Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to Real Medicine real lives. I'm Dr. Yasser Sambal and together we're showing medical expertise in a human way.
Hello everybody and welcome to Real Medicine Real Lives. I'm your host, Dr. Yasser Sombal. And today we're exploring what happens in medicine when it's practiced with intention.
Where science, innovation and humanity intersect to improve real lives.
As healthcare costs rise, access becomes more complex. Many patients are seeking solutions beyond traditional healthcare systems.
Joining me today is Ron Eli, Ph.D. president and founder of Sources Inc. And a pioneer in global healthcare and medical tourism. Ron is the founder and director of Mexico Bariatric center and Mexico Cosmetic center and has helped facilitate more than 27,000 life changing surgeries by building patient centered, high standard medical programs in Mexico.
Ron, welcome to Real Medicine Real Lives.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: My pleasure.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
Good. So today we're going to talk about global health care and medical tourism and how it's reshaping patient access to care.
In this segment we're going to go through how responsible medical tourism can expand access, lower costs and maintain high standards while still prioritizing patient safety, ethics and trust.
So Ron, let's walk into this right away and why don't you tell us what originally led you from engineering and biomedical research into global healthcare and medical tourism.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: It's very interesting. I did my master's thesis in flow resistance in human airways.
It was a numerical modeling of human airways and I went to University of California, Davis continue numerical modeling of real life situations and I ended up being in a software.
[00:02:10] Speaker C: Development.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: And this all was like natural evolution of what became my career in medical tourism.
I was introduced to medical tourism for obesity treatment in Mexico in 2007.
And I saw the lack of access for patients in US and Canada and how obesity is an epidemic.
That of course ultimately with my passion for this life changing surgery, made me start Mexico bariatric center in 2012 and we've been very successful since inception. Basically I used my engineering mindset to find a pathway for patients to get secure and safe and affordable life changing surgery across border.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: That's great. That's fantastic.
How did you approach building Mexico Bariatric center differently from other programs in this space?
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Well, we've always had this mindset of we need to own our infrastructure.
We started with having exclusive surgeons and right now we have for example, five team of surgical expertise in this field that have been with us for years.
And ultimately the hospital was a game changer when we, you know, we're not renting a space in a different hospital and Outsourcing, basically we own our own hospital which is a private hospital that is designed with the state of the art equipment, with the patient experience, which there are medical tourists in mind.
[00:04:30] Speaker A: That's really cool.
And so when people hear medical tourism, what misconceptions, you know, come up with this?
[00:04:40] Speaker B: You know, it's, it's especially like in Tijuana, people think like dental, that's the first thing they think.
Or maybe they're thinking about procedures like cosmetics.
And usually, you know, it comes with the patient usually has an image of okay, I will be by the beach.
And you know, they question the quality of the service, whether it's the doctor or the hospital.
Not taking into account that this is a multi billion dollar industry right now and is growing very fast.
And especially for example in Tijuana, there are hospitals that are high end, they are in same standard as us or even better.
And you know, sometimes they may think like, oh, there is a, there's going to be a language barrier.
And also the, so we, we have overcome all that problems. So we have like a dedicated patient coordinator that will take care of you when you're down there. And the last is the really complication which we have resolved by offering what we call medical tourism insurance.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: So Ron, this is a very interesting topic because being in Texas, you see a lot of people head towards Mexico to get stuff done. You mentioned dental work and stuff. I know people that have taken their kids down there for braces, etc. Tell me, why do you think it's easier to get it done and more cost effective for people to get the same care, same quality, etc. Down there than it is here in the United States, for example?
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Well, there are less, you know, red tape down and the surgeons are actually very motivated first of all, and they are willing to help the patient the best they can and they're not worried about lawsuits and things like that. And also remember, when we are doing medical tourism, we have the volume to, I'm sorry, To get discount rate whether they stay in the hotel hospital from the surgeons. The surgeons are motivated, they're young, they're highly educated, highly motivated.
And that's how we can provide better or equal service with better outcome and less expensive.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: So that brings up the next thing. So patient safety is obviously a big concern, right when people travel to do these kind of things, you know, so what safeguards or standards do you guys have in place to make sure that patient safety is guaranteed or not guaranteed. But obviously you know, you guys do a good job at it. You Know you mentioned medical legal stuff, which is obviously a big thing in the United States, which obviously adds to cost. So what mechanisms are in place to guarantee patient safety from what's happening?
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Again, I'm going to repeat this. Education is a huge factor.
Educating patients about the procedure itself, what they should expect as outcome, what the complication rates are.
From our end, we do a lot of things that has kept our complication rate less than 1% consistently, which is one of them. We manage the surgeon load per day. So we have a limit based on the complexity of each procedure, how many procedures each surgeon does.
So we manage that.
Again, the hospital, the hospital facilities is specialized for medical tourists to come and get bariatric surgery and of course cosmetic as well. So this reduces the rate of complication because the nurses, the staff, their sterilization, everything is specialized and they are trained to do handle this type of surgery.
Of course, you know, we talked about our exclusive surgeons, they've been with us for a long time. Each one has at least over 5,000 procedures done.
And we do a good job on pre op nutrition and pre screening. Pre screening is huge. You know, we are one of, you know, before COVID we were doing everything online, which is telehealth, which US health industry now went to and continuous care, which means we worry about before and after procedure. When they come back, we still follow up with them with our surgeon liaison, we have nutritionist.
And again we talked about mti which is the medical tourism insurance.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Gotcha. And so from your experience, what kind of patients benefit the most from global health care options?
[00:10:32] Speaker B: So patients who do not have insurance or they're underinsured and sometimes, you know, because we get patients from all over the globe, from us, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Europe, uk. So the patients, sometimes they do have coverage but the timeline for them to wait and get this life changing procedure is few years. So, so that's another, you know, and then we are talking about some patients that they come to us because they cannot get that type of surgery where they live, you know, because we do wide range of procedures that whether it's a duodenal switch or whatever, they cannot get where they live or maybe it's a complex revisional surgeries that they can't get where they live. And honestly when they come to us they are leaving all their stress and problems behind where they live and they will be focused their focus on the procedure itself.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: That's great. And I think that this is, I mean I think this is great for patients and I'm really glad that this kind of stuff is available because as you said, cost is a big thing and healthcare coverage is a big thing.
So we're gonna take a little break here. We're gonna be right back and when we return, Ron's gonna share, you know, how patients support education, long term outcomes define real success and where global healthcare is headed next. So everybody, we'll be right back in a couple minutes.
Stick with us. We'll be right back with more real stories, real breakthroughs and real lives trans.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Yasser Sombal. Let's dive right back into today's medical conversation.
Welcome back everybody to Real Medicine, real lives. I'm Dr. Yasser Sombal and we're here with Dr. Ron Eli. If you're just joining us, you can watch Real Medicine, Real Lives and all your favorite NOW Media TV television programs live or on demand anytime stream on Ruko IRS or visit our www.nowmedia.tv where you can also listen to the podcast version of this.
Now let's continue our conversation with Dr. Ran by looking at the procedure by itself. Outcomes, patient support and the future of global healthcare.
Tru healing doesn't end in the operating room. This segment is going to explore how education, pre and post operative care and long term support shapes outcomes and how global healthcare models are influencing the future of medicine worldwide.
Dr. Ron, welcome back.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: So you've kind of emphasized the full patient journey, not just the surgery. So why is pre and post operative care support so critical for these patients?
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Well, pre op, basically physically what it does is shrink your liver, the surgery becomes easier on you and the surgeon, better recovery and really is a mindset, is a psychological effect which means your commitment to get this life changing procedure and continue with changes in your diet and your lifestyle.
So that's why pre op is so important. And of course post op is very important too because you have to continue changing your diet, changing your lifestyle and the procedure itself is going to help you.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Yeah, and I think that's important for any procedure. I mean, I'm a proceduralist myself. You know, I'm an interventional cardiologist. And so I really think it's really important to make people aware of what they need to do prior to any procedure and actually what happens afterwards and what to expect, you know, and especially for surgical patients, I think it's way more important. I can't tell you the amount of people that come back after having bypass or something. Then they ask me all these questions about can I drive, can I lift this can I do that? And I honestly have no idea because I'm not a surgeon what the restrictions are. But I do agree with you. That's really, really important.
And so what patterns have you seen in patients lives after surgery beyond just the physical health?
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Oh, it's tremendous.
You know, of course first is dropping pounds and then you, if you're on, for example, diabetes medication, there is all the comorbidities that come with obesity.
You start to relapse. So basically you reverse all that.
And then there are some hidden, which we call nsv, which is like you get to play with your kids when you couldn't do before.
For example, I fly a lot. So you see, so you don't have to take two seats to sit in there or get an extended belt to sit in the airplane. So there are so many victories like that. And of course, you know, the confidence, the, the effect is so many different ways.
And basically the family is being restored by the family member going through this procedure. The energy level and you.
There is a statistics that you add more than 10 years to your life.
For us, for example, like you mentioned, we have performed close to 30,000 successful surgeries.
Our patient coordinators are our past patient. They have so much passion that they come back and they want to work with us to help others to get this procedure done.
[00:16:54] Speaker A: And so would you say give us some insight, you know, how education and transparency, you know, changes these patients outcomes.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Education is huge. And we've been doing this since inception. I started actually going to Houston. Houston was my first seminar when we went with our surgeon and started telling people about the surgery and about medical tourism.
And since then we've been doing this from, from US to Canada to New Zealand to Australia. We've been traveling all over the world to tell people what to expect when they get this procedure. And what is medical tourism? What is NBC Mexico bariatric center and Mexico cosmetic center can do for them?
And we do see because a lot of our patients coming from online that our patient patients have, they're highly educated about the procedure. They're highly educated about what to expect from the outcome from the complication.
Yeah. So there is.
Education is huge. And the more you know about the procedure. Don't know. You know, the more you know about pre op, post op, what to expect, the more successful the procedure is going to be.
[00:18:22] Speaker A: That's true. And so how does, I'm sorry, you kind of help standardize practices in medical tourism. And so what benchmarks have you found to be the most important to you?
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Again, when, when I started, you know, there was no standardization in this industry.
And we, because we are a US company, because of my engineering, my mindset, we started putting standards like what is acceptable and what is not. For example, you know, the load for the surgeon, what is acceptable, what kind of hospital facilities as acceptable, what type of surgeons certification or background or experience is acceptable.
And you know, transparency, education and we have set up standards of what this patient's supposed to expect to get.
And also, you know, because people have anxiety when they don't know what the cost is. That's one of the problems with the, with the US healthcare right? When they, when the, when we offer these all inclusive packages and we tell the patients this is what you should expect to pay and what is the outcome? This is what set the standard and make them at ease.
This is our job, basically give them peace of mind.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: And so how does your organization Sources support innovation and infrastructure in global healthcare delivery?
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Well, the software, the technology in the background that is handling day to day operation is huge.
And we have been constantly improving that. For example, we have complex algorithms in place when the patient first approach us and fill out a health questionnaire to connect them with the best surgeon for them.
We know from reviewing thousands of health questionnaire from patients to know what does this patient profile look like? You can categorize.
Now the AI is also helping us even more.
This is the innovation that Sources is bringing to Mexico Bariatric center and Mexico Cosmetic Center.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: That's great.
Looking ahead, how do you see global healthcare reshaping the future of medicine?
[00:21:19] Speaker B: That's a, that's a great question, Dr. Yassir.
So I believe that you know, it's going to, the global health care has a long way to go and you see how for example in our organization, I was just mentioning when we receive a health questionnaire from a patient health history we can, with our routine and complex systems, we can tell where this patient is best with which surgeon to go have surgery.
If you scale that to global healthcare. You see where I'm going with this. So basically the zip code, the insurance policies is not going to be matter anymore because you know this patient is best to have this procedure in a certain place. And that place could be in Tijuana, could be in Texas, it could be in Florida, it could be in Canada. We have for example, we do gynecology that we bring these surgeons from Brazil, from Canada because their expertise come in one place.
So I think that's where the global healthcare is going to end up great.
[00:22:52] Speaker A: In the last minute and a half we have left. I love it. If you could just tell the viewers a couple things. One is do you ever think about expanding your services beyond cosmetic and bariatric surgery? Because it sounds like you guys have a great model in place for other parts of healthcare, whether it's cardiology, any other certain things.
And then two, if you can let people know how to locate you guys and get in touch with you if they're ever interested.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:23:21] Speaker C: So.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Mexico Bariatric center is a leader in this industry.
But we also do cosmetic, which is we do have board certified surgeons that are expertise in post bariatric patient.
We do gynecology, we do hybrid procedures where we can do hysterectomy and gastric sleeve for example, together in one operation.
Orthopedic, cosmetic, dentistry and stem cell. Stem cell regenerative medicine is huge. And because of less regulation in Mexico, there is a lot can be done for spinal cord repair and things like that.
Eventually we like to expand to other cities in Mexico and maybe outside of Mexico.
You mentioned about how they can find us.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:24:25] Speaker B: Mexicobariatriccenter.com is our main site.
We do have a Mexicocosmetic center.com and you can always call us. That was another thing I was going to mention. You know, these days it's very hard to get a hold of anybody when you call even for your cell phone or things like that. It's hard to get a representative to talk to.
But we have coordinators that are past patients. Most of them are past patients always there to help you or you have to call 855-768-7247 and we will be happy to talk to you and see what's the best option for you.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Great.
Ron, thank you so much for this very stimulating and interesting conversation.
Today's conversation reminds us that real medicine isn't defined by geography. It's defined by quality, compassion and outcomes.
When innovation meets responsibility, healthcare becomes more accessible and more human.
I'm Dr. Yasser Sombal and this has been real Medicine Real Lives. Thank you for watching.
Stick with us. We'll be right back with more real stories, real breakthroughs and real lives transformed.
Welcome to Real Medicine real lives. I'm Dr. Yasser Sombal and together we're showing medical expertise in a human way.
Welcome to Real Medicine realized where we make medicine understandable, personal and hopeful. I'm your host, Dr. Yasser Sombal. Today we're joined by Steven Throne, chief financial officer, Vice president of sales at Vorotan Laser. Steve brings a Unique blend of financial leadership and commercial strategy to a company that's helping advance medical research and diagnostic through precision laser technologies.
His work supports innovation that allows scientists and physicians to see the human body in ways that were once impossible. Steve, welcome to the show. We're so glad you're here.
[00:26:28] Speaker C: Thank you for having me, Dr. Sobel.
[00:26:30] Speaker A: Today we're going to explore how light and laser technology help doctors and researchers better understand what's happening at the cellular level inside the body.
The problem facing many patients is that cellular process feel like a black box. We just don't really know and often feel like doctors are guessing about what's really happening inside their bodies.
Advanced laser based microscopy helps reveal how cells are structured, how they move, and how they communicating, offering powerful insight into how diseases begin and change over time.
I mean, I remember when LASIK surgery first came out. I mean, I was fascinating to people. Right.
So why don't we get started in simple terms, what does it mean to see how cells behave inside the body?
[00:27:18] Speaker C: Yeah, so, I mean, everything that we exist on is by biological processes.
You know, how we absorb nutrients, how the cell operates, how we power our muscles, you know, everything and you know, really kind of, kind of backing up a little bit. I mean, almost everybody in, you know, elementary school science has seen a simple microscope.
We got to look at things really small, but it gave kind of a cursory look at what cells are and other things. You know, we usually peeled one layer of an onion skin and you saw the little cells and, you know, it was, it was fascinating and fun to look at.
What, what's going on in labs and hospitals around the world is, you know, advanced microscopy. And microscopy is just really studying things, you know, through a microscope.
But what's really advanced is other techniques of seeing different things called, you know, there's different ways of doing it. And one way is called fluorescence microscopy.
And what researchers and doctors can do, scientists is they use chemicals and they can tag different proteins. And pretty much everything we are is made up of, you know, structured proteins.
They can tag these things with specific chemicals and then you can hit it with a specific wavelength of light and it actually gives off a different wavelength of light. We can, through some optics and some other tricks, filter all that stuff out and see very intricate details of a cell.
And one thing that may be very familiar to people is during COVID you know, all the news reports and everything had this picture of a cell with all these spikes on it and everything else.
The way they figured out what that really looked like is by microscopy and by tagging the different proteins, they can see different structures, and that tells you a lot about what the cell actually is.
[00:29:26] Speaker A: That's great.
Can you give us maybe more explanation about how does this deeper understanding help us as physicians or doctors in general, make these informed treatment decisions?
[00:29:38] Speaker C: Well, it's interesting you say that, and it was many years ago, I don't know, probably 2018 or so. I was at a lab at UCSF.
And, you know, a lot of us hear about things like researching cells and, you know, a python or some other animal. And, you know, the question always comes up, why are they doing that? Why is the government funding these types of research?
But what was really interesting in the lab I was in, they had found this virus that was in a python.
And what it was was a cell that, you know, went around to healthy cells, and it had these little hooks on it and would hook onto the healthy cell. And they imaged a protein being shot into the healthy cell's nucleus and killing the cell.
And so, you know, this ironically, I mean, that's very similar to how Covid attacked healthy cells in our body.
So by understanding these sorts of biological processes, you can come up not just be killing the cell. And what was explained to me because, well, backing up a little bit is when you give treatments that actually kill viruses, a lot of times that's very detrimental to healthy cells in our body. And so by figuring out different types of therapies, you can actually have a way of, of treating these viruses that aren't so detrimental to know our body.
And what they were talking about is they had developed this protein that attached to the, the outer cell wall of this virus.
And rather than killing the cell, all it did was fill the gaps between the hooks and the, and the outer layer of the cell. So it couldn't hook on to any healthy cells, and thus it couldn't caused the damage it was doing within that python's body.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: And so, you know, I don't really use a lot of laser in my field. I'm an interventional cardiologist. I know they do some laser stuff with, you know, heart disease and, and things like that. I haven't personally used it myself, but I would imagine that laser therapy is probably something that's really important in cancer treatment or autoimmune diseases and discovering, you know, new treatments and new therapies for that. So can you enlighten the viewers a little bit about how this level of care can change the conditions and, you know, help with the treatment of those diseases?
[00:32:12] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. Because especially when, now, when you have cancer, when they do a biopsy, you know, you send it off to a lab, and there's various different ways to tell what that cancer is.
But in some of the kind of more exotic cancers, what they do is fluorescence microscopy, and they basically can get down to what the actual cell of the type of cancer it is.
And with that, they can really tailor the treatments, whether it's chemo or radiation or other therapies, in order to target that specific type of cancer.
In 20, 30 years ago, basically everyone got the same chem for whatever cancer it was, and the outcomes were mediocre at best.
But that's part of why many more people are surviving pretty voracious cancers.
Through understanding more about the cancer itself on the cell level, and then tailoring the actual chemo and treatment and the drugs they use to that specific cancer.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: Can you, can you maybe elaborate on that a little bit and give the viewers, for example, something real to them, like an example. You can tell them, like, for example, if, you know, breast cancer, we discovered this doing this way or something, so that it makes a little bit more sense and more real to them.
[00:33:38] Speaker C: Yeah. So like small cell carcinogena, which is typically, you know, a mouth cancer or other things.
When, when they do the treatments, there's a, there's a level of radiation, a level of the chemical, the, the.
And I can't really, I can't recall the actual chemo name, but that's different than some of the other mouth cancers you can get.
And by targeting that therapy, you're not destroying the healthy tissue in the mouth. You can save more of the healthy tissue, and it makes it a much better treatment and outcome.
[00:34:15] Speaker A: Okay, great. And can you tell us, for example, you know, what should patients understand about the value of cell level imaging? And when standard scans don't give enough answers?
[00:34:28] Speaker C: I think the real value is the depth in which we are now understanding what all these different things that affect our lives adversely can do and then how to treat them. I think one of the things is understanding.
During COVID a lot of understanding was on how white blood cells actually communicate and know that there is something in our body that needs to be, quote, attacked. And this is called calcium signaling and other types of processes that really, we're just kind of scratching the surface of understanding of how these cells almost have a mind of their own and can understand, you know, like, how to have the immune response, especially when our body's being attacked by a virus.
Yeah.
[00:35:27] Speaker A: And so is there anything that you're aware of, for example, that you guys are working on for future treatments of diseases or anything that the viewers should know about.
[00:35:38] Speaker C: I mean, one of the things we are and really we're providing the illumination device that enables us technologies.
But a lot of what's going on is research on things like telomeres, which are the chromosome or the genes that are at the end of our chromosomes that affect aging.
And understanding how those genes affect the entire chromosome can help understand why at a certain age, as we continue to age, that we start having the breakdown of the chromosome, which, which is literally what causes us to die of old age.
So by understanding what that chromosome is doing or that gene is doing to the rest of the chromosome can help with therapies to increase lifespan. And also, you know, some of the other things that are happening as, as our body ages, particularly dementia and Alzheimer's and other types of degrading diseases.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Are you saying that laser therapy is going to make us immortal? No, I'm just kidding.
[00:36:53] Speaker C: I'm just kidding. I don't know if that's such a good thing. Right, right.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Yeah. No, I know. Who wants to live forever? But. All right, well, this was really interesting so far. So I think up next we're going to talk about how these technologies move from research into real world care. You know, comes from the lab to real world care and what that means for patients in the future. So everybody hanging out? Hang tight. We'll be back for in a couple minutes to talk more with Steve about all this.
Stick with us. We'll be right back with more real stories, real breakthroughs and real lives transformed.
And we're back. I'm Dr. Yasser Sombal. Let's dive right back into today's medical conversation.
Welcome back to Real Medicine Real Lives.
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Welcome back, everybody, to Real Medicine Real Lives. I'm here with Steve Throne from Voltron Laser, and we've been talking about how light based imaging helps us understand cells in incredible detail.
Now let's look at the bigger picture, how these scientific breakthroughs translate into better, more personalized care for real Patients.
The problem facing many patients is that medical technology can feel distant or abstract. And it often feels unclear how research advances improve the day to day care. Innovations in cellular imaging are helping bridge that gap, allowing earlier detection, more targeted treatments, and a better understanding of how therapies work.
Steve, welcome back.
So, thank you for having me. Tell us, how do technologies like laser microscopy move from research settings into tools that impact patient care?
[00:39:01] Speaker C: I think the biggest breakthroughs in the last few years is a lot of what's called live cell imaging.
In the past, you know, everything is sensitive to light and if you hit it with too much light, you obviously kill it.
And what has really progressed in the research side is the ability to have both live tissue, healthy tissue, and live cancer cells and other other adverse things for our body be able to survive in what I call extremely expensive petri dish.
And basically with that, you can not only understand how healthy tissue works and what the interactions between different things are, including things such as the cancer treatment, but you can also see how the cancer cells attack or mutate or cause damage to healthy tissue.
And that advance, I mean, it's only been around for, for, I don't know, maybe a decade, maybe a little longer. But the reality is now we can keep cells, individual cells alive and you know, up to three to four days. And in that time, the advances in microscopy, they can image various things happening to the cell.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Gotcha. And so what kind of medical decisions based on that becomes more precise when us, you know, in the healthcare field can see these diseases at a cellular level?
[00:40:41] Speaker C: Well, one of the things, you know, and it's a very personal thing to me, you know, my mother got melanoma, malignant melanoma in the 80s and you know, when we did chemotherapy back then, it was basically, you know, dump a gallon or you know, an absurd amount of chemo chemicals into you, you know, to basically kill everything and make sure it all died.
What we're doing now is getting to the point where, you know, we're figuring out exactly the amount and the type of chemo chemicals that can really, you know, just destroy the cancer cells and not, you know, attack your own body as, as veh so that you can survive.
A lot of times the risk was whether or not in the beginning you'd survive even the chemo. Cause it was just a huge shock to your entire body and you're basically poisoning healthy tissue along with trying to kill the cancer cells.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Gotcha.
And so give us an idea. I mean, I'm more aware of medical research in the sense of how long it takes a medicine, for example, to get on the market for people to be able to use it, et cetera.
What's the timeline it takes in this type of research with laser therapy? Is it equivalent to drug therapy? Or does this take a lot longer before it goes from basic science to testing to actual implementation and care?
[00:42:13] Speaker C: A lot of times it actually can be much, much quicker because you're really looking at things as a diagnostic tool on the outside rather than things that are directly impacting your, directly, such as drugs. I mean, you're ingesting drugs and other. And that, you know, there's a, there's a lot of effects that can happen with that.
But what, you know, kind of backing up one of the biggest things is, is, you know, during COVID everyone talked about, oh well, you know, the polio vaccine took, you know, 30 years for it to be, you know, deemed viable and safe and useful to administer to everybody.
And what went on during COVID and with vaccine development now through microscopy and imaging is you can actually test these drugs on individual cells rather than an entire human body and really see what the impact is both with what you're trying to treat, whether it's hepatitis or something else, and actually the healthy tissues, blood, you know, skin, all that stuff, and see how the, the effect adversely or not to healthy tissues.
So it's more of a, a tool to help with the speed of understanding these different drug therapies and treatments rather than something that's directly, you know, impacting the human body.
[00:43:42] Speaker A: Okay. And you know, what excites you most about the future of light based technologies in medicine?
[00:43:50] Speaker C: I think it's the level we're starting to understand of all this stuff.
Understanding our biology and how things actually work are what allow us to really develop new technologies, new treatments and everything else.
There was a lot of controversy around the COVID vaccine, some of the COVID vaccines being MRNA type. And what the understanding of that and the, the, the detail that they studied it and knowing that it was safe. It's probably the most studied vaccine, you know, in the history.
And the reason being again, that we can now individually, you know, keep individual cells alive and test these things on both, again, the virus and the healthy cells and do it multiple times in a day. Whereas, you know, 100 years ago you were testing on bodies, you had no idea really what was happening at the cellular level.
[00:44:55] Speaker A: I'm really glad you brought up the COVID vaccine and I think this wasn't on the topic, but now that you brought it up, I Think it's a really important thing to talk about and I think it's really relevant to people because you're right, there was a ton of skepticism about the COVID vaccine and how fast it came out and MRNA technology and all this stuff.
I would love for you, if you could, to elaborate to people about MRA technology, how long it's been around and why the COVID vaccine wasn't this mystery thing that got created, that was given to people so that Microsoft can track us, for example.
[00:45:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: And I really would love for you to elaborate on it from a scientific view because although as a physician I can maybe have my perspective on it from a medical research standpoint, but I think it's really important for somebody who actually understands this technology to maybe tell people, you know, it's not to force people to take the vaccine. That's obviously a personal decision, but maybe just kind of shed some light on it.
[00:45:55] Speaker C: No, and that's, I think that's a really good point is, and I spent a lot of time during the shutdown talking with many friends about, you know, the reality of what is going on. And I agree with you. You know, taking vaccines is a very personal decision.
People die from them. That, that, that does happen, but it's extremely rare.
And when you actually look at the data and the numbers around the COVID vaccine, it's one of the safest in history.
But you're right, it's a new technology.
I can't remember exactly, but it is fairly new. I mean, MRNA understanding has been around for several decades.
But I think the first vaccine is, you know, 10, 15 years ago or something like that, the first studies. And really all it is is it's injecting an RNA strand, which RNA is the signaling device for our cells to respond to something.
Going back to basic, you know, cell biology, RNA signals things to happen within your cell and the DNA is really what controls who we are, what we are and how things are structured.
And all MRNA vaccines are doing is putting in what looks like COVID virus and causing our body to respond to that in an immuno response way.
And it's just a tweak on what a normal vaccine is, which basically normal vaccines, all they're doing is injecting a benign virus, basically the same stuff, but it basically doesn't have the genetic capability to cause damage in the body.
Thus you have an immune response to that and it teaches your body what that, that that virus is, and then your immune immuno response can fight that disease.
And you know what what went on with COVID is, you know, I spent a lot of time basically, basically fighting misinformation because of that is, you know, again, vaccines are very. It's a personal choice whether you take them or not. But the COVID vaccine is probably. It probably is the most tested vaccine in history.
And, you know, any adverse effects of it are basically in well below the normal numbers of any vaccine.
Because anyone can have a adverse reaction when you spur an immunoresponse through that injection.
[00:48:39] Speaker A: No, I think that is really, really helpful and fascinating. You know, I mean, I tell people just from clinical experience, obviously, having to work during that time in the hospital and seeing the two waves, you know, the wave before the vaccine and some of the outcomes and the waves after the vaccine and in which, you know, you look at it and some of the patients who were vaccinated, although it didn't prevent them from getting Covid and no vaccine technically prevents you from getting the disease.
You know, that's the misconception. The vaccine is really designed to limit your symptoms and improve your survival chances through it. Right. And so that was definitely noticeable between the first and second wave of COVID during that time. And so I'm really glad you elaborate on this because I think that was really helpful so for the viewers.
[00:49:24] Speaker C: And that also ties into, you know, what microscopy does, because I'm sure everyone heard that there were various strains of each, each of these viruses, and the only way they could figure out that these were different strains is through both the genetic testing, which now is all done with lasers, and imaging the actual cells and understanding the difference from one from one strain to the other. Right. And so, you know, that ties right into the research of understanding, you know, what, what laser microscopy can do. Right.
[00:49:55] Speaker A: So for the viewers, Steve, I'd love to know if they can, you know, find, let us know where they can learn about your technology or, you know, what you're working on, etc. How do they, how do they find that information about you guys?
[00:50:07] Speaker C: Well, on our website, fortranlaser.com we have a lot of ties to our products and actual papers that are written.
You know, unfortunately, as you know, as a doctor, if you really want to understand things about what, what, what's going on, you have to kind of read some very heady scientific lasers.
But there's a lot of information about all these different applications and the things we work on and the stuff we do.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: Great. Steve, thank you so much for helping us today understand how something as simple as light can unlock such powerful insights into human health for our viewers. Remember, medicine is moving forward. Greater clarity and precision every day. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Seek understanding and partner with your healthcare team. I'm Dr. Yasser Sombul. And this has been real medicine, real lives where real science meets real stories. And knowledge brings hope. See you next time.
