August 11, 2025 • 20 mins
Bubba Startz introduces Len May, CEO of Endo DNA, discussing his backstory and transition into the cannabis industry. Len shares personal experiences that led him to focus on the endocannabinoid system, explaining its significance and how it relates to individual health. The conversation highlights the services offered by EndoDNA, which aim to personalize cannabis use based on genetic information. Len also addresses the challenges faced by the company and outlines future plans for growth and innovation. The episode concludes with closing remarks and promotional information, providing listeners with insight into Len's journey and EndoDNA's mission.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome in to another exciting episode of thescene.
I'm your host, Bubba Starts, and with me todayis CEO and cofounder of Endo DNA, Len May.
Welcome to the show, Len.
Appreciate it, brother.
Thank you.
We've already been talking off camera.
This is gonna be a thrilling conversation, but,why don't you give us a little bit maybe of
your own backstory and a little bit of thecompany as well?
(00:24):
And then we're gonna get into all this awesomestuff that you guys are doing for the world.
Yeah.
I mean, my my backstory is, I was the kind ofkid I'm an immigrant, by the way.
I came over, to, this country when I was, like,six years old.
But I was a I was a kid that would sit inclass.
He should call me, and my mind would beelsewhere.
It would be daydreaming.
(00:45):
So, you know, kind of became disruptive hereand there.
My parents started taking me to a doctor, andthen I got diagnosed with ADHD.
But, no.
Not hyperactive, just kind of, the the dreamertype, and I was put on prescription medication.
I can't say that the prescription medicationdidn't work if you're talking about just
(01:06):
helping to focus, but I took away all my senseof self.
So all the emotions that I had were sort ofnumb.
And you go through the motions, but you'rereally lifeless.
And I was hanging out with some older kidsbefore class, and they asked me if I wanna
smoke a cigarette.
I'm like, cool.
I'll be one of the cool kids.
I'll smoke a cigarette.
Never asked them why they had only one.
(01:26):
They passed around a cigarette, took a drag ofit, and it didn't taste like a cigarette to me,
and they were laughing.
It would they put cannabis in it.
So I went back to class, and all the windowsare open.
My head sort of narrowed, and that became my mymedicine of choice.
My parents didn't really care for that toomuch.
So at some point, I was, like, 17.
(01:47):
They ended up kicking me out, but actuallycalling the cops to have me arrested.
The irony of this, my parents both takeformulations of my company as patents on now
for their conditions.
And, yeah, I pursued, like, corporate America.
I did all that stuff to work forPricewaterhouse, a venture capital company.
I was a commercial real estate broker, movedfrom Philadelphia where I was from to Los
(02:11):
Angeles, got into the dispensary space, and Istarted seeing two people consume the same
varietal and have a complete differentexperience.
So I got into plant genetics.
And from plant genetics, I got into humangenetics and said, alright.
Well, we have plant genetics here.
We have human genetics here.
Let's bring those two together and guide peopleto a personalized experience.
(02:33):
So we built launched our company 2017.
That was our mission.
But my bigger mission was to create the world'slargest efficacy repository.
So we started working with doctors and askingthem why genetics are important, and a lot of
doctors didn't really know.
So, you know, that's what we created EndoDNAfor is to create this platform that allows
(02:56):
doctors to do genome, interrogate the genome,create a personalized treatment plan, and then
measure how well that treatment plan worksbased on a feedback loop.
With AI, it learns much quicker and helps us toreally get personalized health care instead of
sick care.
See, I told you guys this was gonna be awesome.
Incredible.
(03:16):
A little bit about me.
A longtime cannabis user.
I have a medical card now here in South Dakota.
We have a medical program.
Thank goodness.
So I can speak to a lot of, the things that youdo.
I've been around the space for a long time.
Lot of my friends work at dispensaries.
Lot of friends, I was on the West Coast for atime in my early twenties around, the state of
(03:37):
Oregon.
I was in California a little bit as well.
So really got introduced to it and then movedback to South Dakota, and it was another decade
until we had a medical program.
Did a couple of years in prison for sellingmarijuana, because I realized what this plant
was and what it was not.
And, you know, now here I am with a license togrow or or smoke however much I want, and I
(04:00):
just had to, you know, donate two years of mylife to the state of South Dakota.
Awful.
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
It made me a better person, so I I don't regretthe time.
My mother feels a little bit differently aboutit, posthumously here, but, love it.
Love what you're doing.
Just the the full circle of kinda going from,you know, a a a little bit of a a bad kid,
(04:26):
right, to the whole corporate world and livingthrough that and then finding yourself back in
the cannabis world and and really digging intothe I mean, humans have been tied with this
plant, and we have these endocannabinoidreceptors for a reason.
Right?
It's crazy to think that this plant can't dosomething for you when the human body has
(04:47):
evolved next to it.
Right?
Like, it it it's crazy to me that we still havepeople that are kind of culturally conditioned
to the stigmas, but that's maybe a conversationfor another day, Len.
Well, I I just don't think people understandthe endocannabinoid system, and that's the
biggest challenge is they equate something witha plant that grows in nature, but doesn't
(05:11):
really understand that we have a a whole systemthat creates our own endogenous
endocannabinoids.
And when we have deficiencies in what wenaturally produce, we're lucky that we have a
plant in nature that we have, as you were justsaying, that we have receptors for, and it can
bind to those receptors and actually releasemore of our endogenous endocannabolies, which
(05:31):
helps us maintain balance on homeostasis.
And it's like every single drug that that isused is used as a ligand.
We have a receptor for that drug, like eveneven cocaine, which is odd because it's
schedule two where cannabis is a schedule one.
But when you're consuming, you know, cocaine,it binds to your we use it as medicine, binds
(05:53):
to your dopamine receptors, quirks a bunch ofdopamine into your bloodstream, blocks the
reuptake of that dopamine, and then then itthere's a reuptake in your brain.
It's like, wait a second.
I don't have to crave my own dopamine.
I love dopamine.
It's great.
It's the most, you know, addictive substancethat we have.
Let me send a signal to get me more some ofthat exogenous dopamine ligand, which is
(06:16):
cocaine.
So we get on this habitual cycle.
It doesn't work the same way with cannabis, andthe and the the ligand of getting that delta
nine THC to bind to your c b one receptors,released more anandamide, that's great because
it it's our bliss molecule.
Right?
It create when we run, when we work out, we getthat bliss molecule.
(06:38):
But the the trick is very narrow therapeuticwindow.
So finding the right dose, the right profilefor you, that's the tricky part, and that's
what we're there to help people figure out.
Just incredible.
So EndoDNA is working, I'm assuming, mostlywith doctors and physicians.
Are are, I guess, consumers, people able tocome to your company and to use these just to
(07:05):
find out more about themselves rather thanhaving to go through a physician to get there?
Yeah.
We have a direct to consumer version,especially our endocannabinoid system test.
So you can go to endodna,uh,.com and purchasethat.
We have, you know, thousands of consumers haveused our test.
But the idea, we shifted, to a b to b platform.
(07:27):
And the reason why is because when we leavepeople alone and and this not necessarily has
to do with cannabis per se, the end of thecannabis system.
But looking to genome, it has to be acollaborative experience with your health care
professional.
Your health care professional is not there tocure you.
They're there to be to do no harm and to workin collaboration with you to find something
(07:51):
that actually works for you, with mitigatingrisk.
So in looking at your genome, looking at yourbaseline biomarkers, creating a treatment plan
with a feedback loop, it allows health careprofessionals to collaborate with you.
So if you have a pain or some of that and we'revery conditioned in this country to be pain
averse.
You go to a doctor, they say, alright.
(08:12):
Well, I can give you a pill for that.
I can give you an injection for that instead ofsaying, maybe there's a root cause of that
pain.
So we have to be more aware of that and say,we're not there.
It's a signal.
We're not there to turn the signal down.
We're there to follow it and see what's causingthat.
So if you're collaborating with your healthcare professional, everything's transparent.
(08:33):
Maybe you have a genetic predisposition tosomething that's based on your lifestyle
choices has been epigenetically turned on.
So now what do we do together to turn thatdown?
Your pain can be caused by cortisol release andinflammation into your bloodstream where your
immune system is overreacting to that.
So instead of numbing the pain, let's follow itand find out what's really the root cause.
(08:56):
God.
Big pharma hates you.
Well, big pharma should be using this anyway.
They all look.
We genetics have been used for diagnostics foryears.
We have BRCA one, BRCA two breast cancer genes.
It's all collaboratively.
The the challenge big pharma doesn't hate usper se.
They just under we're we're not covered byinsurance.
(09:19):
We're not in the system.
And when we're outside the system, they'relooking at us and saying, well, they're not
competing with us.
It's a parallel path.
We're not against big pharma if there's amedication.
So I'll give you an example.
We talk about cognitive health and wellness.
I have a buddy of mine, very successfulentrepreneur, and he, had a business deal that
(09:41):
didn't go well.
Now we did his genome, so I know there's acouple of things.
First of all, he's predisposed to depressivefeelings.
So he started getting depressed, and he endedup going to a psychopharmacologist and getting
antidepressant.
Now he he doesn't live in California, but hewas back in California.
He was driving with his wife and his kid aroundthe canyons.
We have these these areas of canyons, and hesaid, had an overwhelming desire to drive off
(10:06):
the cliff.
And he goes, it was so real.
I had to pull over.
I was scared.
I pulled over.
My wife came out and said, are you okay?
He said, I'm not okay.
I shouldn't have been driving, which is greatthat he recognized that.
And when he went back to thepsychopharmacologist, he did something called a
PGX test, which is pharmacogenomics.
He saw that that drug that he was prescribedwas red.
(10:28):
It shouldn't be he shouldn't have beenconsuming this drug in the first place.
In addition to that, because we know this, hehas treatment resistant depression.
So that drug may not be efficacious for himanyway.
It wouldn't have worked.
But he would get the side effects, and the sideeffects, one of the big ones is suicidal
thoughts.
So this is where we need to collaborate withbig pharma.
(10:50):
We need to do everything together for thehealth and wellness of the people so they
mitigate those risks and avoid those, potholesdown the road.
But the way to know this is by doing yourgenome.
You know what your personal GPS of life is, andyou know which sharp corners to avoid.
Yeah.
Life is hard enough.
We don't need a pill that's gonna make us wannakill ourselves.
(11:11):
That's just wild.
And and it seems like it's more and more ofthese pharmaceuticals go by and the list of
side effects get longer and the efficacy getssmaller and smaller and smaller because of
what, I mean, what you're exposing here withendo DNA and getting to the root causes these
problems.
(11:32):
It's just incredible work.
I I commend you so much for getting, into it inthe first place.
I'm sure it's not an easy space to to work in.
Can you talk about some of the challenges thatyou guys have faced as a company kinda moving
through?
Obviously, working in health care at all, therethere's bound to be hurdles to have to climb.
Well, I mean, the first hurdle is cannabis, theendocannabinoid system.
(11:54):
So now that we're working when we first startedwith the endocannabinoid system, I mean,
marketing has been the biggest challenge.
We're getting, you know, flagged and and, onall the social media platforms and shadowban,
etcetera, we're not plant touching.
We're telling you about a system that's in yourbody.
But the way that the all these platforms areset up, they're like, wait a second.
(12:17):
Endocannabinoid cannabinoids.
Let's flag that.
So that's the first hurdle.
The second hurdle is the stigma that'sassociated with that as we just went over.
The third one is the FDA.
So when we met with the FDA, they asked us,what is the purpose of your test?
And we said to help people either avoid ormitigate a possible adverse event.
(12:38):
And they said, great.
There's two things.
You can't make any claims, which is fine, andyou can't talk about a disease.
So if I'm selling directly to consumer, forinstance, I can't talk about Parkinson's, but I
can talk about the tremors that are associatedwith Parkinson's.
But since this is a platform for health careprofessionals as well, now they can use that as
(13:02):
to help them with their diagnosis, also.
But we're classified what's called RUO,research use only, so it can be used in helping
you to diagnose, but it's not necessarily adiagnostic test.
And one of the reasons is because we have anendocannabinoid system test, the FDA will not
approve, you know, a five ten k diagnosticdevice because there is a schedule one
(13:26):
substance that is associated with the testingthat we do and has nothing to do with really
what we do.
And the last the last hurdle of that is theunderstanding of DNA.
I mean, you may be surprised that a lot ofdoctors don't understand genetics.
They studied it in medical school.
They had a class, but they don't reallyunderstand.
So getting past that hurdle and making it easyfor health care professionals to really
(13:48):
understand and interrogate the genome and askyou questions help them prescribe what they
need to, that's the last part of it.
Sadly, I'm not surprised, Len.
And I hope that a lot of this is going tochange, obviously, with the, you know, growth
of the MAHA movement and what we're alreadyseeing at, you know, department of, you know,
(14:11):
health and human services.
So things are changing.
Right?
The the culture is changing.
The everything is changing right now, and Ihope it's for the better, especially for
systems like like you've developed here and agreat many other things that we really need to
address as a human species if we expect tocontinue evolving and and becoming the best
(14:35):
versions of ourselves.
We've been kind of working against I I feellike pharma and these massive, you know,
billion, trillion dollar companies have been ina different business altogether.
They're not in health care.
They're in sick care, I believe, is the waythat you phrased it.
So what is the what is the future of EndoDNAlook like, for the next, you know, couple of
(14:59):
years?
I mean, the future is, we have a patent on, anAI patent.
So we're implementing our machine learningalgorithm that that is gonna allow you to have
a full conversation with your genome and also,to measure the efficacy of the protocols.
(15:19):
So I'm just looking at I'm looking down so Ican get the right title of the patent.
Well, the patent is machine learning basedefficacy predictions based on genetic and
biometric information.
So we're building a platform that allows you todo your genome, interrogate your genome.
So you can ask it, show me of all LENSinflammatory markers.
(15:43):
Cross reference them with how LENS metabolizes.
It'll give you baseline biomarkers of blooddraws, biological age, etcetera.
Then it's gonna give you a suggested protocol,a treatment plan, the health care professional
has that.
So, like, right now, our biggest selling testis female hormone health test, menopause
biotype, which is very, you know, underservedas a community in general.
(16:08):
But so the treatment plan will say, okay.
I recommend the this supplementation, thishormone optimization, bioidentical hormones,
and I recommend, you know, transdermal patches.
And the doctor can say, I like everything, butI'm gonna modify the suggested treatment plan
because I like pellets instead of transdermalpatches.
(16:29):
That's what we do in our office.
So I'm gonna modify that.
Now there's gonna be a feedback loop.
So meaning how well patient reported outcome.
In addition to that is other biomarker changesand changes in your methylation, so that
biological age.
Now if it's not efficacious, if that pellet'snot working for you, then the treatment plan
will be modified.
(16:50):
But what if it's working better than thetransdermal patches?
Now the AI just learned, so the next personcomes in and says, hey.
There's a 100 people similar to you that tookthis protocol and that showed that was
efficacious.
So it all goes back into building the world'slargest repository in efficacy and helping us
have this collaborative experience with ourhealth care professionals.
(17:11):
Just incredible.
I'm I'm blown away by everything that you'resaying.
It probably should have been done twenty,thirty years ago.
I'm assuming the tech, is that old.
Right?
And but now you're able to, teach this AI thatis getting more powerful every single day and
to let it go to work and to really dig intothis really amazing stuff, Len.
(17:33):
I I'm thrilled that you've been in this, inthis arena and been a champion for the
endocannabinoid movement.
Right?
Getting people in tune with this, this part ofour bodies and our DNA, the building blocks of
ours and learning so much about this.
And not just learning it to to know it, butlearning it so that we can help people.
(17:56):
And I think that's, just commendable at thevery least.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
We're we're a science based company.
Everything is supported by peer reviewreferences of PubMed or equivalent to PubMed.
It's always learning, and we have citations inin PubMed.
We're in a phase two clinical trial at Harvard.
(18:16):
We have, six clinical studies at Wayne State.
We have, three in Chelman, Montreal, and thenwe have one in The UK that we're starting.
So, we're all about doing it right and doing itscientifically.
So I appreciate the platform that you're,providing us, but everybody everybody needs to
know at least what their genome looks like sothey can use that, to help them, you know,
(18:40):
navigate through their life challenges.
Well, and I appreciate you taking some time forus today.
It'll probably take me three or four times ofwatching this back to actually absorb all the
things that you've said.
It's it's a lot smarter than some of theconversations we have on our show, but I've
really appreciated it, Len.
(19:00):
Go ahead and plug the the website andeverything one more time and anything else that
you need to.
Yeah.
I mean, our website is endodna, end0dna.com.
I'm on all the social platforms, Lenmay.
I think on Instagram, lenmay DNA.
I have a book.
It's called making cannabis personal.
(19:23):
Put up here.
You can get it on Amazon.
So it talks about, you know, a lot of thesestories and people who can't see me.
There's pictures of me with hair in here.
So if you wanna see that, that's pretty cool.
And then I have my own podcast.
It's called everything is personal.
You can get that wherever you get podcasts.
Fantastic.
Well, I'll need a copy of that book to put onour beautiful display here behind me and add it
(19:46):
to the Scene Projects book club list.
And, Len, thank you so much for coming in andgiving me a quick education on the company, and
I I'm thrilled to know you.
And I look forward to hopefully, having my owntests run and finding out a little bit more and
why I've had this love affair with this plantfor, you know, twenty some odd years now.
(20:07):
Let's do it, brother.
I'll I'll give you a test kit, and I'll go overyour results with you.
You can do another show if you want.
Yeah.
Well, that would be cool to kinda show thewhole process for people too and to come on and
do it live.
So I love that idea.
And, Len, I I really appreciate you being apart of the scene.
Thank you, man.
Appreciate it as well.
Welcome in to another exciting episode of thescene.
I'm your host, Bubba Starts, and with me todayis CEO and cofounder of Endo DNA, Len May.
Welcome to the show, Len.
Appreciate it, brother.
Thank you.
We've already been talking off camera.
This is gonna be a thrilling conversation, but,why don't you give us a little bit maybe of
your own backstory and a little bit of thecompany as well?
(00:24):
And then we're gonna get into all this awesomestuff that you guys are doing for the world.
Yeah.
I mean, my my backstory is, I was the kind ofkid I'm an immigrant, by the way.
I came over, to, this country when I was, like,six years old.
But I was a I was a kid that would sit inclass.
He should call me, and my mind would beelsewhere.
It would be daydreaming.
(00:45):
So, you know, kind of became disruptive hereand there.
My parents started taking me to a doctor, andthen I got diagnosed with ADHD.
But, no.
Not hyperactive, just kind of, the the dreamertype, and I was put on prescription medication.
I can't say that the prescription medicationdidn't work if you're talking about just
(01:06):
helping to focus, but I took away all my senseof self.
So all the emotions that I had were sort ofnumb.
And you go through the motions, but you'rereally lifeless.
And I was hanging out with some older kidsbefore class, and they asked me if I wanna
smoke a cigarette.
I'm like, cool.
I'll be one of the cool kids.
I'll smoke a cigarette.
Never asked them why they had only one.
(01:26):
They passed around a cigarette, took a drag ofit, and it didn't taste like a cigarette to me,
and they were laughing.
It would they put cannabis in it.
So I went back to class, and all the windowsare open.
My head sort of narrowed, and that became my mymedicine of choice.
My parents didn't really care for that toomuch.
So at some point, I was, like, 17.
(01:47):
They ended up kicking me out, but actuallycalling the cops to have me arrested.
The irony of this, my parents both takeformulations of my company as patents on now
for their conditions.
And, yeah, I pursued, like, corporate America.
I did all that stuff to work forPricewaterhouse, a venture capital company.
I was a commercial real estate broker, movedfrom Philadelphia where I was from to Los
(02:11):
Angeles, got into the dispensary space, and Istarted seeing two people consume the same
varietal and have a complete differentexperience.
So I got into plant genetics.
And from plant genetics, I got into humangenetics and said, alright.
Well, we have plant genetics here.
We have human genetics here.
Let's bring those two together and guide peopleto a personalized experience.
(02:33):
So we built launched our company 2017.
That was our mission.
But my bigger mission was to create the world'slargest efficacy repository.
So we started working with doctors and askingthem why genetics are important, and a lot of
doctors didn't really know.
So, you know, that's what we created EndoDNAfor is to create this platform that allows
(02:56):
doctors to do genome, interrogate the genome,create a personalized treatment plan, and then
measure how well that treatment plan worksbased on a feedback loop.
With AI, it learns much quicker and helps us toreally get personalized health care instead of
sick care.
See, I told you guys this was gonna be awesome.
Incredible.
(03:16):
A little bit about me.
A longtime cannabis user.
I have a medical card now here in South Dakota.
We have a medical program.
Thank goodness.
So I can speak to a lot of, the things that youdo.
I've been around the space for a long time.
Lot of my friends work at dispensaries.
Lot of friends, I was on the West Coast for atime in my early twenties around, the state of
(03:37):
Oregon.
I was in California a little bit as well.
So really got introduced to it and then movedback to South Dakota, and it was another decade
until we had a medical program.
Did a couple of years in prison for sellingmarijuana, because I realized what this plant
was and what it was not.
And, you know, now here I am with a license togrow or or smoke however much I want, and I
(04:00):
just had to, you know, donate two years of mylife to the state of South Dakota.
Awful.
Yeah.
Well, you know what?
It made me a better person, so I I don't regretthe time.
My mother feels a little bit differently aboutit, posthumously here, but, love it.
Love what you're doing.
Just the the full circle of kinda going from,you know, a a a little bit of a a bad kid,
(04:26):
right, to the whole corporate world and livingthrough that and then finding yourself back in
the cannabis world and and really digging intothe I mean, humans have been tied with this
plant, and we have these endocannabinoidreceptors for a reason.
Right?
It's crazy to think that this plant can't dosomething for you when the human body has
(04:47):
evolved next to it.
Right?
Like, it it it's crazy to me that we still havepeople that are kind of culturally conditioned
to the stigmas, but that's maybe a conversationfor another day, Len.
Well, I I just don't think people understandthe endocannabinoid system, and that's the
biggest challenge is they equate something witha plant that grows in nature, but doesn't
(05:11):
really understand that we have a a whole systemthat creates our own endogenous
endocannabinoids.
And when we have deficiencies in what wenaturally produce, we're lucky that we have a
plant in nature that we have, as you were justsaying, that we have receptors for, and it can
bind to those receptors and actually releasemore of our endogenous endocannabolies, which
(05:31):
helps us maintain balance on homeostasis.
And it's like every single drug that that isused is used as a ligand.
We have a receptor for that drug, like eveneven cocaine, which is odd because it's
schedule two where cannabis is a schedule one.
But when you're consuming, you know, cocaine,it binds to your we use it as medicine, binds
(05:53):
to your dopamine receptors, quirks a bunch ofdopamine into your bloodstream, blocks the
reuptake of that dopamine, and then then itthere's a reuptake in your brain.
It's like, wait a second.
I don't have to crave my own dopamine.
I love dopamine.
It's great.
It's the most, you know, addictive substancethat we have.
Let me send a signal to get me more some ofthat exogenous dopamine ligand, which is
(06:16):
cocaine.
So we get on this habitual cycle.
It doesn't work the same way with cannabis, andthe and the the ligand of getting that delta
nine THC to bind to your c b one receptors,released more anandamide, that's great because
it it's our bliss molecule.
Right?
It create when we run, when we work out, we getthat bliss molecule.
(06:38):
But the the trick is very narrow therapeuticwindow.
So finding the right dose, the right profilefor you, that's the tricky part, and that's
what we're there to help people figure out.
Just incredible.
So EndoDNA is working, I'm assuming, mostlywith doctors and physicians.
Are are, I guess, consumers, people able tocome to your company and to use these just to
(07:05):
find out more about themselves rather thanhaving to go through a physician to get there?
Yeah.
We have a direct to consumer version,especially our endocannabinoid system test.
So you can go to endodna,uh,.com and purchasethat.
We have, you know, thousands of consumers haveused our test.
But the idea, we shifted, to a b to b platform.
(07:27):
And the reason why is because when we leavepeople alone and and this not necessarily has
to do with cannabis per se, the end of thecannabis system.
But looking to genome, it has to be acollaborative experience with your health care
professional.
Your health care professional is not there tocure you.
They're there to be to do no harm and to workin collaboration with you to find something
(07:51):
that actually works for you, with mitigatingrisk.
So in looking at your genome, looking at yourbaseline biomarkers, creating a treatment plan
with a feedback loop, it allows health careprofessionals to collaborate with you.
So if you have a pain or some of that and we'revery conditioned in this country to be pain
averse.
You go to a doctor, they say, alright.
(08:12):
Well, I can give you a pill for that.
I can give you an injection for that instead ofsaying, maybe there's a root cause of that
pain.
So we have to be more aware of that and say,we're not there.
It's a signal.
We're not there to turn the signal down.
We're there to follow it and see what's causingthat.
So if you're collaborating with your healthcare professional, everything's transparent.
(08:33):
Maybe you have a genetic predisposition tosomething that's based on your lifestyle
choices has been epigenetically turned on.
So now what do we do together to turn thatdown?
Your pain can be caused by cortisol release andinflammation into your bloodstream where your
immune system is overreacting to that.
So instead of numbing the pain, let's follow itand find out what's really the root cause.
(08:56):
God.
Big pharma hates you.
Well, big pharma should be using this anyway.
They all look.
We genetics have been used for diagnostics foryears.
We have BRCA one, BRCA two breast cancer genes.
It's all collaboratively.
The the challenge big pharma doesn't hate usper se.
They just under we're we're not covered byinsurance.
(09:19):
We're not in the system.
And when we're outside the system, they'relooking at us and saying, well, they're not
competing with us.
It's a parallel path.
We're not against big pharma if there's amedication.
So I'll give you an example.
We talk about cognitive health and wellness.
I have a buddy of mine, very successfulentrepreneur, and he, had a business deal that
(09:41):
didn't go well.
Now we did his genome, so I know there's acouple of things.
First of all, he's predisposed to depressivefeelings.
So he started getting depressed, and he endedup going to a psychopharmacologist and getting
antidepressant.
Now he he doesn't live in California, but hewas back in California.
He was driving with his wife and his kid aroundthe canyons.
We have these these areas of canyons, and hesaid, had an overwhelming desire to drive off
(10:06):
the cliff.
And he goes, it was so real.
I had to pull over.
I was scared.
I pulled over.
My wife came out and said, are you okay?
He said, I'm not okay.
I shouldn't have been driving, which is greatthat he recognized that.
And when he went back to thepsychopharmacologist, he did something called a
PGX test, which is pharmacogenomics.
He saw that that drug that he was prescribedwas red.
(10:28):
It shouldn't be he shouldn't have beenconsuming this drug in the first place.
In addition to that, because we know this, hehas treatment resistant depression.
So that drug may not be efficacious for himanyway.
It wouldn't have worked.
But he would get the side effects, and the sideeffects, one of the big ones is suicidal
thoughts.
So this is where we need to collaborate withbig pharma.
(10:50):
We need to do everything together for thehealth and wellness of the people so they
mitigate those risks and avoid those, potholesdown the road.
But the way to know this is by doing yourgenome.
You know what your personal GPS of life is, andyou know which sharp corners to avoid.
Yeah.
Life is hard enough.
We don't need a pill that's gonna make us wannakill ourselves.
(11:11):
That's just wild.
And and it seems like it's more and more ofthese pharmaceuticals go by and the list of
side effects get longer and the efficacy getssmaller and smaller and smaller because of
what, I mean, what you're exposing here withendo DNA and getting to the root causes these
problems.
(11:32):
It's just incredible work.
I I commend you so much for getting, into it inthe first place.
I'm sure it's not an easy space to to work in.
Can you talk about some of the challenges thatyou guys have faced as a company kinda moving
through?
Obviously, working in health care at all, therethere's bound to be hurdles to have to climb.
Well, I mean, the first hurdle is cannabis, theendocannabinoid system.
(11:54):
So now that we're working when we first startedwith the endocannabinoid system, I mean,
marketing has been the biggest challenge.
We're getting, you know, flagged and and, onall the social media platforms and shadowban,
etcetera, we're not plant touching.
We're telling you about a system that's in yourbody.
But the way that the all these platforms areset up, they're like, wait a second.
(12:17):
Endocannabinoid cannabinoids.
Let's flag that.
So that's the first hurdle.
The second hurdle is the stigma that'sassociated with that as we just went over.
The third one is the FDA.
So when we met with the FDA, they asked us,what is the purpose of your test?
And we said to help people either avoid ormitigate a possible adverse event.
(12:38):
And they said, great.
There's two things.
You can't make any claims, which is fine, andyou can't talk about a disease.
So if I'm selling directly to consumer, forinstance, I can't talk about Parkinson's, but I
can talk about the tremors that are associatedwith Parkinson's.
But since this is a platform for health careprofessionals as well, now they can use that as
(13:02):
to help them with their diagnosis, also.
But we're classified what's called RUO,research use only, so it can be used in helping
you to diagnose, but it's not necessarily adiagnostic test.
And one of the reasons is because we have anendocannabinoid system test, the FDA will not
approve, you know, a five ten k diagnosticdevice because there is a schedule one
(13:26):
substance that is associated with the testingthat we do and has nothing to do with really
what we do.
And the last the last hurdle of that is theunderstanding of DNA.
I mean, you may be surprised that a lot ofdoctors don't understand genetics.
They studied it in medical school.
They had a class, but they don't reallyunderstand.
So getting past that hurdle and making it easyfor health care professionals to really
(13:48):
understand and interrogate the genome and askyou questions help them prescribe what they
need to, that's the last part of it.
Sadly, I'm not surprised, Len.
And I hope that a lot of this is going tochange, obviously, with the, you know, growth
of the MAHA movement and what we're alreadyseeing at, you know, department of, you know,
(14:11):
health and human services.
So things are changing.
Right?
The the culture is changing.
The everything is changing right now, and Ihope it's for the better, especially for
systems like like you've developed here and agreat many other things that we really need to
address as a human species if we expect tocontinue evolving and and becoming the best
(14:35):
versions of ourselves.
We've been kind of working against I I feellike pharma and these massive, you know,
billion, trillion dollar companies have been ina different business altogether.
They're not in health care.
They're in sick care, I believe, is the waythat you phrased it.
So what is the what is the future of EndoDNAlook like, for the next, you know, couple of
(14:59):
years?
I mean, the future is, we have a patent on, anAI patent.
So we're implementing our machine learningalgorithm that that is gonna allow you to have
a full conversation with your genome and also,to measure the efficacy of the protocols.
(15:19):
So I'm just looking at I'm looking down so Ican get the right title of the patent.
Well, the patent is machine learning basedefficacy predictions based on genetic and
biometric information.
So we're building a platform that allows you todo your genome, interrogate your genome.
So you can ask it, show me of all LENSinflammatory markers.
(15:43):
Cross reference them with how LENS metabolizes.
It'll give you baseline biomarkers of blooddraws, biological age, etcetera.
Then it's gonna give you a suggested protocol,a treatment plan, the health care professional
has that.
So, like, right now, our biggest selling testis female hormone health test, menopause
biotype, which is very, you know, underservedas a community in general.
(16:08):
But so the treatment plan will say, okay.
I recommend the this supplementation, thishormone optimization, bioidentical hormones,
and I recommend, you know, transdermal patches.
And the doctor can say, I like everything, butI'm gonna modify the suggested treatment plan
because I like pellets instead of transdermalpatches.
(16:29):
That's what we do in our office.
So I'm gonna modify that.
Now there's gonna be a feedback loop.
So meaning how well patient reported outcome.
In addition to that is other biomarker changesand changes in your methylation, so that
biological age.
Now if it's not efficacious, if that pellet'snot working for you, then the treatment plan
will be modified.
(16:50):
But what if it's working better than thetransdermal patches?
Now the AI just learned, so the next personcomes in and says, hey.
There's a 100 people similar to you that tookthis protocol and that showed that was
efficacious.
So it all goes back into building the world'slargest repository in efficacy and helping us
have this collaborative experience with ourhealth care professionals.
(17:11):
Just incredible.
I'm I'm blown away by everything that you'resaying.
It probably should have been done twenty,thirty years ago.
I'm assuming the tech, is that old.
Right?
And but now you're able to, teach this AI thatis getting more powerful every single day and
to let it go to work and to really dig intothis really amazing stuff, Len.
(17:33):
I I'm thrilled that you've been in this, inthis arena and been a champion for the
endocannabinoid movement.
Right?
Getting people in tune with this, this part ofour bodies and our DNA, the building blocks of
ours and learning so much about this.
And not just learning it to to know it, butlearning it so that we can help people.
(17:56):
And I think that's, just commendable at thevery least.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate it.
We're we're a science based company.
Everything is supported by peer reviewreferences of PubMed or equivalent to PubMed.
It's always learning, and we have citations inin PubMed.
We're in a phase two clinical trial at Harvard.
(18:16):
We have, six clinical studies at Wayne State.
We have, three in Chelman, Montreal, and thenwe have one in The UK that we're starting.
So, we're all about doing it right and doing itscientifically.
So I appreciate the platform that you're,providing us, but everybody everybody needs to
know at least what their genome looks like sothey can use that, to help them, you know,
(18:40):
navigate through their life challenges.
Well, and I appreciate you taking some time forus today.
It'll probably take me three or four times ofwatching this back to actually absorb all the
things that you've said.
It's it's a lot smarter than some of theconversations we have on our show, but I've
really appreciated it, Len.
(19:00):
Go ahead and plug the the website andeverything one more time and anything else that
you need to.
Yeah.
I mean, our website is endodna, end0dna.com.
I'm on all the social platforms, Lenmay.
I think on Instagram, lenmay DNA.
I have a book.
It's called making cannabis personal.
(19:23):
Put up here.
You can get it on Amazon.
So it talks about, you know, a lot of thesestories and people who can't see me.
There's pictures of me with hair in here.
So if you wanna see that, that's pretty cool.
And then I have my own podcast.
It's called everything is personal.
You can get that wherever you get podcasts.
Fantastic.
Well, I'll need a copy of that book to put onour beautiful display here behind me and add it
(19:46):
to the Scene Projects book club list.
And, Len, thank you so much for coming in andgiving me a quick education on the company, and
I I'm thrilled to know you.
And I look forward to hopefully, having my owntests run and finding out a little bit more and
why I've had this love affair with this plantfor, you know, twenty some odd years now.
(20:07):
Let's do it, brother.
I'll I'll give you a test kit, and I'll go overyour results with you.
You can do another show if you want.
Yeah.
Well, that would be cool to kinda show thewhole process for people too and to come on and
do it live.
So I love that idea.
And, Len, I I really appreciate you being apart of the scene.
Thank you, man.
Appreciate it as well.
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