Will Little @wclittle Subscribe

Managing Director at Prota Ventures.
I'm a bioengineer-turned-software-developer and venture builder/investor. Learn more about me professionally on LinkedIn, personally here, and check out the podcast I host, Ventures.

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Topic:   Health Science
 Will Little

Oct 13, 2020
Health Science Startups Will's General Newsletter

Wisdom for entrepreneurs, Bio Eats World, and remember to register for this Saturday’s A Night of REST

A new podcast with Troy Henikoff, a new (long) article on how to prepare for bio eating the world, and a reminder to register for A Night of REST.

Will Little

Oct 13, 2020
Health Science

How to prepare for (and participate in) biology eating the world

About a year ago, Vijay Pande over at A16z published Biology is Eating the World: A Manifesto, which echoes Marc Andreessen’s famous thesis that software is eating the world (i.e. that code is being relentlessly applied to all niches of business and industry to provide value). While the era of software is well underway, I agree with Vijay that we’re entering a new era where biology has “shifted from an empirical science to an engineering discipline” and that “we have finally begun using nature’s own machinery—through biological engineering—to design, scale, and transform biology.”
Will Little

Sep 29, 2020
Health Science Startups Keto Will's General Newsletter

From idea to exit in a few years, setting up a mac for web development, and followup from last week's episode on Lipidology

This week I’m honored to have two friends of mine share their story of building and growing a company, getting acquired, and merging in with a larger organization. I also share a screencast for Mac users setting up their computers for web development, and follow up from last's week's episode on lipidology.
Will Little

Sep 22, 2020
Health Science Keto Software Development Ruby on Rails Will's General Newsletter

Lipidology with Dave :: Code with Isaac. Plus, are "mainstream" and "keto" actually getting along?

In this week’s episode of Ventures, Dave Feldman (@DaveKeto) was kind enough to sit down with me and answer a ton of questions. Also, Isaac from South Carolina (14yrs old) sat down with me to walk through setting up his local Windows machine for Ruby on Rails web development.

Will Little

Sep 22, 2020
Health Science Keto Ventures Podcast

Cholesterol, lipidology, ketogenic diets, N=1 experiments, and the future of health technology :: with Dave Feldman

In this episode of Ventures, my guest Dave Feldman (@DaveKeto) and I discuss a variety of topics related to lipids, immunology, ketogenic diets, and the future of health tech. I first came across Dave’s work when I noticed my cholesterol levels (specifically LDL-C) raised significantly when fasting and/or low-carb dieting, and I found that there is a large community of people who have noticed the same phenomenon. Dave has helped pioneer efforts to formulate hypotheses around why this might be the case, and why LDL levels in our blood may be considerably more complex than we’ve been led to believe.

Will Little

Sep 8, 2020
Health Science COVID-19 Startups

An inside look at COVID-19 care responses and innovation efforts within University of Washington Medicine :: an ask for those learning to code :: and a followup post on Reddit in /r/Entrepreneur

I sat down last week with a few folks from UW Medicine and learned about their amazing response to COVID-19. Being on the front-lines of the pandemic in the USA, it is extremely admirable how they organized themselves, formed an innovation group, and opened sourced their efforts to help healthcare communities around the world.
Will Little

Sep 8, 2020
Health Science Startups Ventures Podcast

COVID-19 response and innovation at University of Washington Medicine. Plus, a call-to-action for medical technology entrepreneurs :: with Danica Little, Dimitry Levin, and Dr. Robert Sweet

In this episode of Ventures we look at the response to COVID-19 by teams involved with emergency preparedness and innovation at University of Washington (UW) Medicine in Seattle. We also discuss the need and options available for startups to collaborate with UW Medicine to help - not only with COVID-19 relief - but with general medtech and telehealth innovation to provide better care for patients in a post-COVID-19 world.

Will Little

Sep 1, 2020
Health Science Will's General Newsletter Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship, Nuralink, Reddit, and my health science N=1 experiment this past spring

This week’s episode of Ventures explores entrepreneurial efforts to help the poorest of the poor globally. There is a lot to learn and digest here, and I’m excited to share this important conversation. (Also, a few thoughts on Nuralink, my Reddit post from last week, and my final writeup of the Whoop/AppleWatch/OuraRing N=1 experiment).
Will Little

Sep 1, 2020
Health Science N=1 Experiments

Whoop vs. Oura Ring vs. Apple Watch for Optimizing Sleep and Workout Performance with Continuous Glucose Monitoring and One Meal a Day: Part 2

In the initial post for this series I shared the basic experimental setup and example data output. Here, in the second and final part of this series, I’m going to dive into notable variables and examine the overall data to conclude initial lessons learned from this 30-day experiment. As a quick reminder, during the initial part of the spring 2020 COVID-19 quarantine I decided to wear a Continuous Glucose Monitor while testing the differences between Whoop, Apple Watch, and Oura Ring. I had already been doing daily time-window eating between ~5:30-7:30pm (i.e. One Meal a Day, “OMAD”) for 6-7 months, and my ultimate goal with this N=1 experiment was to figure out how to optimize sleep and workout performance by tweaking food/drink intake and timing.

Will Little

Jul 19, 2020
Health Science Sleep About Will N=1 Experiments

Whoop vs. Oura Ring vs. Apple Watch for Optimizing Sleep and Workout Performance with Continuous Glucose Monitoring and One Meal a Day: Part 1

Wearables are all the rage these days. However, beyond their fancy and comprehensive marketing campaigns, I’m curious - from a scientific perspective - how helpful, reliable, and accurate are these products? I’m skeptical, of course, but the future looks promising. While these current products are far from perfect, they hint at an exciting vision for improving our health.
Will Little

Jul 16, 2020
Health Science Ventures Podcast

Life Sciences Entrepreneurship & Price Transparency in Healthcare with Dr. Jeffrey Roh, Susie Kataoka, and Dr. Tony Little

In this first audio/video episode of Ventures, we discuss with Dr. Jeffrey Roh, Susie Kataoka, and Dr. Tony Little the importance of cost and price transparency in healthcare today. We also discuss the current landscape/opportunity for starting new ventures in the life sciences.
Will Little

May 26, 2020
Health Science COVID-19

COVID-19 Science Logbook (Jan-May, 2020)

This logbook is where I recorded my notes on COVID-19 from January 2020 through May 2020. For future posts on COVID-19 and/or SARS-CoV-2, follow my “COVID-19” topic on my subscribe page.
Will Little

Mar 12, 2020
Health Science COVID-19

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19): Understanding the epidemiology, biochemistry, and cognitive biases regarding the spread of — and our reaction to — SARS-CoV-2

With so much misinformation out there and understandable concern regarding this disease (COVID-19), and the virus that causes it (SARS-CoV-2), the goal of this article is to help provide a scientific foundation to better process information and decide how to act. I’ll introduce the basics of epidemiology, how epidemiologists around the world are considering and responding to COVID-19, what SARS-CoV-2 is exactly and how it spreads, the status of vaccines and antiviral drug developments, and what cognitive biases are at play as we individually and collectively react to this global pandemic.
Will Little

Mar 31, 2018
Health Science

The link between acrylamide, coffee, and cancer: Here’s what scientists know (and don’t know)

A judge in California ruled this week that Starbucks, 7-Eleven, and many other businesses that sell coffee need to warn consumers via food labels about the ingestion of acrylamide. California’s Prop 65 states that businesses selling products that contain one or more of 65 chemicals shown by scientists to cause cancer and/or reproductive disease must give customers a “clear and reasonable” heads up.
Will Little

Dec 14, 2017
Health Science Keto

The Science of Healthy Fats

The world is waking up to the reality that sugar and refined carbohydrates are more to blame for the diseases of western civilization than salt or fats. Still, there remains confusion about the health implications of consuming fat. What does modern research have to say about the effects of saturated fat, omega-3s/6s/9s, and short/medium/long-chain triglycerides? What are nutritionists referring to when they use the term “healthy fats”, and what exactly makes fat healthy versus unhealthy?