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Session Description: What does the future look like if blockchain is the foundation of the future economy? Join us to explore the culture, economics, and inner dynamics of this burgeoning industry. Who is leading the charge? What are the values and ideologies driving the growth of this technology and how might that impact the nature of the global economy five, ten, twenty years from now? Finally who is using these new decentralized tools? How does a tech-heavy enterprise like blockchain enable the average non-tech consumer to maximize its utility? What are the barriers to mainstream adoption and how can we best bridge them? In a decentralized industry what would it mean to come together? How might we pool resources to build the non-technical infrastructure necessary to meaningfully advance mainstream blockchain adoption?

Diabetes and hepatitis C infection are both prevalent diseases worldwide, and are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Most studies, but not all, have shown that patients with chronic hepatitis C are more prone to develop type 2 diabetes compared to healthy controls, as well as when compared to patients with other liver diseases including hepatitis B. Furthermore, epidemiological studies have revealed that patients with type 2 diabetes may also be at higher risk for worse outcomes of their hepatitis C infection, including reduced rate of sustained virologic response, progression to fibrosis and cirrhosis, and higher risk for development of hepatocellular carcinoma. Moreover, hepatitis C infection and mainly its treatment, interferon α, can trigger the development of type 1 diabetes. In this review we discuss the existing data on this two-way association between diabetes and hepatitis C infection with emphasis on possible mechanisms. It remains to be determined whether the new curative therapies for chronic hepatitis C will improve outcomes in diabetic hepatitis C patients, and conversely whether treatment with Metformin will reduce complications from HCV infection. We propose an algorithm for diabetes screening and follow-up in hepatitis C patients.