Telocyte Newsletter, Q3 2023: Known for Making People Well

You can either do the work or get the credit.
You can never do both.
Attributed to a CIA undercover agent I knew.

In science and medicine, as in so many things, those who glory in the limelight are seldom those who did the work. Whether the limelight consists of global prizes, financial rewards, university tenure, or viral TED talks, neither limelight, fame, nor high social media scores are reliable indicators of competence. Nor, for that matter do any of these predict the long-term value of improving human lives. Influencers seldom save lives.

Moreover, those who are famous today are often forgotten tomorrow. When Lincoln gave his Gettysburg address in 1863, he was considered the second-string speaker. Yet now, a century and a half later, no one can recall the name of the Harvard President who was billed as the more important orator. Many can recite Lincoln’s two-minute address, but no one can recite the two-hour monolog that preceded it. Thus does time make fools of us all.

At Telocyte, we have focused (and will continue to focus) on getting the work done rather than on marketing, publications, or talks. Although I have chaired conferences and occasionally give opening keynote addresses, we choose those venues for their credibility, not for their publicity. Over the past several years, Telocyte has sought investment from almost five hundred potential sources, with an overall success rate of about 0.6% of those potential investors, yet those handful of investors who committed to helping Telocyte share our view of what can be done to cure disease. Those investors are more interested in clinical results than in hyped claims, more interested in saving lives than in social media marketing, more interested in FDA trial optimization than in search engine optimization.

Every month, every week, and almost every day, we read media articles touting alleged cures for Alzheimer’s disease, articles about drugs that are supposed to cure age-related diseases, and claims for effective longevity treatments. Daily, we receive offers (for a substantial fee) to optimize Telocyte’s corporate website, to increase Telocyte’s social media presence, or to produce videos to increase Telocyte’s global visibility. There are also dozens of invitations every week to speak at conferences, but for most of these conferences, the outcome of speaking is not an increase in the number of people we could cure, but an increase in the contacts acquired on Facebook or LinkedIn. Our focus remains clinical intervention, not social presence. As we move toward animal studies and human trials, we will avoid sweeping claims, increasing the SEO of our website, producing slick media features, or speaking when the only value is to be heard. We prefer results over words.

At Telocyte, we will continue to focus on one thing only: improving lives. It doesn’t mean improving media presence, it means improving our ability to cure disease. It doesn’t mean producing an effective but expensive therapy, it means producing an effective therapy that people can afford. It doesn’t mean giving talks, it means giving hope.

We are less concerned about getting credit than we are about getting our work done. Some want to become well known, we want to become known for making people well.