Dear DeSci Friend,
It’s been a week since I last ✎ wrote to you. How are you doing? Has anything sparked your interest lately? ✧.*
Marie Curie once said, "In science, we must be interested in things, not in people." It might seem bold to disagree with such a brilliant mind, but science is, and has always been, made by people.
I’m still committed to the ✧Women in DeSci ✧ series, sharing the stories of women who have dedicated their lives to research and innovation.
🖇️ This week, I want to introduce you to Nina Kilbride, a rare-disease mom who became a legal engineer when she saw the system wasn’t working for families like hers. Perhaps her story will spark your interest too. ‧₊˚✩ ₊⊹♡
Hey Nina, looking back, what part of your academic experience do you think shaped you the most?
I have a JD from Wake Forest Law. I did engineering and English in undergrad at UT and Southwestern. This humanities training informs the multidisciplinary pieces of my technical work. Prompt engineering is less of a challenge if you have deposition skills!
What drew you into DeSci over traditional science paths?
I’m a rare-disease (PKU) mom in Research Triangle Park, so I saw the system’s gaps firsthand. As a lawyer for banks and businesses, I noticed clear parallels between clinical-research contract waterfalls and Ethereum’s smart contracts (I discovered both Ethereum and IBM Watson in 2015). I spent years automating those payment structures and merging them with the growing crypto legal-tech stack. To me, DeSci is the highest application of blockchain as legal technology.
Where do you see DeSci making the most impact over the next 5 years?
Rare diseases. We will eliminate the category, replacing it with personalized medicine.
In your view, what is the biggest opportunity DeSci unlocks for researchers?
Creativity and speed of execution. You can have a wild shower thought and ship an MVP by dinner, in my experience. You can prove it, not just socialize it.
How do you think DeSci can better bridge the gap between Web2 scientists and Web3 communities?
Iterate, iterate, iterate. Bridging happens through shared understanding, not indoctrination. Demonstrate possibilities rather than preaching.
And how can the DeSci space better support women researchers, founders, and contributors?
I haven’t yet felt much gender bias in DeSci, but I have in capital markets. As money flows in, bias can creep back. Staying mindful of how new capital reshapes culture and designing transparent governance will help preserve today’s merit-driven ethos.
What kind of partnerships (with governments, universities, labs) do you think DeSci needs to grow?
All of them, provided we apply ethical filters to both deals and contract execution. This is where DAO governance can shine.
What part of the DeSci philosophy resonates with you the most?
Reducing opaque validation silos. Decisions affecting millions, even billions, of people shouldn’t hide behind non-transparent committees when algorithms can make them auditable.
Is there a moment you felt especially proud to be part of the DeSci movement?
When my autonomous agents started handling cross-chain tasks with standard toolkits. It proved that the Web3 community’s interoperability and vision let even solo builders create fast, scalable solutions, without central control
What’s a project (yours or someone else’s) that makes you feel hopeful about the future?
Ginger Science leverages tech to make life better for people like me across the world, while articulating DeSci infrastructure that can be improved for other applications.
Curetopia - as a rare disease mom, I see this as a project that ends rare diseases as a category.
Can you explain why redheads in particular need their own research ecosystem?
Did you know that redheads represent 1-2% of the global population? Medicine, science, and culture know we are different. But before DeSci, there was no way to support our unique needs as a community.
I’m currently building Ginger science, the first ever red head research ecosystem where redheads are no longer excluded from science, but own their data, stories, and impact.
Is there a scientific myth or misconception you wish more people understood correctly?
Tie:
- Redhead stereotypes arise from millennia of observable patterns of genetic mutation/phenotype.
- Compliance is not rocket science. It’s detail-oriented and tedious, but you don’t have to sacrifice your project to it.
If you could collaborate with any scientist, living or dead, who would it be? And why?
Dr. Robert Guthrie, who discovered PKU before clinical-trial bureaucracy existed.
He turned personal observation and a hunch into lifesaving treatment delivered at demographic scale; today’s ROI-driven system might have ignored his insight. It makes me grateful that of all the rare diseases out there, it’s this one I carry.
If you could solve one problem in science overnight, what would it be?
CRISPR intervention for the rare diseases in the existing newborn screening panel. Success there would catalyze broader diagnostic capacity for the panoply of other rare diseases that are not so lucky as to be caught at birth with the screening panel.
Which DeSci concept makes you geek out the most?
AI agents analyzing correlations across diverse knowledge graphs will unlock impactful insight/therapies/cures that make everyone stop asking “Why Desci?
Thank you for reading. We hope this interview sparked ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ something in you. If it did, please feel free to share the spark with others.
🎹 *hopeful music playing in the background*¨*•.¸¸♪
Warmly,
Someone from DSW Team
𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟
◐ Check out our first article in the Women in DeSci series:
"At 8 years old, she dreamed of becoming a genetic engineer."
