Creating, Reading, and Computer-ing: June

Read to see some learnings from the past month, some stuff I've done, and to gain some value recommendation-wise.

Hey!

I spoke to a chemist other day to solve my math problem. Why? They have all the solutions! :)

Welcome back to my newsletter. Hope you had a nice and sunny June.

For those who don't know, I'm Nina Khera. You may have met me during a meeting, or at the latest networking event in Boston. I'm a 15-year-old human longevity researcher who's working on projects from topics spanning cellular senescence (zombie cells) to epidermolysis bullosa (skin disease)!

This month I’ve been working (as always) on Biotein, coding, summer planning, and studying for finals!

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Biotein

This month, we’ve been preparing all our materials for the round, working on getting IP for our test, working on picking a manufacturer and preparing materials for them, and working on our testing proposal.

Our main priority has been to get our decks ready for the round, and I’m happy to say that they’re ready. We’re raising $150,000 USD: if you know any/of any angel investors that may be interested, let me know: we would love a connection/intro or just more people we can reach out to. If you want to see our raising materials (deck, tech summary, letter of validation), let me know!

We’ve also been working on IP, and making sure we have that solid soon, so that when we begin speaking to investors (which constitutes public disclosure), we have that in mind and are protected. On the scientific side, we’ve been working on our testing proposal, and making sure that is fully done. We have also been prepping device manufacturing records and having manufacturer chats so we can pick a final company.

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Mindsets and Philosophy

Here are some thoughts I’ve been having!

• I’ve been thinking about the negative consequences of being online. You’re exposed to a bunch of negativity, you get semi-unhealthy dopamine rushes from checking notifications, but it’s inevitable. You can’t just not be online. Sure, there’s the occasional news story with an interview of the shocking person who isn’t online, but in the modern world it’s incredibly difficult not to be. Personally, I try to be disconnected from social media and check what I am connected to sparingly.

• Does anyone else find that their brain works in branches branching off branches branching off branches branching off of one central tree? It makes for interesting conversations, but a really scattered time thinking sometimes. It basically means I get curious about a bunch, but it distracts me a lot from the task at hand. However, I feel like if I try to suppress that at times, it really helps with focus. It’s a mode I’m trying to learn to turn on and off (right now, it’s stuck on on, but I’ve successfully gotten it to off sometimes).

• Life is absurd. Somehow humans got to a place where we have computers and school, from living in caves. What even? It’s fascinating to see the power of the collective human brains and thinking together, but it’s weird to think about sometimes. I wonder, if there is an alternate universe in which so many of these innovations and changes to the world didn’t happen, what would it look like? Would we not make change or innovate at all or would we have just invented different things? Would we have been satisfied with living in caves and not evolving much intellectually?

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Coding, coding, and oh? coding

I’ve been working even more on Scrabble, and that’s been really fun. I’m creating a Graphical User Interface (GUI/guwee) for it, and created a computer player with different levels (0, 1, 2: beginner, smart, genius).

I’ve also been working on an attempt at chess. That’s a new project, but it’s been really cool to work on.

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Knowledge Bytes

Here are some recommendations from the month!

- Interesting blog/newsletter on how the internet works: https://every.to/cybernaut/, I love reading think/investigative pieces on stuff, and this one is sort of a mix of that. I’ve only read a few of their pieces so far, but all of them have been good.

- Best series: Glad You Asked by Vox. As I’ve been trying to lower my Youtube/Netflix watching, this has been one of the series I like watching, just because they break these interesting questions down into simple parts.

- Best fruit: Strawberries, hands down. Not the most useful recommendation, but I wanted to give them a shoutout.

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Shoutouts

Here are some fun shoutouts:

• Dr. Shelley Deeke - thank you for all your help with Ligand Express and learning more about Cyclica’s work. Also, thank you so much for all your career and future-related advice!

• Aubrey de grey - thank you for your help with Biotein’s raising, and your sporadic intros :-). You’ve been a great help to Biotein for around 2 years now, so thank you!

• Ben Nashman - thank you so much for all your advice and help with Biotein’s work. You definitely helped us out at a good time, and I’m really excited to watch Synex grow.

• Biotein Team - seems that I shoutout the team every month, but it has been so so cool to talk with y’all every week and get closer. I’m so excited to tackle big problems together:).

• I wanted to shoutout someone I don’t typically shoutout (and who has very much gotten annoyed at me about it). Since it was Father’s day this month and Mother’s day the prior month, thanks Dad and Mom for being supportive parents and allowing me to follow my dreams. Love ya!

Thank you to everyone reading this. Even if I didn't mention you this month. you probably helped me a lot. Thank you!

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Next Month

In July, I’ll be working on raising a round for Biotein’s bio-age test, with Rubedo on single-cell RNA sequencing analysis, helping Lygenesis with data analysis, and programming… probably a bit too much but whatever.

Reach out to me if you want to talk about human longevity (or just life sciences in general) or anything else honestly!

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-khera-115b5a175/

Personal Website: https://ninakhera.com/

Email: kheranina@gmail.com (or just reply to this email)