First in Human

Will Space Medicine Do What Longevity Medicine Hasn't?

Send a healthy 35-year-old into orbit and their bones start dissolving ten times faster than someone on Earth with osteoporosis. Their muscles waste. Their vision degrades. It turns out, space is a biological time machine - compressing decades of aging into months.  And that means one thing: if you solve aging in orbit, you might have solved it on Earth.  Matthew Kuhn is a 31-year-old biomedical engineer in Houston. And on October 13, 2024, he stood in a closet holding his newborn daughter, watching a SpaceX rocket land on his phone, when he had a sudden realization: the same problems we'll need to solve to keep astronauts alive longer in orbit are the problems holding back longevity on Earth. He didn't sleep that night. By sunrise, the bet that became Skybound Medtech had taken shape.  In this episode, we explore what happens to a body in orbit, the strange logic of dual-use medicine, and what it means to build a company at the intersection of NASA, the world's biggest medical center, and a future no one's quite built for yet.  This episode is a different kind of conversation for the show. We usually meet builders well into the work: companies with traction, devices with data, stories already taking shape. Instead, this is a rare look from the passenger seat, at the very beginning of a founder's journey. It's an episode about diving deep into understanding an unmet need - and the vision for what might be possible.  Subscribe to First in Human:  - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737  - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd  Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-t-kuhn/

Acquired for $340M: This CEO Built a Device for 25 Million Sleepless Americans

Twenty-five million Americans have restless leg syndrome. For decades, the best available treatments were Parkinson's drugs - medications so problematic that three of four have now been pulled from standard of care guidelines. Patients describe the sensation as Coca-Cola running through their veins, an uncontrollable urge that steals sleep night after night. Some were told it was all in their head.  Shri Raghunathan is a neural engineer who went from studying epilepsy and building implantable brain stimulators to CEO of Noctrix Health, the company he founded to help close the treatment gap for RLS. His device, Nidra, uses a borrowed insight from the VR world to trick the brain into thinking the legs are moving -without any actual movement. It's now standard of care therapy for RLS. Inside this episode, you'll learn: • Why Shri spent a full year trying to kill his own idea before starting the company - and why that's the best thing a founder can do  • The VR gaming trick that became the core mechanism behind a breakthrough medical device  • How a small startup built the clinical evidence to go toe-to-toe with pharma - and won  • What the "10 million nights" framework is and how Noctrix uses it to make every decision in the company A story about what it takes to build something so good it becomes the new standard of care. Subscribe to First in Human:  - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737  - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd  Visit Noctrix Health online: https://noctrixhealth.com/ Connect with Shri on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shri-raghunathan-9b0a467/

This Robot Draws Your Blood With a Needle. Patients Love It.

Toon Overbeeke's friend had a father going through chemotherapy — and every hospital visit meant failed attempt after failed attempt to draw his blood, because chemo had damaged his veins. The question was simple: isn't there a better way?   That question sent Toon — a mechanical engineer who'd left a partner-track career at Bain to ride a motorcycle 30,000 kilometers through Iran, Pakistan, and 28 other countries — on a mission to build something that had never existed: a fully autonomous blood-drawing robot. He Today, as Toon is CEO of Vitestro, the company behind the Aletta system: a robot that uses infrared imaging and ultrasound to find your vein, positions the needle, and draws your blood, all without you ever seeing the needle. They've completed over 10,000 blood draws with a safety profile that beats manual phlebotomy. And elderly patients — the ones everyone assumed would resist — turned out to be the biggest fans.  This is a conversation about robotics, human psychology, and what happens when someone refuses to accept "that's just how it's done." Subscribe to First in Human:  - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737  - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd  Visit Vitestro online: https://vitestro.com/ Connect with Toon on LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/toon-overbeeke-a3012825/

This CEO Wants to Reset Your Heart Rhythm with Jello

Patients with implantable cardiac defibrillators live with a brutal tradeoff: the device that saves their life can also shock them without warning — so hard they describe it as getting kicked by a horse. Many develop PTSD, anxiety, or depression. And until now, there's been no alternative.  Allison Post is CEO of Rhythio Medical and a cardiovascular biomaterials engineer who spent years running the innovation program at the Texas Heart Institute. Her team has developed a conductive hydrogel that's injected into the veins of the heart, where it solidifies into a network that can reset cardiac rhythm at a fraction of a percent of the energy of a traditional shock. The FDA granted breakthrough designation on preclinical data alone.  In this episode, Allison walks us through the science behind the gel, what it was like to prove out an idea that sounded impossible, and the moment in the OR that changed everything. We talk about the patient experience that drives this work, the Houston ecosystem that made it possible, and why she left a job she loved to lead this company herself.  If you care about the future of cardiac care, this one's for you.  Subscribe to First in Human:  - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737  - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd  Visit Rhythio online: https://www.rhythiomedicaltech.com/ Connect with Allison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-d-post-10103/

500 Amputations a Day. Meet Three Founders Fighting to Stop It.

If a foot wound isn't healing, the clock is already ticking. Every day in the United States alone, 500 people lose a limb to peripheral vascular disease - and 40% of them were never even diagnosed before the amputation.  Jill Somerset spent over 20 years as a vascular ultrasound tech before a moment of curiosity altered the arc of her career: she put a probe on her own foot and what she discovered led to inventing a metric - Pedal Acceleration Time - that could objectively measure blood flow in ways the standard tests simply couldn't.  Today, that discovery now has over 30 peer-reviewed papers behind it and a global following. But... there was a problem: to use it, you basically had to be Jill.  Enter Abu Khalifa, an ICU doctor who kept seeing these patients arrive too late, and Adam Gold, a veteran medtech engineer already well into his third career life. Together, the three of them founded Moonrise Medical to automate Jill's expertise into a device anyone can use - with FDA clearance and commercialization on the horizon this year.  This episode is a conversation about curiosity, complementary obsessions, and what happens when three people from completely different worlds find the same unmet need. Subscribe to First in Human:  - Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-in-human/id1842644737  - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3C1xG5SxPei8m2lI63WSkd  Visit Moonrise Medical online: https://moonrisemedical.com/ Connect with Jill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jill-sommerset-rvt-fsvu-68110010/ Connect with Adam on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adam-gold-4b2394/ Connect with Abu on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abubaker-khalifa-87171a107/