Sam Bertram is the co-founder and CEO of OnePointOne, the vertical-farming company behind the Willo brand. With his brother John (CTO), Sam is building fully automated indoor farms — powered by AutoStore robotics, AI, and precision LED light — that grow nutrient-dense produce in about 15 days, with no soil and no sunlight. But the vision goes far beyond salad: using plants as living factories to manufacture pharmaceutical-grade molecules (like monoclonal antibodies) at a fraction of today's cost, and eventually "closing the loop" on human nutrition — food grown to your own blood work.

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00:51 – Why vertical farms collapse (Bowery) & how OnePointOne survived

05:49 – The number that started it all: 1.1 billion malnourished

07:30 – Why micronutrient deficiency is the real killer

08:21 – What OnePointOne actually is: "a box that grows plants"

10:03 – Training plants with light & water to boost nutrients

11:00 – Closing the loop: food matched to your body's data

12:28 – The plan for 1,000 farms & the AutoStore partnership

15:46 – Plant biology 101: growing with no soil, no sun

18:11 – The robots — and why humans are still essential

21:27 – Pesticides, washing produce & disease clusters

23:53 – Beet greens for cancer patients & the Whole Foods deal

24:42 – A 13-person company run on AI

25:15 – The 15-day crop & cracking the cost code

27:11 – Biology vs. software: what really makes it work

28:01 – Humanoid robots, ~5 years away

30:27 – Why raise $80M and not $500M

33:56 – What they do to a plant that nature never would

36:28 – Expanding crops: strawberries, cannabis, mushrooms

38:05 – Growing food & materials in space (Elon, text back)

39:38 – Personalized food grown from your blood test

40:24 – Food as medicine & the truth about Western medicine

41:11 – Sam's mystery illness: 8 years without exercise

44:23 – Plants as medicine — who "fed and dosed" the world?

49:32 – Manufacturing pharmaceutical molecules inside plants

50:18 – Replicating $30–40k drugs cheaply (Rituximab, Lecanemab)

54:21 – Why the Middle East may beat the US, RFK Jr & MAHA

55:11 – Genetics, cancer & the healthy 80–90%

57:35 – Taste: beating junk food at its own game

58:27 – Why good food got so expensive (money printing)

59:14 – A world without hunger — how far away?

1:00:24 – Tasting the farm: microgreens, bok choy, mizuna & kale

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I’m Louisa Nicola - clinical neurophysiologist - Alzheimer’s prevention specialist - founder of Neuro Athletics.

My mission is to translate cutting-edge neuroscience into actionable strategies for cognitive longevity, peak performance, and brain disease prevention.

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