Human Genome scientist explains the evolution of viruses, the value of free markets, and why cannabis is an essential service

Kevin McKernan believes there are too many scientists paid from tax money, and that the free market would have handled the Coronavirus crisis much more precisely if the government had not intervened.  His controversial ideas are explained with detail and a level of understanding that is simply amazing.  I felt genuinely uncomfortable as he approached topics that are controversial, but his nuance made the conversation particularly compelling and interesting.

Kevin is the CSO and Founder of Medicinal Genomics and has pioneered the genomics of cannabis and hemp to build a stronger scientific environment (Kannapedia.net) for the study of cannabis based therapeutics and blockchain technologies for tracking and verifying cannabis genetics. Previously, Kevin was the CSO of Courtagen Life Sciences, Inc., and was Vice President and Director of R&D of Life Technologies where he managed the development of Life Technologies next generation SOLiD sequencing technology. Integral to the SOLiD R&D process, Kevin oversaw over 100 research collaborations exploring the new biological frontiers with next generation sequencing and saw particular excitement and traction in human tumor sequencing. Kevin initiated an R&D project to investigate chemFET semiconductor based DNA sequencing and spearheaded a process to acquire the DNA sequencing company Ion Torrent for $350M. These collaborations resulted in hundreds of publications and 7 Journal covers from Science Translational Medicine to Nature.

Kevin was the President and CSO of Agencourt Personal Genomics, a startup company he co-founded in 2005 to invent revolutionary sequencing technologies that dropped the cost of sequencing a human genome from $300M to $3,000; a 100,000-fold improvement in sequencing speed and cost in a few years.  In 2000, Kevin Co-Founded Agencourt Biosciences Corporation and acted as the CSO until it was acquired by Beckman Coulter. Kevin also managed the R&D for the Human Genome Project at Whitehead Institute/MIT resulting in several patents for nucleic acid purification. Kevin holds a B.S. in Biology from Emory University with a focus on cloning and expressing Norepinephrine Transporters.  When not decoding DNA and unraveling the mysteries of cannabis medicine, Kevin enjoy boating, skiing, and gardening.

Kevin can be found on Twitter: @Kevin_McKernan
Vance can be found on Twitter: @Vance Crowe

We spoke about videos on Kevin's YouTube channel:

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@EricRWeinstein
@nntaleb