For this episode, we sat down with Edgar Charry, the co-founder of Symex Labs, to explore the nuanced and deeply personal world of reproductive health.
This episode brings forth a candid account of Edgar's startup journey, driven by his own fertility challenges. Together, we chart the human experiences that fuel scientific breakthroughs, and how Edgar's venture is carving out a new path for pre-IVF treatment, offering hope and empowerment to females who want to better understand personal insights about their fertility.
Throughout our discussion, we delve into Symex Labs' wearable ‘lab-on-a-chip’ sensor, which is designed to streamline hormone monitoring for women looking to track their ovulatory cycle.
As we wade through the complexities of entrepreneurship, we pause to acknowledge the softer side of the startup hustle – the necessity of hobbies, the art of striking a work-life balance, and fostering human connections. Our conversation explores the importance of tending to the inner garden, through music, embracing the simple joys of life, and how the practice of reflection is pivotal to the well-being of any change-maker.
Curious to hear more about Symex Labs?
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We're working on and supporting a range of community-led, impact-oriented initiatives spanning conservation, bioremediation, synthetic biology, biomaterials, and systems innovation.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Samuel Wines (00:00):
Hello and welcome to The Strange Attractor, an
experimental podcast from CoLabs, a transdisciplinary innovation
hub and biotechnologyco-working lab based in
Melbourne, Australia.
I'm your co-host, Sam Wines,and alongside my co-founder,
Andrew Gray, we'll delve deepinto the intersection of biology
, technology and society throughthe lens of complexity and
(00:22):
systems thinking.
Join us on a journey ofdiscovery as we explore how
transdisciplinary innovation,informed by life's regenerative
patterns and processes, couldhelp us catalyse the transition
towards a thriving future forpeople and the planet.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the Strange Attractor
(00:47):
.
This week, we sat down withEdgar Charry, the co-founder of
Symex Labs.
We had a chat with him abouthis backstory, what led to the
formation of the organisation, alittle bit of a rundown on his
tech, and also chatted aboutthings on the inner development
side of things and theinterpersonal side of things,
(01:09):
like what's needed to, I guess,kind of like, build and
cultivate a team, as well asfinding ways to, I guess, be as
much of a human as you can,whilst just trying to work hard
on something that currentlydoesn't exist yet.
Again, this was a really funconversation for us.
We find out that we're alwayslearning new things about our
(01:30):
members when we have thispodcast, which is really
exciting.
So hopefully you enjoy thisconversation with Edgar Charry
from Symex Labs.
So I mean, I guess we couldprobably get started.
Andrew Gray (01:43):
That sounds like a plan.
Yeah, who are we gettingstarted with?
It'll be you, sam.
Samuel Wines (01:48):
Yeah, okay, fair enough.
So, Edgar, thank you so muchfor coming on today to talk
about everything that you'redoing.
Do you want to give us a littlebit of a background on your
journey towards co-foundingSymex Labs?
So what was it that kind of gotyou interested in that field?
Edgar Charry (02:13):
Well, thanks for having me here.
Well, it started this companyin what 2022, right May.
My background is technical.
I've done engineeringelectronics software.
I worked in MedTech for about 15, 16 years before and really I
(02:37):
think I just really learned someof the quirks and some of the
requirements for this particularindustry and really, after all
this time working as an engineer, working as an engineering
manager, you met, obviously,mohammed, the other co-founder
of the company, and we workedreally well together.
We always thought we should dosomething together.
(02:59):
Just seeing from our previousbosses just running around like
crazy as founders they were aswell.
These were actually startupstoo, and we love that energy.
We were doing long hours, butit was fun.
It was still fun.
Anyway, fast forward, I guess,these 15, 16 years and well, got
(03:23):
married, obviously, with mywife Luciana, and we did really
struggle to have kids.
It was part of the dream reallyto have kids.
I think she yeah, that was alsopart of one of the plans as
well to have children and wetried, for I can't remember
(03:46):
really now 10 years, I guess.
Samuel Wines (03:50):
Oh, wow, okay.
Edgar Charry (03:52):
Yeah, from no, probably not 10 years, it would
be more like seven to eightyears, and we tried obviously
with the basic, the basics, thepharmacy, and this is just after
I'm sort of obviously seeingLuciana doing right, it's not
like I'm doing any of thatmyself.
Andrew Gray (04:09):
Now you guys have it pretty easy in that
department.
Edgar Charry (04:12):
Exactly exactly and it didn't work out for some
time and just trying, naturally,and we went for.
We sought some advice,obviously medical advice, and
the plan was to get into IVF andwe did about five full fresh
cycles I recall when you do thecollections and you try and
(04:36):
inseminate with the sperm andtry to have a baby and in total
three more fresh cycles sorry,frozen amortiser, what is called
right and none of them actuallyworked and I guess after that I
kept really working atdifferent industry.
And again.
There was an opportunity for us,for me, I guess, to say okay,
(04:59):
maybe I worked already too muchwith these other companies, why
not starting this kind of dream?
Right?
But I had with Mohammed and westarted the company, really
working primarily inreproductive health, in trying
to really, I guess, lessenreally that pain, that in all
the struggle that goes along forthese couples that go through
(05:22):
this journey of falling fromfull pregnant, they can't, but
yeah, that's how it led to usfounding the company Because
it's quite like from what I haveno experience in this space,
let's say, but from what I knowit's quite expensive.
Samuel Wines (05:37):
So you rattled off that was, that was five cycles
and then another two or three,like it is.
That's not cheap, right?
Just for context.
Edgar Charry (05:46):
No, no, it's not cheap.
We were lucky.
I guess from that perspectiveas well, we could afford it.
The Australian governmentactually subsidized that a lot
too, which is good.
In the US that doesn't happen,for instance, and yeah, so we
had to.
Sometimes the solution had totake time off work because we
have to go to the hospital to dothe exams and scans, and all
(06:09):
that because she was contracted.
You know that also reduces, youknow that also paid too.
So we have to manage that.
But yeah, to your point, it isexpensive.
You know about 12 to 15 K,depending on, obviously, on many
cabinets there.
If it's a fresh cycle, forexample, and in any other
(06:31):
government, obviously we paythat, we through Medicare.
Andrew Gray (06:34):
But not even that.
In addition to that, just eventhe, the P sticks aren't cheap,
are they Like?
And I imagine it's not just tryonce, like you're constantly
yeah.
Edgar Charry (06:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.
It's a good question, it's agood point.
The they are.
There's like again a range ofproducts out there too.
So you can find the very, verycheap P sticks like cents, but
they come like in five and theyonly measure like two hormones,
for instance, or one hormone.
And you can go to the otherextreme where you find P sticks
that they can measure the threehormones.
(07:05):
And then they also have another, another kit that gives you a
pregnancy test as well.
You want to just test forovulation as well, for pregnancy
.
They cost can be 60, 100, 100dollars, depends how many, how
many kids come in the package.
Andrew Gray (07:21):
So it's, it's.
You can have a lot of optionsyeah you have options there, so
it also makes it kind ofconfusing too, right.
Edgar Charry (07:28):
True, that is actually true.
Yeah, I mean it all comes downto that.
Probably the doctor, you knowthe doctor telling you, just,
you know, use first response, oryou know clear blue or the most
well known, and that's itreally.
They go out and try it,probably try with the cheapest
ones, you know, because you havethat hope that it's going to
happen very quickly, and then itdoesn't.
(07:50):
And you know, you just hearit's like a, it's a little bit
like a taboo subject in manyways because it's a bit private,
right, and once, but then, onceyou start talking with your
video mates, right with yourfamily, then you realize, ok, so
I'm not just really, but we'renot just by ourselves.
You know, going through this,it's quite a few people that go
(08:11):
through that and same sameexperience.
You know some of them talkabout the chip sticks or they
actually work, or what do we goto work more expensive piece of
sticks.
Andrew Gray (08:17):
Well, especially if you if there are, you know, if
you're going through any sort ofchallenges yourself.
You know, biologically, youknow you're just relying on this
thing to give you a yes.
It's just a yes, no right.
Edgar Charry (08:28):
Correct, correct.
Yeah, that's also binary, right.
Yeah, it's only it doesn't giveyou a lot of information about
your body.
It's only yes or no, yourability or not, and that's
that's not a good insight.
So what we're trying to do isis not just provide a
(08:49):
qualitative measure, right, butalso quantitatively say, OK, so
you've got maybe you know, 50 or100 are you per liter of LH in
the body right now?
Right, so, and then what doesthat mean to right?
Andrew Gray (09:01):
LH.
Sorry, what's that?
Edgar Charry (09:02):
LH sorry it's, it's a, it's a, it's a
lotinizing, lotinizing hormone.
So that's the main.
So if you get a, if you have awoman of 28 days, a menstrual
cycle, standard LH usuallysearches at about half the cycle
a day 14.
And that's a good predictorthat we was about to overlay.
So what I'm saying is that,just understanding a little bit,
(09:24):
you know if your concentrationlevels of LH are high or low.
You know that might give yousome good insights as well about
what's going on with your body.
We're seeing trends as well nowthat doctors not sure the
policy level or not, but theywant patients to do more stuff
at home rather than the doctorsdoing all the assessments there
(09:47):
and doing all the scans andeverything People to you know to
do more stuff at home.
So by more stuff the digitalhealth, primarily just working
with patients, you know, workingon the on solution and the same
ones going on.
Samuel Wines (09:59):
Wow, right, and for context as well, right.
So I think the World HealthOrganization said something like
one in six people globallysuffer from infertility.
So, and it's on the rise, right,with all the forever chemicals
and all the other stuff in ourenvironment and the food that we
tend to eat, it's all beingshown to have somewhat of a
negative impact on your abilityto conceive.
(10:21):
So, yeah, I can see that thissort of thing is only going to
be like more prevalent into thefuture, and so you're.
So you're not just tracking onehormone, right, there's, is
there a portfolio of hormonesthat you're, that you're
tracking and incorporating intothe product, and what is the
(10:41):
product as well, Like what?
what was your, I guess?
So you've looked at this.
You've realized there's allthese disparate disconnected
things in ways to measure things, some low fire, some high tech,
and you've kind of gone.
There's got to be a better wayto do this that is better for
females and also just gives youthat qualitative and
quantitative data.
Edgar Charry (11:00):
Yeah, so the purpose, really, the mission for
us, is to develop reproductivehealth solutions, right, and the
first, really the first targetfor us, is to eliminate.
Eliminate bloods or theconstant for bloods in the IVF
space.
That's like a first target,right, and why?
Because it's very painful andwe might have to go through, you
(11:24):
know, many, many blood teststhroughout a cycle, right, and
it's, you know, in that space.
Yeah, measuring hormones isquite critical, right.
So you have to be really,really accurate, right?
You can't.
Just, you know, we have to beas good as the gold standard.
You know the stakes are toohigh.
And once we validate, really,our technology which is, I guess
(11:50):
, to your question, again, awearable device, small sensor,
maybe 30 millimeters long, youknow, or wide, putting the upper
arm in the belly, and that, torespond to the, we measure
interstitial fluid, extractingthe stitial fluid and then read
progesterone, estradiol,luteinazol, hormone and ACG,
(12:13):
which is one of the hormonesthat basically detect their
pregnancy, and then thatinformation is captured and then
sent to the cloud where, again,the nurses can see what's going
on and they can make the rightclinical decisions, right.
So, for example, is the hormonesrising too much?
Are they going, are they beingsuppressed as they should have
in a particular cycle and if not, did they need increased
(12:36):
medications or not?
And that's really in thespecialist space, right, I guess
just connecting with ourprevious conversation about
consumer right.
So we feel that we want to haveit's still in the planes these
things develop, right, we stillwant to create as much input as
(12:57):
possible, and one way is, afterconsolidating really this
position about can we eliminatethe bloods in that space, then
move to the consumer market,right, which is what we were
talking about before, right?
So people in the homes and theyhaven't actually tried
something more sophisticated, Iguess, and then trying these
(13:20):
things are basically at home andalready providing a much more
convenient way, and moreaccurate way as well, to
introduce these hormones.
Samuel Wines (13:27):
Would there be?
So you're thinking ofintroducing, like an app layer
where they might be able to havesomething on their phone, or
would this device also interfacewith other apps or startups in
their health tech, med techspace?
Because, from what I'm aware,there is quite a lot of action
in both the fertility space andthe med tech space with wearable
devices and apps to be able totrack that.
(13:49):
Are there any collaborations orthings in the works with people
in the space?
Edgar Charry (13:55):
We have been talking with a few groups yes,
in the US about this, definitelytracking, I guess, their own
cycles.
It's something that pretty muchevery female does.
I guess combining these twoforces right about having
insights about your cycle plusdata from a sensor.
I think that's definitelysomething that we want to do,
(14:18):
right and yeah.
So I think that for us rightnow is get the device to a stage
that it's been validated, andthen can we have bigger impact
really with women using thissensor in the consumer market.
Samuel Wines (14:38):
So what does that sort of pathway look like?
Like, because you kind of cameto us in the very early stages
of Symex, right.
So how many were you when youstarted?
Was it just the two of you?
Edgar Charry (14:55):
Probably yeah when we started.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think soyeah.
Samuel Wines (14:59):
Because it would have been what like a year, year
and a year and a half.
Edgar Charry (15:02):
Yeah, maybe we'll head actually to more.
I feel like pretty quickly.
Samuel Wines (15:06):
As soon as you started, you kind of got an
additional two humans on theteam.
Yes, yes, exactly.
Edgar Charry (15:13):
What is the pathway you're in for us?
Samuel Wines (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, so obviously.
So you've been here validatingand getting yourself from.
I don't know whether you usethe TRL framework or anything
like that, but let's say youmight have come at a TRL like a
one or a two and you're kind ofpushing maybe towards a three or
something like that.
What is the next step for youfrom here on out?
Edgar Charry (15:40):
Yeah, so you're right, so we are still
relatively early.
I'd say this is technology thatis not easy to get right and we
basically used a technologycoming from one of the
(16:01):
universities here in Melbourne.
It was more like a platformtechnology and obviously this
technology had been alreadyvalidated in other types of
applications.
So the question was can thisplatform actually work in our
application, our use case?
And that's what we did inreally the first year.
So we started already probablyTRL three, and then really of
(16:26):
the last year, we could say thatwe probably went up maybe by
two to TRL five.
At this stage Nice.
And right now we got one of ourI guess we were lucky as well to
have one of our partners, likeMonash Monash IVFs one of the
clinical partners and what wewant to do is basically start
(16:49):
validating this technologyagainst the machines that
potentially they use and thenreally start to test with serum,
for example, start to set withblood, with interstitial fluid
as well, to actually be at TRLseven or eight.
We've got at least two years ofR&D, heavy R&D, to do and, as I
(17:12):
was saying, just validatingtechnology, creating the needles
, the small needles, and thenafter that we have to basically
go through a clinical trialstage.
We'll be able to study whereyou actually look at your device
against the gold standard andsee how you fare against them,
and then after that you have tostill go through regulatory
(17:33):
clearance.
In the US it's the opposite ofthe Food Drug Administration,
the FDA, and in Australia it'sthe TGA, and usually it takes I
don't know, depends on the riskclassification every six months
or so.
Then we can be in the marketreally after that.
So it's medical devices.
Samuel Wines (17:53):
It's a long and winding road.
Edgar Charry (17:56):
Yeah, it's like shooting the stars.
I heard it's shooting the starsand you might land in the moons
with your idea kind of thing.
But we know we've done thisbefore.
Samuel Wines (18:09):
Yeah, because, as you were saying before, you've
worked in the med tech space andyou've gone through and taken
something through this journeybeforehand, so you kind of you
know what you've signed yourselfup for, so to speak.
Edgar Charry (18:20):
Correct, we know our paint ratios are high.
I tell investors so don't worryabout it, we know.
Samuel Wines (18:28):
You've been there before, which is so important.
I think so many of the peoplethat we have had through this
space and that we know justwithin the ecosystem as well
that are doing really well, somuch of them have had that
experience in the med tech areawhere they're like I've already
been there.
That's not the first rodeo,because there's so many
different hurdles and thingsthat you have to overcome.
(18:49):
When you're looking at doingthis sort of med tech space
first say I mean it's hardBecause I was just going to say
it like cultivated me, but likethere's almost in a similar
category Anything that you'refeeding someone or helping with
health.
There's a lot of regulations.
Edgar Charry (19:06):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Samuel Wines (19:07):
It makes it a challenge.
Hey, I don't actually know ifwe've spoken about this before.
I'd be super curious to knowhow.
You don't have to go into,obviously, all the detail, but
how do you track these hormoneson the patch?
So you've got these needlesthat go in and measure the
interstitial fluid.
I'm assuming there's somethingthere that allows them to sense
(19:30):
and pick up these specifichormones.
Is it biological or is it a?
Yeah, I'm just curious.
It's fascinating to know.
Edgar Charry (19:38):
There's a range of biorecepts that we can use.
We start with the most commonone, which is just monoclonal
antibodies, basically, and thenyou use them to basically need
to mobilize you on a surfaceright In a particular way.
There will be what we call anelectron charge transfer,
(20:02):
without getting too technical.
But that means that once theantibody binds to an antigen
molecule, an hormone for example, then there's an electron
transfer down to a siliconsurface or gold surface, for
instance, and that's your signal, in essence, right.
Samuel Wines (20:18):
So it's like registering and so on this, I'm
assuming that there's going tobe multiple of these antigens.
Correct.
And like you have let's saythere's 100 that are hit that
gives you a spike of X and thenthat allows you to be able to go
.
Ok, there is quite a lot withinthe given amount of.
Edgar Charry (20:36):
Correct, correct.
In one single area you havemany, many antibodies.
Really, they are just pointingin the right direction and then,
as they're in touch with theinterstitial fluid, they're
almost obviously diffusing there, they will bind, and then
there's that electron chargetransfer that occurs, and then
you have a signal, in essence.
(20:57):
But this is just really one ofthe ways, right, you can use
also molecular-inferred polymers, or MIPS, they call it, which
we're testing them right now,but they can be autoclave, they
claim.
So that means they are super,super stable.
Samuel Wines (21:16):
Interesting, so it's like reusable, whereas the
other one the proclivity forantibodies, just fall off the
needle or what have you Like.
You're dealing with abiological right, so it's going
to less resilient.
Edgar Charry (21:30):
With antibodies.
I mean there's two parts, right?
So one thing is that it bindsthe antigen binds to the
antibody, and then whether it'sactually released after that.
So most of the antibodies willjust hold onto the molecule and
just stay there.
Samuel Wines (21:41):
Right.
Edgar Charry (21:41):
That's what they call a decay D right.
Some of them actually will gooff.
That's the T of OK off and thenthe T on is how many quickly
can actually bind to theantibodies, right?
The other aspect that I thinkthat you mentioned is stability.
I think you said or time, sothat's if you leave antibodies
or optomers, for example, fortoo long in contact with your
body.
So optomers, what we call, islike a single or double-strand
(22:04):
DNA, right?
There's another type ofbioreceptor.
Samuel Wines (22:06):
Your body's probably just like oh shit,
what's this?
Get it out.
Edgar Charry (22:10):
That's also another thing, exactly, but what
I was going to say is that theycan't degrade very quickly
right In contact with thesefluids.
Right, Especially attemperature.
You know the right pH as wellin your interstitial fluid.
So how do you manage thesethings?
Right, and we're testing againthis nanomips at this stage, and
(22:34):
for a product, for a product,we want reliability, right,
that's what we want to, as I wassaying before, right, the
stakes are too high and you know, the last thing we want is a
sensor playing up.
You know, in a scenario where awoman is actually making many
decisions based on this sensorresponse.
Samuel Wines (22:53):
Yeah, and so if the sensor can be autoclave,
does that mean that you wouldhave something like a program
where they might lease it fromyou and then you can reuse it?
Or are you because to me thatas soon as you mentioned that,
I'm like, oh, that's fascinatingthat you say that, because to
me that's bringing in elementsof the circular economy or
product as a service, which youknow it's probably going to be
(23:14):
less wasteful than maybe some ofthe other things as well.
Edgar Charry (23:18):
Very, very, very good point.
I think I was talking aboutautoclaving just really the
bioreceptors.
We weren't necessarily thinkingof autoclaving the whole sensor
, but to your point, yes.
So we want to have the sensorhas in the design at this stage
has two components one reusablecomponent, as you're saying,
that's the bit that containselectronics, the firmware, the
(23:38):
antenna and everything, and theother part is the single use
patch.
So, and that's the one that iswhat will function with the
antibodies, right, and then youuse it really once a day, you
know.
So we want to start simple.
Once a day the woman goes tothe clinic, picks up the sensors
, goes home on day eight or nine, when she starts to measure
hormones, assembles bothtogether, puts in the uparm,
(24:01):
wait for an hour maximum, thesenior goes to the cloud and
then basically she disposes ofthe disposable patch, but she
keeps the.
Keeps the unit to keep reusing,yeah, and then you keep doing
that every other day, you knowevery day, depending on each
clinical case, but that you'reright.
That helps a lot in cost.
Also reduce waste as well.
Samuel Wines (24:23):
Yeah, now that makes it like to me that makes
sense, so it's exciting to hearthat.
I guess we haven't really it'sbeen so busy and you've been so
busy as well.
Like I mean, the team keepsgrowing and there's more and
more humans running around andyou're running around all the
time.
I feel like you only just gotback from overseas, from
holidays, which was off the backof going overseas, for you went
(24:46):
over with Muhammad too.
Was it the States?
Edgar Charry (24:49):
Yeah, that was last year.
Yes, that was in August.
Yeah, August, September in theUS.
So we went to see somecustomers, potential customers,
so it's important to alsounderstand for our markets,
right?
So the US market again isobviously the biggest, but
(25:10):
understanding you know some ofthe nuances that happened there,
so you know how does the IPactually interact with the
patients?
How does reimbursement work?
There.
Private insurance, you know, isactually much more important
there than here, for instance,and we met with some investors
as well, which was great.
I think it was a veryproductive trip and, yes, in
(25:32):
December.
Yeah, let's take some time off.
Let's take some time off.
You know, after Christmas itwas insane actually, right until
I left and I literally just putmy phone in the bottom of the
suitcase.
I'm not going to use it at all.
Andrew Gray (25:51):
How'd that pan?
Edgar Charry (25:52):
out.
It's weird.
Actually it's weird.
You kind of have to go to thisdetox process right.
Yeah, where you're just likeokay, so I don't have my phone
in me.
Now.
What do I do?
Okay, I have to, you know, talkto people and I loved it.
You know you kind of lose thesethings right with your phone
all the time.
It's good to talk to peoplereally and see how they live in
their lives.
Over there.
The Colchates was awesome.
Samuel Wines (26:11):
Oh, that's some that's great to hear.
I know that we've spoken inpassing a couple of times about
how it can be quite difficult tofind the time to just exist
outside of organizing a businessor something of the likes, and
especially like reading oranything like that.
Was there any books or anythingthat you picked up while you
were over there?
Edgar Charry (26:30):
Yeah, yeah.
So this is what I was justtalking to Andrew about before.
For some reason, Luciana boughtthis book about how to age well
or something.
It's about permeable diet,right.
Samuel Wines (26:43):
Right, it's the Peter Attia.
Was it one of the Peter Attia?
Outlive or aging well or hownot to diet, or yeah, one of
those, one of those?
Edgar Charry (26:50):
She booked this one.
So, okay, I'm going to readthis one here.
And you read this and you'relike, okay, and you look at the
credentials of the personwriting the author, okay, this
guy's obviously got the superhigh credentials, so obviously,
surely it's the ones we'retalking about, and yeah.
So I guess it's quite importantreally to keep thinking about
(27:13):
this.
Right, how do I not burn out?
Right, as a founder?
Right, I get so focused onsomething and then you just
struggle to fall asleep in theevenings we talked about this,
but also diet, right?
So going back to the book justin terms of healthy diets and
(27:36):
that, in the end of the day,that does help.
Samuel Wines (27:38):
That does help Makes such a big difference,
like focusing on the inner isactually just as important as
the outer.
Andrew Gray (27:45):
You can do one without the other.
Samuel Wines (27:47):
Yeah, and on that on the inner as well, it's like
your own self-awareness and yourability to perceive the systems
that we're a part of as a whole, but also how you relate to
your team, the communication.
There's so much on the insidethat a lot of the time is
overlooked in, I guess, likethis tunnel vision towards
(28:09):
progress.
Andrew Gray (28:10):
But it's not a conscious like I'm going to
ignore all this, so I can.
It's just, you know, I imagineit's like an obsession to some
extent, and so you don't mean toput the blinkers up.
I mean, I feel like we canrelate to that, but for sure,
definitely happens, yeah, itjust happened by itself.
Edgar Charry (28:25):
You have to have the awareness that you're saying
, self-awareness, saying okay, Iam going, I'm not working well,
I'm being counterproductive.
Now, you know, I'm not in astate to sit down and have a
good conversation about thisdeal right now.
I'm just going to go for a walkor just talk about it tomorrow.
But I guess, having thatinsight that that's happening
with you because you're going toautopilot, right, If you don't
(28:47):
realize that you get dragons ofthese things and then that keeps
going.
It becomes like a snowball.
So it's about stopping havingthe service.
Okay, no, I'm not Someone whodoes this really well.
Is Muhammad he's got his?
He says no, no, I'm going to domy cricket today.
I say, okay, that's fine.
You know?
Fine, specify to put out, I'mkidding, it's not like that.
(29:09):
But he's quite calm.
Samuel Wines (29:11):
He says no, I'm going to, I'm going to just play
my cricket and he's got hissacred time and he's like this
is not being interfered with,it's I guess also the awareness
to know that by doing that hewill be able to probably handle
that firefighting a bit betteryou know if it was a reason
Exactly.
Andrew Gray (29:26):
Exactly, you need it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Samuel Wines (29:29):
It's a concept.
I've come across a concept thatI find enjoyable, like, like.
Obviously we do workouts butthere's also work ins and to me
that's like the stopping, thepausing, the reflecting, like a
big thing that we've been tryingto.
We've always, we've always hadit as an area of interest, like
the pause and the reflect andlooking at and being great
grateful for all the things thathave happened.
(29:50):
But it's so, so easy to getstuck in that left brain sort of
do, do, do tick everything offmode because so much of what we
do in work is like centeredaround that.
But yeah, we find that everytime we do make time and reflect
and look at how everything'sgone or just ask ourselves how
we're feeling like emotionally,energetically, it's always so
much.
(30:10):
We always feel better off forit and we're always like, ah, we
need to remember to Well we'vedone it, we were playing around
with linking, you know,gratitude to having a whiskey,
Like if something came along.
Andrew Gray (30:23):
I'm not condoning this, but it was a.
It was a fun thing to do therefor about a few weeks, where
Until we're like we can't affordthis.
Samuel Wines (30:32):
We don't need this much whiskey.
Edgar Charry (30:36):
But I think, I think that you said a word
systems.
You said right, just use theword systems.
I think that's another way oftrying to manage.
You know, this is how do, howdo you have systems in place in
your, in your, in your company,but also in your personal life,
that allow you to be the bestperson you can be, for both
right, both at Gozell Samson and.
(30:58):
Andrews, and and and then really, it's about creating these
habits, right?
That's what I'm trying to do.
It's creating these habits.
It's you know, okay, so whatare good habits and what are bad
habits?
Right, and how can I avoid the?
Samuel Wines (31:12):
bad habits and how's dopamine kicking in.
Edgar Charry (31:14):
You know when I need to see my phone because I'm
waiting for an email from aninvestor or something like this.
Right, I keep checking my phone.
So then you have to put thephone away, really and make sure
that I don't turn it completelyoff for the entire afternoon,
for example.
I just blocked this time really, I'm not going to be doing
anything, but just really theimportant work that needs to
happen, rather than keep itlooking at mail.
So, yeah, so systems I thinkit's also something that we're
(31:38):
working as well, personally, butalso in the company.
You know, we do weekly sprints,for instance, and this is the
we laid out the plan and this isthe two springs that we need to
.
Basically, with these twosprings, we need to achieve
these sort of deliverables and,you know, commit really to that
(31:59):
and then we keep iterating, keepiterating, keep iterating.
Yeah, I think that's alsoimportant, yeah.
Andrew Gray (32:06):
What was?
Imagine that.
So that journey, like thesehabits that you're talking about
, might, like the developmentand the rise of the need for
them, changes, like when youstart out.
I mean, everybody hits theground, running right and you're
just doing everything.
You're just throwing spaghettiup at the wall and but then
you've got this vision.
(32:27):
I think that gets honed correctme if I'm wrong and is that
kind of like at that point whereyou start to go like okay, it's
time to put systems in the trimaway at the stuff that might be
causing a bit of like anegative feedback loop if we
keep just doing everything.
Edgar Charry (32:41):
Yeah, I think that's.
I'll probably say that we'relacking in a way that we had an
experience of looking atmanaging people managing a team,
which is one of the hardestthings that actually you could
do in a startup, right, and it'sso so, so so we're really new
On the topic of managing.
Samuel Wines (33:01):
You're gonna have to manage you bringing this
microphone.
Bring the microphone up closerto you so that you can sit back
and relax.
You don't have to lean over,you can.
Yeah, whatever you want thisthing's yeah, Okay, like this.
Whatever, whatever works, foryou.
Edgar Charry (33:14):
Okay, it's a big man.
I thought it was small.
Andrew Gray (33:21):
It does, it does, but it just sounds like you're
like behind my shoulder orsomething like a little bit
further away, like here.
Samuel Wines (33:26):
you gotta get nice and close, right okay okay, is
that good?
Yeah, we're good.
Okay, good, that's great.
Edgar Charry (33:33):
Now, I was just saying that, luckily, we have
had the experience of managingpeople, which, again, is very,
very difficult, and we knew thatwhen we had to hit the ground
running over things in thecompany, we already had to have
some system in place.
You know, like we had to havethe springs, we had to have
these.
You know objectives or thequarters, and it just because
(33:55):
it's so important to have ashared vision.
If you don't have especiallythe startup, because resources
are so constrained, everything'sso constrained, how do you find
people that actually want tojoin you, really knowing that
they have full-time jobs?
But do you know that thisperson actually can do an
awesome job?
Right?
How do you convince somebody to?
(34:17):
You know, give you to help youout, whatever that is?
You know they give you adiscount, the cost or whatever
it's about really again havingthe shared vision, right, hey,
this is what I'm doing.
You know we're struggling withthis, in this journey, this, and
then we've been lucky really tohave people that say no, no,
(34:38):
but that's cool what you guysare doing.
You know what I'm going to beworking around, my working hours
just to help out, you know atthe starting point.
So, and then just grow likethis, right, the start is so
difficult, but then you startgrowing things, so people say
that it becomes harder, actually, as you grow.
Right, but to your point,andrew, I think, a shared vision
(35:00):
being we have alreadyexperienced some systems in
place, but also we don't knowanything.
We don't know everything.
Right, that's, that's.
Samuel Wines (35:06):
We'll be very arrogant to say I guess that's a
part of it, right, just likecontinuous learning and
development.
Edgar Charry (35:14):
Exactly and stopping.
I think the pauses are verycritical as well for that where
you pause and you're actuallyreflect, and then you think, oh
actually, yes, I've been crazyabout doing these things and
this kind of habit bad habitthat happened last year I should
definitely stop it.
And then you'll talk to yourtalk to your co-founder, your
mates, and say, can we changethis, you know, because this is
not working, and start puttingsome systems in place really at
(35:37):
that point in time, to toperform, to do better right.
Samuel Wines (35:42):
Yeah, so are you thinking, is this something that
you have, obviously with yourco-founder, but the team is now
you got another two or three inthe lab because it was three,
and now there's two, and nowthere's three again, three again
yeah.
Edgar Charry (35:59):
It's, yeah, it's.
We have you know the we gotcontractors really we got people
that work more as a core team,first part of a core team.
Now we got really three and wegot maybe five contractors.
You know that come in and goand they help out really.
(36:19):
Plus, we got a group of threeadvisors.
It's it runs more like ascientific advisory role really,
which is great.
Every month we sit down withone professor from Sunny
University, one from in SanDiego, one in the UK and they
(36:39):
got experience building theseproducts in fertility.
Samuel Wines (36:42):
How do you find a time for them all to all meet?
That sounds like a horrible.
Time zone alignment.
Edgar Charry (36:48):
Yeah, yes it is.
They're not cheap, so that's it, but they're great, they're
great.
And really, once you get thefirst one done at the last five
minutes, you say, hey guys, canyou all look at your calendars,
schedule it?
And they, can we just put thetime the next time for the next
minute, right now, and that's it.
(37:09):
That's what's going on and thenwe keep going every month.
Otherwise, yeah, you're right,Hailing emails in the
coordinating four different timezones, it's difficult.
Samuel Wines (37:18):
It's a struggle.
So, going back to kind of whatyou were talking about, sort of,
I'm really curious to know whatare the, what are the costs?
You've got your overarchingnarrative and vision.
That's compelling, that you getpeople interested in, and
that's kind of what has, I guess, drawn people towards what
you're doing.
What would you say, like, thecore values that you're trying
(37:39):
to hold as an organization arethat are kind of helping hold
that all together?
Edgar Charry (37:46):
We want to basically help people really,
that's the first thing Peopleobviously going through the
journey right of fallingpregnant.
Honesty, transparency andreliability.
Really, I think, as I keepsaying, the stakes are too high
really for what we're doing andthat's something that, yeah, I
(38:12):
think you know we talk aboutculture, right, it comes from
the top.
These things, the values, right, that we bring in, hopefully,
in the ways that I say the samethings that I do, right, because
people actually see whetherthis person you know what did I
say?
What's the talk?
Samuel Wines (38:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like we had a chat with Nate, who's our tech artist, he
talks about like the ethicalimplementation to action or the
like implementation to actiongap.
So you go, oh, I want to.
This is what we say, versusyeah, this is what we do.
Edgar Charry (38:47):
Just lead by example, right?
I think that's the other way ofdoing things, because people do
recognize these things.
If they are really vested inwhat you're doing right, they do
follow really.
But yeah so reliability, Ithink on its transparency and
literally just really want tohelp these people really when
(39:08):
eliminate the needs for bloodsto watch pain.
Samuel Wines (39:12):
Yeah, fair enough.
So you mentioned before apartnership with Monash IVF.
Did you want to double down onthat and let us know a little
bit more about that, Becausethat's a pretty exciting sort of
development and ongoing right?
Edgar Charry (39:26):
It is, it is, well , it is.
Yeah, it isn't going.
They were lucky, I guess youknow, to have basically their
backing.
I think they saw it.
Also there's a good validationthat what we're doing has so
made.
You know, we're trying to takea little unmet needs really in
this industry.
You know, just partner withthem.
Kim is an investor as investors,and it's just great to be able
(39:51):
to talk to them and you know wewould talk about product market
fits, right.
You start with the idea, butthe idea is rough.
And how do you know that thisis actually solving a problem?
First of all, indeed, justbecause you had the idea, and
you know your wife suffered allthis.
But from that, to actually findthe product market fit and
(40:15):
being able to commercialize that, that's a big leap, that's a
journey, even right.
You need, then, customers.
You need to talk to yourcustomers, right.
You need to talk to people andtry to get your best shot at
that fit right, and Monash hasbeen just awesome at that.
You know we talked to the headof nursing, the general managers
(40:38):
, the CSO, and they tell us youknow, maybe your sense has to be
flexible because you know theclinical cases are so different.
What is the change of cost,right?
The clinical workflow, that's amassive thing, right?
Because if things suddenlychange completely, that it's,
you know, it's a slow movingneeds, it's not gonna change.
(41:00):
Yeah, just like that.
So they will advise us and tellus no, no, your sense has to
probably send the sameinformation, really, to the
screen where the nurses areseeing the hormones levels
exactly as they are, for example.
We wouldn't want to change anyof that.
And For a fresh cycle, theseare the two hormones that you
need to measure.
For a FET cycle, you need to dothe two moms that you need to
measure and this is theirfrequency and this is how you
(41:21):
could, for instance yeah,increase of patient adoption,
right, so they.
It's just like this constantadvice with Monash.
We're very, very lucky, Ishould say.
Samuel Wines (41:32):
Yeah, I remember when you first told me that they
were coming on board.
Edgar Charry (41:36):
Yep.
Samuel Wines (41:37):
Go on reaching there, grab the water.
You're good.
You need to keep you hydrated.
Yeah, I remember when you weresaying that they were first
coming on board, because thatkind of meant them coming on
board was that was pre-seed thatwas preceding, yeah.
Yeah, and that kind of gave you.
I mean it up until now.
Right, it was like a 12 monthrunway from or 12 six months.
Edgar Charry (41:58):
Yes, yes, correct.
Yeah, about about that time,yeah, about 12 months.
Yeah, nice.
Samuel Wines (42:04):
And what are your plans?
So I know that, like, obviouslywe've been chatting with you
Behind, behind the scenes andspeaking about how we've got the
Monash site popping up andthat's sort of something of
interest to you.
Are you thinking of like isthere like a raise or anything
coming up Like what are yournext sort of milestones?
Is there anything within thenext sort of six months?
Edgar Charry (42:24):
All right at a technical level, company level,
you mean, or?
Samuel Wines (42:26):
anything answered.
How do you feel?
Edgar Charry (42:29):
Six months.
Oh, we got, we got.
We got a lot of work to do, wegot many milestones.
Really, we, we need to, we needto, we need to continue to work
in the tech right.
The tech is the right now.
It's is the is the main thing.
Without take, we don't, youknow, we'll have a business per
se.
So the we talked about before,the antibodies and then on mips
(42:51):
and all that.
So we need to get that, get itright and tested Against the
gold standard you know, in inbody fluids like serum for
interstitial fluid.
So that's a big milestone inthe next six months that we need
to hit and we're running themparallel, so you're doing the
antibodies parallel to the themyths.
(43:13):
We now they're in phases, we'restill, they're still testing
with test at all.
Four hormones that I mentionedbefore, and Now we change to
focus only on one specificallyto make as a product.
And then the nano mipsbasically will come a little bit
later, really still within thesix months.
(43:34):
But but again, this is just aPlain drive.
So every plane have to startwith playing.
But you know, once you startsaying it might be that the
antibodies might be enough.
You know they are definitelythe cost, cost efficiencies, you
know, and and other factors,what to consider the at the end
of this Two years really we gottwo years talking about mobile
(43:57):
stones, we do need to havereally a device that is ready
for a pilot study at least,hopefully less than two years,
where we actually start testingWomen, the other, the other
thing that is probably relevantto say is that, also within the
six months is we call I want toplane, plane this hormone
(44:17):
concentration study.
So what that means is how muchof these hormones I actually
need to see show fluid right,that diffuse through your
capillary veins and actuallyreach the Interstitial fluid.
So people don't know that right.
Andrew Gray (44:34):
And that's not common.
It's not well understood.
Edgar Charry (44:38):
There's no studies really on that and there's
definitely tests on sweat, forinstance, so they can definitely
find stradale inhalation insweat.
But what about interstitialfluid, right?
So we need to ascertain thatthat's.
What are the clinicalimplications when we correlate,
what are the hormone levels inserum versus hormone levels in
(44:59):
ISF?
Glucose, for instance as alwaysa delay, depending on how deep
you go into the skin, right,believe that glucose in a serum
versus ISF, right?
Some of the peaks actually canbe also be Shape.
The change can change as well.
Samuel Wines (45:15):
We need to understand that better, really,
because that drives thetechnology really for us and
that's a that's a world's firststudy really know, what it's
done is so are you thinking so,for, like, I know that there are
like industry-based PhDs andthings like that that are
popping out.
Are you thinking of bringing insomeone to do something like
that, to test this?
Or are you looking at justcollaborating with a, with a lab
(45:37):
, or Monash IVF, to do thesepapers like what's the, what's
the yeah, the process there?
Edgar Charry (45:45):
It's.
I think definitely Monash willhelp and they will help at least
in terms of site.
Site, you know, nurses, youknow helping base, collected
data, collecting the samples,and the.
There are a few devices thatwe're exploring that can
actually extract interstitialfluid that caveates there.
If you strike too, too fast,you know, then the the
(46:06):
concentration actually getsqueued because you're probably
with too much negative pressure,so you have to be slow and
steady.
For example, and Really theanalysis Would be done really by
us.
Yes, so they will be.
You know we got a few, a few.
You know data scientists and Ican do the analysis by just by
solicitation as well, that cando the analysis.
(46:27):
But really us in sourcing youknow some of these equipment and
being trained really on how touse this equipment.
It's very sophisticated.
Andrew Gray (46:37):
Cool.
So that's a pre-existingequipment that you don't you
want to have to invent.
Edgar Charry (46:43):
True, yeah, it's, I don't have to invent this one
there, there are few, there arefew ways micro dialysis another
way you can do, you can use, butit's a more invasive, and this
one seems like a well revealing,so much it's.
One seems like it's it's gonnagive us information that we need
right, and and then yeah again,and then the outcomes really of
(47:07):
this study will will dictateagain Should we go for nanomips,
right, because they say thatyou got high specificity and
insensitivity using those, ornot?
So I guess we have to kind oflook I call it minimal, viable
tests really.
Yeah what is the minimal thingthat we can do that Will give us
confidence to learn the rightpath you know here, and without
(47:27):
spending too much money to andresources?
Samuel Wines (47:30):
it's like we it's a similar sort of language that
we use like like, rapidly beingable to iterate in prototype,
correct, you know?
Like a safe to fail environment, um, correct.
So, oh, that's exciting.
Do we need to be looking aroundtrying to get you some more
equipment?
Should we be hunting somesecond hand places for things,
or have we got everything weneed here?
Edgar Charry (47:50):
How's the HPLC machine going?
Is that from From Jacob?
Andrew Gray (47:55):
Oh, we can check in on that.
I don't think it's been puttogether.
It's been put aside for the,the mass spec.
Samuel Wines (47:59):
Yeah yeah, we got a mass spec donated I got a spec
.
Andrew Gray (48:02):
Yeah, yeah actually , so it works like pretty much
brand new really who donated?
Samuel Wines (48:08):
that again was.
Dirty the Dirty Institute.
Thank you for that.
Andrew Gray (48:16):
Yeah, proteomics, so it's, that's what it's for.
So that's gonna help.
If you have a standard, which Ibelieve you probably do for the
things you want to measure, youcould potentially develop an
assay.
Edgar Charry (48:28):
No, we definitely talk about it, because that will
help in this, in this study.
Samuel Wines (48:32):
Yeah, definitely, let us know we can keep our eye
out for stuff.
And yeah, it's, yeah, we knowwe constantly having to keep an
eye out and I know we haven'teven had we haven't had a chat
about equipment for a while.
Andrew Gray (48:43):
So it's good that we're doing this podcast.
That's useful.
Samuel Wines (48:49):
Well, bringing it back to the podcast, I'm curious
, like what are your like?
What are your passions andinterests outside of work?
Like I know, you're verypassionate about getting beaten
in basketball by Andrew.
Edgar Charry (49:01):
Okay.
Samuel Wines (49:07):
But is there, is there anything, anything else
that you do outside of work thatkind of keeps you?
Keeps you feeling alive orexcited, or yeah, the Sports in
sports in general.
Edgar Charry (49:19):
You know, the time will come, danger, I really.
Yeah, basketball is actuallyone of those I used to play a
lot more obviously in the past,but now it's more like a
recreational thing with somemates, not every One side once
in a while, to be honest, onceevery month or so, but it's.
(49:41):
It's a like an interaction, youknow, just with people and keep
as in.
You know, right, oh, Poor twan.
Oh hey, twan just open up.
Andrew Gray (49:54):
Hey, I didn't mean to bring that up.
Samuel Wines (49:58):
I was definitely not present for this.
You've been dunking on all ofour members, andrew.
Andrew Gray (50:03):
No, no, no, I can hardly jump.
Maybe get it.
I said I could probably jumpsix inches off the ground if I
really try.
Yeah, yeah.
Edgar Charry (50:16):
I got a dog as well.
Yeah, I guess, just reallywalking with a dog and you need
to walk the doctor so they canbe glad good excuse to get
outside.
Yeah, chocolate lab or no, he'syellow.
Good they're better behaved.
Samuel Wines (50:29):
I had a Chocolate lab radude or my gosh food is so
food obsessed?
Edgar Charry (50:34):
Yeah, yeah, I'll say thing.
But you know again, you meet alot of people as you walk in the
dogs, right and, and then youmake a lot of friends too, and I
started actually playing pianoas well again.
Samuel Wines (50:46):
I was just playing .
Edgar Charry (50:47):
When was this?
Six months ago about.
Samuel Wines (50:50):
Same as me.
Edgar Charry (50:51):
Oh really.
Samuel Wines (50:52):
Yeah, I bought a new keyboard about six months
ago.
I'm like I need to just getback into it.
Yeah.
So good, right that flow.
State that you can sort of getin with instruments.
Edgar Charry (51:01):
Yeah, yeah, and it's so interesting, right when
you play piano, when youstruggle to get the keys right,
it's like you have these twothings you need to control right
the same time your fingerdoesn't really go there and get
the keystroke, but that ishelping with relaxing really,
(51:22):
and you can just really thinkabout something completely
different and that's there.
That was good yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of good playing.
Maybe I have to listen to youplaying the piano.
Andrew Gray (51:31):
Oh no, it goes very competitive.
It's one in there.
Samuel Wines (51:35):
Yeah, maybe we'll have to do a competitive duet or
maybe just a soiree at Co-Labswe can do a show and tell with
songs.
Look, all I was going to say offthe back of that is that
there's so many studies that areshowing how important it is to
play an instrument and otherthings like that, because it's
again getting you into the rightbrain side of thinking and also
(51:58):
into the I can't remember whatit is from the four e-cognitive
science, but embodied andenacted ways of thinking and
doing and getting into thatspace and dropping out of the
mental sphere, especially ifyou're doing a starter or
something, as you're saying,where you're constantly like, oh
, I have to remember that, gotto do this, and you're kind of
jumping around like an energizerbunny.
(52:19):
It's like.
When you have something likethat where you can sit down and
go into flow, and also with thepiano when you're playing, it's
like you know you hit a wrongnote.
You're like, ok, cool, let metry again, but you can track the
progress in a really observableway and you can at least.
It's like great, here is thissmall challenge and at least I'm
overcoming this, and there'sthat sense of reward and yeah.
Edgar Charry (52:42):
Yeah, it's a good point.
It tells you that you learnright, and because you can have
these very complex songs.
And you look at the script infront of you, you're like, oh my
god, that's impossible.
But if you go step by step, youbreak it down right, you can
actually do it right.
That's how I like to thinkabout it.
(53:03):
And eventually you're like,after I don't know six months
maybe, I don't know, maybe foryou a couple of weeks, then
after six months for me, I wasjust like, ok, actually I can
play this thing.
Samuel Wines (53:12):
Finally got the entertainer down pat.
Yeah, it's funny Because justhearing you say that as well,
that's the same patterns andprocesses that you actually
sounds like you play out in workas well, breaking things down
into digestible chunks and thenworking with that and then sort
of iterating on that.
So it's funny how there is no,it's all interrelated and
(53:32):
interdependent right.
Edgar Charry (53:33):
So Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, it does help.
Yeah, but yeah, it's been fun.
I should probably mention mywife as well.
Just got a type dinner and seeher mates as well as her friends
.
Obviously we can't.
We think we're quite social, wethink.
Andrew Gray (53:51):
I don't know.
It sounds like you've done agreat job at taking off the
blinkers.
Well done.
Yeah taking off the blinkers?
Yeah, just like not getting toofocused in on the thing.
Edgar Charry (54:01):
Oh, right right.
Samuel Wines (54:02):
You're trying to hold as much as you can in a
healthy way from a relationalperspective.
I know because we both havedate night with our partners as
well, don't we?
Yeah, Like at least once a week.
Yeah, we try and make it likenothing interrupts with that.
Edgar Charry (54:18):
It's quite interesting this, because your
partners, they have to supportyou, but it's an easier journey,
right?
If they do support you, yeah,definitely.
And they've seen us working sofor so many long hours, like in
the past.
I was talking about theseprevious companies, right, and
they don't get the happiest, Iguess, when we see that.
(54:40):
But now we've got to start up,right, and that's not going to
do any favor.
I'm going to actually have tobe working long hours too.
So I at least try to bring heras much as I can into some of
the wins, some of the losses,just to talk to her as much as
possible about what's going on.
And we do catch up as well withMohamed's wife as well.
(55:01):
The four of us together andfamilies just say hey, thanks
for your support this week.
This year we did a Christmasdinner as well, and we know that
it's not easy right To justkind of feel sometimes free by
yourself and your husband, yourpartner, is not paying attention
(55:21):
to you or to your kids or tothe other shores.
That need to be done.
So I think that's for founders,I think that's also quite,
quite we're lucky.
I think I feel lucky from aperspective.
Samuel Wines (55:31):
No, nice yeah thanks for sharing that yeah
yeah, I think it's always soimportant.
I think it's even things thatwe've been toying around with
here is like, oh, how can welike?
What can we do?
That's Like nice from a socialperspective for people where
they can feel like you know,maybe we do a picnic in the park
and people feel like they canbring their family and kids and
like you can have that littlebit of a relationality because
(55:54):
so much of the like everyonehere spent so much time here,
right, and it would be nice forthe family to be like oh, this
is where you exist when you'renot at home doing the dishes or
helping walk the dog.
It's like, OK, cool you're here,so at least there's like,
there's that like welcoming themand bring them into this world
so they can see it.
So we have been thinking aboutwhat we can do in that regard.
Maybe it is just like a nicepicnic down the road or
(56:15):
something.
Edgar Charry (56:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be great.
Samuel Wines (56:18):
All right, I'm going to let you escape because
I know you've got a meeting thatwe're going to be having in
this room pretty soon.
So, before we, before we letyou escape, how can people keep
up to date with what you'redoing?
Where can they go to engagewith what you do or learn more
about your work?
Is there any events that you'regoing to be at or publications
that might be coming out soon,or is there any social channels
(56:40):
that people should keep an eyeon?
Edgar Charry (56:42):
Yeah, I think.
I think I mean channels at thisstage.
You know, linkedin, reallyLinkedIn, we got to the count as
well.
On Twitter, we got KerryDiamond, who's doing a great job
there, you know, posting and, Iguess, sending the message out,
you know, and see how we canconnect with people.
And we I think, as you said,there were publications we have
(57:08):
to this year do more scientificpublications just to show you
know the validity of really thistechnology.
There will be some publicationscoming out really from us.
That's one of our definitely OKeyes for us, but otherwise I
have to probably do moreLinkedIn post myself, you know.
(57:31):
Just, I think that that helps alot.
I think maybe right now it'sjust really trying to get the
foundation right.
You know from a product andthen eventually you know, have
you know we'll be trying topromote more of this what we're
trying to do, but I think now,probably the most, the focus is
really trying to get it to right.
So this stage, just, you know,in the, in the website as well,
(57:52):
obviously there are contactdetails and emails there so you
can definitely reach out to usif you feel connected somehow to
what we're doing, and we'll bemore than happy to have a chat,
whatever that is.
Samuel Wines (58:04):
Awesome.
Thanks so much for letting usdrag you out of the lab.
It's been a it's been a longtime coming making this happen
and, yeah, look forward tohaving another conversation soon
with more updates.
Edgar Charry (58:13):
Yeah, no, thanks so much.
Thanks for sorry about thatreply to your text.
Samuel Wines (58:19):
That's all right.
I know you still love me.
It's fine.
I'm not taking it personally.
Edgar Charry (58:22):
No, no, no, no.
You used the text messages.
I, the mighty Netflix site, Idisable notifications in a talk
about systems.
Yeah, they were notificationscompletely, so that's why I
don't get your messages there.
Yeah, updates, yeah, good coverup.
Samuel Wines (58:36):
Yeah, whatever you say.
No, it's all good, I understandit totally Like I did.
I did the same like I had.
There was a message someonesent like four months ago on my
networks and I reply.
Andrew Gray (58:48):
And they just like.
Whenever I look over at yourscreen, I'm like all these
channels have messages andupdates.
Samuel Wines (58:53):
A hundred and eighty message.
Edgar Charry (58:56):
So happy birthday, by the way.
Oh yeah.
Samuel Wines (58:58):
Yeah Well, your birthday and my birthday.
We were always on the 24th andit was the 31st.
Yeah, 31st, I forget.
January has 31.
Andrew Gray (59:06):
It's like five birthdays here in January.
Samuel Wines (59:09):
It was a pretty, yeah, yeah, yeah, like
everyone's parents have everyoneworking.
It was real productive likenine months ago.
Andrew Gray (59:16):
April.
Samuel Wines (59:17):
Hmm, wonder why.
Edgar Charry (59:20):
For me.
There's a lot of people thathave birthdays in March, you
know, June, July.
Yeah.
Andrew Gray (59:27):
I'm sure there are.
They're just not here.
Yes, your birthday is coming upsoon, yeah that's what I would
say yeah, yeah, yeah, we'llcelebrate, we'll get a cake,
we'll get a cake for you, allright.
Edgar Charry (59:36):
Thanks so much, guys no stress.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Samuel Wines (59:41):
Heyyyy, you made it to the end.
Thanks so much for stickingaround and listening to this
conversation.
You now officially know whenboth Andrew and my birthdays are
, and you also found out Edgars'birthday is in March, so if you
feel like bringing a cake intoCoLab's for him, I'm sure he
will very much appreciate it.
Thank you again for listeningto this episode of The Strange
(01:00:04):
Attractor.
We were around about halfwaythrough interviewing all of our
members, and then we're going tobe moving on to interviewing
some of our favouriteorganisations in Australia and
across the world who are workingon impact-oriented innovation.
So stay tuned and we lookforward to welcoming you here
next time for another episode ofthe Strange Attractor.
Hello and welcome to The Strange Attractor, an
experimental podcast from CoLabs, a transdisciplinary innovation
hub and biotechnologyco-working lab based in
Melbourne, Australia.
I'm your co-host, Sam Wines,and alongside my co-founder,
Andrew Gray, we'll delve deepinto the intersection of biology
, technology and society throughthe lens of complexity and
(00:22):
systems thinking.
Join us on a journey ofdiscovery as we explore how
transdisciplinary innovation,informed by life's regenerative
patterns and processes, couldhelp us catalyse the transition
towards a thriving future forpeople and the planet.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the Strange Attractor
(00:47):
.
This week, we sat down withEdgar Charry, the co-founder of
Symex Labs.
We had a chat with him abouthis backstory, what led to the
formation of the organisation, alittle bit of a rundown on his
tech, and also chatted aboutthings on the inner development
side of things and theinterpersonal side of things,
(01:09):
like what's needed to, I guess,kind of like, build and
cultivate a team, as well asfinding ways to, I guess, be as
much of a human as you can,whilst just trying to work hard
on something that currentlydoesn't exist yet.
Again, this was a really funconversation for us.
We find out that we're alwayslearning new things about our
(01:30):
members when we have thispodcast, which is really
exciting.
So hopefully you enjoy thisconversation with Edgar Charry
from Symex Labs.
So I mean, I guess we couldprobably get started.
Andrew Gray (01:43):
That sounds like a plan.
Yeah, who are we gettingstarted with?
It'll be you, sam.
Samuel Wines (01:48):
Yeah, okay, fair enough.
So, Edgar, thank you so muchfor coming on today to talk
about everything that you'redoing.
Do you want to give us a littlebit of a background on your
journey towards co-foundingSymex Labs?
So what was it that kind of gotyou interested in that field?
Edgar Charry (02:13):
Well, thanks for having me here.
Well, it started this companyin what 2022, right May.
My background is technical.
I've done engineeringelectronics software.
I worked in MedTech for about 15, 16 years before and really I
(02:37):
think I just really learned someof the quirks and some of the
requirements for this particularindustry and really, after all
this time working as an engineer, working as an engineering
manager, you met, obviously,mohammed, the other co-founder
of the company, and we workedreally well together.
We always thought we should dosomething together.
(02:59):
Just seeing from our previousbosses just running around like
crazy as founders they were aswell.
These were actually startupstoo, and we love that energy.
We were doing long hours, butit was fun.
It was still fun.
Anyway, fast forward, I guess,these 15, 16 years and well, got
(03:23):
married, obviously, with mywife Luciana, and we did really
struggle to have kids.
It was part of the dream reallyto have kids.
I think she yeah, that was alsopart of one of the plans as
well to have children and wetried, for I can't remember
(03:46):
really now 10 years, I guess.
Samuel Wines (03:50):
Oh, wow, okay.
Edgar Charry (03:52):
Yeah, from no, probably not 10 years, it would
be more like seven to eightyears, and we tried obviously
with the basic, the basics, thepharmacy, and this is just after
I'm sort of obviously seeingLuciana doing right, it's not
like I'm doing any of thatmyself.
Andrew Gray (04:09):
Now you guys have it pretty easy in that
department.
Edgar Charry (04:12):
Exactly exactly and it didn't work out for some
time and just trying, naturally,and we went for.
We sought some advice,obviously medical advice, and
the plan was to get into IVF andwe did about five full fresh
cycles I recall when you do thecollections and you try and
(04:36):
inseminate with the sperm andtry to have a baby and in total
three more fresh cycles sorry,frozen amortiser, what is called
right and none of them actuallyworked and I guess after that I
kept really working atdifferent industry.
And again.
There was an opportunity for us,for me, I guess, to say okay,
(04:59):
maybe I worked already too muchwith these other companies, why
not starting this kind of dream?
Right?
But I had with Mohammed and westarted the company, really
working primarily inreproductive health, in trying
to really, I guess, lessenreally that pain, that in all
the struggle that goes along forthese couples that go through
(05:22):
this journey of falling fromfull pregnant, they can't, but
yeah, that's how it led to usfounding the company Because
it's quite like from what I haveno experience in this space,
let's say, but from what I knowit's quite expensive.
Samuel Wines (05:37):
So you rattled off that was, that was five cycles
and then another two or three,like it is.
That's not cheap, right?
Just for context.
Edgar Charry (05:46):
No, no, it's not cheap.
We were lucky.
I guess from that perspectiveas well, we could afford it.
The Australian governmentactually subsidized that a lot
too, which is good.
In the US that doesn't happen,for instance, and yeah, so we
had to.
Sometimes the solution had totake time off work because we
have to go to the hospital to dothe exams and scans, and all
(06:09):
that because she was contracted.
You know that also reduces, youknow that also paid too.
So we have to manage that.
But yeah, to your point, it isexpensive.
You know about 12 to 15 K,depending on, obviously, on many
cabinets there.
If it's a fresh cycle, forexample, and in any other
(06:31):
government, obviously we paythat, we through Medicare.
Andrew Gray (06:34):
But not even that.
In addition to that, just eventhe, the P sticks aren't cheap,
are they Like?
And I imagine it's not just tryonce, like you're constantly
yeah.
Edgar Charry (06:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's.
It's a good question, it's agood point.
The they are.
There's like again a range ofproducts out there too.
So you can find the very, verycheap P sticks like cents, but
they come like in five and theyonly measure like two hormones,
for instance, or one hormone.
And you can go to the otherextreme where you find P sticks
that they can measure the threehormones.
(07:05):
And then they also have another, another kit that gives you a
pregnancy test as well.
You want to just test forovulation as well, for pregnancy
.
They cost can be 60, 100, 100dollars, depends how many, how
many kids come in the package.
Andrew Gray (07:21):
So it's, it's.
You can have a lot of optionsyeah you have options there, so
it also makes it kind ofconfusing too, right.
Edgar Charry (07:28):
True, that is actually true.
Yeah, I mean it all comes downto that.
Probably the doctor, you knowthe doctor telling you, just,
you know, use first response, oryou know clear blue or the most
well known, and that's itreally.
They go out and try it,probably try with the cheapest
ones, you know, because you havethat hope that it's going to
happen very quickly, and then itdoesn't.
(07:50):
And you know, you just hearit's like a, it's a little bit
like a taboo subject in manyways because it's a bit private,
right, and once, but then, onceyou start talking with your
video mates, right with yourfamily, then you realize, ok, so
I'm not just really, but we'renot just by ourselves.
You know, going through this,it's quite a few people that go
(08:11):
through that and same sameexperience.
You know some of them talkabout the chip sticks or they
actually work, or what do we goto work more expensive piece of
sticks.
Andrew Gray (08:17):
Well, especially if you if there are, you know, if
you're going through any sort ofchallenges yourself.
You know, biologically, youknow you're just relying on this
thing to give you a yes.
It's just a yes, no right.
Edgar Charry (08:28):
Correct, correct.
Yeah, that's also binary, right.
Yeah, it's only it doesn't giveyou a lot of information about
your body.
It's only yes or no, yourability or not, and that's
that's not a good insight.
So what we're trying to do isis not just provide a
(08:49):
qualitative measure, right, butalso quantitatively say, OK, so
you've got maybe you know, 50 or100 are you per liter of LH in
the body right now?
Right, so, and then what doesthat mean to right?
Andrew Gray (09:01):
LH.
Sorry, what's that?
Edgar Charry (09:02):
LH sorry it's, it's a, it's a, it's a
lotinizing, lotinizing hormone.
So that's the main.
So if you get a, if you have awoman of 28 days, a menstrual
cycle, standard LH usuallysearches at about half the cycle
a day 14.
And that's a good predictorthat we was about to overlay.
So what I'm saying is that,just understanding a little bit,
(09:24):
you know if your concentrationlevels of LH are high or low.
You know that might give yousome good insights as well about
what's going on with your body.
We're seeing trends as well nowthat doctors not sure the
policy level or not, but theywant patients to do more stuff
at home rather than the doctorsdoing all the assessments there
(09:47):
and doing all the scans andeverything People to you know to
do more stuff at home.
So by more stuff the digitalhealth, primarily just working
with patients, you know, workingon the on solution and the same
ones going on.
Samuel Wines (09:59):
Wow, right, and for context as well, right.
So I think the World HealthOrganization said something like
one in six people globallysuffer from infertility.
So, and it's on the rise, right,with all the forever chemicals
and all the other stuff in ourenvironment and the food that we
tend to eat, it's all beingshown to have somewhat of a
negative impact on your abilityto conceive.
(10:21):
So, yeah, I can see that thissort of thing is only going to
be like more prevalent into thefuture, and so you're.
So you're not just tracking onehormone, right, there's, is
there a portfolio of hormonesthat you're, that you're
tracking and incorporating intothe product, and what is the
(10:41):
product as well, Like what?
what was your, I guess?
So you've looked at this.
You've realized there's allthese disparate disconnected
things in ways to measure things, some low fire, some high tech,
and you've kind of gone.
There's got to be a better wayto do this that is better for
females and also just gives youthat qualitative and
quantitative data.
Edgar Charry (11:00):
Yeah, so the purpose, really, the mission for
us, is to develop reproductivehealth solutions, right, and the
first, really the first targetfor us, is to eliminate.
Eliminate bloods or theconstant for bloods in the IVF
space.
That's like a first target,right, and why?
Because it's very painful andwe might have to go through, you
(11:24):
know, many, many blood teststhroughout a cycle, right, and
it's, you know, in that space.
Yeah, measuring hormones isquite critical, right.
So you have to be really,really accurate, right?
You can't.
Just, you know, we have to beas good as the gold standard.
You know the stakes are toohigh.
And once we validate, really,our technology which is, I guess
(11:50):
, to your question, again, awearable device, small sensor,
maybe 30 millimeters long, youknow, or wide, putting the upper
arm in the belly, and that, torespond to the, we measure
interstitial fluid, extractingthe stitial fluid and then read
progesterone, estradiol,luteinazol, hormone and ACG,
(12:13):
which is one of the hormonesthat basically detect their
pregnancy, and then thatinformation is captured and then
sent to the cloud where, again,the nurses can see what's going
on and they can make the rightclinical decisions, right.
So, for example, is the hormonesrising too much?
Are they going, are they beingsuppressed as they should have
in a particular cycle and if not, did they need increased
(12:36):
medications or not?
And that's really in thespecialist space, right, I guess
just connecting with ourprevious conversation about
consumer right.
So we feel that we want to haveit's still in the planes these
things develop, right, we stillwant to create as much input as
(12:57):
possible, and one way is, afterconsolidating really this
position about can we eliminatethe bloods in that space, then
move to the consumer market,right, which is what we were
talking about before, right?
So people in the homes and theyhaven't actually tried
something more sophisticated, Iguess, and then trying these
(13:20):
things are basically at home andalready providing a much more
convenient way, and moreaccurate way as well, to
introduce these hormones.
Samuel Wines (13:27):
Would there be?
So you're thinking ofintroducing, like an app layer
where they might be able to havesomething on their phone, or
would this device also interfacewith other apps or startups in
their health tech, med techspace?
Because, from what I'm aware,there is quite a lot of action
in both the fertility space andthe med tech space with wearable
devices and apps to be able totrack that.
(13:49):
Are there any collaborations orthings in the works with people
in the space?
Edgar Charry (13:55):
We have been talking with a few groups yes,
in the US about this, definitelytracking, I guess, their own
cycles.
It's something that pretty muchevery female does.
I guess combining these twoforces right about having
insights about your cycle plusdata from a sensor.
I think that's definitelysomething that we want to do,
(14:18):
right and yeah.
So I think that for us rightnow is get the device to a stage
that it's been validated, andthen can we have bigger impact
really with women using thissensor in the consumer market.
Samuel Wines (14:38):
So what does that sort of pathway look like?
Like, because you kind of cameto us in the very early stages
of Symex, right.
So how many were you when youstarted?
Was it just the two of you?
Edgar Charry (14:55):
Probably yeah when we started.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think soyeah.
Samuel Wines (14:59):
Because it would have been what like a year, year
and a year and a half.
Edgar Charry (15:02):
Yeah, maybe we'll head actually to more.
I feel like pretty quickly.
Samuel Wines (15:06):
As soon as you started, you kind of got an
additional two humans on theteam.
Yes, yes, exactly.
Edgar Charry (15:13):
What is the pathway you're in for us?
Samuel Wines (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, so obviously.
So you've been here validatingand getting yourself from.
I don't know whether you usethe TRL framework or anything
like that, but let's say youmight have come at a TRL like a
one or a two and you're kind ofpushing maybe towards a three or
something like that.
What is the next step for youfrom here on out?
Edgar Charry (15:40):
Yeah, so you're right, so we are still
relatively early.
I'd say this is technology thatis not easy to get right and we
basically used a technologycoming from one of the
(16:01):
universities here in Melbourne.
It was more like a platformtechnology and obviously this
technology had been alreadyvalidated in other types of
applications.
So the question was can thisplatform actually work in our
application, our use case?
And that's what we did inreally the first year.
So we started already probablyTRL three, and then really of
(16:26):
the last year, we could say thatwe probably went up maybe by
two to TRL five.
At this stage Nice.
And right now we got one of ourI guess we were lucky as well to
have one of our partners, likeMonash Monash IVFs one of the
clinical partners and what wewant to do is basically start
(16:49):
validating this technologyagainst the machines that
potentially they use and thenreally start to test with serum,
for example, start to set withblood, with interstitial fluid
as well, to actually be at TRLseven or eight.
We've got at least two years ofR&D, heavy R&D, to do and, as I
(17:12):
was saying, just validatingtechnology, creating the needles
, the small needles, and thenafter that we have to basically
go through a clinical trialstage.
We'll be able to study whereyou actually look at your device
against the gold standard andsee how you fare against them,
and then after that you have tostill go through regulatory
(17:33):
clearance.
In the US it's the opposite ofthe Food Drug Administration,
the FDA, and in Australia it'sthe TGA, and usually it takes I
don't know, depends on the riskclassification every six months
or so.
Then we can be in the marketreally after that.
So it's medical devices.
Samuel Wines (17:53):
It's a long and winding road.
Edgar Charry (17:56):
Yeah, it's like shooting the stars.
I heard it's shooting the starsand you might land in the moons
with your idea kind of thing.
But we know we've done thisbefore.
Samuel Wines (18:09):
Yeah, because, as you were saying before, you've
worked in the med tech space andyou've gone through and taken
something through this journeybeforehand, so you kind of you
know what you've signed yourselfup for, so to speak.
Edgar Charry (18:20):
Correct, we know our paint ratios are high.
I tell investors so don't worryabout it, we know.
Samuel Wines (18:28):
You've been there before, which is so important.
I think so many of the peoplethat we have had through this
space and that we know justwithin the ecosystem as well
that are doing really well, somuch of them have had that
experience in the med tech areawhere they're like I've already
been there.
That's not the first rodeo,because there's so many
different hurdles and thingsthat you have to overcome.
(18:49):
When you're looking at doingthis sort of med tech space
first say I mean it's hardBecause I was just going to say
it like cultivated me, but likethere's almost in a similar
category Anything that you'refeeding someone or helping with
health.
There's a lot of regulations.
Edgar Charry (19:06):
Exactly.
Exactly.
Samuel Wines (19:07):
It makes it a challenge.
Hey, I don't actually know ifwe've spoken about this before.
I'd be super curious to knowhow.
You don't have to go into,obviously, all the detail, but
how do you track these hormoneson the patch?
So you've got these needlesthat go in and measure the
interstitial fluid.
I'm assuming there's somethingthere that allows them to sense
(19:30):
and pick up these specifichormones.
Is it biological or is it a?
Yeah, I'm just curious.
It's fascinating to know.
Edgar Charry (19:38):
There's a range of biorecepts that we can use.
We start with the most commonone, which is just monoclonal
antibodies, basically, and thenyou use them to basically need
to mobilize you on a surfaceright In a particular way.
There will be what we call anelectron charge transfer,
(20:02):
without getting too technical.
But that means that once theantibody binds to an antigen
molecule, an hormone for example, then there's an electron
transfer down to a siliconsurface or gold surface, for
instance, and that's your signal, in essence, right.
Samuel Wines (20:18):
So it's like registering and so on this, I'm
assuming that there's going tobe multiple of these antigens.
Correct.
And like you have let's saythere's 100 that are hit that
gives you a spike of X and thenthat allows you to be able to go
.
Ok, there is quite a lot withinthe given amount of.
Edgar Charry (20:36):
Correct, correct.
In one single area you havemany, many antibodies.
Really, they are just pointingin the right direction and then,
as they're in touch with theinterstitial fluid, they're
almost obviously diffusing there, they will bind, and then
there's that electron chargetransfer that occurs, and then
you have a signal, in essence.
(20:57):
But this is just really one ofthe ways, right, you can use
also molecular-inferred polymers, or MIPS, they call it, which
we're testing them right now,but they can be autoclave, they
claim.
So that means they are super,super stable.
Samuel Wines (21:16):
Interesting, so it's like reusable, whereas the
other one the proclivity forantibodies, just fall off the
needle or what have you Like.
You're dealing with abiological right, so it's going
to less resilient.
Edgar Charry (21:30):
With antibodies.
I mean there's two parts, right?
So one thing is that it bindsthe antigen binds to the
antibody, and then whether it'sactually released after that.
So most of the antibodies willjust hold onto the molecule and
just stay there.
Samuel Wines (21:41):
Right.
Edgar Charry (21:41):
That's what they call a decay D right.
Some of them actually will gooff.
That's the T of OK off and thenthe T on is how many quickly
can actually bind to theantibodies, right?
The other aspect that I thinkthat you mentioned is stability.
I think you said or time, sothat's if you leave antibodies
or optomers, for example, fortoo long in contact with your
body.
So optomers, what we call, islike a single or double-strand
(22:04):
DNA, right?
There's another type ofbioreceptor.
Samuel Wines (22:06):
Your body's probably just like oh shit,
what's this?
Get it out.
Edgar Charry (22:10):
That's also another thing, exactly, but what
I was going to say is that theycan't degrade very quickly
right In contact with thesefluids.
Right, Especially attemperature.
You know the right pH as wellin your interstitial fluid.
So how do you manage thesethings?
Right, and we're testing againthis nanomips at this stage, and
(22:34):
for a product, for a product,we want reliability, right,
that's what we want to, as I wassaying before, right, the
stakes are too high and you know, the last thing we want is a
sensor playing up.
You know, in a scenario where awoman is actually making many
decisions based on this sensorresponse.
Samuel Wines (22:53):
Yeah, and so if the sensor can be autoclave,
does that mean that you wouldhave something like a program
where they might lease it fromyou and then you can reuse it?
Or are you because to me thatas soon as you mentioned that,
I'm like, oh, that's fascinatingthat you say that, because to
me that's bringing in elementsof the circular economy or
product as a service, which youknow it's probably going to be
(23:14):
less wasteful than maybe some ofthe other things as well.
Edgar Charry (23:18):
Very, very, very good point.
I think I was talking aboutautoclaving just really the
bioreceptors.
We weren't necessarily thinkingof autoclaving the whole sensor
, but to your point, yes.
So we want to have the sensorhas in the design at this stage
has two components one reusablecomponent, as you're saying,
that's the bit that containselectronics, the firmware, the
(23:38):
antenna and everything, and theother part is the single use
patch.
So, and that's the one that iswhat will function with the
antibodies, right, and then youuse it really once a day, you
know.
So we want to start simple.
Once a day the woman goes tothe clinic, picks up the sensors
, goes home on day eight or nine, when she starts to measure
hormones, assembles bothtogether, puts in the uparm,
(24:01):
wait for an hour maximum, thesenior goes to the cloud and
then basically she disposes ofthe disposable patch, but she
keeps the.
Keeps the unit to keep reusing,yeah, and then you keep doing
that every other day, you knowevery day, depending on each
clinical case, but that you'reright.
That helps a lot in cost.
Also reduce waste as well.
Samuel Wines (24:23):
Yeah, now that makes it like to me that makes
sense, so it's exciting to hearthat.
I guess we haven't really it'sbeen so busy and you've been so
busy as well.
Like I mean, the team keepsgrowing and there's more and
more humans running around andyou're running around all the
time.
I feel like you only just gotback from overseas, from
holidays, which was off the backof going overseas, for you went
(24:46):
over with Muhammad too.
Was it the States?
Edgar Charry (24:49):
Yeah, that was last year.
Yes, that was in August.
Yeah, August, September in theUS.
So we went to see somecustomers, potential customers,
so it's important to alsounderstand for our markets,
right?
So the US market again isobviously the biggest, but
(25:10):
understanding you know some ofthe nuances that happened there,
so you know how does the IPactually interact with the
patients?
How does reimbursement work?
There.
Private insurance, you know, isactually much more important
there than here, for instance,and we met with some investors
as well, which was great.
I think it was a veryproductive trip and, yes, in
(25:32):
December.
Yeah, let's take some time off.
Let's take some time off.
You know, after Christmas itwas insane actually, right until
I left and I literally just putmy phone in the bottom of the
suitcase.
I'm not going to use it at all.
Andrew Gray (25:51):
How'd that pan?
Edgar Charry (25:52):
out.
It's weird.
Actually it's weird.
You kind of have to go to thisdetox process right.
Yeah, where you're just likeokay, so I don't have my phone
in me.
Now.
What do I do?
Okay, I have to, you know, talkto people and I loved it.
You know you kind of lose thesethings right with your phone
all the time.
It's good to talk to peoplereally and see how they live in
their lives.
Over there.
The Colchates was awesome.
Samuel Wines (26:11):
Oh, that's some that's great to hear.
I know that we've spoken inpassing a couple of times about
how it can be quite difficult tofind the time to just exist
outside of organizing a businessor something of the likes, and
especially like reading oranything like that.
Was there any books or anythingthat you picked up while you
were over there?
Edgar Charry (26:30):
Yeah, yeah.
So this is what I was justtalking to Andrew about before.
For some reason, Luciana boughtthis book about how to age well
or something.
It's about permeable diet,right.
Samuel Wines (26:43):
Right, it's the Peter Attia.
Was it one of the Peter Attia?
Outlive or aging well or hownot to diet, or yeah, one of
those, one of those?
Edgar Charry (26:50):
She booked this one.
So, okay, I'm going to readthis one here.
And you read this and you'relike, okay, and you look at the
credentials of the personwriting the author, okay, this
guy's obviously got the superhigh credentials, so obviously,
surely it's the ones we'retalking about, and yeah.
So I guess it's quite importantreally to keep thinking about
(27:13):
this.
Right, how do I not burn out?
Right, as a founder?
Right, I get so focused onsomething and then you just
struggle to fall asleep in theevenings we talked about this,
but also diet, right?
So going back to the book justin terms of healthy diets and
(27:36):
that, in the end of the day,that does help.
Samuel Wines (27:38):
That does help Makes such a big difference,
like focusing on the inner isactually just as important as
the outer.
Andrew Gray (27:45):
You can do one without the other.
Samuel Wines (27:47):
Yeah, and on that on the inner as well, it's like
your own self-awareness and yourability to perceive the systems
that we're a part of as a whole, but also how you relate to
your team, the communication.
There's so much on the insidethat a lot of the time is
overlooked in, I guess, likethis tunnel vision towards
(28:09):
progress.
Andrew Gray (28:10):
But it's not a conscious like I'm going to
ignore all this, so I can.
It's just, you know, I imagineit's like an obsession to some
extent, and so you don't mean toput the blinkers up.
I mean, I feel like we canrelate to that, but for sure,
definitely happens, yeah, itjust happened by itself.
Edgar Charry (28:25):
You have to have the awareness that you're saying
, self-awareness, saying okay, Iam going, I'm not working well,
I'm being counterproductive.
Now, you know, I'm not in astate to sit down and have a
good conversation about thisdeal right now.
I'm just going to go for a walkor just talk about it tomorrow.
But I guess, having thatinsight that that's happening
with you because you're going toautopilot, right, If you don't
(28:47):
realize that you get dragons ofthese things and then that keeps
going.
It becomes like a snowball.
So it's about stopping havingthe service.
Okay, no, I'm not Someone whodoes this really well.
Is Muhammad he's got his?
He says no, no, I'm going to domy cricket today.
I say, okay, that's fine.
You know?
Fine, specify to put out, I'mkidding, it's not like that.
(29:09):
But he's quite calm.
Samuel Wines (29:11):
He says no, I'm going to, I'm going to just play
my cricket and he's got hissacred time and he's like this
is not being interfered with,it's I guess also the awareness
to know that by doing that hewill be able to probably handle
that firefighting a bit betteryou know if it was a reason
Exactly.
Andrew Gray (29:26):
Exactly, you need it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Samuel Wines (29:29):
It's a concept.
I've come across a concept thatI find enjoyable, like, like.
Obviously we do workouts butthere's also work ins and to me
that's like the stopping, thepausing, the reflecting, like a
big thing that we've been tryingto.
We've always, we've always hadit as an area of interest, like
the pause and the reflect andlooking at and being great
grateful for all the things thathave happened.
(29:50):
But it's so, so easy to getstuck in that left brain sort of
do, do, do tick everything offmode because so much of what we
do in work is like centeredaround that.
But yeah, we find that everytime we do make time and reflect
and look at how everything'sgone or just ask ourselves how
we're feeling like emotionally,energetically, it's always so
much.
(30:10):
We always feel better off forit and we're always like, ah, we
need to remember to Well we'vedone it, we were playing around
with linking, you know,gratitude to having a whiskey,
Like if something came along.
Andrew Gray (30:23):
I'm not condoning this, but it was a.
It was a fun thing to do therefor about a few weeks, where
Until we're like we can't affordthis.
Samuel Wines (30:32):
We don't need this much whiskey.
Edgar Charry (30:36):
But I think, I think that you said a word
systems.
You said right, just use theword systems.
I think that's another way oftrying to manage.
You know, this is how do, howdo you have systems in place in
your, in your, in your company,but also in your personal life,
that allow you to be the bestperson you can be, for both
right, both at Gozell Samson and.
(30:58):
Andrews, and and and then really, it's about creating these
habits, right?
That's what I'm trying to do.
It's creating these habits.
It's you know, okay, so whatare good habits and what are bad
habits?
Right, and how can I avoid the?
Samuel Wines (31:12):
bad habits and how's dopamine kicking in.
Edgar Charry (31:14):
You know when I need to see my phone because I'm
waiting for an email from aninvestor or something like this.
Right, I keep checking my phone.
So then you have to put thephone away, really and make sure
that I don't turn it completelyoff for the entire afternoon,
for example.
I just blocked this time really, I'm not going to be doing
anything, but just really theimportant work that needs to
happen, rather than keep itlooking at mail.
So, yeah, so systems I thinkit's also something that we're
(31:38):
working as well, personally, butalso in the company.
You know, we do weekly sprints,for instance, and this is the
we laid out the plan and this isthe two springs that we need to
.
Basically, with these twosprings, we need to achieve
these sort of deliverables and,you know, commit really to that
(31:59):
and then we keep iterating, keepiterating, keep iterating.
Yeah, I think that's alsoimportant, yeah.
Andrew Gray (32:06):
What was?
Imagine that.
So that journey, like thesehabits that you're talking about
, might, like the developmentand the rise of the need for
them, changes, like when youstart out.
I mean, everybody hits theground, running right and you're
just doing everything.
You're just throwing spaghettiup at the wall and but then
you've got this vision.
(32:27):
I think that gets honed correctme if I'm wrong and is that
kind of like at that point whereyou start to go like okay, it's
time to put systems in the trimaway at the stuff that might be
causing a bit of like anegative feedback loop if we
keep just doing everything.
Edgar Charry (32:41):
Yeah, I think that's.
I'll probably say that we'relacking in a way that we had an
experience of looking atmanaging people managing a team,
which is one of the hardestthings that actually you could
do in a startup, right, and it'sso so, so so we're really new
On the topic of managing.
Samuel Wines (33:01):
You're gonna have to manage you bringing this
microphone.
Bring the microphone up closerto you so that you can sit back
and relax.
You don't have to lean over,you can.
Yeah, whatever you want thisthing's yeah, Okay, like this.
Whatever, whatever works, foryou.
Edgar Charry (33:14):
Okay, it's a big man.
I thought it was small.
Andrew Gray (33:21):
It does, it does, but it just sounds like you're
like behind my shoulder orsomething like a little bit
further away, like here.
Samuel Wines (33:26):
you gotta get nice and close, right okay okay, is
that good?
Yeah, we're good.
Okay, good, that's great.
Edgar Charry (33:33):
Now, I was just saying that, luckily, we have
had the experience of managingpeople, which, again, is very,
very difficult, and we knew thatwhen we had to hit the ground
running over things in thecompany, we already had to have
some system in place.
You know, like we had to havethe springs, we had to have
these.
You know objectives or thequarters, and it just because
(33:55):
it's so important to have ashared vision.
If you don't have especiallythe startup, because resources
are so constrained, everything'sso constrained, how do you find
people that actually want tojoin you, really knowing that
they have full-time jobs?
But do you know that thisperson actually can do an
awesome job?
Right?
How do you convince somebody to?
(34:17):
You know, give you to help youout, whatever that is?
You know they give you adiscount, the cost or whatever
it's about really again havingthe shared vision, right, hey,
this is what I'm doing.
You know we're struggling withthis, in this journey, this, and
then we've been lucky really tohave people that say no, no,
(34:38):
but that's cool what you guysare doing.
You know what I'm going to beworking around, my working hours
just to help out, you know atthe starting point.
So, and then just grow likethis, right, the start is so
difficult, but then you startgrowing things, so people say
that it becomes harder, actually, as you grow.
Right, but to your point,andrew, I think, a shared vision
(35:00):
being we have alreadyexperienced some systems in
place, but also we don't knowanything.
We don't know everything.
Right, that's, that's.
Samuel Wines (35:06):
We'll be very arrogant to say I guess that's a
part of it, right, just likecontinuous learning and
development.
Edgar Charry (35:14):
Exactly and stopping.
I think the pauses are verycritical as well for that where
you pause and you're actuallyreflect, and then you think, oh
actually, yes, I've been crazyabout doing these things and
this kind of habit bad habitthat happened last year I should
definitely stop it.
And then you'll talk to yourtalk to your co-founder, your
mates, and say, can we changethis, you know, because this is
not working, and start puttingsome systems in place really at
(35:37):
that point in time, to toperform, to do better right.
Samuel Wines (35:42):
Yeah, so are you thinking, is this something that
you have, obviously with yourco-founder, but the team is now
you got another two or three inthe lab because it was three,
and now there's two, and nowthere's three again, three again
yeah.
Edgar Charry (35:59):
It's, yeah, it's.
We have you know the we gotcontractors really we got people
that work more as a core team,first part of a core team.
Now we got really three and wegot maybe five contractors.
You know that come in and goand they help out really.
(36:19):
Plus, we got a group of threeadvisors.
It's it runs more like ascientific advisory role really,
which is great.
Every month we sit down withone professor from Sunny
University, one from in SanDiego, one in the UK and they
(36:39):
got experience building theseproducts in fertility.
Samuel Wines (36:42):
How do you find a time for them all to all meet?
That sounds like a horrible.
Time zone alignment.
Edgar Charry (36:48):
Yeah, yes it is.
They're not cheap, so that's it, but they're great, they're
great.
And really, once you get thefirst one done at the last five
minutes, you say, hey guys, canyou all look at your calendars,
schedule it?
And they, can we just put thetime the next time for the next
minute, right now, and that's it.
(37:09):
That's what's going on and thenwe keep going every month.
Otherwise, yeah, you're right,Hailing emails in the
coordinating four different timezones, it's difficult.
Samuel Wines (37:18):
It's a struggle.
So, going back to kind of whatyou were talking about, sort of,
I'm really curious to know whatare the, what are the costs?
You've got your overarchingnarrative and vision.
That's compelling, that you getpeople interested in, and
that's kind of what has, I guess, drawn people towards what
you're doing.
What would you say, like, thecore values that you're trying
(37:39):
to hold as an organization arethat are kind of helping hold
that all together?
Edgar Charry (37:46):
We want to basically help people really,
that's the first thing Peopleobviously going through the
journey right of fallingpregnant.
Honesty, transparency andreliability.
Really, I think, as I keepsaying, the stakes are too high
really for what we're doing andthat's something that, yeah, I
(38:12):
think you know we talk aboutculture, right, it comes from
the top.
These things, the values, right, that we bring in, hopefully,
in the ways that I say the samethings that I do, right, because
people actually see whetherthis person you know what did I
say?
What's the talk?
Samuel Wines (38:30):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like we had a chat with Nate, who's our tech artist, he
talks about like the ethicalimplementation to action or the
like implementation to actiongap.
So you go, oh, I want to.
This is what we say, versusyeah, this is what we do.
Edgar Charry (38:47):
Just lead by example, right?
I think that's the other way ofdoing things, because people do
recognize these things.
If they are really vested inwhat you're doing right, they do
follow really.
But yeah so reliability, Ithink on its transparency and
literally just really want tohelp these people really when
(39:08):
eliminate the needs for bloodsto watch pain.
Samuel Wines (39:12):
Yeah, fair enough.
So you mentioned before apartnership with Monash IVF.
Did you want to double down onthat and let us know a little
bit more about that, Becausethat's a pretty exciting sort of
development and ongoing right?
Edgar Charry (39:26):
It is, it is, well , it is.
Yeah, it isn't going.
They were lucky, I guess youknow, to have basically their
backing.
I think they saw it.
Also there's a good validationthat what we're doing has so
made.
You know, we're trying to takea little unmet needs really in
this industry.
You know, just partner withthem.
Kim is an investor as investors,and it's just great to be able
(39:51):
to talk to them and you know wewould talk about product market
fits, right.
You start with the idea, butthe idea is rough.
And how do you know that thisis actually solving a problem?
First of all, indeed, justbecause you had the idea, and
you know your wife suffered allthis.
But from that, to actually findthe product market fit and
(40:15):
being able to commercialize that, that's a big leap, that's a
journey, even right.
You need, then, customers.
You need to talk to yourcustomers, right.
You need to talk to people andtry to get your best shot at
that fit right, and Monash hasbeen just awesome at that.
You know we talked to the headof nursing, the general managers
(40:38):
, the CSO, and they tell us youknow, maybe your sense has to be
flexible because you know theclinical cases are so different.
What is the change of cost,right?
The clinical workflow, that's amassive thing, right?
Because if things suddenlychange completely, that it's,
you know, it's a slow movingneeds, it's not gonna change.
(41:00):
Yeah, just like that.
So they will advise us and tellus no, no, your sense has to
probably send the sameinformation, really, to the
screen where the nurses areseeing the hormones levels
exactly as they are, for example.
We wouldn't want to change anyof that.
And For a fresh cycle, theseare the two hormones that you
need to measure.
For a FET cycle, you need to dothe two moms that you need to
measure and this is theirfrequency and this is how you
(41:21):
could, for instance yeah,increase of patient adoption,
right, so they.
It's just like this constantadvice with Monash.
We're very, very lucky, Ishould say.
Samuel Wines (41:32):
Yeah, I remember when you first told me that they
were coming on board.
Edgar Charry (41:36):
Yep.
Samuel Wines (41:37):
Go on reaching there, grab the water.
You're good.
You need to keep you hydrated.
Yeah, I remember when you weresaying that they were first
coming on board, because thatkind of meant them coming on
board was that was pre-seed thatwas preceding, yeah.
Yeah, and that kind of gave you.
I mean it up until now.
Right, it was like a 12 monthrunway from or 12 six months.
Edgar Charry (41:58):
Yes, yes, correct.
Yeah, about about that time,yeah, about 12 months.
Yeah, nice.
Samuel Wines (42:04):
And what are your plans?
So I know that, like, obviouslywe've been chatting with you
Behind, behind the scenes andspeaking about how we've got the
Monash site popping up andthat's sort of something of
interest to you.
Are you thinking of like isthere like a raise or anything
coming up Like what are yournext sort of milestones?
Is there anything within thenext sort of six months?
Edgar Charry (42:24):
All right at a technical level, company level,
you mean, or?
Samuel Wines (42:26):
anything answered.
How do you feel?
Edgar Charry (42:29):
Six months.
Oh, we got, we got.
We got a lot of work to do, wegot many milestones.
Really, we, we need to, we needto, we need to continue to work
in the tech right.
The tech is the right now.
It's is the is the main thing.
Without take, we don't, youknow, we'll have a business per
se.
So the we talked about before,the antibodies and then on mips
(42:51):
and all that.
So we need to get that, get itright and tested Against the
gold standard you know, in inbody fluids like serum for
interstitial fluid.
So that's a big milestone inthe next six months that we need
to hit and we're running themparallel, so you're doing the
antibodies parallel to the themyths.
(43:13):
We now they're in phases, we'restill, they're still testing
with test at all.
Four hormones that I mentionedbefore, and Now we change to
focus only on one specificallyto make as a product.
And then the nano mipsbasically will come a little bit
later, really still within thesix months.
(43:34):
But but again, this is just aPlain drive.
So every plane have to startwith playing.
But you know, once you startsaying it might be that the
antibodies might be enough.
You know they are definitelythe cost, cost efficiencies, you
know, and and other factors,what to consider the at the end
of this Two years really we gottwo years talking about mobile
(43:57):
stones, we do need to havereally a device that is ready
for a pilot study at least,hopefully less than two years,
where we actually start testingWomen, the other, the other
thing that is probably relevantto say is that, also within the
six months is we call I want toplane, plane this hormone
(44:17):
concentration study.
So what that means is how muchof these hormones I actually
need to see show fluid right,that diffuse through your
capillary veins and actuallyreach the Interstitial fluid.
So people don't know that right.
Andrew Gray (44:34):
And that's not common.
It's not well understood.
Edgar Charry (44:38):
There's no studies really on that and there's
definitely tests on sweat, forinstance, so they can definitely
find stradale inhalation insweat.
But what about interstitialfluid, right?
So we need to ascertain thatthat's.
What are the clinicalimplications when we correlate,
what are the hormone levels inserum versus hormone levels in
(44:59):
ISF?
Glucose, for instance as alwaysa delay, depending on how deep
you go into the skin, right,believe that glucose in a serum
versus ISF, right?
Some of the peaks actually canbe also be Shape.
The change can change as well.
Samuel Wines (45:15):
We need to understand that better, really,
because that drives thetechnology really for us and
that's a that's a world's firststudy really know, what it's
done is so are you thinking so,for, like, I know that there are
like industry-based PhDs andthings like that that are
popping out.
Are you thinking of bringing insomeone to do something like
that, to test this?
Or are you looking at justcollaborating with a, with a lab
(45:37):
, or Monash IVF, to do thesepapers like what's the, what's
the yeah, the process there?
Edgar Charry (45:45):
It's.
I think definitely Monash willhelp and they will help at least
in terms of site.
Site, you know, nurses, youknow helping base, collected
data, collecting the samples,and the.
There are a few devices thatwe're exploring that can
actually extract interstitialfluid that caveates there.
If you strike too, too fast,you know, then the the
(46:06):
concentration actually getsqueued because you're probably
with too much negative pressure,so you have to be slow and
steady.
For example, and Really theanalysis Would be done really by
us.
Yes, so they will be.
You know we got a few, a few.
You know data scientists and Ican do the analysis by just by
solicitation as well, that cando the analysis.
(46:27):
But really us in sourcing youknow some of these equipment and
being trained really on how touse this equipment.
It's very sophisticated.
Andrew Gray (46:37):
Cool.
So that's a pre-existingequipment that you don't you
want to have to invent.
Edgar Charry (46:43):
True, yeah, it's, I don't have to invent this one
there, there are few, there arefew ways micro dialysis another
way you can do, you can use, butit's a more invasive, and this
one seems like a well revealing,so much it's.
One seems like it's it's gonnagive us information that we need
right, and and then yeah again,and then the outcomes really of
(47:07):
this study will will dictateagain Should we go for nanomips,
right, because they say thatyou got high specificity and
insensitivity using those, ornot?
So I guess we have to kind oflook I call it minimal, viable
tests really.
Yeah what is the minimal thingthat we can do that Will give us
confidence to learn the rightpath you know here, and without
(47:27):
spending too much money to andresources?
Samuel Wines (47:30):
it's like we it's a similar sort of language that
we use like like, rapidly beingable to iterate in prototype,
correct, you know?
Like a safe to fail environment, um, correct.
So, oh, that's exciting.
Do we need to be looking aroundtrying to get you some more
equipment?
Should we be hunting somesecond hand places for things,
or have we got everything weneed here?
Edgar Charry (47:50):
How's the HPLC machine going?
Is that from From Jacob?
Andrew Gray (47:55):
Oh, we can check in on that.
I don't think it's been puttogether.
It's been put aside for the,the mass spec.
Samuel Wines (47:59):
Yeah yeah, we got a mass spec donated I got a spec
.
Andrew Gray (48:02):
Yeah, yeah actually , so it works like pretty much
brand new really who donated?
Samuel Wines (48:08):
that again was.
Dirty the Dirty Institute.
Thank you for that.
Andrew Gray (48:16):
Yeah, proteomics, so it's, that's what it's for.
So that's gonna help.
If you have a standard, which Ibelieve you probably do for the
things you want to measure, youcould potentially develop an
assay.
Edgar Charry (48:28):
No, we definitely talk about it, because that will
help in this, in this study.
Samuel Wines (48:32):
Yeah, definitely, let us know we can keep our eye
out for stuff.
And yeah, it's, yeah, we knowwe constantly having to keep an
eye out and I know we haven'teven had we haven't had a chat
about equipment for a while.
Andrew Gray (48:43):
So it's good that we're doing this podcast.
That's useful.
Samuel Wines (48:49):
Well, bringing it back to the podcast, I'm curious
, like what are your like?
What are your passions andinterests outside of work?
Like I know, you're verypassionate about getting beaten
in basketball by Andrew.
Edgar Charry (49:01):
Okay.
Samuel Wines (49:07):
But is there, is there anything, anything else
that you do outside of work thatkind of keeps you?
Keeps you feeling alive orexcited, or yeah, the Sports in
sports in general.
Edgar Charry (49:19):
You know, the time will come, danger, I really.
Yeah, basketball is actuallyone of those I used to play a
lot more obviously in the past,but now it's more like a
recreational thing with somemates, not every One side once
in a while, to be honest, onceevery month or so, but it's.
(49:41):
It's a like an interaction, youknow, just with people and keep
as in.
You know, right, oh, Poor twan.
Oh hey, twan just open up.
Andrew Gray (49:54):
Hey, I didn't mean to bring that up.
Samuel Wines (49:58):
I was definitely not present for this.
You've been dunking on all ofour members, andrew.
Andrew Gray (50:03):
No, no, no, I can hardly jump.
Maybe get it.
I said I could probably jumpsix inches off the ground if I
really try.
Yeah, yeah.
Edgar Charry (50:16):
I got a dog as well.
Yeah, I guess, just reallywalking with a dog and you need
to walk the doctor so they canbe glad good excuse to get
outside.
Yeah, chocolate lab or no, he'syellow.
Good they're better behaved.
Samuel Wines (50:29):
I had a Chocolate lab radude or my gosh food is so
food obsessed?
Edgar Charry (50:34):
Yeah, yeah, I'll say thing.
But you know again, you meet alot of people as you walk in the
dogs, right and, and then youmake a lot of friends too, and I
started actually playing pianoas well again.
Samuel Wines (50:46):
I was just playing .
Edgar Charry (50:47):
When was this?
Six months ago about.
Samuel Wines (50:50):
Same as me.
Edgar Charry (50:51):
Oh really.
Samuel Wines (50:52):
Yeah, I bought a new keyboard about six months
ago.
I'm like I need to just getback into it.
Yeah.
So good, right that flow.
State that you can sort of getin with instruments.
Edgar Charry (51:01):
Yeah, yeah, and it's so interesting, right when
you play piano, when youstruggle to get the keys right,
it's like you have these twothings you need to control right
the same time your fingerdoesn't really go there and get
the keystroke, but that ishelping with relaxing really,
(51:22):
and you can just really thinkabout something completely
different and that's there.
That was good yeah.
Yeah.
A lot of good playing.
Maybe I have to listen to youplaying the piano.
Andrew Gray (51:31):
Oh no, it goes very competitive.
It's one in there.
Samuel Wines (51:35):
Yeah, maybe we'll have to do a competitive duet or
maybe just a soiree at Co-Labswe can do a show and tell with
songs.
Look, all I was going to say offthe back of that is that
there's so many studies that areshowing how important it is to
play an instrument and otherthings like that, because it's
again getting you into the rightbrain side of thinking and also
(51:58):
into the I can't remember whatit is from the four e-cognitive
science, but embodied andenacted ways of thinking and
doing and getting into thatspace and dropping out of the
mental sphere, especially ifyou're doing a starter or
something, as you're saying,where you're constantly like, oh
, I have to remember that, gotto do this, and you're kind of
jumping around like an energizerbunny.
(52:19):
It's like.
When you have something likethat where you can sit down and
go into flow, and also with thepiano when you're playing, it's
like you know you hit a wrongnote.
You're like, ok, cool, let metry again, but you can track the
progress in a really observableway and you can at least.
It's like great, here is thissmall challenge and at least I'm
overcoming this, and there'sthat sense of reward and yeah.
Edgar Charry (52:42):
Yeah, it's a good point.
It tells you that you learnright, and because you can have
these very complex songs.
And you look at the script infront of you, you're like, oh my
god, that's impossible.
But if you go step by step, youbreak it down right, you can
actually do it right.
That's how I like to thinkabout it.
(53:03):
And eventually you're like,after I don't know six months
maybe, I don't know, maybe foryou a couple of weeks, then
after six months for me, I wasjust like, ok, actually I can
play this thing.
Samuel Wines (53:12):
Finally got the entertainer down pat.
Yeah, it's funny Because justhearing you say that as well,
that's the same patterns andprocesses that you actually
sounds like you play out in workas well, breaking things down
into digestible chunks and thenworking with that and then sort
of iterating on that.
So it's funny how there is no,it's all interrelated and
(53:32):
interdependent right.
Edgar Charry (53:33):
So Exactly, exactly.
Yeah, it does help.
Yeah, but yeah, it's been fun.
I should probably mention mywife as well.
Just got a type dinner and seeher mates as well as her friends
.
Obviously we can't.
We think we're quite social, wethink.
Andrew Gray (53:51):
I don't know.
It sounds like you've done agreat job at taking off the
blinkers.
Well done.
Yeah taking off the blinkers?
Yeah, just like not getting toofocused in on the thing.
Edgar Charry (54:01):
Oh, right right.
Samuel Wines (54:02):
You're trying to hold as much as you can in a
healthy way from a relationalperspective.
I know because we both havedate night with our partners as
well, don't we?
Yeah, Like at least once a week.
Yeah, we try and make it likenothing interrupts with that.
Edgar Charry (54:18):
It's quite interesting this, because your
partners, they have to supportyou, but it's an easier journey,
right?
If they do support you, yeah,definitely.
And they've seen us working sofor so many long hours, like in
the past.
I was talking about theseprevious companies, right, and
they don't get the happiest, Iguess, when we see that.
(54:40):
But now we've got to start up,right, and that's not going to
do any favor.
I'm going to actually have tobe working long hours too.
So I at least try to bring heras much as I can into some of
the wins, some of the losses,just to talk to her as much as
possible about what's going on.
And we do catch up as well withMohamed's wife as well.
(55:01):
The four of us together andfamilies just say hey, thanks
for your support this week.
This year we did a Christmasdinner as well, and we know that
it's not easy right To justkind of feel sometimes free by
yourself and your husband, yourpartner, is not paying attention
(55:21):
to you or to your kids or tothe other shores.
That need to be done.
So I think that's for founders,I think that's also quite,
quite we're lucky.
I think I feel lucky from aperspective.
Samuel Wines (55:31):
No, nice yeah thanks for sharing that yeah
yeah, I think it's always soimportant.
I think it's even things thatwe've been toying around with
here is like, oh, how can welike?
What can we do?
That's Like nice from a socialperspective for people where
they can feel like you know,maybe we do a picnic in the park
and people feel like they canbring their family and kids and
like you can have that littlebit of a relationality because
(55:54):
so much of the like everyonehere spent so much time here,
right, and it would be nice forthe family to be like oh, this
is where you exist when you'renot at home doing the dishes or
helping walk the dog.
It's like, OK, cool you're here,so at least there's like,
there's that like welcoming themand bring them into this world
so they can see it.
So we have been thinking aboutwhat we can do in that regard.
Maybe it is just like a nicepicnic down the road or
(56:15):
something.
Edgar Charry (56:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be great.
Samuel Wines (56:18):
All right, I'm going to let you escape because
I know you've got a meeting thatwe're going to be having in
this room pretty soon.
So, before we, before we letyou escape, how can people keep
up to date with what you'redoing?
Where can they go to engagewith what you do or learn more
about your work?
Is there any events that you'regoing to be at or publications
that might be coming out soon,or is there any social channels
(56:40):
that people should keep an eyeon?
Edgar Charry (56:42):
Yeah, I think.
I think I mean channels at thisstage.
You know, linkedin, reallyLinkedIn, we got to the count as
well.
On Twitter, we got KerryDiamond, who's doing a great job
there, you know, posting and, Iguess, sending the message out,
you know, and see how we canconnect with people.
And we I think, as you said,there were publications we have
(57:08):
to this year do more scientificpublications just to show you
know the validity of really thistechnology.
There will be some publicationscoming out really from us.
That's one of our definitely OKeyes for us, but otherwise I
have to probably do moreLinkedIn post myself, you know.
(57:31):
Just, I think that that helps alot.
I think maybe right now it'sjust really trying to get the
foundation right.
You know from a product andthen eventually you know, have
you know we'll be trying topromote more of this what we're
trying to do, but I think now,probably the most, the focus is
really trying to get it to right.
So this stage, just, you know,in the, in the website as well,
(57:52):
obviously there are contactdetails and emails there so you
can definitely reach out to usif you feel connected somehow to
what we're doing, and we'll bemore than happy to have a chat,
whatever that is.
Samuel Wines (58:04):
Awesome.
Thanks so much for letting usdrag you out of the lab.
It's been a it's been a longtime coming making this happen
and, yeah, look forward tohaving another conversation soon
with more updates.
Edgar Charry (58:13):
Yeah, no, thanks so much.
Thanks for sorry about thatreply to your text.
Samuel Wines (58:19):
That's all right.
I know you still love me.
It's fine.
I'm not taking it personally.
Edgar Charry (58:22):
No, no, no, no.
You used the text messages.
I, the mighty Netflix site, Idisable notifications in a talk
about systems.
Yeah, they were notificationscompletely, so that's why I
don't get your messages there.
Yeah, updates, yeah, good coverup.
Samuel Wines (58:36):
Yeah, whatever you say.
No, it's all good, I understandit totally Like I did.
I did the same like I had.
There was a message someonesent like four months ago on my
networks and I reply.
Andrew Gray (58:48):
And they just like.
Whenever I look over at yourscreen, I'm like all these
channels have messages andupdates.
Samuel Wines (58:53):
A hundred and eighty message.
Edgar Charry (58:56):
So happy birthday, by the way.
Oh yeah.
Samuel Wines (58:58):
Yeah Well, your birthday and my birthday.
We were always on the 24th andit was the 31st.
Yeah, 31st, I forget.
January has 31.
Andrew Gray (59:06):
It's like five birthdays here in January.
Samuel Wines (59:09):
It was a pretty, yeah, yeah, yeah, like
everyone's parents have everyoneworking.
It was real productive likenine months ago.
Andrew Gray (59:16):
April.
Samuel Wines (59:17):
Hmm, wonder why.
Edgar Charry (59:20):
For me.
There's a lot of people thathave birthdays in March, you
know, June, July.
Yeah.
Andrew Gray (59:27):
I'm sure there are.
They're just not here.
Yes, your birthday is coming upsoon, yeah that's what I would
say yeah, yeah, yeah, we'llcelebrate, we'll get a cake,
we'll get a cake for you, allright.
Edgar Charry (59:36):
Thanks so much, guys no stress.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Samuel Wines (59:41):
Heyyyy, you made it to the end.
Thanks so much for stickingaround and listening to this
conversation.
You now officially know whenboth Andrew and my birthdays are
, and you also found out Edgars'birthday is in March, so if you
feel like bringing a cake intoCoLab's for him, I'm sure he
will very much appreciate it.
Thank you again for listeningto this episode of The Strange
(01:00:04):
Attractor.
We were around about halfwaythrough interviewing all of our
members, and then we're going tobe moving on to interviewing
some of our favouriteorganisations in Australia and
across the world who are workingon impact-oriented innovation.
So stay tuned and we lookforward to welcoming you here
next time for another episode ofthe Strange Attractor.
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