain kinds of research right so you have to have done the work to learn about the language of biology to learn about how do I actually code? Oh my god, it's hard. It's really hard, right?

You have to do that. You can't just jump in as a newbie and expect to be able to participate. Um, so I think for me the the the participation component is how do you balance this idea of oh my god scientists are these special breed of people with no we're all scientists we all test hypotheses in our daily lives with what expertise do we need and how do we gain that expertise and uh you know to Shotti's point and others is like how do you signal that you have that expertise so that when you say hey I'd like to participate in your collaboration the person, you know, that's that's advertising for help understands that you can come in and be a contributor, right? Or, hey, I'd love to participate, but I need to understand more about what you're doing. I think those are the conversations that we need to have instead of saying, oh, I'm a I'm this kind of a person and I have this training and you couldn't possibly understand my doing because you don't have a PhD.

I think that's the part that DI can help. But I don't think right that a crypto token is going to solve that problem. And that's where my skepticism comes in in this is I feel like people are coming with this really cool hammer, right, of web 3. Oh, it's a and it's cool. It's really neat, but they're saying we're going to solve science with web 3 tools.

No, you're not going to [ __ ] solve science with web 3 tools. You're going to solve science, but thinking about the culture and how do we make it more inclusive for people? And then if web 3 tools are useful, awesome. But don't come in saying here's crypto and we're going to solve everything. That's why I'm a skeptic.

Does anyone disagree? Can you say something worse? You Yeah, go ahead. I think what she's alluding to is like people saying web 3 and not really saying like incentive and system design because like system design is kind of at the heart of every like you know web 3 project. How does a token work?

What does it incentivize? What are the game theory behind it? But a lot of people just tie it to some sort of, you know, financial outcome at the end and it becomes sort of like, you know, a get-richqu scheme or, you know, just very much in the way that people can talk in crypto in one-dimensional ways. Like an NFT could be one thing, a piece of art, or it could be, you know, something completely different. So, we sort of use these catchall terms to describe very complex things.

And so I I think that there is a lot of sensationalism behind the DI movement and it's important for us, you know, to evaluate each project on its individual merits and how are they designing web 3 to either amplify individual parts of that project or integrate it into a cohesive ecosystem on a case-byase basis. Okay, remind we have to speak up again because of our non-stop proof curtains. Hello. Um, and is do you wanna you have anything? Um, I mean I Okay, I gotta find a way to like really disagree with this.

Yeah. Yes, please. Cuz all these arguments are garbage. No, I I honestly I think it's really I think this makes sense. I think it's hard.

It's hard because like we're talking in the abstract, right? And like um at the end of the day like you have to solve a painoint. And I I think for the most part, you know, I I'm learning more about the space. I'm learning about what other people are doing. But um I think that there are just too often people that are pointing at problems that aren't actually pain points for scientists.

And um you know, part of it is I would I love the idea of equal opportunity. I love the idea of spreading expertise. But um one of the reasons why I started working on hyperserts because is because funding actually is one of the more one of the more centralized points of science that makes it very difficult for people to enter the space and the bottom line is how do I make a living like how are we going to get more funding in the space? How are we going to support more people to solve these challenges? is is the challenges is the challenges that society holds like solving climate change or being an interplanetary system are are these just engineering challenges that are left for the market to solve um or are they just like financial risk problems or do we actually have unknown knowledge that we still need to do?

And how are we going to draw and amplify the work that people are doing, but draw an order of magnitude more people that can sustain themselves and make a living not just volunteering, not just getting a couple of grants from a DAO here or there, but actually completely change the incentive system to draw more money in um so that more people can work on these problems because I think fundamentally we just need more people. Uh, I think this idea that we're going to just have like solve all the problems with AI and we're going to have UBI and all the problems are done seems kind of ridiculous to me. We need to draw more people in to solve some of these core fundamental hard problems. And uh I have not yet seen enough work solving these problems. But these are not crypto problems.

These are not, you know, web 3 problems. These are, you know, pretty core to the science experience. Okay. quick quickly and then I want to real quick one thing that we haven't really mentioned on the panel that's huge and problem for DI is really agreement on what safety means what what what safety means and like safety for you know the experiment process you know making sure that we're not doing inhumane testing on animals or or things of this nature and using crypto and DI as a way to basically uh undercut regulatory standards in certain jurisdictions and perform unethical science and sort of you know then repackage it as a like oh this is this is crypto science or this is underground. So you know it it's a really touchy subject and it's really touchy even between like establishing standards within Dows and organizations around DEI itself and who is potentially a good actor or who could we identify as a bad actor within the space.

Yeah. Yeah. Um go ahead. So, so I had I had previously before Juggle, uh I had the experience to be like the spokesperson of the DIY bio movement and so I had to deal a lot with uh various institutions, organization like even the FBI uh because everybody was skeptic about our ability to uh to to do good you know in this open environments you know and so um we crafted very early on 2012 a code of ethics for the movement and we crowdsourced. It was the first time that uh a decentralized movement could do such a fit of work and it it it remained actually a pillar of the movement for the many years that afterwards.

Um but when you look when you look at so interacting with the biohacker spaces interacting with the fab labs you know all the makers a lot of um you know amateurs are there um is you know there's a lot of enthusiasm about about this but in ultimately when you look at you know where if you were to invest know resources in these movements how you're going to allocate these resources my know I've I've been trying to bring all these people together for many many many years and until you realize that what was missing is it's just like a sense of okay we cannot just help everybody at the same time and so we have to choose and the community has to choose what who are like the champions of the community and so every basically everything everything has to rely on proper evaluation and it's funny because it's one of the core pillar of science publishing like science in general right like how do you create trust because where it's been peer-reviewed So you can trust your peers, you know, and and even though you you you have to remain septic, but but this movement doesn't have this kind of framework. Uh and and so when we created an an like a committee review, sorry, I'm I'm being late. Just just wrap wrap it up. Yeah. when we when we introduce the community review uh framework uh at Joo and we we as the community like to really get into peer review and it's you know it's evaluate each other completely change the dynamic because then they could say hey um this is wrong this is good this is based on proper evaluation criterias we understand this we agreed on that and basically you get a much mature uh level of um of collaboration so we have a just a few minutes left and I just want to ask uh one one question here.

Um so when you're thinking about all the different threads that DI projects tend to land on so what comes to my mind is uh data sharing you know overcoming archaic systems you know for data sharing and data pro uh providence and ownership data sovereignty so data sharing maybe publishing everyone hates publishers right we're can all really agree on that trying to revolutionize the publishing process you don't damn it should have asked that earlier I love to hate them So and then um maybe funding is one that comes up a lot. So Dows as like we are going to fund this section of science with crypto crowdfunding. So out of those three tracks or feel free to throw in another track that I missed where can you tell each tell me like where do you think there actually is good potential and you know if there's one of those where you think that's not where it's at you know we shouldn't we shouldn't be doing that trying to generate some controversy. So what do you think is the best track and maybe the least promising track? I go very fast.

Uh for me it's the management of reputation in a decentralized network. So trust um so that you can trust somebody that you don't know and never met you know like a a young person from the other side of the world uh and uh equal access to funding based on the standard evaluation criteria. Yeah, I think for me it's team management. Same thing. How do we build trust among far-flung teams?

Um I think that's the biggest promise for D des DI and the what's the least promise and what's the least I don't think publishing is where you should be spending your time. Interesting. I think there's yeah there's problems with publishing but everyone likes to hate publishers. I think there's other things we should be hating than publishing. Should have another debate on that.

Go ahead. Most and least promising. I I would agree that least promising would be publishing. I think there's just it's already very decentralized. I think there are ways to there are issues with respect to information discovery and creating and you know filtering through like misinformation and things like that but um it's it's it's unclear that that's where we're going to make the most bang for our buck.

I think for me I I gave a little bit of spiel already about impact funding but I think funding really is I think the key. Like it it's nice to believe that maybe there'll be millions of people that are going to volunteer for science experiments here or there, but I think if you're really going to make an impact, if you're really going to build the expertise, that's why grad school is valuable. It gives you the dedicated time to build that expertise. If you're really going to make an impact and push the boundary of knowledge, you can't be doing this casually. Like you need to have some way to sustain yourself.

And I think there is potential here to create some kind of new incentive mechanism. maybe through crypto, maybe not, but just some new incentive mechanism that isn't the current federal grant funding system um that can help people sustain themselves. But um that's, you know, one of the things that we we want to be able to address with with Hyperserts and I would love to collaborate with anybody that has any ideas in the space. And then last but not least, uh I actually think it's like data sharing, uh medical data, biodata, scientific data sharing, uh especially as it relates to machine learning models that are coming online to learn from large data sets. So it's going to be, you know, niche data sets about uh scientific research that's been done to actually, you know, create that level of compute intelligence.

And uh I think that's really one of the best things. Although it's hard to um disagree with the you know crowdfunding you know of fringe science in general just being like the most exciting application uh for DI itself and we kind of see that with Vitadal right that was like you know lots of people want to live a long time and there it was well in crypto lots of people want to live forever there's a there's a bias there I All right I know we're at the last second I'm just curious team data sharing All right. Team, you can be more than one team. Team publishing. Team crowdfunding.

You know, revolutionizing funding. Okay. All right. Hope that was team. What did you say?

Team reputation. All right. Okay. I think everyone loves everything. So, but still cool.

All right. Gelani, take it away. Thanks, Ariela. Yes. So, round of applause for our panelists and great moderator.

That was a great talk. Trying to find out what DSI, what it is to des um our next talk is actually going to take place in about 5 minutes or so. So, if you need a little bit of a break, um you can do so. We're just going to switch out the chairs and then we'll be back to for a conversation with two special key speakers on um what it takes to onboard scientists into the DSI space. So, be back in 5 minutes or so.

[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]