AsianGut officially launched today, with a great press release from the University of San Diego!
AsianGut actually started as my MBA major project, partnering up with a surgeon from KK Hospital in Singapore. We wanted to find a way to bring eastern and western approaches to gut health together, leveraging the best of both worlds.
We soon realised that American Gut was at the forefront of western efforts to use DNA sequencing of the gut microbiome to understand exactly what was going on inside us. I loved the citizen science nature of the project, which makes the anonymised data open access so any researcher around the world can work on it for the common good. Open access is a principle I hold very closely.
The launch of AsianGut represents me starting a non-profit distributor of American Gut kits into Singapore initially, and eventually Asia as a whole. There are many logistic, storage and other challenges to overcome, but I’m confident I can scale it up quickly. I’m doing it because I find it an exciting space, and one which can scale to have a really significant impact on humanity. Professionally there’s also a selfish benefit to me, I get the experience of becoming a non-profit director of a health-tech startup.
Now that the project has begun, the focus is on marketing and scaling the volume of samples so we can build the best profile of the multitude of Asian gut microbiomes. This will ensure future researchers can develop treatments and diet plans especially for us. I honestly have no idea what comes once we reach scale and establish strong perspectives on what good gut health even looks like. All I can hope is that we helped, and that we find a further direction that accelerates progress even more. So please sign up for a test today!!
