Q&A

Gil Bashe: You called Converge\OIST the “very first gathering.” Why did Okinawa feel like the right birthplace?

Yasushi Yamamoto: Yes, this is the very first gathering, and we named it Converge\OIST because I’m a big fan of ‘OIST’—the context of the birth, this location, these people. It was the right place and people, a great gathering, and a pleasure to meet old friends in such a beautiful, inspiring place.

Gil Bashe: Your career bridges Tokyo boardrooms and Jerusalem start-ups. Where did your obsession with “convergence” begin?

Yasushi Yamamoto: Innovation cannot be done in an isolated form; it should be done in collaboration with various fields. Professionals with beautiful résumés in Tokyo surround me, but many lack a broader vision. They are so good at something particular, yet it’s a pity they’re busy in silos. I saw the lack of collaboration and started my business, raising money from Japanese corporations for Israeli start-ups. That contrast—dinosaurs with big systems but little ‘challenging spirit’ versus entrepreneurs who ‘run and fix’—motivated me to build synergy between powerful pieces.

Gil Bashe: Modern medicine seems to multiply silos every year. How do you see convergence breaking that pattern?

Yasushi Yamamoto: Medicine has become hyper-specialized. We have gastroenterologists who only look at the upper esophagus or the colon, cardiologists in electrophysiology, and neurologists focused on one nerve pathway. They perfect an art, but they have blinders. Convergence is breaking down those walls.

Gil Bashe: Inviting violinists and AI ethicists to the same podium can feel radical. How did people react when you pitched this mix?

Yasushi Yamamoto: People would never believe me if I hadn’t done serious work in the previous decade. Thanks to that track record, we built trust. Gathering in Okinawa sounded out of context for many professionals, but it wasn’t curiosity but trust that made them come.

Gil Bashe: Every July, you disappear into Kyoto’s 1,200-year-old Gion festival to play the traditional Japanese flute. What does a month of music teach a CEO?

Yasushi Yamamoto: Back home, I’m participating and serving. When I set up my company, I realized it would never be greater than this festival. The experience makes me humble. I received a baton from previous generations and must pass it on to the next. After that month, I ask, ‘Two generations later, how will young people judge the work I’m doing now?’

Gil Bashe: You’ve spoken of building on three “wheels”: science, art, and philosophy. Where is Corundum on that journey?

Yasushi Yamamoto: We started in hardcore science and investment, then gradually expanded to art—like Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist in one person. In the coming three to five years, I will put the vehicle of philosophy on top. Combining great minds and spirit, we can create something AI alone cannot deliver.

Gil Bashe: What tangible outcomes do you want from Converge?

Yasushi Yamamoto: First, I want to support OIST, an institution I love. We held the first event there; followed by South by Southwest London. I want more gatherings in multiple locations, bringing talented people with good hearts.

Gil Bashe: You’ve set up subsidiaries for neuroscience, virtual mixed human-data AI, and the microbiome. Why those intersections?

Yasushi Yamamoto: Think of the gut–brain axis. Discovery comes from interaction: AI power, system biology, and the microbiome. Add the element of art to inspire other curious, intelligent people, and the community expands.

Gil Bashe: Food as medicine used to be folk wisdom; you’re turning it into data science. How?

Yasushi Yamamoto: We invested in a project from the Weizmann Institute—the deepest phenotype cohort, hundreds of people over 20 years with genes, metabolites, behavior, nutrition. We link ancient wisdom to ultra-modern science by layering AI on that dataset. We are converging the past, the future, and current ways of life.

Gil Bashe: Philosophy sounds noble, but ventures need cash. How do you square capital with conscience?

Yasushi Yamamoto: I strongly believe in setting vision on a solid philosophical idea, but also in the power of capital. Our job is to propose a hypothesis, bring capital, deploy people, and prove the hypothesis with action. So, we’re raising our next venture fund while creating the Corundum Convergence Institute, a U.S. 501(c)(3), as an alternative financing model to advance science.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Yamamoto-san reframes the entrepreneur’s impossible triangle—mission, money, and meaning—into an orchestral score. Science provides the bass line, art supplies melody, philosophy sets tempo, and well-deployed capital funds the concert hall. As Converge expands from Okinawa to London and beyond, its founder is betting that harmony, not hierarchy, will unlock the next era of precision health.

The takeaway is disarmingly simple for the rest of us: when great minds tune their instruments to work in harmony, the walls separating our disciplines start to fall—and patients everywhere will hear the music of life-sustaining innovation.

According to Gil Granot Mayer, Executive Vice President, Technology Development & Innovation at OIST:

“In just two days, we managed to connect people from different disciplines and geographies, immersing them in the OIST spirit and Okinawa’s culture. From understanding the value of the long tail to different approaches to improving life through the Human Phenotype Project, or the understanding of a new aging mechanism associated with cell membrane damage. I hope that these new connections and cutting-edge talks will spark new collaborations and great results.”

The post Blending Renaissance Thinking and Collaborative Power to Address Global Health Challenges appeared first on Medika Life.

An international team led by the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology-Hans Knöll Institute (Germany) discovered that the human microbiome could indicate the risk of developing nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

Today, we quickly look at the microbiome before turning to the new study results.

The microbiome

If you want a quick primer on the human microbiome, please check out this short audio by scientist Julie Segre, Ph.D.:MicrobiomeMicrobiome. The microbiome is the collection of all microorganisms, bacteria, fungi and viruses. Well, we used to think…www.genome.gov

In summary, your gut microbiome is all the microbes in your intestines, which act as another organ.

Altogether, these microbes may weigh as much as five pounds. They function as an extra organ in your body and play a huge role in your health.

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.”

— Stephen Hawking

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Alternative names for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease include fatty liver, steatosis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, and NASH.

Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is an umbrella term for various liver conditions affecting people who drink little to no alcohol. As the name implies, the main characteristic of NAFLD is too much fat stored in liver cells.

NAFLD affects up to 25 percent of the global population. For some individuals, undetected non-alcoholic fatty liver disease can lead to liver scarring, cancer, or failure.

Symptoms of advanced scarring (cirrhosis) may include:

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease typically causes no symptoms. If symptoms occur, they may include general fatigue or discomfort in the upper right abdomen.

Some individuals with NAFLD develop nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), an aggressive form of fatty liver disease. With NASH, liver inflammation may progress to advanced scarring (cirrhosis) and liver failure. This damage is similar to the damage caused by heavy alcohol use.

Symptoms may include

• Abdominal swelling (ascites)
• Enlarged blood vessels just beneath the skin’s surface
• Enlarged spleen
• Red palms
• Yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice)

Risk factors for non-alcoholic liver disease

NAFLD results from more than normal fat deposits in the liver. Experts don’t know why some people build up fat in the liver while others do not.

Things that may put you at risk include any of the following:

• Being overweight or obese. The more overweight you are, the higher the risk.
• Pre-diabetes (insulin resistance).
• Type 2 diabetes.
• High cholesterol or high triglycerides.
• High blood pressure.

Other risk factors include rapid weight loss and poor diet, gastric bypass surgery, bowel disease, and certain medicines, such as calcium channel blockers and some cancer drugs. NAFLD also occurs in individuals with no known risk factors.

Gut microbiome and fatty liver disease prediction

Let’s look at how researchers developed a model to predict a disease course based on the gut’s microbial composition.

Increasing evidence suggests an interplay between the gut microbiome and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The role of the microbiome in the early detection of the condition remains unclear.

In this context, scientists evaluated 1,200 individuals in a community-based cohort. At the study start, no subject had liver disease. The researchers analyzed blood and stool samples.

The researchers followed the subjects for 4.6 years. When re-examined, 90 of the subjects had developed nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. They compared the samples of the affected individuals with a control group of 90 individuals who did not have NAFLD at baseline or the follow-up visit.

After finding subtle differences in the samples from four years prior, the group developed a microbiome-based model to predict NAFLD with 80 percent accuracy.

Machine learning to predict fatty liver disease

The research team created a machine learning model — a computer model trained to recognize specific patterns in a dataset. The model can then use these patterns to analyze new datasets and predict nonalcoholic fatty liver disease for these researchers. The complex process spanned over three years. Voila, a successful tool for predicting nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

The researchers validated their results using patient data from Europe and the United States. Next, they aim to conduct the study internationally and use artificial intelligence to integrate even larger data sets into the study.

My take: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease

Given that nonalcoholic fatty liver is irreversible (and sometimes leads to liver cancer), early identification is helpful to counteract the condition’s natural history.

NAFLD is a largely silent disease, so kudos to the brilliant researchers for opening the door to early detection. A study author offers that microbiome-based diagnostics will reach clinical practice in the next ten years.

For now, you may reduce your risk of developing non-alcoholic fatty liver disease with these strategies:

• Maintain a healthy weight.
• Eat a healthy diet.
• Exercise regularly.
• Limit alcohol consumption.
• Use medicines properly.

Thank you for joining me.

The post Artificial Intelligence, Microbiome, and Predicting Liver Disease appeared first on Medika Life.