The HumanWare Project

What does it actually look like inside one of the world's most consequential scientific laboratories? Nobel Prize winner Professor Robert Lefkowitz opens the doors to his lab at Duke University and shows us exactly where the science happens.

In this short tour, Professor Lefkowitz walks through the equipment, the experiments, and the team of scientists and students driving his research forward every day. He also walks past the wall of Nobel Prize winners who gave the Lefkowitz Lecture before going on to win their own, including Jennifer Doudna, who invented CRISPR, and Jim Allison, who created immunotherapy for cancer.

The lab still holds biological samples from experiments conducted 50 years ago, perfectly preserved and still usable today.

◼ A firsthand look at the equipment and techniques used in a Nobel Prize-winning lab
◼ The scientists and students working alongside Professor Lefkowitz right now
◼ The wall of Nobel laureates who passed through this lab before winning their own prize
◼ Why cells frozen 50 years ago can still be used in experiments today
◼ What Professor Lefkowitz believes makes science unique: the things you discover are true forever

0:00 Intro
0:39 Inside the Lab: Where the Experiments Actually Happen
1:09 The Equipment That Makes the Science Possible
2:04 Meet the Team: The Students and Scientists Behind the Research
2:37 The Wall of Nobel Prize Winners Who Passed Through This Lab
3:07 The Freezers That Hold 50 Years of Scientific History
4:00 Why What Is True in Science Today Will Be True in 100 Years

You can follow Professor Lefkowitz here:
◼ Duke University Profile:
https://www.biochem.duke.edu/people/lefkowitz-lab

◼ Book: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Funny-Thing-Happened-Stockholm-Adrenaline-Fueled/dp/1643136380

Professor Robert Lefkowitz is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist whose discovery of G protein-coupled receptors underpins more than 700 of the drugs in use today, including beta blockers, antihistamines, antidepressants and GLP-1 medications like Ozempic. At 83 years young, he still runs his lab at Duke University, exercises an hour every day, and eats entirely plant-based food after quadruple bypass surgery at 51.

In this deeply personal conversation, Professor Lefkowitz takes Méline through the science that changed modern medicine, the role of intuition in research, and the father who gave him the most important piece of advice he ever received and died three weeks later, never knowing what his son would go on to achieve.

He explains:
 ◼ How G protein-coupled receptors work and why they are the foundation of modern pharmacology
 ◼ Why a third of all FDA-approved drugs work through the same system he discovered in the 1970s
 ◼ How GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic actually work and why we are only at the beginning
 ◼ Why intuition is the only thing that keeps a scientist going when experiments fail for years
 ◼ The two things he says are all that really matter in a life: love and work
 ◼ What he hopes to see breakthroughs in before he dies: cancer and dementia
 ◼ The advice his mentor gave him that he still lives by: five year packages, never more

0:00 Intro
0:47 How Winning the Nobel Prize Changed His Name and His Life
1:50 The Discovery That Underpins 700 of Today's Most Used Drugs
4:42 How Receptors Work: The Lock and Key That Runs Your Body
8:05 Why Intuition Is the Only Thing That Keeps a Scientist Going
11:35 The Vietnam War Draft That Accidentally Made Him a Scientist
17:00 Why He Missed the Lab and What That Told Him About Himself
20:35 The Science of GLP-1: How Ozempic and the New Weight Loss Drugs Actually Work
23:15 Gene Therapy and the Future of Editing the Human Body
27:50 The Chemistry vs Medicine Nobel: The Story Behind the Tug of War
33:00 The Thanksgiving Conversation With His Father That Changed Everything
38:30 Why He Still Exercises an Hour a Day at 83 and What He Eats
42:00 His Warning About AI in Medicine and Why You Cannot Trust It Blindly
44:45 The Two Breakthroughs He Is Still Waiting For: Cancer and Dementia
47:00 Love and Work: What a Nobel Laureate Says Actually Makes a Life

 ◼ Duke University Profile:
https://www.lefkowitzlab.org/ 

 ◼ Book: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Stockholm:
 https://www.amazon.com/Funny-Thing-Happened-Way-Stockholm/dp/1324006811

Stacey Gallello is the founder of Gallello Atelier, a couture house built on a radical idea: that the craft of the 1950s couture atelier belongs not just in evening wear and special occasions, but in everyday life. Gallello Atelier is on a mission to bring couture craftsmanship back to the modern wardrobe and keep the art of the couturier, the tailor, and the seamstress alive in the process.

In this episode, Méline speaks with Stacey inside Harrods to talk creativity, identity, and the daily habits that keep her performing at the highest level as both a founder and a mother of two.

She explains:
◼ Why couture belongs in the everyday wardrobe, not just on the red carpet
◼ How maintaining her routine through pregnancy kept her identity and creativity intact
◼ Why intermittent fasting, grass-fed beef, and local farm produce are central to her daily life
◼ How old films are her number one source of creative inspiration
◼ Why spending time with family is the most powerful investment she makes in herself

0:00 Intro
0:09 What Gallello Atelier Stands For and Why Couture Belongs in Everyday Life
0:49 How She Maintains Top Performance as a Founder and a Mother
1:16 Why She Kept Her Full Routine Through Pregnancy and After Birth
2:02 The Diet That Keeps Her Going: Intermittent Fasting and Grass-Fed Beef
2:29 How Old Films Fuel Her Creativity and the One She Recommends Most

🔔 Subscribe to The HumanWare Project so you never miss an episode:
https://www.youtube.com/@thehumanwareproject?sub_confirmation=1

You can follow Stacey and Gallello Atelier here:
◼ Website:
https://www.gallelloatelier.com
◼ Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/gallelloatelier

What if your sense of smell was one of the most powerful and underused tools for human performance? At Hynt, a digital scent company, that is exactly what they are proving.

In this episode, Méline visits the Hynt lab to meet co-founder Emmanuella Maggioni and experience the technology firsthand. Emmanuella and her colleague Fahad Zia are building a system that harnesses the science of scent to help you sleep better, perform better, and feel more in control of your own biology. The device reads your wearable data in real time and releases personalised scent compounds that adapt to your body as you sleep.

Méline also gets access to Hynt's generative scent machine: a technology that can synthesise almost any smell in the world from a simple text description. 
This is the science of smell, and it is only just getting started.

◼ Why scent is one of the most personal and misunderstood senses we have
◼ The difference between scents that relax the nervous system and scents that activate it
◼ Why your scent receptors change every seven days and what that means for your health
◼ The wearable device that releases compounds in real time based on your heart rate
◼ The generative scent machine that can synthesise any smell in the world from a text prompt
◼ How Hynt plans to let you send a smell to someone on the other side of the world

0:00 Intro
0:23 Inside Hynt: What a Digital Scent Company Actually Does
0:55 The Science of Scent and Why It Is More Powerful Than You Think
1:20 Which Scents Relax You and Which Ones Do the Opposite
2:10 The Device That Releases Scent Based on Your Heart Rate
3:23 The Generative Scent Machine: Type Any Smell Into Existence
4:37 Méline Tests It: A Hawaiian Night and an Orange Farm in Marrakesh
6:14 The Future of Scent Communication

🔔 Subscribe to The HumanWare Project so you never miss an episode:
https://www.youtube.com/@thehumanwareproject?sub_confirmation=1

You can follow Hynt here:
◼ Website:
https://hynt.net/
◼ Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/hyntlabs/

Greg Frey Jr is the Executive Chef at Golden Door, one of California's most celebrated wellness retreats, where food is grown on site and every meal is designed to fuel transformation. In this quick-fire 60 seconds, Greg shares the rule that matters most for a long and healthy life, and it has nothing to do with superfoods.

He explains:

◼ Why stress is the single biggest threat to your longevity
◼ The simple plate formula that guarantees the right nutrients every meal
◼ The one zucchini sauce recipe you need to know from his new cookbook

0:00 The Number One Rule for a Healthy Diet Nobody Talks About
0:34 The Healthy Plate Formula Every Meal Should Follow

You can follow Greg here:
◼ Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/gregfreyjr/?hl=en

Méline Liu has sat across from some of the world's leading voices in longevity, neuroscience, and human performance. But what does she actually do herself?

In this candid behind-the-scenes moment, Méline shares the daily habits she never skips, the brain food she swears by, the biohack that surprised her most, and why she launched a print magazine in a world that said print was dead. She also explains what makes The HumanWare Project different, why critical thinking is the most important longevity tool nobody talks about, and what the red rocks of Sedona did to her nervous system.

This is a short, unfiltered look at the person behind the camera and the daily practices she has built from years of being in the room with the world's best.

Shee explains:
◼ The daily habit she never skips to quiet her mind
◼ Why she wears a continuous glucose monitor and what it has taught her
◼ The mushroom powder that gives her mental clarity every morning
◼ The biohack that surprised her most: brain training and neural circuit work
◼ Why she made a print magazine and what happened when she did

0:00 Intro
0:09 What Makes The HumanWare Project Different
0:23 The One Thing She Never Skips Every Day
0:38 Why Critical Thinking Is a Longevity Tool
0:41 The Weirdest Longevity Tip She Has Tried
0:51 Her Favourite Brain Food and Why She Drinks Mushroom Powder
1:04 The Device on Her Arm and What It Tells Her About Her Body
1:21 Why She Made a Print Magazine in a Digital World
2:00 The Biohack That Surprised Her Most: Brain Training
2:26 The Book That Changed How She Thinks
2:51 Her Favourite Place She Has Filmed So Far
3:09 The Creative Process Behind Every HumanWare Episode

🔔 Subscribe to The HumanWare Project so you never miss an episode:
https://www.youtube.com/@thehumanwareproject?sub_confirmation=1

Tilak Mandadi spent years at Disney building some of the most ambitious guest experiences in the world, from Shanghai Disneyland to Star Wars Land. Now he is applying that same consumer-first thinking to one of the most complex and broken systems on the planet: American healthcare.
Tilak is the Chief Digital and Technology Officer at CVS Health, one of the largest healthcare companies in the world, touching the lives of 185 million Americans every year. He is the architect of Health 100, CVS's AI-powered platform launching in 2026 that aims to give every American a personal AI health agent, proactive care, and full visibility of their own health records in one place.
He explains:

◼ The five reasons American healthcare is fundamentally broken and why consumers give up
◼ Why the same drug can cost 6 to 10 times more in America than in Europe or Asia
◼ How AI is the leapfrog moment for healthcare the same way cellular was for the developing world
◼ The Health 100 platform and how it will diagnose, prescribe, and deliver medication before you finish the conversation
◼ Why pharmacists are the second most trusted healthcare providers in America
◼ The leadership lesson from Disney that changed how he thinks about people

0:00 Intro
0:52 What Disney and CVS Have in Common
1:44 The Original Story of CVS 
3:53 The Five Things Broken in American Healthcare Right Now
10:22 From Disney to CVS: The Similarities and the Differences
12:01 Why the Same Drug Costs 10 Times More in America Than Europe
13:41 AI Is the Cellular Moment for Healthcare
16:15 Inside Health100: CVS's AI Platform Launching in 2026
21:01 How Health100 Handles a Diagnosis Before You See a Doctor
24:00 The Secret to His Success and the Principles He Lives By
25:53 The Disney Mentor Who Changed How He Leads
28:23 The CVS Culture: If You Do Not Care, Do Not Be in Healthcare
29:12 How to Engage in Your Own Health Starting Today

32:10 The Wearables and Simple Tests Everyone Should Be Using Right Now
🔔 Subscribe to The HumanWare Project so you never miss an episode:
https://www.youtube.com/@thehumanwareproject?sub_confirmation=1

You can follow Tilak here:
◼ LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tilakmandadi/

Golden Door has been transforming the lives of its guests for 75 years. Tucked away in the hills of Southern California, it is a place built around a single belief: that true wellbeing comes from movement as well as stillness, and that carving out space for yourself is not a luxury, it is a necessity.

In this episode, Méline visits one of the world's most respected wellness retreats to understand what makes it work. She sits down with General Manager and COO Kathy Van Ness to explore the philosophy behind a place built around the belief that peace is the foundation of longevity. She walks the on-site gardens with Executive Chef Greg Fry Jr to understand why food grown in living soil tastes and heals differently. And she experiences a sound bath with practitioner Kumiko Katherine, who explains how shifting your brain from beta to alpha wave can reset the nervous system in minutes.

This is not a video about luxury. It is about what it actually takes to slow down in a world that rewards speed, and why the most powerful thing you can do for your health might simply be to pause.

They explain:

◼ Why being peaceful is the single most important factor for longevity
◼ How Golden Door designs every detail of the week to create genuine transformation
◼ The reason food grown on-site heals differently from supermarket produce
◼ What a sound bath actually does to your brain and why it works
◼ The two things you can do at home tomorrow that cost nothing

0:00 Intro
1:01 Inside Golden Door: The Philosophy Behind the Place
1:19 75 Years of Transformation: How It All Started
4:48 Why Being Peaceful Is the Most Important Thing for Longevity
5:02 Inside the Gardens: Why Soil Health Is the Secret to Nutrition
6:18 The Diet of Yeses: How Golden Door Approaches Food
7:52 Sound Bath: What It Does to Your Brain and Why It Works
9:11 How to Reset Your Mind When You Cannot Put the Phone Down


◼ Visit Golden Door:
https://www.goldendoor.com

◼ Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/thegoldendoor

Martha Soffer has been quietly transforming the health of some of the world's most recognisable people from a small room beneath her house in Santa Monica. Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, and Kourtney Kardashian have all found their way to her door. Most of them came because nothing else was working.

Now Martha is the founder of Surya Spa and one of the world's leading Ayurvedic practitioners. She has spent decades studying the ancient system that Western medicine is only beginning to understand: how your body type could determine what you should eat, why the change of seasons is the most dangerous time for your health, and how a 5,000-year-old detox process can lower cholesterol, restore fertility, and reset the nervous system without a single prescription.

She explains:
◼ What panchakarma is and why celebrities fly from around the world to experience it
◼ How Kourtney Kardashian got pregnant after 10 days of Ayurvedic treatment
◼ The three body types and exactly which foods are slowly making you worse
◼ Why coffee is draining your adrenals and how to come off it without the headaches
◼ The simple morning routine that costs nothing and changes everything
◼ How to eat your way through menopause without hormones or medication

0:00 Intro
0:51 What Ayurveda Actually Is and Why Most People Get It Wrong
1:19 Vastu, Music and Astrology: The Hidden Branches of Ayurveda
5:26 The Three Body Types and What They Mean for Your Health
9:49 How to Read Your Own Body Type Every Single Morning
12:26 What Panchakarma Is and Why You Should Do It Every Season
14:11 The Magic of Ghee: How Clarified Butter Pulls Toxins From Your Body
16:13 The Full Panchakarma Experience: What Actually Happens
23:51 How Kourtney Kardashian Got Pregnant After 10 Days of Treatment
30:08 The Daily Morning Routine Ayurveda Recommends for Everyone
35:26 Why the Foods You Combine Matter as Much as the Foods You Eat
43:14 How to Come Off Coffee Without the Headaches
43:35 Menopause, Hormones and the Ancient Solution Nobody Talks About
49:17 What to Give Your Body Instead of Supplements
49:25 The One Thing Martha Recommends Everyone Does Every Day

**This content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any health or lifestyle changes.**


🔔 Subscribe to The HumanWare Project so you never miss an episode:
https://www.youtube.com/@HumanWareProject?sub_confirmation=1

You can follow Martha here:
Website: https://www.suryaspa.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suryabymartha/?hl=en

Emad Mostaque puts his personal probability of human extinction from AI at 50%. A coin toss. And yet he believes this is the most exciting time in human history to be alive.
Emad is the founder of Stability AI, the creator of Stable Diffusion with over 300 million downloads, and now the architect of a sovereign AI stack being built to give every person on earth ownership of their own intelligence. He left a billion-dollar company because he believed someone had to build AI that works for people, not corporations, and that person had to be him.

He explains:
◼ Why he puts the probability of human extinction from AI at 50%
◼ How he runs 200 to 300 AI agents simultaneously every single day
◼ The open source sovereign AI stack he is releasing for free
◼ Why cognitive colonialism is the most dangerous thing nobody is talking about
◼ The son diagnosed with autism who changed the entire direction of his life


0:36 Why Every Child on Earth Deserves a 120 IQ AI
1:00 The 50% Chance AI Wipes Out Humanity
1:52 How Much Control Should We Give AI and Where Does It End
2:30 The Individual Strategy for Thriving in an AI World
3:06 How He Runs 200 AI Agents Simultaneously Right Now
3:47 What Happens When Robots Start Building More Robots
5:26 The Open Source Medical AI Being Released for Free
6:40 How to Start Using AI Every Day Even If You Know Nothing
7:31 AI Versus Human Connection Where Is the Line
8:09 The Human Skills That Will Matter Most in the Next Decade
9:09 Will the Next Generation Fall in Love With AI
10:10 How America China and Japan See AI Completely Differently
11:29 The Son Diagnosed With Autism Who Changed Everything
13:27 Why He Walked Away From a Billion Dollar Company
19:50 The Daily Habits Behind His Thinking and His Work
21:59 How to Find What You Are Actually Here to Do
23:35 The Cornerstone Moment That Made Him Who He Is Today

🔔 Subscribe to The HumanWare Project so you never miss an episode:
https://www.youtube.com/@HumanWareProject?sub_confirmation=1

You can follow Emad here:
◼ Website: https://ii.inc/
◼ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emostaque
◼ Substack: https://intelligentinternet.substack.com