Ride the GLP-1 Subway

September 30, 2026 · Biotech, AI

I made the GLP-1 Subway, a scroll-through explainer of GLP-1s to help people explore how these drugs work. For people who are already familiar with GLP-1s, this resource can be shared to help explain them to others like patients, family members, or new hires. It’s harder to describe than to experience, so climb aboard, ideally with sound on, and take a ride (about 5-10 minutes).

There are seven stops, starting with the triggered release of GLP-1 at L-Cell Junction and moving through Islet Plaza (the pancreas) and Hypothalamus Heights before arriving at the Outer Boroughs (other organ effects). The subway ride relies in part on the data gathering that I do for the GLP-1 Field Guides, with material only from authoritative sources, listed as part of the resource.

I built it as an interactive explainer because I saw many sources on the web with standard explanations and with illustrations showing arrows coming from GLP-1 and pointing to many organs. These didn’t feel particularly memorable or helpful in understanding the actions and side effects. I have a background of creating interactive material to explain medical concepts and wanted to see if I could create something useful and engaging, similar to what I did when I founded and led HMX. I started prototyping the idea in February 2026 and picked it up again in September 2026 after pausing on it for several months.

On top of my own writing and research, I used many different AI tools in making it, including:

  • Gemini Pro, Claude Opus, and ChatGPT Pro models as a council of judges to rate and discuss ideas for visuals on the original Field Guide pages (which formed the basis of some of the subway visuals)
  • GPT Image (earlier versions) and Nano Banana 2, both orchestrated via a custom Claude Code skill I wrote, with my own sketches as the base, for the Field Guide visuals that were also used for this piece
  • Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS for the conductor’s voice
  • Suno for the song
  • Claude Code to build the site and Codex for code review

Check it out and please let me know any feedback.