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Back in 2019,Synex Medicalfounder Ben Nashman pass the night detained by U.S. customs . Nashman sample to excuse he was simply transporting materials from Buffalo to Toronto for his homemade MRI . Customs , however , take issue with the label on the package : “ nuclear magnetised resonance . ”
Nashman spent hours in a hopeful waiting room before he finally convinced them that he was really just a discharge - of - the - mill 18 - twelvemonth - old scientist with an fixation with MRI engineering . They permit him take his more or less 80 - Ezra Pound attractive feature , and he zoomed back to Toronto . “ I got back at like 3 or 4 a.m. and got a few hours of sleep before classes , ” he say .
Nashman , now 24 , might have land himself on a inclination of suspicious person , but he take a firm stand it was worth it : That one very long dark was part of his years - long journeying to build a portable MRI capable of test glucose and other significant molecules without the need to pull up parentage . Today , the company is one footmark closer to that end , declare a $ 21.8 million Series A fundraise , with investors like Accomplice , Radical Ventures , Fundomo , and Khosla Ventures . It brings the society ’s total haul up to over $ 36 million , which include seed funding from Sam Altman .
Right now , Synex ’s prototype is the sizing of a wassailer , although Nashman hope to one day have it primed in your palm . It work out by first using MRI to make a 3D image of the digit to happen the best spot to test . It then uses something called magnetised resonance spectroscopy to get off wireless pulse that “ energise the dissimilar molecules , ” Nashman said . The political machine then take the signals from all the molecules and filters for a specific one . Synex will begin with glucose examination , but will finally dog thing like amino group acids , lactate , and ketones .
The company introduce me to Diane Morency , a char based in Massachusetts who has suffered from Type 2 diabetes for twelvemonth . “ I ’ve got holes in my finger’s breadth , ” she told me , summate she can no longer play her ukulele because of the pain . “ It would be a godsend to not have to cock up my [ fingers ] anymore . ”
But there ’s a reason non - invasive glucose testing has n’t been commercialized : It ’s difficult to track glucose accurately without drawing blood , and it ’s even heavy to make the gadget portable or affordable . “ We believed that was decease to be an inviolable moonshot , ” said Jun Jeon , an investor at Khosla Ventures focus on healthcare .
Jeon has yet to try Nashman ’s prototype but said that , if Nashman can deliver on his promises , then “ this was a bet deserving taking . ”
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An obsession with longevity
Nashman was always curious about survive forever .
When he was about 16 , he walk into his vet ’s office armed with impress - out scientific studies . He had mold that his wienerwurst should be put on the immunosuppressive drug rapamycin , a drug controversially annunciate by seniority fancier . The vet had no idea what Nashman was talking about . “ He was just like , ‘ this is just right smart too experimental for me , ’ ” Nashman call back .
The vet ’s refusal did n’t dissuade him . “ afterward , I get my parents on it and I got on it , ” he laughed . “ candidly , I cogitate everything should be on it . ”
It was the first of several seniority ego - experiments . Nashman briefly took the diabetes drug acarbose , forked over thousands for aPrenuvo full trunk scan , and , like so many in Silicon Valley before him , got his hands on acontinuous glucose monitoring machine . His wellness obsession concur with a fascination with physics — particularly the “ elegant ” science behind MRIs , and how much they could reveal about the human body .
By 17 , he had put materials online to make a makeshift MRI in his sleeping room ( it was “ really crap , ” he say ) . By 18 , he had held an internship working on brain imaging at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and enrolled at the University of Toronto for engineering skill . “ I recall I have the record for most MRIs ever , in all likelihood , ” he said . “ I ’ve belike run down my finger honestly thousands of fourth dimension at this point . ”
He realize that MRI technology could be the ultimate longevity hack , giving him more info about his torso than an Oura Ring or Whoop ever could . He first sold his aspiration to Altman , whom he meet in 2019 , and then Peter Thiel , land the Thiel Fellowship in 2021 .
Nashman may have Silicon Valley ’s master on his side , but he ’s still entering a very crowded distance with well - capitalized rivalry . Startups like Know Labs and Berlin - found DiaMonTech are both stool their own non - trespassing product . Applehas reportedly been quietly work ona non - invasive glucose monitor lizard , and Google too once tried to make its own glucose monitoring contact lens beforepausing the undertaking in 2018 .
Synex Medical face up an uphill conflict from here . The company will have to undergo stringent clinical trials to turn up to the FDA that its machine can accurately sequestrate glucose molecules . There ’s also the linger enquiry of whether Nashman can really get technology to a portable size . If not , “ It would n’t be too useful , ” Morency say . “ It would do us no good outside of the house . ”
But let ’s say Nashman breeze through all of that . permit ’s say Synex soars through its FDA - approve tryout and successfully shrink its current metal toaster down to something that fits in your palm . It will still debut in a healthcare industry that has long struggle to make new engineering affordable , according to Khosla investor Jeon . “ There ’s not a pile of good infrastructure and reimbursement that will tolerate for all patient to have access to the technology , ” Jeon said .
For Nashman , the hazard for a longer life is worth dedicating his own life to . “ I need to know exactly what my body take . I require to hump what my parent require , ” he said . “ A technology like this is just needed to usher in that age of prognostic medicinal drug . ”
