Thread by @wolfejosh

1/ Here is a quick insider peek—

at how Lux teamed genius scientists 🧪🔬+ entrepreneurs to co-found a cutting-edge neuroscience 🧠x tech x bio venture from scratch with 🏅Nobel prize winners that would attract Bill Gates, Jim Simons and more...

Kallyope.

2/ It started with Lux partner @AGoulburn who took a key Lux principle: "believe before others understand" the potential of the real peer reviewer published science from brilliantly creative Chilean PhD scientist entrepreneur Charles Zuker.

I mean—just check this out...

3/ Charles' creativity had led him to decide the neural correlates of your sense of TASTE (bitter, sweet, umami, salty, etc)

In prior video he highlights how optogenetics (using genetically engineered photoreceptive proteins could allow fiber optic light to switch TASTE on/off)—

4/ Then @AGoulburn + Charles pulled together
-Nobel laureate Richard Axel (awarded for discovering neural correlates of olfaction—your sense of SMELL)
-Tom Maniatis a genius molecular biologist + expert in cloning and head of the New York Genome Center

But most importantly…

5/ They recruited as CEO an incredibly widely respected biochemist turned business leader who as a 30year Merck veteran helped produce one of their best selling drugs in history a ~$6B+ annual drug Januvia for diabetes

Nancy Thornberry.

Upon which we closed a $45M Series A...

6/ Nancy then recruited an incredible cognitively, ethnically diverse team (led mostly by brilliant women!) that spanned genetics, informatics, instrumentation, sequencing, gut biology, drug hunters, chemists and neuroscientists—

—and focused the company on the GUT-BRAIN AXIS

7/ Focused on improving human health (from metabolic disease to obesity to neuro like Parkinsons).

Everything from satiety to thirst to sugar sensing to mood has a link between your GUT and your BRAIN.

"Gut feelings" "butterflies in your stomach" all have physiological truth—

8/ After successfully decoding an Atlas of the gut-brain axis, striking their first deal with a major pharma and setting out on new targets—we introduced Bill Gates, TwoSigma and along with legendary Jim Simons all saw the science data and leadership and joined a new $75M+ round

9/ Nancy just presented at Allen & Co in Sun Valley to great reception and I asked permission to share a few very general slides (keeping others still confidential).

The first slides lay out the WHY

10/ The next few slides show the WHAT of targeting the brain via the gut-brain axis (instead of getting a small molecule to pass the blood brain barrier go for a gut restricted molecule)

11/ Targeting the brain via the Gut-Brain axis can target circuits affecting satiety, mood, taste and more.