August 1, 2023 • 23 mins
Yusuf N. Henriques is the Founder & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of IndyGeneUS AI & IndyGeneUS Institute (pronounced indigenous) a precision genomics company aiming to create the world's largest blockchain-encrypted digital health platform of indigenous and diasporic African clinical and genomic data. Their genomics laboratory is located at the JLABS facility in Washington, DC, on the historic grounds of the old Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where Henriques once walked the halls as a U.S. Army Combat Medic.
The Jamaican-born immigrant is a serial start-up visionary whose companies are at the helm of technology and thrive at the intersection of financial and health equity. He is passionate about mentoring the next generation of founders and was recently named a 2022 Techstars Mentor-In-Residence.
Henriques is a sought after thought leader where he frequently speaks on the importance of precision health equity and the power of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), with an emphasis on BIPOC communities.
Prior to Henriques’ start-up ventures he was a sought after regulatory affairs expert. He launched his career in the regulatory space as the acting Branch Chief for the Ob/Gyn, Gastroenterology, and Urology Divisions in the Center for Device and Radiological Health at the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
He served as Director of Regulatory Affairs for SAIC, where he oversaw regulatory compliance strategies for multi-site clinical trials. He was a lead regulatory scientist for the Strategic Innovation Group (SIG) at Booz Allen Hamilton and Senior Research Health Scientist for Outpatient Psychiatry at the James J. Peters Veteran Affairs Medical Center in The Bronx, NY.
Henriques managed a $45M scientific portfolio for a large multi-center clinical trial research project in PTSD and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injuries) for the VA Cooperative Study Research Program and the Department of Defense, where he studied alongside Rachel Yehuda, the Vice-chair of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) Psychiatry Department. It was through his association with ISMMS that he gained exclusive rights to the patent for the PTSD genomic assay (TruGen-1) that he developed under his first start-up TruGenomix (Polaris Genomics). The patent is currently being piloted at the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide to address the high rate of suicides in the veteran and active-duty populations.
The Howard University graduate earned his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry (Magna Cum Laude) and his entire c-suite are also Howard Alum. He is a proud father of four girls, an avid LinkedIn contributor, and a lover of soccer.
The Jamaican-born immigrant is a serial start-up visionary whose companies are at the helm of technology and thrive at the intersection of financial and health equity. He is passionate about mentoring the next generation of founders and was recently named a 2022 Techstars Mentor-In-Residence.
Henriques is a sought after thought leader where he frequently speaks on the importance of precision health equity and the power of Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS), with an emphasis on BIPOC communities.
Prior to Henriques’ start-up ventures he was a sought after regulatory affairs expert. He launched his career in the regulatory space as the acting Branch Chief for the Ob/Gyn, Gastroenterology, and Urology Divisions in the Center for Device and Radiological Health at the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
He served as Director of Regulatory Affairs for SAIC, where he oversaw regulatory compliance strategies for multi-site clinical trials. He was a lead regulatory scientist for the Strategic Innovation Group (SIG) at Booz Allen Hamilton and Senior Research Health Scientist for Outpatient Psychiatry at the James J. Peters Veteran Affairs Medical Center in The Bronx, NY.
Henriques managed a $45M scientific portfolio for a large multi-center clinical trial research project in PTSD and TBI (Traumatic Brain Injuries) for the VA Cooperative Study Research Program and the Department of Defense, where he studied alongside Rachel Yehuda, the Vice-chair of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) Psychiatry Department. It was through his association with ISMMS that he gained exclusive rights to the patent for the PTSD genomic assay (TruGen-1) that he developed under his first start-up TruGenomix (Polaris Genomics). The patent is currently being piloted at the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) hospitals nationwide to address the high rate of suicides in the veteran and active-duty populations.
The Howard University graduate earned his Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry (Magna Cum Laude) and his entire c-suite are also Howard Alum. He is a proud father of four girls, an avid LinkedIn contributor, and a lover of soccer.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
M ANDT Bank presents CEOs you shouldknow powered by iHeartMedia. Let's mean use
Of Enriquez. He is the founderand CEO for Indigenous, a genomics company
creating the world's largest blockchain encrypted repositoryof indigenous and Diasporic African clinical and multi
omnics data for disease prevention and detection, drug discovery and development, clinical disease
(00:24):
management, and precision health. Beforewe talk more about use OF's company,
I first asked him to talk alittle bit about himself. Where he's from
and his origin story broke in Kingston, Jamaica, a little island off the
coast there and down in Florida.Spent my whole adolescent life there and then
came to the US early nineties,high school in Miami, Florida. So
(00:46):
grew up in Kingston, Jamaica,did high school here in Miami, Florida,
and then moved on to military afterhigh school. And in my correct
also was Howard a part of youryour your career too, Yeah, So
I joined military to get the collegefund and the GI Bill, and so
(01:07):
when I exited the military after aboutsix and a half years, were able
to afford Howard University in DC.So I attended Howard University and studied biochemistry.
That's great. Howard such a greatschool, as you know, and
I talked to so many leaders tocome out of that school, and I'm
just always so proud and amaze thatwe have such a great school in our
area in the district here. Sowe've got a lot to digest and also
(01:30):
to talk about. When it comesto your company Indigenous, it's kind of
been around for almost two years now, so I do want to hear the
origin story about that. But Ialso want to talk about your military background
because I've talked to former military peoplethat have served and then are their own
bosses as CEOs, and there's areal distinction about coming out of the military
and then starting your own business andand and it's really different that people.
(01:53):
I want them to understand what thatis like. But first of all,
from myself and all our listeners,thank you for serving. How many years
in the army And what did youdo? So yeah, I stood six
and a half years straight out ofhigh school at seventeen, and I was
a combat medic for the United StatesArmy. You know, I got to
tell you, which is really fascinatingto me. You come from another country
(02:13):
and you move here for high schooland out of high school into the military.
That's a lot of major transition anda young person's life. Man.
Absolutely absolutely best decision I ever made. It really turned me from a young
boy into a man. You canimagine at seventeen years old, being responsible
for people's lives on the front lineand a sense of responsibility and purpose kind
(02:38):
of fit into you know what endedup, you know, being me starting
a company. So a lot oftimes I like to highlight the fact that
I'm prior military because it's that passionand purpose driven that's instilled in us in
the military that helps us be youknow, change agents for you know,
(02:58):
issues like what you know, indigenousit's just focused on them. Sure,
a lot of structure too, anda lot of things that go with that.
If you don't mind me asking whatkind of when you took your tours,
when you served as a medical person, where did you go and what
was it like? Yeah, youknow, I didn't know that I would
end up in all those places,but yeah, I pretty much did my
boot camp in Fort Lenarwood, Missouriin the hot summer. I then moved
(03:23):
into my medical training, my aiT training or they call an Advanced individual
training that was done at Fort TameHouston and at Walter Reid where I'm currently
now where my lab is. Sothat's a little bit surreal for me that
I'm back at the same location thatI used to be a soldier at.
I now have my lab there atWalter Reid, and then Korea, Germany,
(03:46):
Bosnia, Afghanistan were some of theareas that I visited as a as
a combat medical for my time.Wow, well, thank you again for
your service. So just you know, it sounds intense, but as you
talked about, a little bit grewup quickly and you learn structure and a
lot of great things come out ofit, and also college education, which
I think is always wonderful when itcomes to the military. All right,
(04:06):
let's talk everything indigenous before we getto a mission statement and all her capabilities
and programs. I always love tohear the origin story about the idea behind
it, so I know it's morethan two years about when you had this
idea as founder and CEO. Tellme about the idea of doing it,
What kind of was percolating in yourhead, why you thought I need to
start this company and why No,absolutely, I think we take it another
(04:30):
year back twenty twenty is May twentytwenty, when we were in the midst
of COVID. What COVID did waspretty much highlighted how severe some of the
lack of access in certain communities,underrepresented communities, and the health disparities and
some of the disease areas that reallyexacerbated conditions when COVID hit. And so
(04:55):
we started seeing black and brown communitiesreally suffering the COVID pandemic, where we
had a lot of high debt ratesalmost three to one compared to the Caucasian
counterparts. And so, you know, I knew a little bit of of
the reason why because of my backgroundin healthcare and working for the FDA.
It was a combination of, youknow, the lack of access that some
(05:18):
of these health conditions had, andthen another primary one was, you know,
the lack of diversity that's in theseclinical trials to help bring better medication
and more effective medication to the generalpopulation. And so, you know,
having that idea behind, you know, the history that I was already familiar
(05:41):
with, I started, you know, this idea of we need to have
better diversity in the trial, becausethat's the only way we're going to be
able to combat some of these diseaseareas and make some stride in being able
to have people live longer, especiallyin some of the underrepresented communities. Very
cool, Well, thank you forsharing that. All right, let's do
a thirty thousand foot mission statement ofIndigenous. What is it? So?
(06:02):
Yeah, Indigenous is really a drugtarget discovery platform which is identifying unique gene
variants in underrepresented population. And whatthat means is that we know that their
studies have been overly done in Europeanwhite males, and so we have an
idea what those gene variants are.What we're struggling with is the rest of
(06:26):
the globe in the US, wherewe're really not sure what are some of
the gene variants that could be highlightedin women and black and brown people to
help build better medication that could bemore effective for those populations, because we
are starting to see that there aresome gene variation and mutation that happens differently
(06:47):
in those different communities. Okay,thanks for sharing that. Let's get into
the weeds a little bit more.We'll talk about programs capabilities. But for
myself, our lesseners and the laymanthat are kind of listening about this company
that they've been introduced to, whatexactly does indigenous do overall? So overall,
what we're doing is we're democratizing genomicdata, which is we're taken an
(07:11):
individuals from underrepresenting population. We're gonnasequence their DNA, which is their whole
genome sequence, and then we're gonnalook for gene variants that may be associated
uniquely to those So it could bewomen, it could be African American,
it could be Asian population, andfind those different gene targets that could help
(07:33):
build better drug therapies and selling genetherapy products in the future. Okay,
at the end of our interview,our promise, we will give the web
address in the U r RAL.It's a great website, by the way,
It's easy to navigate and you canreally get educated on there. You
do have a capabilities tab out there, so let's talk about that a little
(07:55):
bit once again to educate myself ourlisteners about some of your capabilities. Yeah.
Absolutely so. We are here atthe Washington in DC. Our lab.
We have a lab at the JayLabs Washington, DC, which sits
at the Old Water Ree Campus upon Georgia Avenue, where I was again
as I mentioned a combat medic thatwas stationed there. I'm now there back
(08:16):
as a CEO and founder and aresearcher that's used in novel technologies like next
gen sequencing technology to use in innercity communities to identify these unique genes.
And so you know what we're planningand really want to do is we're looking
for the opportunity to work with innercity minority communities so that we could increase
(08:39):
more diversity in those trials, sothat we could drive better drug discovery and
identify targets. You. So,if I want to ask you a question
from my view standpoint, I actuallylive in the district, and I'm going
to be asking this question with generalities, okay, because I see old white
people that have masks on. Butwhen I walk around the district, I
do see a lot of black andaround people that still wear masks. Okay.
(09:01):
So with that question, is theresomething when it comes to education or
something that those communities still worry aboutwhen it comes to COVID or other diseases.
It might be happening right now justoverall that you're sensing, you're hearing,
your studying as you do all yourdifferent trials. Yeah, no,
that's an important aspect of what we'redoing too. In the community. We
(09:22):
have to educate the communities. Right. There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation
out there, and so that's anotherprimary component of how we're going to be
able to increase, you know,knowledge base around these different conditions COVID included,
and some of the health disparity areas, so that we can make some
(09:43):
lifestyle changes and inform the community ofhow lifestyle changes in their diet and nutrition
could help them live long and morehealthier lives. And also participating in clinical
trials also brings novel and more IFactive drug products to the market. I
don't know if you have any statisticsin the real handy. We can just
(10:05):
talk in generalities again, but whenit comes to the COVID vaccine and participation
from the black and brown communities,how did they do? Because you know,
you talked about education, and ifyou're not watching TV, you don't
have internet access, you're not readingthe paper or something online, there's a
lack of information there, which meansyou don't know what to do in those
situations, and you start relying onfamily members talking about stuff that can sway
(10:28):
you either way. So when itcame to the black and brown communities,
how was participation and how is ittoday as well? Well, you know,
historically it's been low, and soit didn't really move the needle that
much over the pandemic just because one, we were all isolated at home,
right, and so you had informationcoming from everywhere. So I think the
norm was, as you just mentioned, was to go with family members and
(10:54):
other members of the community gave thatinformation to each individual. Now, as
you know in our communities, thathas always been a hesitancy around participating in
some of these studies because of exploitationand some of the you know, horrendous
things that had happened in the past, like Henrietta Lack's story, the syphilism
(11:16):
trial. So so those are thingsthat you know normally comes up when you're
in the community. And so wesaw that the numbers weren't that higher than
what it's normally been with black andbrown individuals participating in these trials, and
so that really affected how the thethe drugs were produced, and so we
(11:39):
still ended up with drug products andvaccines that were still majority European white males.
You know, you're in the heartof just about everything when it comes
to medical so you're I know,you know, you're in the right place
when it comes to this and gettingfirst education knowledge in the latest technology.
Is anybody else doing what you're doingin the rest of the country. Did
you follow anybody's lead? There isa pretty new and diversify what you're doing
(12:03):
here today with indigenous So yeah,I think what happened is, um this
has always been an issue. Thediversity issue has always been a problem.
I think what was highlighted during COVIDthat even though we're in the twenty first
century with all of the novel technologyand you know, information gathering, we
(12:24):
still had a low participation rate byum you know, black and brown communities.
And so you know what has beenhappening in the government and I as
a program that has been trying toincrease more diversity, but there's some trust
issue. So there's a big lackof trust within government entities and pharmaceutical entities
(12:46):
trying to do this. So I'vewatched over the last two years both the
government and pharma companies struggle with stillincreasing more diversity. Even though they have
the endless amount of capital and cash, this is going to be from a
community base, and so what we'restarting to see is that tide is starting
to shift where those companies and thegovernment are now looking at companies like Indigenous
(13:11):
to start going out and engaging withthose communities because there will be a sense
of trust because of individuals that looklike themselves in these communities that are given
this information and providing valuable information tothem so that they can make informed decisions.
Well, that makes a lot ofsense because I think that when you're
getting your knowledge and your education fromsomebody that looks sounds like you, there's
(13:33):
a little bit more trust factory,even though we have a long waves to
go. So that makes a lotof sense. And I'm glad you shared
that with us. I didn't knowto somebody else on your website that I
hope you want to touch on thisa little bit. It's these kits for
DNA that I really intrigued me.And I know that's a real big deal
has been the last ten years.You're going to Amazon, you see all
that, But maybe there's a littlebit something different when it comes to indigenous
about your DNA kits, and we'llgive the website again so you can check
(13:56):
out more because you can purchase themonline. But can you tell us a
little bit about those? Yeah,no, I mean it goes in theme.
But what we really realize is thatwe were going to have to do
this from a community base, andso you know what we've done is Indigenouses
develop partnerships to pretty much do ourown DNA sequence, which is whole genome
(14:18):
sequence. So the kids that yousee on our website are your ability to
order online our kids that you couldthen have your whole genome sequence, and
then we could be able to startworking with you with providing reports so that
you could go talk to your physician. So if you think about what twenty
three and me, which was morea consumer your ancestry, we've now have
(14:41):
novel technology that's now be able toincrease that to start looking at what you
may be predisposed to so that youcould talk to your primary care physician so
that you can have better treatment preparationand some nutrition areas and lifestyle changes that
you can make just off of sequencingyour whole genome. I love that because
if you can get ahead of somethingand get a heads up. Who wouldn't
(15:03):
want that, And it's just asmall, small price or play right to
get some knowledge ahead of time.So I'm glad you're doing that as well.
I did want to talk to youabout medical advances. You're right in
the field, you're knee deep,and the latest technologies and what's happening.
What are you excited about that mightbe happening saying the next five to ten
years that we're getting into now medically, when it comes to what you're doing
(15:24):
that you're just really excited about.Oh man, I am elated and excited
about the opportunity for us to startdoing more early detection and early prevention.
What we're starting to see is thatcuts down medical costs mortality rate by fifty
percent if we were just able toidentify these things within these communities. And
(15:46):
some of these things are occurable,Dennis, these are things that if we're
caught early, could save plenty oflives. And so I'm super excited about
one next gen sequence in which isthis whole genome sequence of looking your entire
DNA, which is about three billiongenes and start looking for genetic mutations way
(16:07):
before you have any clinical onset,So I'm excited about that one and then
two, artificial intelligence and machine learningare now being able to drive drug discovery
a lot quicker because in the firsttime in my life being a scientist,
we were able to see vaccines developedin over twelve months, which normally takes
twelve to fifteen years. So Imean, that's a leap of advancement that
(16:33):
has everybody excited. We just needto now start focusing on some of these
disease areas that have been long creatinghigh mortality rates that are easily curable,
preventable, and treatable if they're identifieda lot earlier. So that's what I'm
extremely excited about. And the factthat you know, we have companies now
like myself that could drive some ofthat precision health equity so that we're doing
(16:56):
this for everyone, because the betterthe more diverse these samples are, more
diverse, the clinical trials are,the better efficacy that some of these products
will lead not for just minority community, but for the whole population. I
couldn't agree more. And you gotme excited too about the future. And
also in the limited reading that I'vedone to educate myself for these vaccines,
(17:18):
and I know you know this becauseyou're in the industry, but there are
a lot of cures inside of vaccinesof diseases that we didn't realize they were
cures for or preventative measures. Sothere's a lot of amazing things that have
happened over the last ten years.But in the last five years, I
think it's kind of ticked up becausewe had to rush the vaccine so quickly,
and it's just been extraordinary. Sothe future looks bright. I didn't
want to take a little bit ofa time out. You so, from
(17:38):
talking about indigenous to talking about philanthropicand charity work, sounds like you're a
very busy man. And I'm surethere are a few hours in the day
that you get to relax and maybetake a hike, er walk and things
that you like to do. Butwhen you have a chance to participate anything
that's philanthropic or any kind of charitywork, what do you like to be
a part of? Yeah, no, two things. You know. Being
(17:59):
a veteran myself, my vets arealways near and dear to my heart,
So I spend some time that theDCVA Hospital in whatever capacity I can.
When I have time also Veteran ServiceOrganization. I spend a lot of time
there. Previously did some work asassociate director different Health Policy where we did
a lot of legislation around veteran care. The last one I just participated.
(18:22):
We spent four days on a hillmaking sure that the PACTACK got approved,
which I don't know if you followthe PACTACK. Yeah, gave a precondition
to about twenty five different cancers thatare developed through inhale and burn pits.
Which it was about the same similarityto the World Trade Center and the and
(18:44):
the firefighters and first responders that weretragically losing their lives because they inhaled all
that toxic fumes. So yeah,I do a lot of work in the
veteran community on that side. Andthen on the genomic side, I've now
partnered with three advocacy group around polycysticover syndrome, uterine fibroids, and endometriosis.
(19:06):
Those three conditions affect millions of womenacross different ethnic background and I was
graciously embraced by three women that sharedwith me that they had one to three
of these conditions. I didn't evenknow that you can have three of these
conditions one alone is already beer painful. But to have one or two or
(19:27):
three of these conditions all together,my heart goes out to the women that
suffer from those three conditions. Andso now I'm a strong advocate. We're
actually doing a study that will befunded by MURK to look at the whole
genome sequences of women, African Americanwomen and minorities with polycystic over syndrome,
(19:48):
uterine fibroids, and indometriosis. Allright, well, thank you for sharing
all that. It's outstanding work thatyou're putting your extra time, and I
think it's very cool. By theway, if you want to learn about
burn pits, just watch John Stewarttalk about over the last five to ten
years. And he's been an extraordinaryadvocate when it comes to that. I
stood and stood by him the wholetime there. We ended up calling him
out, and he showed up likehe always did, and we stood there.
(20:11):
We stood out there for four daysuntil we got Congress to sign off
on that bill, and now twentyfive cancers are now being looked at for
compensation for our right community. Allgood for you, guys. That's absolutely
extraordinary stuff. And sometimes you justhave to go to that extra mile.
So very cool stuff. All right, let's do this. We're putting a
bone our conversation. You stuff andwere taken in a lot here and you're
(20:34):
doing some amazing work with you andyour team. If you were to give
our listener just one more takeaway whenit comes to Indigenous, what would that
be? Yeah, I think youknow what we wanted to take away is
that, you know, Indigenous isreally a community based organization that's looking to
increase diversity. We understand how importantit is for our communities to be involved
(20:57):
in clinical trials and to be apart of the solution. And so the
one takeaway is that we would loveIndigenous to be the choice, go to
choice, for you to come tous and share with us your patient information
and you know, your genetic sampleso that we can start aggregating those in
(21:18):
order to start looking for novel targetdiscovery so that we could then help drive
better drug discovery and more efficacious drugsfor all. But you know, right
now we have to be intentional.We know the communities that are are not
in the trials, and so youknow, we would like to start there
and be part of that solution.All right, Well, let's share everybody
(21:41):
told your wonderful website. That's easierto navigate and there's a lot of information
on there and also to purchase.Those kids are much much more. What's
the website address? Yes, absolutely, you can reach us at Indigenous dot
ai so that's ww dot I Nd y g e n e us dot
ai and my information. You canfind me my email as yusuf yusuf at
(22:06):
Indigenous I N d y g en e u s dot ai. Outstanding
use. If I can't tell youhow much I appreciate your valuable time.
Thank you again for your service andthe short two three years that you put
Indigenous together. You're doing some incrediblethings and it's for a great cause and
making a difference out there, andwe love talking to leaders that do that
(22:26):
kind of stuff, So continue tosuccess. Thank you so much for your
time and we really appreciate you joiningus on CEOs. You should know appreciate
it. Thank you for the invitationand looking forward to following up if we
need to. Higheart. Thank youfor definitely giving me the opportunity to share
(22:48):
with the Indigenous is doing. Ourcommunity partner M ANDT Bank supports CEOs you
should know as part of their ongoingcommitment to building strong communities, and that
starts by backing the businesses within them. As a Bank for communities, M
and T believes in dedicating time,talent, and resources to help local businesses
thrive because when businesses succeed, ourcommunities succeed.
M ANDT Bank presents CEOs you shouldknow powered by iHeartMedia. Let's mean use
Of Enriquez. He is the founderand CEO for Indigenous, a genomics company
creating the world's largest blockchain encrypted repositoryof indigenous and Diasporic African clinical and multi
omnics data for disease prevention and detection, drug discovery and development, clinical disease
(00:24):
management, and precision health. Beforewe talk more about use OF's company,
I first asked him to talk alittle bit about himself. Where he's from
and his origin story broke in Kingston, Jamaica, a little island off the
coast there and down in Florida.Spent my whole adolescent life there and then
came to the US early nineties,high school in Miami, Florida. So
(00:46):
grew up in Kingston, Jamaica,did high school here in Miami, Florida,
and then moved on to military afterhigh school. And in my correct
also was Howard a part of youryour your career too, Yeah, So
I joined military to get the collegefund and the GI Bill, and so
(01:07):
when I exited the military after aboutsix and a half years, were able
to afford Howard University in DC.So I attended Howard University and studied biochemistry.
That's great. Howard such a greatschool, as you know, and
I talked to so many leaders tocome out of that school, and I'm
just always so proud and amaze thatwe have such a great school in our
area in the district here. Sowe've got a lot to digest and also
(01:30):
to talk about. When it comesto your company Indigenous, it's kind of
been around for almost two years now, so I do want to hear the
origin story about that. But Ialso want to talk about your military background
because I've talked to former military peoplethat have served and then are their own
bosses as CEOs, and there's areal distinction about coming out of the military
and then starting your own business andand and it's really different that people.
(01:53):
I want them to understand what thatis like. But first of all,
from myself and all our listeners,thank you for serving. How many years
in the army And what did youdo? So yeah, I stood six
and a half years straight out ofhigh school at seventeen, and I was
a combat medic for the United StatesArmy. You know, I got to
tell you, which is really fascinatingto me. You come from another country
(02:13):
and you move here for high schooland out of high school into the military.
That's a lot of major transition anda young person's life. Man.
Absolutely absolutely best decision I ever made. It really turned me from a young
boy into a man. You canimagine at seventeen years old, being responsible
for people's lives on the front lineand a sense of responsibility and purpose kind
(02:38):
of fit into you know what endedup, you know, being me starting
a company. So a lot oftimes I like to highlight the fact that
I'm prior military because it's that passionand purpose driven that's instilled in us in
the military that helps us be youknow, change agents for you know,
(02:58):
issues like what you know, indigenousit's just focused on them. Sure,
a lot of structure too, anda lot of things that go with that.
If you don't mind me asking whatkind of when you took your tours,
when you served as a medical person, where did you go and what
was it like? Yeah, youknow, I didn't know that I would
end up in all those places,but yeah, I pretty much did my
boot camp in Fort Lenarwood, Missouriin the hot summer. I then moved
(03:23):
into my medical training, my aiT training or they call an Advanced individual
training that was done at Fort TameHouston and at Walter Reid where I'm currently
now where my lab is. Sothat's a little bit surreal for me that
I'm back at the same location thatI used to be a soldier at.
I now have my lab there atWalter Reid, and then Korea, Germany,
(03:46):
Bosnia, Afghanistan were some of theareas that I visited as a as
a combat medical for my time.Wow, well, thank you again for
your service. So just you know, it sounds intense, but as you
talked about, a little bit grewup quickly and you learn structure and a
lot of great things come out ofit, and also college education, which
I think is always wonderful when itcomes to the military. All right,
(04:06):
let's talk everything indigenous before we getto a mission statement and all her capabilities
and programs. I always love tohear the origin story about the idea behind
it, so I know it's morethan two years about when you had this
idea as founder and CEO. Tellme about the idea of doing it,
What kind of was percolating in yourhead, why you thought I need to
start this company and why No,absolutely, I think we take it another
(04:30):
year back twenty twenty is May twentytwenty, when we were in the midst
of COVID. What COVID did waspretty much highlighted how severe some of the
lack of access in certain communities,underrepresented communities, and the health disparities and
some of the disease areas that reallyexacerbated conditions when COVID hit. And so
(04:55):
we started seeing black and brown communitiesreally suffering the COVID pandemic, where we
had a lot of high debt ratesalmost three to one compared to the Caucasian
counterparts. And so, you know, I knew a little bit of of
the reason why because of my backgroundin healthcare and working for the FDA.
It was a combination of, youknow, the lack of access that some
(05:18):
of these health conditions had, andthen another primary one was, you know,
the lack of diversity that's in theseclinical trials to help bring better medication
and more effective medication to the generalpopulation. And so, you know,
having that idea behind, you know, the history that I was already familiar
(05:41):
with, I started, you know, this idea of we need to have
better diversity in the trial, becausethat's the only way we're going to be
able to combat some of these diseaseareas and make some stride in being able
to have people live longer, especiallyin some of the underrepresented communities. Very
cool, Well, thank you forsharing that. All right, let's do
a thirty thousand foot mission statement ofIndigenous. What is it? So?
(06:02):
Yeah, Indigenous is really a drugtarget discovery platform which is identifying unique gene
variants in underrepresented population. And whatthat means is that we know that their
studies have been overly done in Europeanwhite males, and so we have an
idea what those gene variants are.What we're struggling with is the rest of
(06:26):
the globe in the US, wherewe're really not sure what are some of
the gene variants that could be highlightedin women and black and brown people to
help build better medication that could bemore effective for those populations, because we
are starting to see that there aresome gene variation and mutation that happens differently
(06:47):
in those different communities. Okay,thanks for sharing that. Let's get into
the weeds a little bit more.We'll talk about programs capabilities. But for
myself, our lesseners and the laymanthat are kind of listening about this company
that they've been introduced to, whatexactly does indigenous do overall? So overall,
what we're doing is we're democratizing genomicdata, which is we're taken an
(07:11):
individuals from underrepresenting population. We're gonnasequence their DNA, which is their whole
genome sequence, and then we're gonnalook for gene variants that may be associated
uniquely to those So it could bewomen, it could be African American,
it could be Asian population, andfind those different gene targets that could help
(07:33):
build better drug therapies and selling genetherapy products in the future. Okay,
at the end of our interview,our promise, we will give the web
address in the U r RAL.It's a great website, by the way,
It's easy to navigate and you canreally get educated on there. You
do have a capabilities tab out there, so let's talk about that a little
(07:55):
bit once again to educate myself ourlisteners about some of your capabilities. Yeah.
Absolutely so. We are here atthe Washington in DC. Our lab.
We have a lab at the JayLabs Washington, DC, which sits
at the Old Water Ree Campus upon Georgia Avenue, where I was again
as I mentioned a combat medic thatwas stationed there. I'm now there back
(08:16):
as a CEO and founder and aresearcher that's used in novel technologies like next
gen sequencing technology to use in innercity communities to identify these unique genes.
And so you know what we're planningand really want to do is we're looking
for the opportunity to work with innercity minority communities so that we could increase
(08:39):
more diversity in those trials, sothat we could drive better drug discovery and
identify targets. You. So,if I want to ask you a question
from my view standpoint, I actuallylive in the district, and I'm going
to be asking this question with generalities, okay, because I see old white
people that have masks on. Butwhen I walk around the district, I
do see a lot of black andaround people that still wear masks. Okay.
(09:01):
So with that question, is theresomething when it comes to education or
something that those communities still worry aboutwhen it comes to COVID or other diseases.
It might be happening right now justoverall that you're sensing, you're hearing,
your studying as you do all yourdifferent trials. Yeah, no,
that's an important aspect of what we'redoing too. In the community. We
(09:22):
have to educate the communities. Right. There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation
out there, and so that's anotherprimary component of how we're going to be
able to increase, you know,knowledge base around these different conditions COVID included,
and some of the health disparity areas, so that we can make some
(09:43):
lifestyle changes and inform the community ofhow lifestyle changes in their diet and nutrition
could help them live long and morehealthier lives. And also participating in clinical
trials also brings novel and more IFactive drug products to the market. I
don't know if you have any statisticsin the real handy. We can just
(10:05):
talk in generalities again, but whenit comes to the COVID vaccine and participation
from the black and brown communities,how did they do? Because you know,
you talked about education, and ifyou're not watching TV, you don't
have internet access, you're not readingthe paper or something online, there's a
lack of information there, which meansyou don't know what to do in those
situations, and you start relying onfamily members talking about stuff that can sway
(10:28):
you either way. So when itcame to the black and brown communities,
how was participation and how is ittoday as well? Well, you know,
historically it's been low, and soit didn't really move the needle that
much over the pandemic just because one, we were all isolated at home,
right, and so you had informationcoming from everywhere. So I think the
norm was, as you just mentioned, was to go with family members and
(10:54):
other members of the community gave thatinformation to each individual. Now, as
you know in our communities, thathas always been a hesitancy around participating in
some of these studies because of exploitationand some of the you know, horrendous
things that had happened in the past, like Henrietta Lack's story, the syphilism
(11:16):
trial. So so those are thingsthat you know normally comes up when you're
in the community. And so wesaw that the numbers weren't that higher than
what it's normally been with black andbrown individuals participating in these trials, and
so that really affected how the thethe drugs were produced, and so we
(11:39):
still ended up with drug products andvaccines that were still majority European white males.
You know, you're in the heartof just about everything when it comes
to medical so you're I know,you know, you're in the right place
when it comes to this and gettingfirst education knowledge in the latest technology.
Is anybody else doing what you're doingin the rest of the country. Did
you follow anybody's lead? There isa pretty new and diversify what you're doing
(12:03):
here today with indigenous So yeah,I think what happened is, um this
has always been an issue. Thediversity issue has always been a problem.
I think what was highlighted during COVIDthat even though we're in the twenty first
century with all of the novel technologyand you know, information gathering, we
(12:24):
still had a low participation rate byum you know, black and brown communities.
And so you know what has beenhappening in the government and I as
a program that has been trying toincrease more diversity, but there's some trust
issue. So there's a big lackof trust within government entities and pharmaceutical entities
(12:46):
trying to do this. So I'vewatched over the last two years both the
government and pharma companies struggle with stillincreasing more diversity. Even though they have
the endless amount of capital and cash, this is going to be from a
community base, and so what we'restarting to see is that tide is starting
to shift where those companies and thegovernment are now looking at companies like Indigenous
(13:11):
to start going out and engaging withthose communities because there will be a sense
of trust because of individuals that looklike themselves in these communities that are given
this information and providing valuable information tothem so that they can make informed decisions.
Well, that makes a lot ofsense because I think that when you're
getting your knowledge and your education fromsomebody that looks sounds like you, there's
(13:33):
a little bit more trust factory,even though we have a long waves to
go. So that makes a lotof sense. And I'm glad you shared
that with us. I didn't knowto somebody else on your website that I
hope you want to touch on thisa little bit. It's these kits for
DNA that I really intrigued me.And I know that's a real big deal
has been the last ten years.You're going to Amazon, you see all
that, But maybe there's a littlebit something different when it comes to indigenous
about your DNA kits, and we'llgive the website again so you can check
(13:56):
out more because you can purchase themonline. But can you tell us a
little bit about those? Yeah,no, I mean it goes in theme.
But what we really realize is thatwe were going to have to do
this from a community base, andso you know what we've done is Indigenouses
develop partnerships to pretty much do ourown DNA sequence, which is whole genome
(14:18):
sequence. So the kids that yousee on our website are your ability to
order online our kids that you couldthen have your whole genome sequence, and
then we could be able to startworking with you with providing reports so that
you could go talk to your physician. So if you think about what twenty
three and me, which was morea consumer your ancestry, we've now have
(14:41):
novel technology that's now be able toincrease that to start looking at what you
may be predisposed to so that youcould talk to your primary care physician so
that you can have better treatment preparationand some nutrition areas and lifestyle changes that
you can make just off of sequencingyour whole genome. I love that because
if you can get ahead of somethingand get a heads up. Who wouldn't
(15:03):
want that, And it's just asmall, small price or play right to
get some knowledge ahead of time.So I'm glad you're doing that as well.
I did want to talk to youabout medical advances. You're right in
the field, you're knee deep,and the latest technologies and what's happening.
What are you excited about that mightbe happening saying the next five to ten
years that we're getting into now medically, when it comes to what you're doing
(15:24):
that you're just really excited about.Oh man, I am elated and excited
about the opportunity for us to startdoing more early detection and early prevention.
What we're starting to see is thatcuts down medical costs mortality rate by fifty
percent if we were just able toidentify these things within these communities. And
(15:46):
some of these things are occurable,Dennis, these are things that if we're
caught early, could save plenty oflives. And so I'm super excited about
one next gen sequence in which isthis whole genome sequence of looking your entire
DNA, which is about three billiongenes and start looking for genetic mutations way
(16:07):
before you have any clinical onset,So I'm excited about that one and then
two, artificial intelligence and machine learningare now being able to drive drug discovery
a lot quicker because in the firsttime in my life being a scientist,
we were able to see vaccines developedin over twelve months, which normally takes
twelve to fifteen years. So Imean, that's a leap of advancement that
(16:33):
has everybody excited. We just needto now start focusing on some of these
disease areas that have been long creatinghigh mortality rates that are easily curable,
preventable, and treatable if they're identifieda lot earlier. So that's what I'm
extremely excited about. And the factthat you know, we have companies now
like myself that could drive some ofthat precision health equity so that we're doing
(16:56):
this for everyone, because the betterthe more diverse these samples are, more
diverse, the clinical trials are,the better efficacy that some of these products
will lead not for just minority community, but for the whole population. I
couldn't agree more. And you gotme excited too about the future. And
also in the limited reading that I'vedone to educate myself for these vaccines,
(17:18):
and I know you know this becauseyou're in the industry, but there are
a lot of cures inside of vaccinesof diseases that we didn't realize they were
cures for or preventative measures. Sothere's a lot of amazing things that have
happened over the last ten years.But in the last five years, I
think it's kind of ticked up becausewe had to rush the vaccine so quickly,
and it's just been extraordinary. Sothe future looks bright. I didn't
want to take a little bit ofa time out. You so, from
(17:38):
talking about indigenous to talking about philanthropicand charity work, sounds like you're a
very busy man. And I'm surethere are a few hours in the day
that you get to relax and maybetake a hike, er walk and things
that you like to do. Butwhen you have a chance to participate anything
that's philanthropic or any kind of charitywork, what do you like to be
a part of? Yeah, no, two things. You know. Being
(17:59):
a veteran myself, my vets arealways near and dear to my heart,
So I spend some time that theDCVA Hospital in whatever capacity I can.
When I have time also Veteran ServiceOrganization. I spend a lot of time
there. Previously did some work asassociate director different Health Policy where we did
a lot of legislation around veteran care. The last one I just participated.
(18:22):
We spent four days on a hillmaking sure that the PACTACK got approved,
which I don't know if you followthe PACTACK. Yeah, gave a precondition
to about twenty five different cancers thatare developed through inhale and burn pits.
Which it was about the same similarityto the World Trade Center and the and
(18:44):
the firefighters and first responders that weretragically losing their lives because they inhaled all
that toxic fumes. So yeah,I do a lot of work in the
veteran community on that side. Andthen on the genomic side, I've now
partnered with three advocacy group around polycysticover syndrome, uterine fibroids, and endometriosis.
(19:06):
Those three conditions affect millions of womenacross different ethnic background and I was
graciously embraced by three women that sharedwith me that they had one to three
of these conditions. I didn't evenknow that you can have three of these
conditions one alone is already beer painful. But to have one or two or
(19:27):
three of these conditions all together,my heart goes out to the women that
suffer from those three conditions. Andso now I'm a strong advocate. We're
actually doing a study that will befunded by MURK to look at the whole
genome sequences of women, African Americanwomen and minorities with polycystic over syndrome,
(19:48):
uterine fibroids, and indometriosis. Allright, well, thank you for sharing
all that. It's outstanding work thatyou're putting your extra time, and I
think it's very cool. By theway, if you want to learn about
burn pits, just watch John Stewarttalk about over the last five to ten
years. And he's been an extraordinaryadvocate when it comes to that. I
stood and stood by him the wholetime there. We ended up calling him
out, and he showed up likehe always did, and we stood there.
(20:11):
We stood out there for four daysuntil we got Congress to sign off
on that bill, and now twentyfive cancers are now being looked at for
compensation for our right community. Allgood for you, guys. That's absolutely
extraordinary stuff. And sometimes you justhave to go to that extra mile.
So very cool stuff. All right, let's do this. We're putting a
bone our conversation. You stuff andwere taken in a lot here and you're
(20:34):
doing some amazing work with you andyour team. If you were to give
our listener just one more takeaway whenit comes to Indigenous, what would that
be? Yeah, I think youknow what we wanted to take away is
that, you know, Indigenous isreally a community based organization that's looking to
increase diversity. We understand how importantit is for our communities to be involved
(20:57):
in clinical trials and to be apart of the solution. And so the
one takeaway is that we would loveIndigenous to be the choice, go to
choice, for you to come tous and share with us your patient information
and you know, your genetic sampleso that we can start aggregating those in
(21:18):
order to start looking for novel targetdiscovery so that we could then help drive
better drug discovery and more efficacious drugsfor all. But you know, right
now we have to be intentional.We know the communities that are are not
in the trials, and so youknow, we would like to start there
and be part of that solution.All right, Well, let's share everybody
(21:41):
told your wonderful website. That's easierto navigate and there's a lot of information
on there and also to purchase.Those kids are much much more. What's
the website address? Yes, absolutely, you can reach us at Indigenous dot
ai so that's ww dot I Nd y g e n e us dot
ai and my information. You canfind me my email as yusuf yusuf at
(22:06):
Indigenous I N d y g en e u s dot ai. Outstanding
use. If I can't tell youhow much I appreciate your valuable time.
Thank you again for your service andthe short two three years that you put
Indigenous together. You're doing some incrediblethings and it's for a great cause and
making a difference out there, andwe love talking to leaders that do that
(22:26):
kind of stuff, So continue tosuccess. Thank you so much for your
time and we really appreciate you joiningus on CEOs. You should know appreciate
it. Thank you for the invitationand looking forward to following up if we
need to. Higheart. Thank youfor definitely giving me the opportunity to share
(22:48):
with the Indigenous is doing. Ourcommunity partner M ANDT Bank supports CEOs you
should know as part of their ongoingcommitment to building strong communities, and that
starts by backing the businesses within them. As a Bank for communities, M
and T believes in dedicating time,talent, and resources to help local businesses
thrive because when businesses succeed, ourcommunities succeed.
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