Reporter and Founder Of Meet The Future Website MTF.TV Kevin Cirilli Futurist Interview

 Larry and Kevin break down what the future of medicine will look like. Will new tech change the way we research and look at medicine? The FDA has a new way to detect Alzheimer's disease early. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, there's this great song by Paul Simon called
Boy in the Bubble where he says, these are the
days of miracle and wonder and that could never be
truer than the medical advancements that we've had now over
the last couple of years. And it seems like something
happens every week. For instance, we've had many medical breakthroughs

(00:22):
this week that are going to help us live longer
and live healthier. And to talk about that, we have
Kevin Sirilli, who was a futurist reporter and founder of
the Meat the Future website. Hey, Kevin, good to talk
to you again.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Hey, great, thanks for having me. I mean this is
a good news story, which is rare these days, right,
But yeah, the FA the SEA just approved the first
ever Alzheimer's blood tests. So previously, if you have if
anyone has any experience with Alzheimer's or dementia or Huntington's
or Parkinson's, I mean, you know that you have to

(00:59):
get a peach scan or a spinal tap in or
order to detect Alzheimer's. But now with this FDA approval,
you just got to get a blood test which early detection.
Folks can start getting it in their mid fifties. Early detection,
which means before the symptoms even start to come on,
which lets you get earlier treatment, and as the treatments

(01:20):
get better. You know, this is a major major breakthrough
for Alzheimer's.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, we have to point out that there are treatments
to slow it. There's no cure for Alzheimer's right now,
but there are treatments to slow Alzheimer's. So this is critical, Kevin.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
It's absolutely critical, and it really arrived faster because the
artificial intelligence is accelerating the pipeline. These AI trained on
massive data sets of patients to help identify which blood
proteins were reliable early markers. Now I'm not a doctor,
but I am a journalist and I'm translating all of this,
and essentially what it means is that what used to

(01:58):
take years for try and error now happens in months
thanks to the machine learning. Meanwhile, well, we've got this
major breakthrough on Alzheimer's here in the US. In the UK,
scientists were using a handheld DNA sequencer to detect brain
tumors that typically took two months. Now it just takes
two hours, which is again a really major breakthrough and

(02:21):
where I grew up outside of Philly. This week, this
one really got to me. I don't know if you
guys saw this in New York, but there was the
first time doctors were able to go in when a
baby had a very rare disease and they offered a
personalized DNA six So it was code editing inside of
an actual human cell to correct the defect. So this

(02:44):
isn't just like they found a cure. This was the
first time that they've ever done this, not just in
the United States but anywhere in the world. It's a massive,
massive medical breakthrough as it relates to DNA.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
It is a wonderful breakthrough, but the fact that they
can reab map DNA is a little scary, isn't it,
Kevin Well, I.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
Mean, so that's that's where the regulations have to meet
the moment and and truly meet the future, because the
artificial intelligence and what's coming after that quantum computing is
happening so fast that the question becomes are our human
policies and our human healthcare systems able to keep up
with the pace of how fast this is happening? You know,

(03:25):
and you know these personalized treatments. They're powered by the AI.
But see your point, could that ever be used for
bad And you know, I think that the regulations have
to protect that. But the bottom line is, you know,
it can also be used for goods or.

Speaker 1 (03:43):
For frivolous I mean, if you if you want your
child to be blonde, if you want your child to
be smarter, I'm sure there's some kind of DNA mapping
that would help with that. And I just you worried
sometimes when you hear these major breakthroughs. And obviously this
is a wonderful thing that's happened in Philadelphia. I assume
it happened to Chop Is that right.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is which is awesome. Yeah. And
but to your point, I mean, you're not you're not
asking the wrong questions. And I mean, and I'll take
a real STARp left turn here, and I'll note that
in the pet world, people are actually purchasing DNA genetics

(04:26):
to have their pets cloned, which again is a very
sharp turn for this company.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
I understand how it makes sense, Yeah, because how far
are we away from having people cloned?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Well, and and and so now there are regulators at
the state level in Texas who are having to look
at this because weirdly enough, Texas has become the place
to do this. I mean, Paris Hilton a couple of
months ago was out there talking about how she cloned
one of her beloved dogs. And there's a company in
the UK that is that is, there's like a whole

(05:00):
industry of this. And my dog is staring at me
now as I'm talking about this, like are you cloning me?
But but you know, I mean, we're living in the
future where where there's an industry for that, So Larry,
I mean, you know you're not asking the wrong questions.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
Oh no, I didn't think I was until you brought
it up. So anything else out there that you'd scare us,
because it seems like I'd never want to scare you know, well, absolutely,
it's a little bit scary. Absolutely, And the problem is that,
of course, many of these things that you're hearing about,

(05:36):
depending on what you know, what insurance covers are only
available to the rich.

Speaker 2 (05:42):
Well, and I think that's the that's the biggest lesson
for now, which is AI is going to be able
to be way more prescriptive than we could ever imagine,
and that is an awesome, awesome capability. But can the
AI fight through the reductive and robust regulations and all

(06:04):
of the paperwork and the wait times in the hospitals.
I don't know if it can. I mean, in the
human systems just have to keep up with that. But
you know, the robotics of all of this is also
another interesting thing. John Hopskins is testing just they announced
this week that robots are now making precisions on pigs.

(06:24):
They're testing with pigs and cutting open and stitching things together.
So it's like robot do I call them doc bots
that are making incisions, you know, And so we're living
in a world where robotics and doctors are going to
be working way more in tangent with one another. So
whether it's a hip replacement and knee replacement, these robots

(06:44):
are really going to be more at the future of
in the oar scrubbing, in the dock.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Bots are there legislators, are there congressmen or people in
health and human services that are aware of this and
talking about legislation to limit some of it.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
I will, you know, this is where I will be
a little pessimistic, Larry. I'm here in Washington, d C.
Where I'm based, and you know, no, the conversations that
are had we all and this is a large part
of why I found in Me in the Future is
because the conversations in Washington are just so rerun, repeat
same old battle lines. They're not thinking of how the

(07:25):
citizens experience is dramatically changing in real time as a
result of the new technology. And so you know, you
have to wonder when will the policy conversations be shifted
to get not even just into the future, but into
the present day, whether it's on digital currency or these

(07:46):
new medical breakthroughs. It's just it's very antiquated to the conversations,
and so there doesn't seem to be right now an
outlook for the future on from from any policymakers. It
seems to be much more of the scale conversation that
we're all used to.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
It was great news in the beginning. Let's go back
to what you said at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Larry Friday on a holiday weekend, I was like, I
was so excited. I'm like, Larry, I just got Larry's show,
and now I'm like talking about dog cloning, and like,
all of a sudden, I have.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
A great weekend. We're all happy with what you told us.
We're not it's years from now. We're not happy about.
Thanks so much. Kevin's a really futurist reporter and founder
of Meet the Future website. You should visit that. He
knows a lot