We are in Lecnona Medical City.
And where?
Lecnona Medical City.
I don't know where that is.
So it's near the airport, but it's south of the airport.
And really, the whole idea of developing the city
is being developed by a company called Tabi Stock.
And they're really trying to build the city of the future,
including the medical care of the future.
The medical care of the future.
Well, that sounds like the perfect place
to be for your MRI technology.
Yes, exactly.
Did they build it specifically for you guys?
Is that what happened?
You guys are the founders of the city.
I mean, we heard about it, and we're like, oh, it sounds amazing.
And one particularity of how office space as well is
in big letters, it's written, we imagine the future of health.
It's pretty amazing to be in that type of environment.
That's amazing.
Man, I can't wait to dive in and talk about how y'all are
using the MRI system for diagnosing diseases.
This is, I mean, it sounds revolutionary.
So we'll get to that.
Before we do, though, for the visionaries
who are listening in, what are three books that you recommend
or three resources you recommend to help visionaries
along their path?
Well, I was really inspired by the book by Justin Brin,
Epic Life.
One of the books that actually, so I co-founded the company
with my husband, but I kind of struggled
with imposter syndrome for a few years.
And the reason why is because it's really high tech,
scientific based, and I'm an immigration attorney
by background.
So everyone had a PhD, was a scientist,
and it took me a while to understand
what I had to bring as a value.
But when I read this book, I was really inspired.
I did my co-bitex.
I understood that I was really entrepreneurial at heart.
And that's when I'm inspired by The Beautiful Stories.
They're a poor couple, and that really
inspired me to join my husband full time in Imaginistic.
Another book that I read, it was a long time ago,
but The Greet by Angela Dukworth.
It's really about people, how they're inspired,
entrepreneurial.
They're going to go for success, never stop.
So what brings greet to people?
I've read this book a couple of years ago,
but I was already a lawyer entrepreneur a few years ago.
So I guess I'm kind of led by this greet
to succeed, to persevere, and never stop.
And another really beautiful podcast
I want to share as a resource is I Am Driven.
We did the podcast together, Cody and I.
And I Am Driven is based on the test as well,
a personal test that measure your strengths
and other weaknesses, but really helps
you to understand yourself.
I encourage everyone to take the test.
It's a free test, and it really helps you to discover yourself.
And it was really interesting to see
that Cody and I have so different personalities.
In a way, we complement very well each other.
But I think if I remember correctly,
they qualified Cody as a unicorn.
So he was a unicorn, and I was more
like the typical entrepreneur.
But yes, that's definitely a resource I want to share.
And I think Cody has some as well.
Yeah, I don't know if it's for everybody in terms of startup,
subject, but I think it's for everybody in terms
of today's world.
So Life Force by Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis
and Robert Hariri.
That book really helped to give me a perspective
when it came out.
I think I was a little bit more pessimistic about health care
before I read that.
And then The Future Is Faster Than You Think
by Peter Diamandis, too.
I think those two books kind of go together
to help us understand how fast things really are moving.
That's what I would put out there.
That's awesome.
Well, thank you.
Those are fantastic resources.
And given that we have two of you,
it's awesome that we got to kind of double down on that.
And shout out to Justin Breen, who is also on the show.
Really happy to hear that his book had that level of impact
on you, Valerie.
So without further ado, we'll head to the intro,
and then we'll pick back up with your story and your vision
right after the intro.
All right, welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host.
We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs
and guest leaders who are building
fantastic visions out there.
Hey, what's up, Vision Pros?
Welcome in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm your show host, Jackson Calame, founder and CEO
of First Class Business.
And I'm really excited to have Dr. Cody and Valerie Gharagouzloo
on the show today.
Now, I wish at this point in time, I have never been more
embarrassed to not speak French.
I mean, my last name for crying out loud.
We say Callum, but it's actually Calame.
It's a Swiss-French pronunciation.
So I wish I could pronounce their last name better,
but Gharagouzloo.
They are an awesome dynamic duo couple
that have all sorts of accolades and have created
a new style of MRI imaging that can diagnose disease,
detect disease, rather.
And I'm going to let them get into more
of the actual science of that.
I'm going to do my best to honor the amazing technology
that they have and the amazing couple that they are.
Before we bring them on stage, I always
want to give a shout out to individuals
in the form of sponsors that we promote and work with
and really enjoy knowing.
So we'll start with Sean LeChuga of the Wellness Shop 365.
Sean and Julianne are both their health and wellness,
integrative nutrition, coaches and consultants.
And what really struck me about them and their vision
was that they have this 365 wheel of life assessment that
goes deeper than anything I've seen in terms of health care
providers, somebody who might help
you find your optimal health.
They're asking about joy, spirituality, creativity,
your career, obviously your health, your home cooking.
But when somebody is diving as deep as into your education,
your social life, what you're doing to volunteer,
the depth of what they want to build with this wheel of life
and the way they take care of people
and show up for you as an individual,
it really struck me as I got to know them over the last six
or seven months.
It's just been a joy to get to know their family
and see how well they practice this in their own life.
You wouldn't be in bad hands.
You'd be in great hands if you contacted them,
got to know them.
And I heard more about how they might be able to help you
with your health goals.
Then there is Melissa Gray with The Law Spot.
And yes, I had some trepidation about bringing
a lawyer onto the show.
Most lawyers that I know are a little bit too overworked.
They're in extreme demand and their retainers are really high
and they usually have an attitude.
Melissa is a nurturer and she knows that law
doesn't have to be complicated.
She built the lawspot.com in order
to help entrepreneurs and business owners,
specifically small and medium entrepreneurs, bridge the gap,
have legal counsel to represent them without actually being
sucked into the super high retainers
and knowing that the streamlined versions of Crocodoc
or LegalZoom just aren't adequate enough when you're
going to actually need representation at some point
in the future for your brand.
And some people may say that's kind of a woe is me
or doom and gloom approach to business.
But when you've been in business for 13 years
and you've seen the amount of realities that can come up
to come after your brand or to set back your trademarking
or your intellectual property gets patented by Apple,
yep, I've been there.
It's nice to have somebody.
It would be important to have somebody on hand.
You wouldn't be a wise steward if you did not
have somebody on hand.
So I recommend doing your research and interviewing
several individuals for your potential legal counsel.
It's just nice to know.
I would have been happy to know way back in the day about Melissa
because I've never talked to an attorney who's
made me more comfortable and made me feel more like I can
really understand how to protect myself legally.
So I hope that helps at least one of you.
Then there's the water project.
And I won't go an episode without mentioning something
like the water project.
I don't see anything derailing it yet,
but if you know of a cause that you'd
like to see a supporter talk about,
don't hesitate to drop that in the comments
because there's 8 billion people to help in this world.
And by getting the message out that there's
opportunities like this, sometimes we
inspire people to contribute.
I get to walk to my kitchen and get water every single day.
And I never want to take that for granted or realize that
or forget there's millions of people who don't have access
to water like that.
So what's really neat about the water project
is you can select the community that you want to support.
You can see how close it is to being funded.
You can also see what type of project they're building.
And you get to see the outcome.
They will email you when that community has
achieved their outcome.
And to see these children, if you're
watching the podcast today, it looks
like they're celebrating water with even more excitement
than my own kids celebrate Christmas.
And my kids are grateful kids that love Christmas.
So to see these children really appreciate the resource of water
like that and to know that we can have that type of impact
by donating anywhere between $1 and $10 million.
But if you don't have the financial means of donating
to it, my request would be to just pass it forward.
Share the water project with somebody else
because you never know who's going
to have the capacity to help with such matters.
Now, as I get ready to bring them on stage,
I want to do my best to walk through their actual bios
and what they're doing with their company, Imaginostics.
So images, diagnostics, that's at least
where my brain went with this.
Just think about, again, being able to diagnose the body
through or detect diseases through imagery.
This technology, I haven't seen it before.
I haven't heard about it being used.
So Imaginostics is a health tech startup
developing a breakthrough longevity technology
for precision medicine located in Lake Nona Medical City,
Orlando, Florida.
The company's QTEMRI, Q-U-T-E-C-E-M-R-I methodology
provides vascular imaging biomarkers
that can noninvasively say vascular structure and function
in high resolution anywhere in the body,
providing clinicians and scientists new endpoints
for early detection and enhanced characterization
of complex diseases.
Addressing the need for quantitative image biomarkers,
there is a dearth of noninvasive diagnostic tools
for the internal assessment of our body's physiology.
Magnetic resonance imaging, for those who are doctors,
that's the real words for MRI, is
one of the safest, most noninvasive clinical imaging
modalities.
However, it primarily provides clinicians
with only qualitative contrast-based images.
No matter how much processing goes into it,
even with artificial intelligence,
we will always be limited by the qualitative nature
of the current image biomarkers.
Until now, the few quantitative biomarkers for MRI
are not reliable for single patient precision diagnostics.
And there's a desperate need for reliable and accurate
measurements of relevant internal physiology.
That may not be for me or you, but I'm
going to be asking Cody and Valerie, who is this
so important for?
And which types of diseases does this
help us get ahead of and cure?
That way, again, if we have people in our network
who could benefit from this, it might
be a great idea to make sure that this technology succeeds
or get it on their radar so they're ready and aware of what
could help them in their situations.
Dr. Cody Garaguslo is an MRI physicist
that has been inventing and developing imaginostics
proprietary MRI-based quantitative vascular imaging
technology since 2011, running preclinical and clinical
studies together with his wife Valerie.
They created imaginostics to translate this technology
from bench top to bedside.
Cody developed the technology as a postdoctoral fellow
for two years at the Gordon Center for Medical Imaging
at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical
School before founding the company
to translate the technology from bench to bedside.
He invented the imaging modality while pursuing
his PhD in bioengineering and has an extensive background
in imaging and engineering, holding
a master's of science degree in biophotonics
and dual bachelor degrees in mechanical and nuclear
engineering and physics.
He enjoys bike riding, the gym, playing board games
with his family.
And in my opinion, he never sleeps, doing all that.
Then there's Valerie, who's a New York attorney,
her background is in international human rights law
and US immigration law.
She's an advocate for affordable medical care for all.
Valerie's youngest brother grew up with only one kidney
and a rare uncurable disease of the peripheral nervous system
with unknown cause and symptoms, similar to diabetic neuropathy.
Valerie and Cody have been married for 13 years.
They have two beautiful children.
In a role as COO, Valerie's outreaching
to our first pharma clients to offer our services
for accelerating drug development, especially
for novel drugs that improve vascular biology.
She's also reaching out to potential investors and partners
to bring our breakthrough longevity technology to market.
My apologies on the voice challenges today, my friends,
but it is so important to get this message out there
and let people know what's ahead.
So Cody and Valerie, thank you so much for being here
on Vision Pros Live today.
We're honored to have you.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, we appreciate it.
It's good to be here.
Absolutely.
So everybody, the long bio that I just went through
and all the accolades, and you can go to Imaginostics,
of course, you'll be able to access the page,
the landing page, so you'll learn more
about what they're up to.
For now, we're going to dive in as much as possible
into your vision, Cody and Valerie.
So I'll give you the first question,
and that's what's your vision for those
that you serve directly?
You want to start or shall I?
I mean, I can get started.
So really, what we really are after
is really changing medical care.
Right now, you see the doctor when
you are sick to treat your symptoms.
Of course, you need to identify the cause.
But there are a lot of complex diseases that we can detect,
but late in the game.
What we are hoping is really with the development
of how platform technology to be able to detect
diseases like years or even decades in advance,
so people see their doctor for preventative medical treatment.
So really shifting from curative to preventative health care.
That's what we are going after.
Awesome.
And so I'm going to ask this question, these questions
actually, from two different angles.
And you guys can choose who's going
to answer which one.
So one of the questions I'll ask is,
what's the vision for the patients?
The other one question will be, what's
the vision for the doctors or the medical professionals
that are going to be impacted by this technology?
Just got that epiphany.
I'm like, OK, cool.
So I'm going to dive into that with Cody.
Cody, on your side, what's your vision
for the medical professionals that you're serving?
Yeah, so the vision for the clinicians
and medical professionals is really
to provide new tools at their disposal.
So there are some lengthy and complex processes,
for example, for diagnosing dementia, for example,
or cognitive impairment.
And it takes a long time.
You're going to get different scans.
You're going to go through a lot of testing.
It's going to take years.
There are diseases like this where the processes
are rather qualitative.
And so there's just a need for these more quantitative,
for example, full brain assessment of the health
and talk about what part of the brain and how much.
So yeah, just really equipping the clinicians
is sort of the look there.
Awesome.
And we're going to dive into your personal side
of your life a little bit.
You've got 13 years of marriage.
Congratulations to children.
Awesome.
You got a lot of great hobbies as well.
What's your vision for yourself, Valerie?
What do you see for yourself on the horizon?
Sure, I mean, this is a dream of ours.
As long as I remember, when I met Cody,
he wanted to cure cancer.
I'm more about fighting for justice, justice for all.
And I found it really unfair that some people cannot live
the life that they deserve because they're
suffering from disease.
I personally lived it with a brother of mine
who has a rare disease that is incurable.
The doctors are just able to manage the symptoms.
And I wish for everybody to have the best care that is possible,
have the best life that is possible.
So it really is within a deep vision or need for justice.
And that's why I went to law school as well.
I want to offer to everybody the same chance as much as possible.
You did ask what's going to be the impact for patients.
I think if people want, obviously,
to anticipate what could happen to them
if they are at risk of developing a disease,
like they can get an MRI scan where they are in their 20s
or 30s, they can anticipate, go see their doctor,
really try to have a preventative medical treatment
plan.
And you can empower them to have the best
life that they can have with the support that they need.
So that's really what's driving me to work at Imaginistics.
Well said.
Cody, how about yourself?
What's your personal vision?
It can be outside of work.
It can be about work as well.
But we'd love to know what your personal vision is.
My personal vision is like that movie Elysium
with Matt Damon, where they've got that machine,
and then they're all trying to get to it.
And so it's going to scan you.
It's going to find any disease, and then it's going to cure you.
So that's why this technology is really a platform technology.
I mean, if you can look at the blood vessels
and the small vessel health, you can talk about almost any
disease in the body and really detect
these sort of chronic diseases that we
detect quite late but early.
And so that's a part of it.
And that's also why a big part of what we're doing
is building partnerships with companies
that are developing really the next generation of therapeutics,
including cell therapy, which I think
is it's going to be the next step on sort of beyond
the single molecule kind of drugs we're making.
And what they need, actually, it's interesting
because what they need is these measurements or some biomarker
measurements that can show how well it's working so they
can get through the FDA.
And I'm really passionate about that,
and I care a lot about that, especially placental stem cells
because it's an ethical place.
Every birth comes, we got our third one on the way.
And so we're going to say.
Congratulations.
Woo.
And it's a natural, every birth comes with the placenta.
And it's just this, Dr. Bapuriri is the one who discovered,
comes with stem cells, the stem cell factory in there.
And so there's a lot of curative potential with those.
And I think that's beautiful.
That's awesome.
I can see your passion.
I can hear your voice too.
And I look forward to seeing all the things
that you guys are able to accomplish with that
over the decades to come.
Now, there's obstacles we run into as leaders with our visions.
And one of them is our own leadership.
Sometimes it's leadership that we've experienced.
So I'll start with Cody on this one.
Cody, on the darker side of business and growth or life,
what's the worst leadership experience you've ever
had or seen?
Worst leadership experience I had, I guess.
So my PhD was done under, you know,
was called my principal investigator, so my PI.
And I continued to work with him during my postdoctoral
fellowship.
And I invented this technology, really.
He's on board as an inventor as well.
You know, if you contribute 1%, you're there.
But when it came time to make the company, he backed out of it
and wanted me to work for him.
And so he says, you know, I'm going to have all this.
I'm going to have all the equity,
and you'll just be a little worker for me.
That was pretty bad leadership.
That's the wrong way to go.
So we got rid of him, and we fought hard to do it without him.
And now he's out of the picture.
But, you know, I could be you.
Yeah.
Yeah, oh, yeah.
I mean, thank God, actually, that, you know,
that guy's got such an air.
But, you know, I think good leaders
want to see the people that they work with prosper
and try to be fair and equitable with their work
and, you know, for successful, the people
that are working with us are really
going to feel that success too.
I love that.
I've been on both ends of the spectrum
on the equity side of business.
And some businesses, some people,
they don't appreciate the people who are helping them
build their foundation, building the foundations.
And in other cases, the person who starts the foundation
gets undercut and cut out as well.
Right?
I do want to give an extreme honor to Dr. Seth Yates.
He's my business partner at AbleHealth.us.
Most people don't know I'm a co-founder of that company now.
And I have 44% equity in that business.
So when he offered, after we worked together
for a month and a half, and after a month and a half,
he's like, Jack, so I'm like, this is amazing.
I need a business partner.
And he was willing to give up to 50%.
I said, you know, no way, man.
Like, you founded this.
For now, you need to have full control over what we're doing.
And I said, OK, let's do 49%.
But here's what we're going to do.
So we're going to call Matt, who introduced us,
and we're going to offer him 5% because he's
a nutritionist by trade.
He's one of your friends.
And we want him in this long term as well.
Now, if Matt came in and started providing tons of value,
we would up the ante on what his equity stake is.
It's so helpful.
I'm glad you gave the example of this,
because there's so many visionaries out there who
think they have to have the entire pie.
And it's like, what are you doing?
You're strangling your own opportunity to move forward,
give people an incentive and a reason
to help you build the foundation.
That's at least my thought.
That's what I would recommend.
So do you have a worse leadership experience
on your end, Valerie, that you'd like to share?
Well, I worked for a lot of different type of people.
I worked in France, in the Netherlands, in Boston.
I think each time it's like some kind of you
have to adapt to your new environment.
I'm just going to speak for myself as a leader myself.
I had struggled with managing people
in terms of over expecting that they can do everything
I had them to do.
I was more in the context of the law field.
And I realized that sometimes there is some kind of learning
curve from where people start and where you want them at.
And you have to guide them step by step.
Especially with law clerks or paralegals,
you really have to teach them step by step.
Because I'm so independent, and I
like to figure out things by myself.
I have a tendency of thinking that people,
I like that as well.
But I think some people need more guidance on how
to acquire some skills.
But I think, yeah, I worked with different people.
And you have to remember that sometimes there
are some cultural background as well involved,
even if we always speak English.
I worked in an international environment
where everyone comes with his own culture.
So it's always an adaptation, I'd say.
And people have different management style.
So the employer has to figure it out.
It's a relationship.
Absolutely.
And I'm glad you mentioned that.
And with cultures, there are different management styles.
There's different needs.
There's different desires.
And even within cultures, you've got
different styles within different neighborhoods
and within different families.
And that can be extremely hard to understand
how do you show up the right way for every different
personality.
And that's a great country singer, Billy Carrington,
said, people are crazy.
Good song, by the way.
But what we are, the sooner we own that,
I realize we're all different.
I think the easier it becomes to start relating
with more of the people around us.
So well said.
Let's start with you on this one, Valerie.
On the flip side, what's your best leadership experience
look like?
I have some pretty amazing experience.
One of them was when I was at Harvard Immigration and Refugee
Clinic.
It was part of GBLS, Greater Boston Legal Services.
And my two supervisors, John Wilshire Carrier and Nancy
Kelly, they were amazing attorneys.
I think they are recognized as leaders in asylum law,
asylum and refugee law.
They actually helped to build it.
And you know, Cobitan, K-SLEW, it
was pretty amazing to work under their supervision.
And I was just a freshly, I was not even
an attorney in the US yet because I had to pass the bar.
But I was still in law school.
And they really treated me on equal.
They really treated me as an attorney,
recognizing my experience from friends.
And it was really empowering to me
because depending on who you speak to, some people are,
oh, you're not a lawyer yet, or treat you that way.
And they were really encouraging and treating me as equal
and brainstorming with me like legal strategy.
That was one of my best experience.
And that reminded me as well a lot
when I worked at the International Criminal Court
in The Hague because it felt really international,
like international human rights.
So I love that experience a lot.
That's amazing.
Cody, same question for you.
What's the best leadership experience you've had or seen?
Oh, I'm just thinking about that.
I'm constantly surprised.
So I mean, coming from an academic background,
I'm constantly surprised by these different strong academic
people who really give so much and contribute.
I've got so many different mentors,
and I've needed to reach out to different people
for their expertise.
One of my mentors has been like Stephen Greenberg at MGH.
And he was directing this consortium called the Mark
Beeson Consortium, and they've standardized some stuff.
And so one of the things they standardized
is how to do in a clinical setting,
how to do a fairly complicated procedure called
the hypercapnic challenge, where you're breathing in 5%
CO2 gas and 95% air.
You don't know you're doing it, but when you have that mask,
it makes all your blood vessels dilate, and it's this.
And I reached out to Huns and Lew at Johns Hopkins.
And these people, they've developed these methods.
A lot of times, they develop different technologies.
And like giants, we stand on their shoulders,
and they give, and they give, and they give their time.
So there's been a lot of different investigators
in academia, and even in the program directors in the NIH.
I think between the NIH and those institutions,
I've just seen countless really powerful individuals just
giving.
And I could mention quite a few by name, but yeah,
I'm inspired by that.
That's amazing.
One of the principles that I hear you talking about
is how when you make the transition in your life
to surround yourself by a network of great leaders,
you have an exponential receipt of people giving to you,
people helping you develop and learn,
and they usually want you to succeed.
I've seen the same as I've transitioned
to work with people who are successful.
And when I say successful, personally, I
define that by people who have a tremendous amount of wealth
in terms of how they show up for others financially.
Sometimes they're also very wealthy or well off enough,
and they care tremendously.
They're passionate about their purpose in life.
And those people, they want to mentor.
They want to show up.
They want their legacy to continue.
They want somebody to improve upon the formula
that they have.
And so if you're without that right now, if you're a visionary
and you're trying to do this alone
and you don't have support, then I'd highly recommend
starting to find where a community is that could help.
And Division Pros community is a good example.
The I Am Driven podcast community, I imagine,
is another good example.
And making sure that you also stay in touch with Valerie
and Cody, reach out to them and see how can I get involved
in your circles or in what you do.
It's also an opportunity.
So that's one powerful lesson I would share.
Now let's double and triple down.
So if this was the last chance you
had, Cody, to share a powerful lesson with the world,
what can other visionaries learn from your experience?
The last one.
You're the genie and this is our last wish.
I don't know.
I think what's been powerful for me has always been I think,
I mean, I've got my eye on sort of the beginning
and the end game.
Maybe that's just sort of the way I look at it.
So we're all aging.
We all have a journey and it's going to be a finite one.
So my focus has always been sort of like that.
And so the way I live isn't to chase after sort
of like ephemeral things, right?
Like chasing after the wind, wealth, and glory or honestly,
if I could just be kind of the guy behind the scenes making
some things happen that make the impact that I want,
that's what I would do.
So I would say follow your nose.
Follow your heart.
I've seen that people are called to different things.
And if you explore what you're passionate about,
I think you're going to make the biggest impact.
It may not be clear to you how it's going to work out,
what it will look like.
And that started for me like studying physics and engineering.
I just knew that I wanted to help people
and I'm studying that.
I could have stopped and said, oh, maybe I
should become a doctor or a nurse or something.
That would have made sense.
So I think just following your passions,
even if you don't understand where it will lead,
and then just trusting in a higher power
that there's something there for your contribution.
And I think when we contribute, that's
where we find our happiness.
And when we connect to sort of that higher power,
the creator of this universe, that's
when we really see an eternal perspective
beyond this finite one.
That's how I would put it, I guess.
Dude, if I was in a stadium, we'd
have the music going right now.
And I'd be leading the wave of standing ovations
and be like, yeah, yes, he hit it.
Yes, I'm right there with you, man.
I love that.
Following your passions, even if you're told you're crazy,
even if you feel a little bit crazy,
it's so rewarding to continue that process
and realize that, wow, I ended up
finding what makes my life feel so wonderful.
It's super rewarding.
So visionaries, we hope you stay on your track, in other words.
Valerie, how about yourself?
What's your powerful lesson that other visionaries can
learn from your experience?
Sure.
So I'm also led by faith.
I became a Christian when I was in my 17.
I'm not from a religious family, so it was a bit of a discovery.
And I remember being really kind of anxious
about what is God's plan for me.
I used to actually study.
I did a major in math in school.
I wanted to go to medical school.
I tried engineering a little bit.
I switched to law because I felt like it was more
like my calling justice and helping people.
But it's funny that many years later, I'm
kind of putting that aside and joining a medical startup,
trying to have passions, live a better life, a longer life.
So I'll just say I think that God
lead us in mysterious way.
I think be true to yourself.
Go with what inspires you in life.
But as well, I'd say, try the process
that you'll be where you need to be.
And it's kind of a funny quote from an anime.
I think it's the Avada.
It's like the Dragon Prince.
In the Dragon Prince is an anime on Netflix.
And the elf asks the parrot some kind of life lesson.
And the parrot say, you're kind of in a river.
And if you follow your heart and your gut,
you'll end up where you're supposed
to be on that river, right?
And I really like this analogy because you
can make beautiful plans, whatever,
but you might not end up where you thought you will be.
So I think kind of trust that there is a bigger plan
that someone you have in mind.
You just have to get started and follow
what you think is best according to your personality,
to your passion, to your calling.
And things will kind of you will be led in a way.
I feel like I'm led to right now to help
with Imaginastix.
I'm also thinking about starting a podcast
to encourage female leadership.
Because that's really a passion of mine
to encourage other women.
But you just have to get started and then
you'll see where it goes.
Absolutely.
I love that.
And I'm glad you included Faith.
And this is a safe space, Vision Pros, for ideas like that.
It would be really sad if we didn't
talk about the superpowers within that drive conviction,
that drive us to our best opportunities.
And there's so many different directions.
I want to go with all the things that you just
talked about, Valerie.
One of them is I want to make sure to connect you
to some of you both, to some of the people in the network that
may be interested in Imaginastix, that
may be resources as well.
So let's make sure to follow up on that.
But I've got to ask first, in the process of growth,
are you seeking funding?
Are you past that stage of driving the vision forward?
Where is Imaginastix at right now?
So we are seeking funding.
I hope that we've found the funding that we need.
Waiting to hear back.
But until then, until the eggs are hatched,
I'll say we are seeking funding.
Smart.
So if you're interested in investing or being
a part of our mission, now is the time to reach out to us.
True that.
Absolutely.
And I'm glad that you found something.
I'm glad that you all are being wise about looking
for additional opportunities.
I see a lot of people on the job market.
If you're a visionary and you're still at the career stage
and you're applying for jobs, one of the dangerous things
that you can do is stick with the one job offer
and not have multiple offers, where you don't have choices.
And supply and demand is not in your favor
if you haven't done the due diligence.
So I'm glad that you guys see that opportunity.
And so I'll introduce you to some people that come to mind.
Harut from Mark Botix would be somebody
that I'd love for you to meet.
Sam Rain in regards to the SBIR.
I'll introduce you to Melissa from The Lost Spot.
Amazing individual.
And there's a few more along the path.
Bernard Chong is an angel investor that was on the show.
Just follow up with me about these individuals
and we'll get you connected as you see fit.
Now let's talk about Imaginostics,
detecting disease early for a healthier life.
So what types of diseases are you
able to detect with your technology, Dr. Cody?
Yeah, so the publications that we
have are in head injury, looking at blood brain barrier leakage
from very mild head impacts.
Type 2 diabetes, looking at blood brain barrier
leakage in that disease.
We've looked at the single most significant genetic risk
factor for Alzheimer's.
And we've been able to characterize
the whole aging process in genetically modified animals
with APOE4.
And from a 20-year-old human equivalent
in these genetically modified marine models,
we're able to see the disease so early
and then how it changes throughout the process.
And so we have been funded by the National Institute
on Aging and the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation
to do the first controlled biomarker study for Alzheimer's
disease with our technology focusing on early detection
at mild cognitive impairment.
So we're doing that now at the University of Miami
and Friggenwomen Hospital.
There's a ton of applications.
I mean, multiple sclerosis is an important one
that we're looking now with the big pharma partner,
because they need biomarkers for that.
So for example, in multiple sclerosis,
it's an autoimmune disease.
So you think, well, where's the vascular measurements there?
And it's well known that there is an increase
in vascular density there and also lots of blood brain
barrier leakage in the disease.
And so the measurements of structure and leakage
there are quite important, probably also function.
But really any neurodegenerative disease, I mean, heart disease,
I mean, people say, you know, I mean,
we could be like clearly for and insert the blank.
I mean, we could probably even do CAD better
than what CLEARLY does.
So it's a high resolution, functional, structural,
and leakage measurements of the vasculature
throughout the whole body.
So we've even talked to people about Crohn's disease,
looking at leaky gut.
But we can map ischemia and around the heart.
I mean, people are interested in using this technology
for looking at vascular implants.
So for example, companies developing a technology
for aneurysms.
And the difficulty is that they can't image that,
and they need to see it.
And so we have no trouble imaging even up
to stainless steel or other implant materials in the body.
So it's really an incredible technology
for almost any disease.
So those are some that come to mind.
Thank you for talking about some of the diseases.
It helps me think through to the people in my life
that this may apply to.
Valerie, you were going to add to that.
Yeah, I mean, like in a nutshell,
I would say it's a platform technology.
So there are a lot of different medical applications.
And Cody gave a brief overview.
But right now, it would be fundraising for our go
to market to be available at hospitals and clinics.
So how go to market is a 10 times better imaging technique
that is really safe.
So for people who are contradicted to gadolinium,
especially because they have kidney problems.
So for chronic kidney disease patients, stage four and five
specifically.
So after we are able to be on the market
and provide a solution for those patients, then at the same time,
we are pursuing non-dedictive funding through grants
in partnership, especially with pharma,
to expose the different medical applications.
But there are a lot.
I think we are going to discover along the way as we
work with different experts where is the most applicable
or where we make the most sense to pursue
the different applications.
But yeah, it's really like the word that comes to mind
is really like platform because there
are a lot of different applications
because we can image anywhere in the body
and look at the small vessels, join this
in the small vessels.
So we are always looking for experts
that we can collaborate with, write grants with,
and see where we can be the most helpful.
Absolutely.
You mentioned Crohn's disease.
I actually have a nephew with Crohn's disease.
How soon will this technology be available for diagnosis
or is it already?
So the timeline is that within two years,
it will be available in every hospital.
And that's just the black and white vascular images.
So every year, there's 40 million MRI scans.
20 million are with gadolinium.
And at least a million are not undergone
because patients are contraindicated
to gadolinium.
Gadolinium is a toxic heavy metal,
really shouldn't be used, but life-saving medical imaging
procedures.
So our technology is a completely different way
to use an MRI scanner, but it works with the hardware there.
So it really comes as a software,
changes the physics of the data acquisition for new data,
and it works with an iron supplement for contrast.
So our go-to-market is those 10x better vascular images
with the iron supplement for contrast,
especially for people who can't get gadolinium.
But really, we can grow into the whole market,
the whole gadolinium market, and potentially replace it.
So that's sort of the go-to-market.
And it's a software and contrast agent combo
because we're offering the iron supplement.
And so that's what's going on there.
And so that's two years.
It'll be available, kind of replace what we have there,
more safer.
And then after that are all those applications.
So the technology will be there, but from those black and white
images, now the next step will be
to go to a decision support tool for each disease.
And that's a data-driven process.
We'll need to get each different application, data sets for those,
get FDA clearance for each of them.
And that's also why we're pursuing those technologies
in parallel, sort of the next step
after the imaging technology is available to do
the biomarker-driven assessment of disease.
So that's sort of the strategy and approach.
I mean, to be candid, it could take many years.
It kind of depends on the type of funding and support
that we get for each medical application.
So let's say if we found a strong partner
and we're able to do clinical study,
I mean, obviously, it will become sooner available.
So we got a lot of support in the field of Alzheimer's disease.
But each application could take a few years,
depending on the support and the funding.
Because there is the research and then there
is all the process to make it available, so FDA clearance,
FDA approval.
So I mean, it could take a while, depending
on each type of applications.
Absolutely.
And as we know, the sooner the better.
For those who are suffering with these realities,
I've got to ask, as a sports fan,
is this technology also able to help with the CTE diagnosis?
I think so.
100%.
I mean, those guys have blood brain barrier leakage.
They have, so I mean, so that's definitely an application,
mapping the vascular density is going
to change the structure there.
And then the function of those vessel changes, there's leakage.
I mean, that's a clear application.
So all of these things really just
require the funding to do the study.
And it's the first measurements that
work at the individual level.
So some of the things we measure with standard or state
of the art imaging techniques, I mean, you can do it,
but you need these large groups of people to see and effect,
because you just can't see it at the individual level.
The signal is not strong enough.
So if you've got 50 people who have been hit in the head
and 50 who have not, and you have a drug,
and then that's basically what's going on right now.
And so our technology, for the first time,
you can see it at the individual level.
So now it's useful for individualized diagnosis
and detection.
And again, I think the key point is that, well, first of all,
of course, we need the funding in that area
to be able to develop it and get it ready.
But the point is that, yeah, we want
to make those technologies available for detection.
But at the same time, our heart is
to work immediately with drug developers in those spaces
to make therapeutics.
Absolutely.
Well, that's awesome.
I know you guys have to run.
I would ask you questions all day if I could.
I'm really fascinated by what you're up to.
I look forward to seeing the technology come out,
obviously, for many reasons.
I'm humbled and honored that you came on the VisionPros
platform.
Everybody who's listening in right now, in the landing page,
you will see the action steps you
can take to support Dr. Cody and Valerie Garaguslo
in this development of imaginostics.
And if you also are a visionary who has your own vision,
you'd like to apply to be on the show,
on the top right corner, you'll see a button that
says Be Our Guest.
You can apply to be on the show.
We'll talk about your vision.
And as long as it's holistic, as long as you're
striving to be the best leader that you can,
then you'll likely qualify to be able to come
on this show.
We want to see all enlightening, holistic projects come to life.
We're here to help facilitate that.
Cody, Valerie, thank you so much for being here today.
And VisionPros, have an excellent rest of your day.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to VisionPros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun.
We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision.