[00:00:00] Speaker A: When I talk to people nowadays, I still say that had one of the biggest impact in the way I think my career has gone and what I do now as a scientific leader, especially when it comes to deconstructing a difficult problem.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Coming up on the Show, I have Dr. Carlos Bosquez who's going to talk about the importance of communication in science, leadership through tiny experiments and the value of having a mission driven organization to keep people moving quickly by moving slowly. Dr. Carlos Bosques is a pioneering scientific leader. He has 20 years in biotech, 70 plus patents and a PhD from MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He is an expert in immunology and glycobiology. Now he serves as CEO of the Food Allergy Scientific Initiative, also known as Food Fosse. It is the nation's premier nonprofit focused on transforming the lives of millions. 33 million affected by food allergies. And that's just in the US alone, 250 million globally. Let's get into this conversation. Welcome to Stand up to Stand out, the podcast where we help you master clarity, confidence and influence. Join over 10,000 listeners worldwide and unlock the power to turn your goals into reality. This podcast is designed to bring you insights from the industry and, and some inspiration to get it done. At DN8, we believe that better communication leads to better outcomes. So let's dive in.
I am thrilled to be speaking with Dr. Carlos Vasquez. There's so much we're gonna cover from the world of food allergies, leadership by experiments, running cross functional teams and global teams. But I wanna start where my heart wants to get there and tie it into science. So I know that you are from your childhood, you were a skateboarder. And I'm going to bring it into science. But I was hoping you could give me a little peek into that world of the dedicated amateur to pro skateboarder of your youth and then how that ties in that persistence with your scientific career. So first, welcome to the show and second of all, I want to get into the skateboarding first and then we'll dive into the rest the science.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Thank you, Stuart. Thank you. And definitely a great, great question to lead with and yeah, it's funny. I think so. I'm a big sports fan. I grew up doing a lot of sports, many different sports and one of them that I spent quite a good amount of time and, and dedicated my, my time to was skateboarding.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: And for a long time I, I really spent especially what I would call, you know, was launch ramp jumping, uh, 12ft in the air doing tricks and landing on the other side.
And so it's funny you mentioned that because I, I've actually, when I talk to people nowadays, I still say that had one of the most, one of the biggest impact in the way I think my career has gone and what I like to do as a scientific leader, because I just find a lot of common denominators in what I did at that time and what I do now as a scientific leader, especially when it comes to. I see the same thing, it's the same problem. Is deconstructing a difficult problem. And in that case, you know, I would actually go and spend a lot of time deconstructing the big problem of jumping through a ramp, you know, 12ft in the air, doing a 360, landing on the other side. Nothing that you can achieve in one day. But if you start looking at the problems from different angles and you start deconstructing the problems into single, simple, simpler elements, you can say, okay, you know, I need to come up at this speed. I need to actually do this turn.
I'm going to fall many times. I'm going to get up again, I'm going to try again. And I see science and research and what we do in a similar fashion is a big problem. It looks like unattainable at the first sight. But if you're patient and you start asking questions and dissecting and experimenting and listening and seeing the answers, trying to see what are all the elements that are needed, the people that need to come to the table, all of that, you can get to an answer, you, patience, and you need to deconstruct. So I'm glad you led with that question because I, you know, it's actually something that, that connects well with what I do today.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Well, it takes a lot of persistence. You know, I was never a good skateboarder, but I remember trying, like, kick flips and other things, like, over and over and over again. And you really have to commit yourself to it. And I definitely, next time I see you, I want to see some of that footage or photos from that era.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: But it's a lot more hair at that point.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: You know, it's a fun thing. But I want to talk about your mindset as, as a younger person, but also now as CEO of Fosse, the food Allergy science initiative. Let's talk about the mindset piece, because what I've noticed is you have to keep this optimism, and I'm looking at you or thinking of you as a younger person, where you're Falling. And by the way, there's a great documentary on Tony Hawk on HBO if you haven't seen it. And it starts with him attempting a really technical trick recently, not even as a younger person. And he's just. The first eight minutes is him falling. And it's, it's almost painful to watch. And then you see that this is why the guy is the world's greatest, because he just keeps getting up.
So I want to talk to you about that mindset of continuing to get up as a younger person. Is that something that you felt was just part of your personality, especially when you're falling on the ground and now, of course, in science, or is that something that you had to learn or maybe a combination?
[00:05:56] Speaker A: It's something I think you get. You. You learn and you know, you have a personal story and that molds you into, into who you are.
So I think skateboarding was part of that. But I think you hit it on the head with this. Some people sometimes joke with me saying, oh man, you're just way too positive.
And I think it is part of something that I feel proud of. And I think it comes from exactly what we were just talking about, of failing many times and knowing that things are not achievable in one day. For example, sometimes when, when I work with my teams and they do an experiment and they come in the first experiment, everything works. I said, there's something wrong. Things are not supposed to work. Just, you know, from the first try, things are supposed to work. They take time.
So I think that persistence that it's needed, I think, to tackle big problems and you know, as a leader, as a CEO that you're dealing with married, diverse set of problems on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, a monthly basis, I think persistency and being positive, it's really important. It's really important because you're against the odds, I think. You know, another sports analogy, my. One of my son plays baseball and I say, hey, I don't care if you're going to be, you know, whether you're an MLB player in the future or not, most likely not. What I love is about what you're learning through the process, because baseball, I describe it as a game of failure where your chances are against you. And actually if you strike out or if you don't get to first base seven out of 10 times, you're still a Hall of Famer, right? So I see the problems that we deal with, you know, in the science and as a CEO, very, in a very similar fashion, you have to Be positive. You have to be persistent, and you have to have the patient.
So I'm a big fan of sports because I think a lot of common denominators to what we do.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: I agree. I think that sports is a good analogy. However, one of the things I've noticed is that, you know, with baseball, it's, it's a sort of a knowable game or, or, or soccer or football. You know, there's constraints, and in the world of science, you know, it feels like there's more of a, a fluid, you know, between the world that you know and don't know. It gets it, it starts to get away from you. Because if these scientific challenges could be solved earlier, they would be. And, and the truth is, it, it's very complex. So I think you're right. The mindset has to be there. This, this optimism. I was hoping you could give me a, A, a window into your, you know, your scientific background.
You have an interesting intersection between immunology and glycobiology, which I practiced 80 times to say I'm not even going to pretend to really know what immunology and glycobiology really mean.
So just, just for the people out there who may not know this, could you break those terms down and then talk about how they work together for you in, in your scientific background?
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely. We'll try to keep it in a, in a very simple way. So two fields I've been working on for many years and I'm very passionate about since I started in grad school.
Glycobiology. First is the study of sugars. Carbohydrates. Right. And when I say sugars and carbohydrates, people would think about table sugar, glucose and food. Right? That's what comes to mind. But there's so much more about carbohydrates and sugars that I actually felt, wow, it's underappreciated. Let me give you one simple examples. I think a simple sugar is responsible for you to have a blood type. Right. You know that you can be a B, you know, different blood types and just changing one sugar to another, it makes you a different blood type, and that makes you incompatible from being able to get transfusion. Many examples of sugars, you know, if you have a blood clot and you go to the yard, very likely what they're going to give you is a type of sugar as a blood thinner. So there are multiple examples that we, I think, the general audience don't appreciate about sugars. And so I've actually one of the reasons why I've been highly motivated is because there, I believe there's so much to explore and to unpack from the science of sugars that could have enormous impact in human health. So that's number one. That's glycobiology, the study of sugars. Now immunology. I feel more people know about immunology after Covid. But immunology is a signs of the immune system, the system that defends you against, you know, foreign substances like bacterias and viruses. And if you think about it, is a almost perfect system right? Where it's there, it's ready to attack. If something's going to invade your system and it's going to harm you.
At the same time, it needs to stay in a perfect balance because it is very powerful, right? It's attacking things that it, your body knows are foreign, that are not, they don't belong to your body. One of the areas that I've spent close to 20 years now, where I developed now therapies, is when that immune system goes in a different direction and starts attacking things that it shouldn't attack, like your own body, your organs, your tissues, and those are called autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, et cetera, where your immune system now for some reason goes in a different direction. Instead of just protecting you from foreign things, it says, oh, there's something wrong here, let me go and attack. And it starts attacking your organs and your body. So those are two areas that I think are just incredibly important for human health. Now, to your question, what happens when you combine them? I actually believe that the biggest innovations are in the interface of different fields. And so the sugar field and the immunology field coming together. The best example of this is we, you know, after Covid, everyone has heard about antibodies and being that police, that the police officer that is circling, it's circling around your body and saying, okay, there's something wrong and attack.
Where some antibodies can do their function appropriately if they lack a specific sugar. So some sugars are actually attached to antibodies and they dictate whether the antibody can function in one way or another.
And so that is an area that we've been leveraging for some time to say, okay, actually the interface of the two fields, if you actually understand how they communicate with each other, maybe you can create better therapies for people in different diseases. So I hope that is at a high level. But happy to go into more detail.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: No, it's great. It's a really good foundation, that kind of transitions into the scope of the problem, because you and I have spoken before. But I think it'd be helpful to set the table for how big an issue allergies are just in the United States alone, let alone the world.
Maybe you could just set the table in terms of helping us understand, you know, how big and how common allergies are and then how many options people have. Because what I believe is what you believe, that biotech, life sciences, and innovation is all about bringing more viable options to people who are suffering or in pain or dealing with disease. And so maybe you could just set the table to help us understand the delta between the scope of the problem and the options out there.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: Great question. I'll answer your question and I'll come back to connect it to the field of immunology, because there's some very fundamental questions that are extremely intriguing and I really encourage everyone to think about. But to answer your question directly, food allergies are just.
There's very few disorders that are. That have such a big impact in the United States and across the world. We're talking 33 million people in the United States alone. It's about 250 million across the world with food allergies. About 200, 200,000 of them in the U.S. just in the U.S. about 200,000 of people with food allergies end up in the ER every year.
And this has been increasing. It's like a 300% increase over the last two decades.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: And it has a huge impact to the government, right? Government costs to not only the person who suffers from food allergies, but the entire family, because now they need to adapt completely to be safe.
And.
And it's incredible that in 2025, we only have two therapies approved.
There's no cure for food allergies, and it's underfunded. And the research, the science, when I look at all the work that I've actually participated on over the last two decades in autoimmune diseases, for example, and how many therapies are available for autoimmune diseases, even when some of the disorders or some of the diseases have a lower prevalence. One of the therapies that I had the opportunity to collaborate and participate on the development, was just approved for one indication about two weeks or last week was approved by Johnson and Johnson, and it's for one indication called myasthenia gravis. And that is about 100,000 people in the U.S.
right? Imagine now that you're saying from a hundred thousand to 33 million, that just gives you an idea. And the fact that the signs have been underfunded and behind over the last few decades leads to where we are today, that there's only two drugs approved and could be a lot better.
So to me, food allergies, it's a great example not only in is personal, because I do have a food allergy as well, but it's a great example for everyone in the community and the industry and biotech and pharma and VCs to say, wow, you know, we gotta do better, we gotta do more. And that's one of the reasons why I am in this mission, the Food Allergy Science Initiative, FAUCI for short, to try to address this. Connecting it briefly to what I said before, just so people can think about this is I said the immune system is almost perfect. It's supposed to attack foreign agents that are not part of your body. If you think, you stop for a second and think, well, what are foreign agents? Well, food is not part of your body, right? You didn't grow up with apples in your stomach. You didn't grow up with, I don't know, cheese, many other things inside your body. So but you're putting literally in your lifetime, you're putting at least a ton of, literally a ton of food through your system. Why is the immune system not detecting that and attacking it, but it can selectively detect and attack just a few molecules that makes you allergic to something like a peanut. So there's just fundamental questions that are very weird if you think about it, that that should be addressed. And so that's one of the reasons why connecting it back to the me, the knee, the fact that we're behind and some fundamental scientific questions, the intersect of that, it's what it leads to, what we do today at Fosse.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: Yeah, it's funny, I realized that I had an allergy when I was a kid. I remember, I think it was to wheat or maybe gluten. And I remember my parents weren't big into sugary foods or unhealthy foods. So the most cookie we had in our house was Fig Newton's. But my mom had to like cut off all the cookie parts. So I was like, I'm just left with the Newton or just the fig or I don't know what. Anyway, it's just, it was like this sad world. But eventually I think I got over it. But recently, you know, we've been sort of trending back towards that with my wife and her looking at that. So I have so many follow up questions, and I want to get to Fosse, so I'm not going to be selfish with this, but one of the questions I have is just why in the last 20 years you said there's a 300% increase. What, what's going on? Is there just more detection? Is there just more allergens? What's, what's happening?
[00:18:50] Speaker A: So there's multiple hypotheses and some data behind the hypotheses that, that come into play.
And one of the things, for example, we run this webinar, monthly webinar, and we've been actually talking about one topic, which is how our food system and our environment, especially our food system, has changed over the last two decades and how different chemicals in the food, natural and synthetic, I should say, have come into our food chain system.
Some of our investigators are discovering that some of those molecules, some of those chemicals that are now generalized in our food system, are having an impact in some biological functions that could make us more prone to many chronic disorders, not only food allergies, but many other chronic immune disorders. And so that is one hypothesis. If you look. I always look behind the label of whatever I'm eating. And one of the perfect examples are all the fillers, the xanthan gums, the carrageenan gums, so that the food looks better, all the preservatives, all these things. And yet we actually don't understand them. And very well what they're doing. When you look at some of these chemicals, they actually have a lot of similarities in structure in some of them to the adjuvants. So things that are used to stimulate your immune system, that are designed to stimulate your immune system so that you can use them in vaccines, for example, because you need to stimulate your immune system there. So one of the aspects could be the fact that our complete food system has dramatically changed.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: And that is causing some sense of sensitization that makes you more prone to develop these disorders because autoimmune diseases have also been increasing incredibly in the last decade. So that's one of them. There's multiple things, but hopefully. I don't know if that helps.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: We were just looking at a label that my wife was. Was sharing that natural flavors are not what. What you think it would be. You'd think, well, natural is, you know, I think of someone squeezing a lemon and then just, you know, maybe it's dries into a natural powder or something like that, and you add it and you realize that there's just so much behind that, that, that may be interacting with your system in a way that. That's not leading to a good, good outcome.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And the dyes and the colors, in order for us to see something and, and, and, and look appealing for us to eat it, it's another big thing. And I think one of the key problems is also that the testing that it's done to be able to accept this as part of our, you know, as part of our daily intake and our food, it's limited. It's limited. It doesn't capture everything. So we believe that that's one of the key components. We're doing a lot of research specifically in this, in that area, because if we are able to understand that, then we can create preventative measures for food allergies and other disorders.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: I love it. So let's get into Fosse. I want you to. You've been at the helm now as the CEO of Fosse for almost two years, or coming up on two years. I want to talk about this whole entity to explain it to those who may not know about it. And even just geographically, we're here in, in Boston. This is, I believe your headquarters are in Cambridge. But could you give us an overview of Fosse as, as an entity and then, you know, joining the ranks. And, and I really want to talk about the mission of Fosse, and then we'll go from there.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely. Very happy to talk about the Food Allergy science initiative, or Fosse for short.
So Fosse is the leading nonprofit research organization, 100% focus on research. We have funded now over $41 million in research that has led to at least 115 discoveries that are going. You can go to our website and see all the publications documenting the discoveries. And our mission is to transform the lives of people living with food allergies through innovative science. And hopefully the vision with that is to find a cure for food allergies. And so, great mission. We've made great progress.
But more importantly, you know, we are. People ask us, always is, well, how do you work? What is your model? And one of the reasons I'm very excited about what we do is it's a very different model than a standard nonprofit organization where you fund and you stay on the sidelines. We are not a grant maker. We are an active research engine. And the best way to explain it, I think you alluded to this, right? Our headquarters are in Cambridge. But you can think of us, best way to think of us, it's as an innovative research institute without walls.
We're not limited by walls.
So we have created falsi, has created this network, this incredible tight network of the best scientists, the best immunologists, neuroscientists, microbiologists, gastroenterologists, set up a plan of which are the top questions that need to be addressed in order to transform the field. Let's find the best people and let's put them together to collaborate in a very unique fashion.
And not only that, but let's now couple that with the industry experts that have experience in drug discovery and development so that we can take innovative science into differentiated therapies. This network, it's amazing. So we actually, everyone is working in different components of the questions that need to be addressed for food allergies. And about a hundred scientists come together bi weekly basis every two weeks to report this is the data, this is what we're seeing. And so it catalyzes an effect with everyone there with putting their egos before they. Putting their egos outside before they come into the discussion.
It actually creates an acceleration effect that in my mind, I always describe it as. It's when you get to the one plus one is not equal to, but a one plus one can actually get to get you to five model, where now everyone says, okay, we're here, committed egos are outside.
We are all focused on advancing the research and we're collaborating. We're not concerned about sharing information.
And so everyone comes together, everyone uses tools, shares information and, and design the next set of experiments and projects and collaborate. And then on top of that, then the, the people that have experience in drug discovery can actually take the new discoveries that are coming up from there and start really generating new therapeutic candidates. So it's a, it's a way to, I think, supercharge the signs.
And I think the model has proven to work, you know, in a short period of time, 115 discoveries, things that we didn't know before. I'll give you one specific example. I told you about everything about immunology, the immune system attacking the food and all of that. Well, one of the things that the team has discovered that I think is one of the areas that I'm very excited about is that it has discovered that allergies, food allergies, are not a problem only of the immune system, but it's the nervous and the immune system communicating. So direct communication between the gut and the brain that really are responsible for the triggering of food allergies. And so now, if you think about it, if you have now defined a problem in a different way, you can attack it you know, now you open the door to attack the problem and solve it through therapeutic interventions that come through a different principle. How can we intervene? A different principle. So we have now started to create a pipeline. It's a very exciting team, and we're doing a great job, and I'm very excited about what's coming ahead.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: My ear perked up when you talk about bringing together, you know, gastroenterologists that. That track. But you said neuroscientists, so maybe you could just put a fine point on that for. For those. The interaction between, you know, the immune system and your brain. I mean, you explained it, but just to really contextualize that, that. Is this a newer connection or is this something that has been known for.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: For food allergies? It's something new that we have actually spearheaded. And in fact, we started with this.
FOSSE was actually founded especially because of some observations that couldn't be explained only by the immune system.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: Especially people that react immediately, vomit immediately when they experience an allergen. And so one of our founders, our main founder, Dr. Christine Olson, who's a radiation oncologist and MDH, and our scientific founder, Ruslan Mesitov, professor of immunology at Yale, came together and said, wow, that cannot be explained only by the immune system.
And it triggered a lot of the question, oh, well, the brain, the nervous system needs to be involved. I know there's a lot of communication now that people say between the gut and the brain, but there are just so many things that this team is uncovering. And to show that now, you know, an immune food allergy is not only just the immune system reacting, but there's a rapid communication between your brain and your gut.
We tend to go at science and solve science by compartmentalizing it into fields, but our body doesn't work by compartmentalizing into fields. Right. Everything works at the same time. And so, for example, some of the work that our investigators are showing is that the same receptor, the same molecules that are expressed in your immune system, they're also expressed in your nervous system. So that means that the signaling is happening at the same time in your immune system and in your nervous system. And so you cannot crack this nut, right, and try to generate new therapies unless you understand the fundamentals of that science. So that you can understand. Well, I need to think about this from a different perspective.
Is the brain involved? The nervous system is involved. How can then we intervene with this? And so I think that's one of the areas, one of the discoveries that have made Fosse got Fosse to where it is. We actually just very excited. We receive an $11.6 million grant from. From the NIH recently for five years. Up to 11.6 million for five years because of the work that we've been doing to untangle that neuroimmunology, the nervous and the immune system communications in food allergies, because they. They really want to participate and. And collaborate in that. Part of moving that field forward.
[00:29:59] Speaker B: Reminds me of that saying, you know, trust your gut. There's been some research on this that, you know, where are you getting signals of, you know, intuition and confidence from that? Is there a gut brain connection? And of course, there's a whole scientific field on this. But I want to talk about something that, when you hear about Fosse, and I hear your enthusiasm and your optimism, you also said you, you know, you bring the world's best together. And there's something that I'm curious to hear, which is the culture at Fosse. You have to have people who are incredibly confident in what they're doing, they're deeply experienced in what they're doing, and yet at the same time, you need everybody to play well together.
How do you manage the dynamics between, you know, strong scientific personalities? People have deep research, but also this collective, you know, entity, this culture of Fosse that's really driving and is mission focused.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: Great question. And it's a. And it's something. One of the specific areas and specific motivators of why I'm here, because it's fairly unique to see what we see with our scientists being at that high caliber, coming from different areas and being able to work together like that.
It is fairly unique. And it starts with Our scientific founder, Dr. Rusan Mesitov from Yale University, one of the best immunologists in the world. And I tend to think that when people are highly competent, then they don't need to really show off, right? And they. They don't. They don't care so much. It's not about an ego. It's about doing big things. He's just a. One of the. Not only one of the best scientists, one of the nicest persons I've worked with, where it is all about, you know, persistency and making progress to. To change the field rather than just publishing or getting accolades.
And the fact that you have so many scientists coming together every two weeks and everyone is just so focused, it is one thing that really differentiate us. I've actually worked, you know, in the industry, in pharma, Biotech for many years, and I've always had collaborations with big scientists. And unfortunately, sometimes it's the egos get in the way. Right. As a scientist, I think we all include myself at some point, but I think I've learned a little bit.
Egos, it's a probably a common denominator of many scientists because you're driven, you're. Everyone is so driving and trying to tackle big problems and inevitably you start. You get caught into it. This is fairly unique and it's very difficult. And I think it's an intangible that I appreciate. I think there's a tangibles and they're the intangibles. I think one of the intangibles that fasting has been able to do amazing is to put the right people together from the different disciplines. But everyone is so motivated and focused on making a big impact that it is okay to leave the egos outside and collaborate and work together. And that's not very easy to do. So that's why I think that's one of the biggest assets of what Fosse has been able to do over the last few years of building a team that is not only smart, capable, but that it's also willing to leave their egos for a bigger cause and come together and collaborate in such a unique way.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: This may seem like an obvious question, but what are your responsibilities as CEO? And you can talk about what's on the website or on the mission statement, but I'm curious what your perspective is.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Good question. I could get philosophical on how that leads, I think, to how I see the world and how I operate. I think as a CEO, I don't see it very different than as a scientist. I see my world as a CEO very similar to being a scientist, where there's different approaches to be a leader.
And one approach is, I'm right, we gotta do this and this is how we do it. And let's go. Sometimes you need a little bit of that. Okay. But I would say 90% of my time I operate the same way that I operate as a scientist is what are the key questions that we need to be asking?
I don't need to be smarter than anybody else. I just need to ask the right questions so that especially when you're dealing with people that are so capable, it'll be a mistake to assume that you know more than anybody else. But instead of leveraging more what people know, and it's a little bit of guidance and direction and the direction, when you're working with very smart people, around you typically is better received with questions than directions.
And so I think one of my biggest roles is to try to make sure we don't lose sight of what the ultimate goal is. And try to make sure I ask the right questions to the right people all the time. So that not only can can they remember what are we in here for, but that they get stimulated to do not only what they're supposed to, but 10, 20 other things on top of that because they want to get to that place.
And so not always you can operate in that mode, but especially in the area that we're in. And I think, especially I think there's a common denominator of CEOs in the industry, in biotech, pharma, where you have so many capable people, be a mistake not to try to leverage that. Especially scientists are stimulated by, you know, they're inquisitive, they like to answer questions. Right. So if you find a way to ask the right questions, you can steer the chip in the right direction. The second thing is communication. I actually like to say narrative. I work by narrative. And there's a book that I use at some point called Houston, we have a narrative. I use a narrative as a testing tool. Typically, we're going to do something, and I approach everything as an experiment. I'll come back to that.
But I feel that in order for you to be able to integrate all the different angles to the question and the goal, a good way is to always test the narrative. Can I have the full narrative of we are doing this? Because it's going to have this impact, because it's going to integrate with this other component.
And at the end of the day, when I finish a narrative that we take into account everything and we're getting to the goal, one of the easiest thing for CEOs, because it happens to me all the time, you're dealing with so many things that it's easy to get lost in the daily basis. And I feel the narrative is a good way to anchor us into ensuring that whatever decision you're making and any action you're making is connected to the ultimate goal. Let me stop there. And I can go deeper into any. Any of those areas. I don't know if that addresses your question.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: It does, and it leads to more. I was thinking of one concept of leadership through inquiry, which is having a hypothesis, postulating that to your team, and then listening for consensus or divergent thoughts. But your job is to take all of that and then weave it back into this narrative. This is why we're doing what we're doing and probably to test that and say, has anything I've heard today or this week or month change the narrative or is it just shifting the directions? But the narrative is still there. And so for me, what you're saying is you have to have a mental framework of where we're going and the map has to be the same map. Whether you change direction a little bit, you're still going from A to B or from town A to B. And so that's what I'm interpreting here. But you're also being humble to make sure that you're soliciting the best inputs you can because it's a very, very dynamic, fast moving field.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: Absolutely, absolutely, yes. I think approaching leadership, as I would say through experimentation, almost as a scientist, is one of the reasons why I feel that I'm doing the same thing I've been doing for the last 20 something years.
I think if you feel that you're always right and you're the only person with the brain, then you have the answer right.
And typically it's not going to be the right answer.
Typically you're not going to be able to optimize things. So I like to experiment. I'd like to see everything as an experiment.
When you want to do something, you want to do a project.
Sometimes you can take two approaches. Hey, let me build all of this, let me do this and hold and I, and I think it's going to be great, the product is going to be great and then we'll go out and see if it's great. The other approach is no, you know, let's build a hypothesis, let's go experiment, let's go to the customer, to the, to whoever is going to pick it up at the end and all the people that are involved. And let's test the hypothesis. Does it resonate? Does it meet what they're looking for, gather feedback, bring it back and recycle. Okay, I got some feedback. Let's pause the hypothesis. Let's go back again.
And so through that iterative process of experimentation, of hypothesis testing, getting results or feedback, integrating it again, it makes the process may make the day to day a little bit longer, or you may feel you're not making as much progress, but you, at the end of the day you're a lot more effective because when you finish, you have something that it's going to satisfy the needs of the population that you're trying to target.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: And that tension between that cycle and satisfying stakeholders or investors, I think that's part of the reason that Fosse has to be the structure that it is because we've talked about VCs or the publicly traded markets. Everybody has an agenda. And Fosse, I feel, had to take what you're saying, that iterative process to get it right through experimentation and thus can't be subjected to other people's impatient timelines because you're moving as fast as the science is telling you.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: Very good point, Stuart. I think you nailed it. Being in biotech and pharma for some time and seeing more the private sector. One of the reasons why I joined Fossi and I'm very excited about Fosse is because I feel it is the right model when you're trying to make a huge impact, something transformative. One of my passions is to really transform the lives of people through what I call what people call more disease modifying therapies. Something that can actually modify the disease, not just treat the symptoms and not just to create another improvement, marginal improvement to standard of care, but, but to transform the lives of people creating transformative therapies. Disease modifying therapies. That is difficult to do.
And in the typical model, I would say the most standard model in the for profit world, when you have a hypothesis and you want to see if you can create a therapy, sometimes it's challenging. The stress on the system is too, too high to be able to get into a therapeutic that is transformative the way I want it to be. And you have such limited timelines to do it that, that you end up settling for, you know, low hanging fruit. And so when I learned about Fosse and what this incredible team has, has been building, it takes the right elements because now people are highly committed. They know it's going to take a while and they want to really, everyone, all of us wants to swing for the fences the way that I call it, swing for the fences. You know, you want, if you want to change something, it's going to take a little longer, but you are going to increase your probability of success because now you're not just trying to adapt on a, every six months to something different. You have a very clear map, you can execute on it. Everyone is on board and we're going to get there. But you need that support that, that can work in a different time frame, a different commitment.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: So you're coming up on your two year anniversary at the helm here. When is the actual date? Is it, is it in high loss count?
[00:42:42] Speaker A: I think it may be October.
[00:42:45] Speaker B: All right.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: Too many things happen in one day. So I can remember.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: So my real question is if you could go back in and a couple of years, but when you were sort of climbing on board here and you could give advice to that former self and of course predicated on that, you would listen to yourself, what would you tell him to do? Whether it's the same or anything different as CEO, I don't know if I.
[00:43:10] Speaker A: Would tell him to do too many things differently. I think probably I would tell him to try to get up to speed faster. Right. There's always. You could get a lot faster. Transitioning from focus, science focus only. Right where I was before needing to focus just on the science to now transitioning into the science plus everything else. I think it is trying always to find the right balance. Try to go to that narrative that I told you about and rehearse that narrative a bit more in your brain so that you can make sure that you are focusing on what has more impact and don't lose sight of that. I think that's what I would say because I think, yes, it took a little bit of time of learning new skills that I. That I didn't practice before, learning new areas that I didn't practice before, and trying to find which are more important and be able to navigate through those fast would be something that I would recommend. I feel like I'm catching up now. I still have struggled with a little bit of that. When you're trying to do too many things, I feel that as long as you stay focused on what's the ultimate goal and you can bring everyone on board and sometimes what I'll call quiet down the noise, which happens to everyone is too many distractions because everyone wants different things, different days. If you're able to quiet down the noise and just focus on what's really important, to be transformative, I think that that will be one thing that I'll recommend to my younger self.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: I love it. All right, well, that is a perfect place to pause our conversation, but there's so many more areas here. I feel like we just scratched the surface. So I hope you'll come back for a part two in the future. Maybe you could just tell us where do we learn more about Fosse? And then parting words just to give some inspiration to somebody who's stepping into leadership themselves.
[00:45:09] Speaker A: Yes, great question. So you can go to our website Football Science Initiative. We have a monthly seminar series and you can see to my LinkedIn page where we talk about different aspects of the science that centers around food allergy and learn more about food allergies we also have a symposium coming up in September at the Broad Institute where about close to 300 scientists and people from the industry come. I would love to have anyone who's interested come join us. And I think you can see it in our Instagram page, Facebook and LinkedIn.
[00:45:43] Speaker B: So if you could give any advice, maybe one thing to think about for somebody who's maybe leading a team or even stepping into functional leadership or possibly even at the executive level, you know, something that would help them keep their eye on the prize and moving in the right direction.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: So I will assume that that audience will be people that have already the depth in science, but it's actually just more thinking of progressing in their careers. I would say the hard skills get you into the door. Soft skills really get to the promotion. And I think communication strategy, it's really important for you to always be thinking about when you do an experiment. It's easy for scientists. We fell in love with the science. But it's always good to take your scientist hat and put your strategic hat to say, why am I doing this? I know I was told to do this. That's not the answer. The answer should be, is why am I doing this? How does it fit into the strategy of the company?
So be inquisitive not only on the science, but on the strategy business of the company. And don't be afraid to go and ask, why, why are we doing this?
And propose your ideas. I think one of the things that I always pay attention was, is a combination of the science and the strategy. So that's one thing. The second thing is the communication skills. It doesn't matter how good your data is if you cannot communicate it. And that's really important. I actually learned that the hard way with when I was in my PhD. My, my Professor Barbara Imperial at MIT was really good about you need to communicate in your reports the right way. And so I start to pay more attention on my written skills, my writing communication and my verbal communications so that then I could translate whatever I'm doing. This is why it's important. This is why it has an impact. And if I cannot make that connection, then you should be asking, you know, you gotta ask yourself, why am I doing this? Maybe I shouldn't be doing this. So I would say strategy.
Connect the science to the strategy and communications will be two things that I would highly recommend.
[00:47:56] Speaker B: Perfect. Well, we're going to include links to everything in the show notes. Dr. Carlos Bosques, thank you so much for your time and energy. And I'll look forward to connecting with you soon. Thanks for being on the show.
[00:48:06] Speaker A: Thank you, Stuart. It's been a pleasure.
[00:48:08] Speaker B: All righty.
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