Meet the experts behind our new research in support of women’s wellness

Today we’re proud to increase our commitment to nourishing the body and mind from the inside out by sharing the results of a first-of-its-kind study on CBD’s potential to support women’s wellness. Our research was led by renowned experts Pelin Thorogood, Radicle Science Co-founder/Executive Chair and Wholistic Research & Education Foundation Cofounder/President and Dr. Jeff Chen MD/MBA, Radicle Science Co-founder/CEO and Founder/former Director of the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative. Get to know both with our interview below!

You’re both passionate about championing equity and diversity in health research and are challenging the status quo to create a movement that supports the democratization of wellness. As self-proclaimed “rebels with a cause,” your mission is inspiring and has the potential to support the wellbeing of future generations. Tell us more about your approach, and why it’s needed?

Pelin Thorogood: I’ve been a big data and analytics executive for nearly 20 years and have personally experienced how a data-driven approach can transform entire industries. I was introduced to CBD and cannabis nearly six years ago due to a family health crisis and was shocked by the lack of human studies on CBD / cannabis safety and efficacy. That’s what initially led me to co-found Wholistic Research and Education Foundation to bring private money and resources to fund this much-needed research. While we’ve powered groundbreaking work at some of the top academic research institutes, federal regulations have thus far prevented us from studying non-prescription CBD products. To be honest, I have a very hard time with this given these CBD products are being used by literally tens of millions of Americans! Always the data girl – the other issue for me is the small size of traditional trials. I realize this is a cost issue, as when adding one participant in a trial costs several tens of thousands, research institutions have to limit their size and have to be very picky about who to allow in. The unfortunate consequence is that we don’t get enough data points from such small trials to power personalized recommendations, limiting their relevance for real-world heterogeneous populations.   As a serial entrepreneur, I just knew there had to be a better way … which is why I joined forces with Jeff to accelerate our original missions when we established the UCLA Cannabis Research Initiative and the Wholistic Research and Education Foundation. We co-founded Radicle Science to drive down the cost and time of research by at least 10x, while still generating rigorous health data. That’s what we call democratizing natural medicine research. We also see our approach as a unique opportunity to bring much needed equity and diversity into clinical trials. The unprecedented scale and reach of our studies finally enables inclusion of diverse ethnicities, genders, age groups, behavioral habits, and pre-existing health conditions to move us closer to personalized medicine for the population at large.

Dr. Jeff Chen: In my medical career, I was always obsessed with finding ways to help my patients arrive at the right treatment for their unique body and condition. I was flabbergasted as to why something like Netflix uses thousands of data points about you to recommend entertainment while doctors may only use one data point about you (i.e. age) when deciding to give you anesthesia and perform an invasive procedure like a colonoscopy! Due to the enormous cost and time of traditional clinical trials, modern healthcare largely doesn’t have the data to unlock personalized, precision medicine.  Which means less effective treatments, more suffering, more side effects, more money, and more time due to the trial-and-error process of finding the right solution for your unique body and condition.  If we achieve our Radicle mission, not only can we unlock accessible, affordable, natural medicines, but we may also arrive at personalized precision usage of these products before modern healthcare arrives there.  Because of our virtual, direct-to-consumer, crowdsourced approach, our studies are so cost and time efficient we can research tremendous numbers of diverse individuals across a variety of products and generate data applicable to the universe of folks who will ultimately be using the products.  And botanical medicines are inherently difficult to patent or monopolize due to their naturally occurring nature. This is precisely why they dont garner much attention or research funding from the pharmaceutical industry.  By dramatically lowering the barrier to clinical trials for these products, we enable validation of botanical products, ushering in a new era of democratized medicines for all future generations.