Lifeina Box is the world's smallest refrigerator, and is changing the way individuals transport temperature sensitive medication like insulin, growth hormone, and more . Clever Tech Digest sat down with Uwe Diegel, creator of Lifeina, to discuss developing technologies that will allow people to push past living beyond what is humanly possible, and into a new resilient synthetic reality.
Uwe Diegel is a specialist in various forms of medical diagnostics such as blood pressure, temperature, asthma and diabetes. Uwe currently lives in Paris, France, where he runs HealthWorks Global.
Read on to learn why Uwe says at least 30 million people will be over 100 years old in the year 2030 (there are only 450,000 people over 100 years old alive today.)
The LifeInA Vision:
A future where users of medication are not hampered by intrinsic limitations dictated by their health condition. A future where users are allowed the freedom to take responsibility for their health by using the correct tools for health management.
As more advanced medicine and technology integrate into human standards of living, do you think we are shackling ourselves to electronics and prescriptions or setting ourselves free?
There will always be people who think that the world is flat, who claim that the moon is made of blue cheese. However, the march of progress is ineluctable. It is hard to imagine a world without Internet, or without electricity. Everything seems impossible until someone else does it, and then it becomes obvious. Every year, thanks to better technology, to better eating habits, to better lifestyle, we add three months of longevity to our life.
The medical industry talks about connected health as if it was a revolutionary invention. Connected health is not an invention, but rather a natural evolution of technology. Connected health has existed for many years. The first pacemaker was implanted in 1958. Pacemakers have been connected for a long time now, and so have defibrillators and insulin pumps. However, in today’s world of fast and cheap marketing, “connected health” have become buzzwords. I was a manufacturer of clinically validated medical devices, connectivity arrived, and I just added this connectivity to material that already existed. It was a natural evolution of technology.
Lifeina: Go Anywhere
Do you believe that Nanotech, Stem Cell 3D Printing, and Robotics could make products like Lifeina completely obsolete in our lifetime?
I always of course hope that no one will ever need to buy my devices. In a perfect world diabetes or multiple sclerosis wouldn’t exist. But that is not yet the case today.
I think that it is Woody Allen who said that Life was a sexually transmitted disease, which always ends in death.
There is currently no known cure for life. Or is there?
Uwe Diegel, Creator of Lifeina
Over the last couple of years new concepts have come to the fore, the idea of trans-humanism, of augmented man, of eternal bodily life, of the 1000-year old man. The idea of defeating death is now not just a concept, but in some people’s minds a near reality. Will we live forever? Do we want to live forever?
Statistically a baby born in 2016 has a 34% chance of becoming a centenarian and, get ready for it, 1.66% chance of living to the ripe old age of 130. We have basically doubled life expectancy in the last 100 years (the global life expectancy in 1900 was 31 years old, and it is today 71 years).
Uwe Diegel, Creator of Lifeina
There are today about 450 000 centenarians on the planet. But in 2030, if we continue ageing at the current rate, there will be 30 million centenarians on the planet. And today, people do not want to live to be 100 years old; they want to Live (i.e. they want to live in good health).
Humankind has been on planet earth for roughly 10000 years. In year zero of our Roman calendar, there were about 200 million people living on planet earth. In the year of my birth, in 1965, worldwide population was at a level of about 3.5 billion people. In my lifetime of 50 years, we have doubled human population to a staggering 7.4 billion people.
IBM built the first “real” computer in 1967. A hugely powerful device that filled an entire room… NASA used two of these computers to send a mission to the moon. Then in 1974, Cray released the first super-computer, a computer so powerful that its performance was measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS). A simple iPhone 6 is 1000 times more powerful than a Cray computer of 1974. Therein lies the next evolution of technology… Today (or in the next few years as smartphones become more ubiquitous), basically 7.4 billion people will have access to a device with the computational power of 1000 super computers of 1974.
Internet only arrived as an integrated part of computers in 1998, but today, if you buy a computer, you do not ask, “Will my computer have internet?” In a few years, technologies such as DNA, nanotechnology, and Big Data, will no longer be a surprise and will be part of our subconscious thought.
The Big Data revolution will drive everything that can be connected to be connected. Whether it is a car, a blood pressure monitor, a purse, a key ring or a toothbrush, if it can generate data it will be connected. This will generate untold amounts of data over the next few years that can be used for epidemiological studies, for better service, for research, and for marketing. We will only optimize our use of Big Data when we start crossing different sets of data to go beyond data analytics and using the data to generate new algorithms and Artificial Intelligence.
Nanorobots are still considered to be a “future” technology. But robotics isn’t. Robotics are already here, both in form and in function. More and more body parts are being replaced. We should be able to replace any body parts in the next 30 years with a robotic prosthesis. Of course these are still rudimentary consolations to the real thing at the moment, but we can foresee a future where in some cases the replacement might be superior to the original, creating true “bionic” men and women.
DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid, sometimes called "the molecule of life," as almost all organisms have their genetic material codified as DNA. One could make the analogy that we have up to now simply deciphered the alphabet of DNA, and that in the next few years we will start writing a new book, the Book of Life. Imagine that in the next 10 or 20 years we will be able to manipulate DNA not only to choose the color of the hair or eyes of our children, but also to eliminate certain diseases before they have time to evolve, to do real predictive health.
Progress in DNA manipulation enables new developments in 3D bioprinting, like 3D printing skin and internal organs from stem cells. Programs are underway to print new livers from stem cells (Israel) or to print brand new hearts (Russia). Today just about any material that can be melted can be printed, and the only material that cannot be melted is wood. Another thing that cannot be melted and printed is intelligence. And there lies the rub… We will eventually defeat the ageing of the body, but we are still a long way off from defeating the ageing of the brain.
With the help of Big Data, artificial intelligence, DNA manipulation, Nanotechnology, Robotics and 3D printing from stem cells, we will certainly push back the boundaries of death, and push average longevity up to 150 years. But is society ready for such a challenge? Most healthcare systems are already bursting at the seams, unable to cope with ageing populations.
Uwe Diegel, Creator of Lifeina
It is important to remember that we are not only working on the man of tomorrow, but also on the society of tomorrow. It is still a bit early to predict the future of man. All we know about the future, is that it will be different.
About LifeInA:
LifeInA is an innovative startup that aims to be a global leader in the development of transport and storage solutions for sensitive medication. Our products are designed to give users the freedom to travel knowing that their medications are kept at exactly the right temperature.
The LifeInA solutions are specially designed to bring added value to the medications they are made for. Strategically located in the CA Le Village incubator in Paris, we have the reputation of always anticipating the needs of our customers with an approach that is based on the total satisfaction of the end-user of the medication.
Our team of experts includes physicians, patients and engineers who are dedicated to finding better solutions for the transport and storage of sensitive medication.
Learn more at www.lifeina.com
Exceeding your expectations for the transport and storage of medications
For Uwe DIEGEL, creator of LifeInA, the company represents a personal investment. "In 2003, my brother almost died following an incident where his medication was accidentally frozen in a hotel. So I started this company because of reasons that are more of a personal nature than just business. LifeInA is for me the ultimate expression of innovation at the service of healthcare. If the LifeInA products are so popular, it is because they are designed by patients, for patients, and because we speak directly with users of the medications to really understand their needs. "
Uwe Diegel, Creator of Lifeina
The LifeInA Mission
LifeInA challenges benchmarks in the thermo-sensitive medication sector. We manufacture and market innovative solutions for the storage and distribution of thermo-sensitive medications.
Contact information
LifeInA SAS
CA Le Village
55 rue La Boetie
75008 PARIS, France
Tel. +33 (0)1 42 66 15 59
contact@lifeina.com
www.lifeina.com