Podcasts about IGEM

David Lloyd David Lloyd is the CEO and Co-Founder of FREDsense Technologies, a pioneer inbiotechnology-driven water quality solutions. An alumnus of the University of Calgary,David’s passion for synthetic biology was solidified through his award-winninginvolvement in the iGEM (international Genetically Engineered Machines) competition,where he honed his skills in biosensor innovation as a competitor, judge and committeemember.…More

David Lloyd David Lloyd is the CEO and Co-Founder of FREDsense Technologies, a pioneer inbiotechnology-driven water quality solutions. An alumnus of the University of Calgary,David’s passion for synthetic biology was solidified through his award-winninginvolvement in the iGEM (international Genetically Engineered Machines) competition,where he honed his skills in biosensor innovation as a competitor, judge and committeemember.…More

In this episode of Life-Changing Science, we sit down with Nicolas Rojas Taborda​, a senior at Revere High School. Nico's interests shifted dramatically thanks to his involvement in the BioBuilder Apprenticeship Challenge. Nico describes his discovery of synthetic biology and his team's project idea, the K Detective, an innovative at-home kit for cavity detection. This project not only sharpened his technical prowess with tools like PCR and gel electrophoresis but also positioned him to succeed in his Boston University STEM pathway internship building logic gates for CAR-T cells, and as a leader of his high school's iGEM team. Nico shares his future aspirations in the realm of synthetic biology and education. Considering roles as a mentor or teacher with BioBuilder, he reflects on the fulfilling nature of educational roles. Moreover, he describes the Christian A. Herter Memorial Scholarship application process, sharing tips on requesting a standout letter of recommendation and defining a clear career vision. This episode wraps up with his process investigating potential college majors and his dreams to someday launch a biotech company.  Nico emphasizes the foundational impact BioBuilder has had on his journey. This episode is not just an exploration of one student's evolution but a testament to the life-changing possibilities of early scientific engagement.Learn more about BioBuilder's programs for students, educators, and industry professionals here

When I think of digital biology, I think of Patrick Hsu—he's the prototype, a rarified talent in both life and computer science, who recently led the team that discovered bridge RNAs, what may be considered CRISPR 3.0 for genome editing, and is building new generative A.I. models for life science. You might call them LLLMs-large language of life models. He is Co-Founder and a Core Investigator of the Arc Institute and Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and Deb Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.Above is a brief snippet of our conversation. Full videos of all Ground Truths podcasts can be seen on YouTube here. The audios are also available on Apple and Spotify.Here's the transcript with links to the audio and external links to relevant papers and things we discussed.Eric Topol (00:06):Well hello, it's Eric Topol with Ground Truths and I'm really delighted to have with me today Patrick Hsu. Patrick is a co-founder and core investigator at the Arc Institute and he is also on the faculty at the University of California Berkeley. And he has been lighting things up in the world of genome editing and AI and we have a lot to talk about. So welcome, Patrick.Patrick Hsu (00:29):Thanks so much. I'm looking forward to it. Appreciate you having me on, Eric.The Arc InstituteEric Topol (00:33):Well, the first thing I'd like to get into, because you're into so many important things, but one that stands out of course is this Arc Institute with Patrick Collison who I guess if you can tell us a bit about how you two young guys got to meet and developed something that's really quite unique that I think brings together investigators at Stanford, UCSF, and Berkeley. Is that right? So maybe you can give us the skinny about you and Patrick and how all this got going.Patrick Hsu (01:05):Yeah, sure. That sounds great. So we started Arc with Patrick C and with Silvana Konermann, a longtime colleague and chemistry faculty at Stanford about three years ago now, though we've been physically operational just over two years and we're an independent research institute working at the interface of biomedical science and machine learning. And we have a few different aspects of our model, but our overall mission is to understand and treat complex human diseases. And we have three pillars to our model. We have this PI driven side of the house where we centrally fund our investigators so that they don't have to write grants and work on their very best ideas. We have a technical staff side of the house more like you'd see in a frontier AI lab or in biotech industry where we have professional teams of R&D scientists working cross-functionally on higher level organizational wide goals that we call our institute initiatives.(02:05):One focused on Alzheimer's disease experimentally and one that we call a virtual cell initiative to simulate human biology with AI foundation models. And our third pillar over time is to have things not just end up as academic papers, but really get things out into the real world as products or as medicines that can actually help patients on the translational side. And so, we thought that some really important scientific programs could be unlocked by enabling new organizational models and we are experimenting at the institutional scale with how we can better organize and incentivize and support scientists to reach these long-term capability breakthroughs.Patrick, Patrick and SilvanaEric Topol (02:52):So the two Patrick's. How did you, one Patrick I guess is a multi-billionaire from Stripe and then there's you who I suspect maybe not quite as wealthy as the other Patrick, how did you guys come together to do this extraordinary thing?Patrick Hsu (03:08):Yeah, no, science is certainly expensive. I met Patrick originally through Silvana actually. They actually met, so funny trivia, all three Arc founders did high school science together. Patrick and Silvana originally met in the European version of the European Young Scientist competition in high school. And Silvana and I met during our PhDs in her case at MIT and I was at Harvard, but we met at the Broad Institute sort of also a collaborative Harvard, MIT and Harvard hospitals Institute based in Kendall Square. And so, we sort of in various pairwise combinations known each other for decades and worked together for decades and have all collectively been really excited about science and technology and its potential to accelerate societal progress. Yet we also felt in our own ways that despite a lot of the tremendous progress, the structures in which we do this work, fund it, incentivize it and roll it out into the real world, seems like it's really possible that we'll undershoot that potential. And if you take 15 years ago, we didn't have the modern transformer that launched the current AI revolution, CRISPR technology, single-cell, mRNA technology or broadly addressable LNPs. That's a tremendous amount of technologies have developed in the next 15 years. We think there's a real unique opportunity for new institutes in the 2020s to take advantage of all of these breakthroughs and the new ones that are coming to continue to accelerate biological progress but do so in a way that's fast and flexible and really focused.Eric Topol (04:58):Yeah, I did want to talk with you a bit. First of all before I get to the next related topic, I get a kick out of you saying you've worked or known each other for decades because I think you're only in your early thirties. Is that right?Patrick Hsu (05:14):I was lucky to get an early start. I first started doing research at the local university when I was 14 actually, and I was homeschooled actually until college. And so, one of the funny things that you got to do when you're homeschooled is well, you could do whatever you want. And in my case that was work in the lab. And so, I actually worked basically full time as an intern volunteer, cut my teeth in single cell patch clamp, molecular biology, protein biochemistry, two photon and focal imaging and kind of spiraled from there. I loved the lab, I loved doing bench work. It was much more exciting to me than programming computers, which was what I was doing at the time. And I think these sort of two loves have kind of brought me and us to where we are today.Eric Topol (06:07):Before you got to Berkeley and Arc, I know you were at Broad Institute, but did you also pick up formal training in computer science and AI or is that something that was just part of the flow?Patrick Hsu (06:24):So I grew up coding. I used to work through problems sets before dinner growing up. And so, it's just something that you kind of learn natively just like learning French or Mandarin.New Models of Funding Life ScienceEric Topol (06:42):That's what I figured. Okay. Now this model of Arc Institute came along in a kind of similar timeframe as the Arena BioWorks in Boston, where some of the faculty left to go to Arena like my friend Stuart Schreiber and many others. And then of course Priscilla and Mark formed the Chan Zuckerberg Institute and its biohub and its support. So can you contrast for one, these three different models because they're both very different than of course the traditional NIH pathway, how Arc is similar or different to the others, and obviously the goal here is accelerating things that are going to really make a difference.Patrick Hsu (07:26):Yeah, the first thing I would say is zooming out. There have been lots of efforts to experiment with how we do science, the practice of science itself. And in fact, I've recently been reading this book, the Demon Under the Microscope about the history of infectious disease, and it talks about how in the 1910s through the 1930s, these German industrial dye manufacturing companies like Bayer and BASF actually launched what became essentially an early model for industrial scale science, where they were trying to develop Prontosil, Salvarsan and some of these early anti-infectives that targeted streptococcus. And these were some of the major breakthroughs that led to huge medical advances on tackling infectious disease compared to the more academic university bound model. So these trends of industrial versus academic labs and different structures to optimize breakthroughs and applications has been a through current throughout international science for the last century.(08:38):And so, the way that we do research today, and that's some of our core tenets at Arc is basically it hasn't always been this way. It doesn't need to necessarily be this way. And so, I think organizational experiments should really matter. And so, there's CZI, Altos, Arena, Calico, a variety of other organizational experiments and similarly we had MRC and Bell Labs and Xerox PARCS, NIBRT, GNF, Google Research, and so on. And so, I think there are lots of different ways that you can organize folks. I think at a high level you can think about ways that you can play with for-profit versus nonprofit structures. Whether you want to be a completely independent organization or if you want to be partnered with universities. If you want to be doing application driven science or really blue sky curiosity driven work. And I think also thinking through internally the types of expertise that you bring together.(09:42):You can think of it like a cancer institute maybe as a very vertically integrated model. You have folks working on all kinds of different areas surrounding oncology or immunotherapy and you might call that the Tower of Babel model. The other way that folks have built institutes, you might call the lily pad model where you have coverage of as many areas of biomedical research as possible. Places like the Whitehead or Salk, it will be very broad. You'll have planned epigenetics, folks looking at RNA structural biology, people studying yeast cell cycle, folks doing in vivo melanoma models. It's very broad and I think what we try to do at Arc is think about a model that you might liken more to overlapping Viking shields where there's sort of five core areas that we're deeply investing in, in genetics and genomics, computation, neuroscience, immunology and chemical biology. Now we really think of these as five areas that are maybe the minimal critical mass that you would need to make a dent on something as complicated as complex human diseases. It's certainly not the only thing that you need, but we needed a critical mass of investigators working at least in these areas.Eric Topol (11:05):Well, yeah, and they really converge on where the hottest advances are being made these days. Now can you work at Arc Institute without being one of these three universities or is it really that you maintain your faculty and your part of this other entity?Patrick Hsu (11:24):So we have a few elements to even just the academic side of the house. We have our core investigators. I'm one of them, where we have dually appointed faculty who retain their latter rank or tenured appointment in their home department, but their labs are physically cited at the Arc headquarters where we built out a lab in Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto. And so, folks move their labs there. They continue to train graduate students based on whatever graduate programs they're formally affiliated with through their university affiliation. And so, we have nearly 40 PhD students across our labs that are training on site every day.(12:03):So in addition to our core investigators, we also have what we call our innovation investigators, which is more of a grant program to faculty at our partner universities. They receive unrestricted funding from us to seed a new project or accelerate an existing area in their group and their labs stay at their home campus and they just get that funding to augment their work. The third way is our technical staff model where folks basically just come work at Arc and many of them also are establishing their own research groups focusing on technology R&D areas. And so, we have five of those technology centers working in molecular engineering, multi-omics, complex cellular models, in vivo models, and in machine learning.Discovery of Bridge RNAsEric Topol (12:54):Yeah, that's a great structure. In fact, just a few months ago, Patrick Collison, the other Patrick came to Stanford HAI where I'm on the board and you've summarized it really well and it's very different than the other models and other entities, companies included that you mentioned. It's really very impressive. Now speaking of impressive on June 26, this past few months ago, which incidentally is coincident with the draft genome in the year 2000, the human sequence. You and your colleagues, perhaps the most impressive jump in terms of an Arc Institute contribution published two papers back-to-back in Nature about bridge RNA: [Bridge RNAs direct programmable recombination of target and donor DNA] and [Structural mechanism of bridge RNA-guided recombination.] And before I get you to describe this breakthrough in genome editing, some would call it genome editing 3.0 or CRISPR 3.0, whatever. But what we have today in the clinic with the approval of CRISPR 1.0 for sickle cell and thalassemia is actually quite crude. I think most people will know it's just a double stranded DNA cleavage with all sorts of issues about repair and it's not very precise. And so, CRISPR 2.0 is supposed to be represented by David Liu's contributions and his efforts at Broad like prime and base editing and then comes yours. So maybe you can tell us about it and how it is has to be viewed as quite an important advance.Patrick Hsu (14:39):The first thing I would say before CRISPR, is that we had RNA interference. And so, even before this modern genome editing revolution with programmable CRISPRs, we had this technology that had a lot of the core selling points as well. Any target will now become druggable to us. We simply need to reprogram a guide RNA and we can get genetic access to things that are intracellular. And I think both the discovery of RNA interference by Craig Mello and Andy Fire or the invention or discovery of programmable CRISPR technologies, both depend on the same fundamental biological mechanism. These non-coding guide RNAs that are essentially a short RNA search string that you can easily reprogram to retarget a desired enzyme function, and natively both RNAi and CRISPR are molecular scissors. Their RNA or DNA nucleases that can be reprogrammed to different regions of the genome or the transcriptome to make a cut.(15:48):And as bioengineers, we have come up with all kinds of creative ways to leverage the ability to make site specific cuts to do all kinds of incredible things including genome editing or beyond transcriptional up or down regulation, molecular imaging and so on and so forth. And so, the first thing that we started thinking about in our lab was, why would mother nature have stopped only RNAi and CRISPR? There probably are lots of other non-coding RNAs out there that might be able to be programmable and if they did exist, they probably also do more complicated and interesting things than just guide a molecular scissors. So that was sort of the first core kind of intuition that we had. The second intuition that we had on the technology side, I was just wearing my biology hat, I'll put on my technology hat, is the thing that we call genome editing today hardly involves the genome.(16:50):It's really you're making a cut to change an individual base or an individual gene or locus. So really you're doing small scale single locus editing, so you might call it gene level or locus level cuts. And what you really want to be able to do is do things at the genome scale at 100 kb, a megabase at the chromosome scale. And I think that's where I think the field will inevitably go if you follow the technology curves of longer and longer range gene sequencing, longer and longer range gene synthesis, and then longer and longer range gene editing. And so, what would that look like? And we started thinking, could there be essentially recombination technologies that allow you to do cut and paste in a single step. Now, the reason for that is the way that we do gene editing today involves a cut and then a multi-step process of cellular DNA repair that resolves the cut to make the exertion or the error prone deletion or the modification that ends up happening.(17:59):And so, it's very complicated and whether that's nucleases or base or prime editing, you're all generally limited to the small-scale single locus changes. However, there are natural mechanisms that have solved this cut and paste problem, right? There are these viruses or bacterial versions of viruses known as phage that have generally been trying to exert their multi kilobase genomes into bacterial hosts and specialize throughout billions of years. So our core thought was, well, if there are these new non-coding RNAs, what kind of functions would we be excited about? Can we look in these mobile genetic elements, these so-called jumping genes for new mechanisms? They're incredibly widespread. Transposons are thought to be some of the most diverse enzyme mechanisms found in nature. And so, we started computationally by asking ourselves a very simple question. If a mobile element inserts itself into foreign DNA and it's able to somehow be programmable, presumably the inside or something encoded in the inside of the element is predictive of some sequence on the outside of the element.(19:15):And so, that was the core insight we took, and we thought let's look across the boundaries of many different mobile genetic elements and we zoomed in on a particular sub family of these MGE known as insertion sequence (IS) elements which are the most autonomous minimal transposons. Normally transposons have all kinds of genes that they use to hitchhike around the genomic galaxy and endow the bacterial host with some fitness advantage like some ability to metabolize some copper and some host or some metal. And these IS elements have only the enzymes that they need to jump around. And if you identify the boundaries of these using modern computational methods, this is actually a really non-trivial problem. But if you solve that problem to figure out with nucleotide resolution where the element boundaries end and then you look for the open reading frame of the transposases enzyme inside of this element, you'll find that it's not just that coding sequence.(20:19):There are also these non-coding flanks inside of the element boundaries. And when we looked across the non-coding, the entire IS family tree, there are hundreds of these different types of elements. We found that this particular family IS110, had the longest non-coding ends of all IS elements. And we started doing experiments in the lab to try to figure out how these work. And what we found was that these elements are cut and paste elements, so they excise themselves into a circular form and paste themselves back in into a target site linearly. But the circularization of this element brings together two distal ends together, which brings together a -35 and a -10 box that create and reconstitute a canonical bacterial transcriptional promoter. This essentially is like plugging a plug into an electrical socket in the wall and it jacks up transcription. Now you would think this transcription would turn on the transposase enzyme so it can jump around more but it transcribes a non-coding RNA out of this non-coding end.(21:30):We're like, holy crap, are these RNAs actually involved in regulating the transposon? Now the boring answer would be, oh, it regulates the expression. It's like an antisense regulate or something. The exciting answer would be, oh, it's a new type of guide RNA and you found an RNA guided integrase. So we started zooming in bound dramatically on this and we undertook a covariation analysis where we were able to show that this cryptic non-coding RNA has a totally novel guide RNA structure, totally distinct from RNAi or CRISPR guide RNAs. And it had a target site that covaried with the target site of the element. And so we're like, oh wow, this could be a programmable transposase. The second thing that we found was even more surprising, there was a second region of complementarity in that same RNA that recognized the donor sequence, which is the circularized element itself. And so, this was the first example of a bispecific guide RNA, and also the first example of RNA guided self-recognition by a mobile genetic element.Eric Topol (22:39):It's pretty extraordinary because basically you did a systematic assessment of jumping genes or transposons and you found that they contain things that previously were not at all recognized. And then you have a way to program these to edit, change the genome without having to do any cuts or nicks, right?Patrick Hsu (23:05):Yeah. So what we showed in a test tube is when we took this, so-called bridge RNA, which we named because it bridges the target and donor together along with the recombinase enzyme. So the two component system, those are the only two things that you need. They're able to cut and paste DNA and recombine them in a test tube without any DNA repair, meaning that it's independent of cellular DNA repair and it does strand nicking, exchange, junction resolution and religation all in a single mechanism. So that's when we got super excited about its potential applications as bioengineering tool.Eric Topol (23:46):Yeah, it's pretty extraordinary. And have you already gone into in vivo assessment?Patrick Hsu (23:54):Yes, in our initial set of papers, what we showed is that these are programmable and functional or recombinases in a test tube and in bacterial cells. And by reprogramming the target and donor the right way, you can use these enzymes not just for insertion, but also for flipping and cutting out DNA. And so, we actually have in a single mechanism the ability to do bridge editing, if you will, for universal DNA recombination, insertion, excision or inversion, similar to what folks have been doing for decades with Cre recombinase, but with fully programmable recognition sequences. The work that we're doing now in the lab as you can imagine is to adapt these into robust tools for mammalian genome editing, including of course, human genomes. We're excited about this, we're making good progress. The CRISPR has had thousands of labs over the last 10, 15 years working on it to make these therapeutic level potency and selectivity. We're going to work and follow that same blueprint for getting bridge systems to get to that level of performance, but we're on the path and we're very optimistic for the future.Exemplar of Digital BiologyEric Topol (25:13):Yeah, I think it's quite extraordinary and it's a whole different look to what we've been seeing in the CRISPR era for over the past decade and how that's been advancing and getting more specific and less need for repair and being able to be more versatile. But this takes it to yet another dimension. Now, this brings me to the field that when I think of this term digital biology, I think of you and now our mutual acquaintance, Jensen Huang, who everybody knows now. Back some months ago, he wrote and said at a conference, “Where do I think the next amazing revolution is going to come? And this is going to be flat out one of the biggest ones ever. There's no question that digital biology is going to be it. For the first time in human history, biology has the opportunity to be engineering, not science.” So can you critique Jensen? Is he right? And tell us how you conceive the field of digital biology.Patrick Hsu (26:20):If you look at gene therapy today, the core concepts are actually remarkably simple. They're elegant. Of course, you're missing a broken gene, you need to put it back. And that can be curative. Very simple, powerful concept. However, for complex diseases where you don't have just a single gene that goes wrong, in many cases we actually have no idea what to do. And in fact, when you're trying to put in DNA, that's over more than a gene scale. We kind of very quickly run out of ideas. Is it a CAR and a cytokine, a CAR and a cytokine and another thing? And then we're kind of out of ideas. And so, we started thinking in the lab, how can we actually design genomes where it's not just let's reduce the genome into individual Lego blocks, iGem style with promoters and different genes that we just sort of shuffle the Lego blocks around, but actually use AI to design genome sequences.(27:29):So to do that, we thought we would have to first of all, train a model that can learn and decode the foreign language of biology and use that in order to design sequences. And so, we sort of have been training DNA foundation models and virtual cell models at Arc, sort of a major effort of ours where the first thing that we tried was to take a variance of transformer architecture that's used to train ChatGPT from OpenAI, but instead apply this to study the next DNA token, right? Now, the interesting thing about next token prediction in English is that you can actually learn a surprising amount of information by just predicting the next word. You can learn world knowledge is the capital of Azerbaijan, is it Baku or is it London, right? Or if you're walking around in the kitchen, then the next text is, I then left the kitchen or the bathroom, right?(28:33):Now you're learning about spatial reasoning, and so you can also learn translation obviously. And so similarly, I think predicting the next token or the next base and DNA can lead you to learn about molecular biochemistry, is the next amino acid residue, hydrophobic or hydrophilic. And it can teach you about the mechanics of some catalytic binding pocket or something. You can learn about a disease mutation. Is the next base, the sick linked base or the wild type base and so on and so forth. And what we found was that at massive scale, DNA foundation models learn about molecular function, not just at the DNA level, but also at the RNA and the protein. And indeed, we could use these to design molecular systems like CRISPR-Cas systems, where you have a protein and the guide RNA. It could also design new DNA transposons, and we could design sequences that look plausibly like real genomes, where we generate a megabase a million bases of continuous genome sequence. And it really looks and feels like it could be a blurry picture of something that you would actually sequence. This has been a wonderful collaboration with Brian Hie, a PI at Stanford and an Arc investigator, and we're really excited about what we've seen in this work because it promises the better performance with even more scale. And so, simply by scaling up these models, by adding in more compute, more training data or more powerful models, they're going to get sharper and sharper.New A.I. Models in Life ScienceEric Topol (30:25):Yeah. Well, this whole use of large language models for the language of life, whether it's the genome proteins and on and on, actually RNA and even cells has really taken root. And of course, this is really one of the foundations of that field of digital biology, which brings together generative AI, AI tools and trying to push forward our understanding in biology. And also, obviously what's been emphasized in drug discovery, perhaps it's been emphasized even too much because we still have a lot to learn about biology, but that gets me to these models. Like today, AlphaProteo was announced by DeepMind, as we all know, AlphaFold 1, 2, now 3. They were kind of precursors of being able to predict proteins from amino acid 3D structure. And that kind of took the field by a little bit like ChatGPT for life science, but now it's a new model all the time. So you've been working on various models and Arc Institute, how do you see this unfolding? Are we just going to have every aspect of the language of life being approached in all the different interactions? And this is going to help us get to a much more deep level of understanding.Patrick Hsu (31:56):I'll say two things. The first is a lot of models that you just described are what I would call task specific models. A model for de novo design of a binder, a model for protein structure prediction. And there are other models for protein fitness or for RNA structure prediction, et cetera, et cetera. And I think what we're going to move towards are more unifying models where there's different classes of models at different levels of scale. So we will have these atomic level models for looking at generative chemistry or ligand docking. We have models that can unify genomes and their molecules, and then we have models that can unify cells and tissues. And so, for example, if you took an H&E stain of some liver, there are folks building models where you can then predict what the single cell spatial transcriptome will look like of that model. And that's obviously operating at a very different level of abstraction than a de novo protein binder. But in the long run, all of these are going to get, I think unified. I think the reason why this is possible is that biology, unlike physics, actually has this unifying theory of evolution that runs across all of its length scales from atomic, molecular, cellular, organismal to entire ecosystem. And the promise of these models is no short then to make biology a predictive discipline.Patrick Hsu (33:37):In physics, the experimentalists win the big prizes for the theorists when they measure gravitational waves or whatever. But in biology, we're very practical people. You do something three times and do a T-test. And I think my prediction is we can actually gauge the success of these LLMs or whatever in biology by how much we respect theory in this field.The A.I. ScientistEric Topol (34:05):Yeah. Well, that's a really interesting perspective, an important perspective because the proliferation of models, which we're going to get into not just doing the things that you described, but also being able to be “pseudo” scientists, the so-called AI scientist. Maybe you could comment about that concept because that's been the idea that everything from the question that could be asked to the hypothesis and the experiment design and the analysis of data and then the feedback. So what is the role of the scientists, that seems to have been overplayed? And maybe you can put that in context.Patrick Hsu (34:48):So yeah, right now there's a lot of excitement that we can use AI agents not just to do software enterprise workflows, but to be a research assistant. And then over time, itself an autonomous research scientist that can read the literature, come up with an idea, maybe run a bunch of robots in the lab or do a bunch of computational analyses and then potentially even analyze data, conclude what is going on and actually write an entire paper. Now, I think the vision of this is compelling in the long term. I think the question is really about timescale. If you break down the scientific method into its constituent parts, like hypothesis generation, doing an experiment, analyzing experiment and iterating, we're clearly going to use AI of some kind at every single step of this cycle. I think different steps will require different levels of maturity. The way that I would liken this is just wet lab automation, folks have dreamed about having pipetting robots that just do their western blots and do their cell culture for them for generations.(36:01):But of course, today they don't actually really feel fundamentally different from the same ones that we had in the 90s, let's say. Right? And so, obviously they're getting better, but it seems to me one of the trends I'm very bullish about is the explosion of humanoid robots and robot foundation models that have a world model and a sense of physics and proportionate space loaded onto them. Within five years, we're going to have home robots that can fold your clothes, that can organize your kitchen and do all of this while you're sleeping, so you wake up to a clean home every day.Eric Topol (36:40):It's not going to be just Roomba anymore. There's going to be a lot more, but it isn't just the hardware, it's also the agents playing in software, right?Patrick Hsu (36:50):It's the integrated loop of the hardware and the software where the ability to make the same machine generally intelligent will make it adaptable to a broad array of tasks. Now, what I'm excited about is those generally intelligent humanoid robots coming into the lab, where instead of creating a centrifuge or a new type of pipetter that's optimized for your Beckman or Hamilton device, instead you just have robot arms that you snap onto the edge of the bench and then they just work alongside you. And I do think that's coming, although it'll take a lot of hardware and software and computer vision engineering to make that possible.A Sense of HumorEric Topol (37:32):Yeah, and I think also going back to originating the question, there still is quite a debate about the creativity and the lack of any simulation of AGI, whatever that means anymore. And so, the human in the loop part of this is obviously I think it's still of critical nature. Now, the other thing I learned about you is you have a great sense of humor, which is really important by the way. And recently, which is great that you're active on X or Twitter because that's one way we get to see what you're thinking on a day-to-day basis. But I think you put out a poll which was really quite provocative , and it was about, here's what it said, “do more people in the world *truly* understand transformers or health insurance?” And interestingly, you got 49% for transformers at 51% for health insurance. Can you tell us what you're thinking when you put that poll together? Because obviously a lot of people don't understand either of these.Patrick Hsu (38:44):I think the core question is, there are different ways of looking at the world, some of which are very bottom up and some of which are very top down. And one of the very surprising things about transformers is they're taking something that is in principle, an incredibly simple task, which is if you have a string of text, what is the next letter? And somehow at massive, massive scale, you can unlock something that looks an awful lot like reasoning, and you've got these emergent behaviors. Now the bottoms up theory of just the linear algebra that's going on in these models couldn't possibly really help us predict that we have these emerging capabilities. And I think similarly in healthcare, there's a literal set of parts that are operating in some complex way that at massive scale becomes this incredibly confusing and dynamic system for how we can actually incentivize how we make medicines, how we actually take care of people, and how we actually pay for any of this from an economic point of view. And so, I think it was, in some sense if transformers can actually be an explainable by just linear algebra equations, maybe there will be a way to decompose the seemingly incredibly confusing world of healthcare in order to actually build a better way forward.Computing Power and the GPU Arms RaceEric Topol (40:12):Yeah. Well that's great. Now the other thing I wanted to ask you about, we open source and the arms race of GPUs and this whole kind of idea is you touched on the need for coalescing a lot of these tools to exploit the synergy. But we have an issue because many academic labs like here at Scripps Research and so many others, including as I learned even at Stanford, have limited access to GPUs. So computing power of large language models is a problem. And then the models that exist today that can be adopted like Llama or others, and they're somewhat limited. And then we also have a movement towards trying to make things more open source, like for example, recently OpenCRISPR with Profluent Bio that is basically trying to use AI for CRISPR guides. And so, how do you deal with this arms race, computing power, open source, proprietary models that are not easily accessible without a lot of resources?Patrick Hsu (41:30):So the first thing I would say is, we are in the academic science sphere really unprepared for the level of resources that are required for doing this type of cutting edge computational work. There are top Stanford computer science professors or computational researchers who have a single GPU in their office, and that's actually what their whole lab runs off of.(41:58):The UC Berkeley campus, the grid runs on something like 12 megawatts of power and how are they going to build an on-premises GPU clusters, like a central question that can scale across the entire needs? And these are two of the top computer science universities in the world. And so, I think one of our kind of core beliefs at Arc is, as science both experimentally and computationally has gotten incredibly complex, not just in terms of conceptually, but also just the actual infrastructure and machines and know-how that you need to do things. We actually need to essentially support this. So we have a private GPU cloud that we use to train our models, and we have access to significantly large clusters for large burst kind of train outs as necessary. And I think infrastructurally for running genomics experiments or doing scalable brain organoid screens, right, we're also building out the infrastructure to support that experimentally.Eric Topol (43:01):Yeah, no, I think this is one of the advantages of the new model like the Arc Institute because not many centers have that type of plasticity with access to computing power when needed. So that's where a brilliant mind you and the Arc Institute together makes for a formidable recipe for future advances and of course building on the ones you've already accomplished.The Primacy of Human TalentPatrick Hsu (43:35):I would just say, my main skill, if I have one, is to recruit really, really smart people. And so, everything that you're seeing and hearing about is the work of unbelievable colleagues who are curious, passionate, and incredible scientists.Eric Topol (43:53):But it also takes the person who can judge those who are in that category set as a role model. And you're certainly doing that. I guess just in closing, I mean, it's just such a delight to get to meet you here and kind of get your thoughts on what is the hottest thing in life science without question, which brings together the fields of AI and what's going on, not just obviously in genome editing, but this digital biology era that we're still in the early phases of, I mean, I think you could say that it's just going to continue to accelerate the exponential curve. We're still kind of on the bottom of that, I would imagine where we're headed. Any other things that you want to bring up that I haven't touched on that will round out this conversation?Patrick Hsu (44:50):I mean, I think it's very early days here at Arc.Patrick Hsu (44:53):When we founded Arc, we asked ourselves, how do we measure success? We don't have customers or revenue in the way that a typical startup does. And we felt sort of three things. The first was research institutes live and die by their talent. Can we actually hire incredible people when we make offers to people we want to come, do they come? The second was, when those folks do come to Arc, do they feel like they're able to work on important research programs that they couldn't do sort of at their prior university or company? And then longer term, the third thing was, and there's just no shortcut around this, you need to do important work. And I think we've been really excited that there are early signs that we're able to do all three of these things, and we're still, again, just following the same scaling laws that we're seeing in natural language and vision, but for the domain of biology. And so, we're excited about what's ahead and think if there are folks who are interested in learning more about Arc, just shoot me an email or DM.Eric Topol (46:07):Yeah, well I would just say, congratulations on what you've already achieved. I know you're going to keep rocking it because you already have in a short time. And for anybody who doesn't know about Arc Institute and your work and your team, I hope this is going to be putting them on notice actually what can be accomplished outside of the usual NIH funded model, which is kind of a risk-free zone where you basically have to have your results nailed down before you send in your proposal frequently, and it doesn't do great things for young people. Really, I think you actually qualify in that demographic where it's hard for them to break in for getting NIH grants and also for this type of work that you're doing. So we'll look for the next bridge beyond bridge RNAs of your just fantastic efforts. So Patrick, thanks so much for joining us today, and we'll be checking back with you and following all the great work that you'll be doing in the times ahead.Patrick Hsu (47:14):Thanks so much, Eric. It was such a pleasure to be here today. Appreciate the opportunity.*******************Thanks for listening, reading or watching!The Ground Truths newsletters and podcasts are all free, open-access, without ads.Please share this post/podcast with your friends and network if you found it informative!Voluntary paid subscriptions all go to support Scripps Research. Many thanks for that—they greatly help fund our summer internship programs.Thanks to my producer Jessica Nguyen and Sinjun Balabanoff for audio and video support at Scripps Research.Note: you can select preferences to receive emails about newsletters, podcasts, or all I don't want to bother you with an email for content that you're not interested in. Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe

Lange, Michael www.deutschlandfunk.de, Forschung aktuell

Today, the award winning and affable Dr. David Westenberg of the Missouri University of Science and Technology joins the #QualityQuorum to discuss his efforts at microbial outreach from K-12 (and beyond), his fascinating research program, and his experiences teaching microbiology to engineers. Host: Mark O. Martin Guest: David Westenberg Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Spotify Become a patron of Matters Microbial! Links for this episode  A TEDX talk by Dr. Westenberg. An overview of the BioBuilder program. An overview of the iGEM program. Dr. Westenberg's page on the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Biointeractive website. An article about “agar art” with microbes, featuring Dr. Westenberg. An article about the Woods Hole Microbial Diversity course by Dr. Westerfield. An article that shows Dr. Westernberg's approach to teaching in a fun and accessible manner. Dr. Westenberg's faculty website. Dr. Westeinberg's laboratory group website Intro music is by Reber Clark Send your questions and comments to mattersmicrobial@gmail.com

From 2014: At Dorkbot, listen to Andreas Siagian talk about his Indonesian Citizen Science Initiative and Hackteria. Andrew Tuckwell talks about hacking synthetic biology competitions, IGEM and BIOMOD. News of electronic tattoos and Lego Atomic Force Microscopes. Hosted and produced by Ian Woolf Support Diffusion by making a contribution Support Diffusion by buying Merchandise

15. aprilli Facebooki otsesaates puudutasime taaskord EKRE ja Mike Calamuse vastuseisu, täpsemalt Telegrami ja Vanglaplaneedi videosalvestust antud teemal. Lisaks said tähelepanu peavoolu üle-võlli uudised, koroonakriisiga alanud vaktsineerimise langus ja poevarguste tõus (maskid!?) ning üks maksujurist, kelle arvates Eesti on pankrotis.    Tühistajatele, teisitimõtlejate tagakiusajatele ja nende õiguste pisendajatele tahaks aga öelda: ela ise ja lase ka teistel elada! Vaata live´i järgi siit: https://www.telegram.ee/ajaviide/fb-live-15-04-24-kas-uks-maailmapilt-on-oigem-kui-teine-pariselt-pariselt  

Episode Description: Today we are discussing the innovative intersection of synthetic biology and blockchain technology with Albert Anis, the visionary behind ValleyDAO. Anis shares his ambitious dream of creating a bioeconomy that is not owned by any single entity but is collectively governed by a community. Through the lens of ValleyDAO, we explore how decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) can fund, support, and propel scientific research in biotechnology, bringing it closer to the mainstream and potentially revolutionizing the way we approach the bioeconomy. Anis' passion for creating a shared, decentralized future where discoveries in synthetic biology can be accessed and benefited from by all shines through, offering a glimpse into a future where biology and technology merge for the greater good. For everyone who is intrigued by the potential of blockchain to transform the scientific landscape and democratize access to biotechnological advancements, this episode is for you! Grow Everything brings the bioeconomy to life. Hosts Karl Schmieder and Erum Azeez Khan share stories and interview the leaders and influencers changing the world by growing everything. Biology is the oldest technology. And it can be engineered. What are we growing? Learn more at ⁠www.messaginglab.com/groweverything⁠ Chapters: 00:00:00 - The Beat of Innovation: Medieval Hip Hop's Creative Pulse 00:01:42 - A Night of Glamour and Discovery: Oscars Through a Biotech Lens 00:03:20 - Cinema Meets Science: The Biological Undercurrents of Blockbusters 00:04:49 - Crafting Content with Purpose: Beyond Clickbait to Meaningful Messages 00:06:53 - AI's Leap into Biology: Accelerating Insights and Transformations 00:10:44 - ValleyDAO's Launch: Pioneering the Biotech Blockchain Fusion 00:12:56 - Albert Anis' Journey: Bridging Biotech Enthusiasm with Blockchain 00:19:56 - Inspiration from ConstitutionDAO: A Community's Power in Unity 00:26:10 - Inside ValleyDAO: Democratizing Biotech Funding 00:29:26 - Finding the Future: Selecting Groundbreaking Biotech Projects 00:32:30 - Yeast on the Frontier: Pioneering Research for a Sustainable Future 00:34:46 - Bridging Lab to Life: How ValleyDAO Moves Ideas to Impact 00:38:12 - The Heart of ValleyDAO: Cultivating a Committed Community 00:44:52 - Structuring Success: The Legal Backbone of a Decentralized Dream 00:50:15 - Visionary Horizons: Shaping the Bioeconomy with ValleyDAO 00:52:56 - Looking Back, Moving Forward: Reflections on a Biotech-Blockchain Alliance Episode Links: Join ValleyDAO - synbio for climate (link iGEM - synbio competition (link) Interview with Jocelyn Pearl of LabDAO (link) Interview with Arye Lipman of LabDAO (link) LabDAO for computational biology (link) HairDAO for hair loss  (link) AthenaDAO for women's health (link) MoleculeDAO for drug development (link) Messaginglab blog (link) Get $300 off ⁠⁠⁠⁠Synbiobeta tickets⁠⁠⁠⁠ (May 6-9 in San Jose, CA) using promo code: Grow Everything Topics Covered:  biomaterials, sustainability, biodegradablility, compostibility Have a question or comment? Message us here: Text or Call (804) 505-5553 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Youtube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ / ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠GrowEverything website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Email: groweverything@messaginglab.com Support here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Music by: Nihilore Production by: Amplafy Media --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/messaginglab/message

In this episode, we interview Geoffrey Otim, founder and CEO of SynBio Africa and founder of iGEM Makarere, the first iGEM team in East Africa. We discuss the unique health, agricultural, climate, biosecurity, and energy challenges being tackled by the emerging engineering biology community in Africa. We also talk about his policy advocacy, African Union-led initiatives, and the cultural, political, and funding headwinds faced by African scientists.For more information about EBRC, visit our website at ebrc.org. If you are interested in getting involved with the EBRC Student and Postdoc Association, fill out a membership application for graduate students and postdocs or for undergraduates and join today!Episode transcripts are the unedited output from Whisper and likely contain errors.

Tanken und Heizöl billiger: Opec+ hat sich verzockt / P&R-Insolvenzverwalter kündigt weitere Auszahlung an / Türkische Notenbank hebt Leitzins auf 40 Prozent an / Moderation: Tobias Brunner

Majo es actual investigadora en UCSF. Es iGEMer de corazón, ayudó a empezar Compound Foods (alternativa sustentable para el café), y estudió en el TEC de Costa Rica. Me da mucho gusto que podamos compartir contigo sus fascinantes e inspiradoras experiencias!Mis links:* Twitter* LinkedIn* Substack (blog) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sofias.bio

Majo es actual investigadora en UCSF. Es iGEMer de corazón, ayudó a empezar Compound Foods (alternativa sustentable para el café), y estudió en el TEC de Costa Rica. Me da mucho gusto que podamos compartir contigo sus fascinantes e inspiradoras experiencias!Mis links:* Twitter* LinkedIn* Substack (blog) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sofias.bio

Edisi IGEM ke-14 pada tahun ini menyasarkan peluang perniagaan bernilai RM4 bilion dan 40,000 orang pengunjung daripada lebih 40 buah negara. Acara ini menjadi satu kemestian bagi mereka yang terlibat dalam rantaian nilai pembangunan mampan.

Edisi IGEM ke-14 pada tahun ini menyasarkan peluang perniagaan bernilai RM4 bilion dan 40,000 orang pengunjung daripada lebih 40 buah negara. Acara ini menjadi satu kemestian bagi mereka yang terlibat dalam rantaian nilai pembangunan mampan.

Join us for a whirlwind tour of the key problems with modern agriculture and the alternative emerging technologies. In this final episode with Agata the biocontainment researcher and Simon, Head of Human Practices, from the Wageningen iGEM team, we discuss how synthetic biology can be used as a technology to prevent crop frost damage. We reflect on using synthetic biology in agriculture and discuss common misconceptions, and the gap between scientific advancements and public perceptions behind the nascent field.

Mokslo rubrika. VU studentų komanda iGEM kviečia visuomenę giliau pažinti mokslą per įvairias meno formas: parodas, interaktyvias dirbtuves, meno performansus ir diskusijas. Ar lengva visuomenę įtraukti į mokslo pasaulį, kalbėsimės su komanda.Čikagoje vykstančiame prestižiniame festivalyje „Third Coast“, vadinamame radijo Oskarais, LRT RADIJO dokumentika apie migracijos krizę Lietuvoje sulaukė pripažinimo.EK planuoja palengvinti genetiškai modifikuotų produktų taisykles. Norima, jog į rinką patektų sausroms atsparesnės ir mažiau cheminių trąšų reikalaujančios grūdų sėklos. Kaip vertinti mitais apipintus genetiškai modifikuotus organizmus, kalbėsime su VU GMC išskirtiniu profesoriumi Rolandu Meškiu.Tokijuje Šiaulių r. Kuršėnų Lauryno Ivinskio gimnazijos mokinys Danielius Jalianiauskas dalyvavo 4-ajame pasaulio vaikų Taikos forume, kuriame jaunuoliai iki 19 metų, atstovaujantys viso pasaulio šalims, keičiasi nuomonėmis apie taiką pasaulyje ir teikia savo pasiūlymus, kaip siekti taikos. Danielius Jalianauskas buvo pakviestas šių metų forume atstovauti Lietuvai.Ved. Urtė Korsakovaitė

In an iGEM competition, open source interchangeable parts of genetic material (BioBricks) allow hundreds of teams of students to create synbio solutions to real world problems. Joined by captain Johannes and treasurer Niko from the 2023 Wageningen iGEM team, we discuss their challenges and ideas about creating novelty, using non-model organisms, and the importance of educating ourselves about novel technologies, not to be dissuade by fear. 

Spaudos apžvalga.Vilniaus universiteto studentų komanda iGEM 2023 kviečia visuomenę giliau pažinti mokslą per įvairias meno formas: parodas, interaktyvias dirbtuves, meno performansus, diskusijas.Aušros Kaminskaitės apžvalga.Visuomenėje kilus diskusijoms dėl Rašytojų sąjungos plano sostinėje statyti paminklą rašytojui ir Sąjūdžio veikėjui Justinui Marcinkevičiui, visuomenėje kyla pačios įvairiausios diskusijos.„Jeigu nori laiku ateiti į kino salę, į užkandžių eilę ateikite likus gerai valandai iki seanso pradžios“, – tai tik viena iš frazių, lydinčių tai, ką šią savaitę išgyvena kino teatrai ir jų lankytojai.Rugpjūtį Kaune pirmą kartą įvyks „Kauno energijos“ organizuojamas nemokamas festivalis „Transformacijos“.Nacionalinėje dailės galerijoje atidaroma paroda „6 arai priežiūros. Kolektyviniai sodai“.Ved. Karolina Bieliauskaitė

The Wageningen iGEM Team is developing a solution to prevent frost damage using synthetic biology. Listen to find out more about how frost damage affects farmers, markets and us as consumers, and how Wageningen plan the scientific aspects of their project. Get an insight into the dynamics of team work and the attitudes of aspiring scientists.If you enjoyed this episode, follow us and give us a like on your favourite podcasting platforms :)Tune in to more episodes here!

Andrew Herr is the founder and CEO of Fount. Fount is crafting the operating system for the human body. To start, it provides extremely high-touch personal health services to clients: blood tests, fitness plans, meal prep, supplements, and much more to meet its clients personalized health needs. But Fount is running a series of experiments that will allow it to develop software that scales its luxury health services to millions of customers. Andrew Herr knows more about health & fitness than perhaps anyone on the planet. Prior to his current positions, Andrew led studies on the future of human performance and biotechnology for the Department of Defense, taught courses on optimizing performance to U.S. Government personnel preparing for deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq, and worked with the Departments of Homeland Security and Energy on emerging technology strategy, nuclear weapons detection, and radiation dosimetry. Andrew has been selected as a Mad Scientist by the U.S. Army's Training and Doctrine Command, a Fellow by the Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program, a Leader of Tomorrow by Global Biotech Revolution, a Next Generation Fellow by the Center for a New American Security, a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellow by the U.S. Department of Education, and a Science & Technology Fellow by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He also regularly judges at iGEM, the International Genetically Engineered Machine Competition. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/notboring/message

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Good things that happened in EA this year, published by Shakeel Hashim on December 29, 2022 on The Effective Altruism Forum. Crossposted from Twitter As the year comes to an end, we want to highlight some of the incredible work done and supported by people in the effective altruism community — work that's helping people and animals all over the world. 1/ The team at Charity Entrepreneurship incubated five new charities this year, including the Center for Effective Aid Policy and Vida Plena — the first CE-incubated organisation to operate in Latin America. 2/ Over 1,400 new people signed the Giving What We Can Pledge, committing to giving away 10% or more of their annual income to effective charities. The total number of pledgers is now over 8,000! 3/ The work of The Humane League and other animal welfare activists led 161 new organisations to commit to using cage-free products, helping free millions of chickens from cruel battery cages. 4/ Open Philanthropy launched two new focus areas: South Asian Air Quality and Global Aid Policy. It's already made grants that aim to tackle pollution and increase the quality or quantity of foreign aid./ and/ 5/ Alvea, a new biotechnology company dedicated to fighting pandemics, launched and announced that it had already started animal studies for a shelf-stable COVID vaccine. 6/ Almost 80,000 connections were made at events hosted by @CentreforEA's Events team, prompting people to change jobs, start new projects and explore new ideas. EAGx conferences were held around the world — including in Berlin, Australia and Singapore.#Events 7/ The EU Commission said it will "put forward a proposal to end the ‘disturbing' systematic practice of killing male chicks across the EU" — another huge win for animal welfare campaigners. 8/ What We Owe The Future, a book by @willmacaskill arguing that we can — and should — help build a better world for future generations, became a bestseller in both the US and UK. 9/ New evidence prompted @GiveWell to re-evaluate its views on water quality interventions. It then made a grant of up to $64.7 million for @EvidenceAction's Dispensers for Safe Water water chlorination program, which operates in Kenya, Malawi and Uganda./ 10/ Lots of members of the effective altruism community were featured on @voxdotcom's inaugural Future Perfect 50 list of the people building a better future. 11/ Fish welfare was discussed in the UK Parliament for the first time ever, featuring contributions from effective-altruism-backed charities./ 12/ Researchers at @iGEM published a paper looking at how we might be able to better detect whether states are complying with the Biological Weapons Convention — work which could help improve biosecurity around the world. 13/ New research from the Lead Exposure Elimination Project showed the dangerous levels of lead in paint in Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone. In response, governments in both countries are working with LEEP to try to tackle the problem and reduce lead exposure./ and/ 14/ The EA Forum criticism contest sparked a bunch of interesting and technical debate. One entry prompted GiveWell to re-assess their estimates of the cost-effectiveness of deworming, and inspired a second contest of its own!#Prize_for_inspiring_the_Change_Our_Mind_Contest____20_000 15/ The welfare of crabs, lobsters and prawns was recognised in UK legislation thanks to the new Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill 16/ Rethink Priorities, meanwhile, embarked on their ambitious Moral Weight Project to provide a better way to compare the interests of different species. 17/ At the @medialab, the Nucleic Acid Observatory project launched — working to develop systems that will help provide an early-warning system for new biological threats. 18/ Longview Philanthropy and @givingwhatwecan launched the Longtermism Fund, a new fund...

Why biology, why now? How will it transform our world? How do we create policies and regulation to ensure we advance biotechnology responsibly and protect our shared biological futures.  In our first interview, we speak with Megan Palmer who leads Stanford's Bio Policy and Leadership Initiatives in their Department of Bioengineering. Grow Everything brings to life the bioeconomy when hosts Karl Schmieder and Erum Azeez Khan share stories from the field and interview leaders and influencers in the space.  Life is a powerful force and it can be engineered. What are we creating? IN THIS EPISODE, YOU'LL LEARN: 00:00 Introduction 01:47 Why it's an exciting time to be in biotechnology 03:50 The intersection between policy, ethics, and government in biotechnology 05:52 Executive order on advancing biotechnology 07:12 Biotech and why it matters 09:05 Megan's origin story 13:17 Megan's experience working with government agencies 15:20 Working with policymakers globally and in the US 17:00 Understanding biotechnology innovation policies globally 21:39 The good and the bad of bureaucracy 24:00 What is a Gene Drive? 32:06 iGEM and other social responsibility programs 35:01 Community impacts and the birth of Bio stories 40:21 Imagine a world where everyone can build with biology 43:04 Parting thoughts Episode Links: Bioeconomy Executive Order Call or Text the Grow Everything Hotline:  +1 804-505-5553 Have a question or comment? Message us here: Email: groweverything@messaginglab.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/groweverythingpod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@groweverythingpod Twitter: https://twitter.com/messaginglab LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/messaginglab/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyfFwKFgFVMfEz4VWYwL4fg GrowEverything website:https://www.messaginglab.com/groweverything Topics: synthetic biology, entrepreneurship, policy, community, education, biotech, life sciences, bioeconomy, biomanufacturing, Biotechnology, synthetic biology, the biotech century, world economic forum Music by: Nihilore Production by: Amplafy Media --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/messaginglab/message

Darren Zhu is currently lead of atoms.org, a compay that intends to improve incentives in science by developing smart research contracts mediated by peer-to-peer review networks. He was previously awarded the Thiel Scholarship, and was part of Yale's first iGEM team.

קיצוניות פוליטית לא משתלמת אלקטורלית / חומרים שמוכנסים לקומפוסט ביתי אינם מצליחים להתפרק לאחר שישה חודשים / אתר עובדיה בן מיליון וחצי שנים / מדליית זהב לנבחרת הסטודנטים של אוניברסיטת תל אביב בתחרות iGEM העולמית / מוזיקה ופוליטיקה / ועידת האקלים בשארם: מה הנושא הכי בוער? / בקטריות עתיקות עשויות להסתתר מתחת לאדמת מאדים / החור באוזון מצטמק / פרס לסטארטאפ הישראלי שמפתח "פלסטיק" אקולוגי / פיקאסו והחלוןמגישה: שרון קנטור, עורך: רז חסון, מפיקה: תמר בנימין, טכנאי: אלון מקלר  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this very special episode, we hear from Dev, Charity, and Diana, who are part of a team competing in this years' iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) competition. Students from the University of Edinburgh and from the University of Health and Allied Services in Ghana joined forces to develop synthetic biology projects to solve local problems. The local problem they want to tackle? Heavy metal and plastic pollution in water bodies. Detecting pollution in rural areas can be difficult, so the team was working on a cell-free biosensor that can detect a variety of dangerous metals. To then remediate the problem, they designed a cellulose hydrogel to “mop-up” contaminants in water. Additionally, they address plastic pollution by investigating an enzyme cocktail for biodegradation of PET plastic. We also hear about what they learned during the competition and how they enjoyed being part of an international collaboration. iGEM wiki: https://2022.igem.wiki/edinburgh-uhas-ghana/index.html IDEC: https://idec.io/index.html

On this week's The Sci-Files, your hosts Chelsie and Danny interview Anna Kim and Roksana Riddle. The United States CDC estimates 2.8 million drug-resistant infections resulting in 35,000 deaths yearly. Pseudomonads are amongst the most resistant to antimicrobials, not only in clinical settings but equally in plant systems like P. syringae. P. syringae is a causative agent for multiple diseases affecting nearly all major economic crops worldwide. Despite the yearly rising numbers of drug-resistant infections, common treatments include antibiotics. Drug-resistant microbes have sparked renewed interest in bacteriophage use in plant infections. Bacteriophages, or phages, are natural predators of bacteria, using them as a host to reproduce. Due to phage's high-host specificity and ability to kill microbes efficiently, the use of phages as a plant biocontrol has increasingly been studied with the rise of drug-resistant microbes. The application of phage on crops results in decreased phage viability due to varied environmental conditions, including UV and pH levels. Check out more about their project here.If you're interested in discussing your MSU research on the radio or nominating a student, please email Chelsie and Danny at scifiles@impact89fm.org. You can ask questions about future episodes here. Check The Sci-Files out on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube! 

www.mainretreat.de

Šiandien, liepos 28-ąją, minimas Lietuvos ir JAV diplomatinių santykių šimtmetis. Atsikūrusią Lietuvą JAV de jure pripažino 1922 metų liepos 28 dieną. 1940-aisiais Rusijai okupavus Lietuvą, JAV valstybės sekretorius Benjaminas Sumneris Wellesas (Bendžaminas Samneris Velesas) pareiškė, kad JAV nepripažįsta trijų Baltijos valstybių sovietinės aneksijos, o šių šalių diplomatinės ir konsulinės įstaigos gali tęsti veiklą.Šią sukaktį JAV ambasada Lietuvoje kviečia minėti savo bendruomenėse visoje šalyje, o mes kalbėsimės su Lietuvos ambasadore Jungtinėse Valstijose Audra Plepyte.Lenkija jau prieš gerą savaitę pradėjo gyventojų skiepijimą ketvirtąja COVID vakcinos doze. Pirmiausia skiepijami 60-79 metų amžiaus žmonės, o visus nusilpusio imuniteto asmenis bus galima skiepyti nuo 12 metų. Šios ir kitos aktualijos su bendradarbiu Lenkijoje Laurynu Vaičiūnu„Neturiu prisiminimų apie savo šeimą“, sako vaikų mėgstamas rašytojas Tomas Dirgėla, ką tik išleidęs knygą apie skyrybas „Juoda dėmelė balstose lubose“. Specialistai sako, kad jis padarė gerą darbą ne tik vaikams, bet ir suaugusiems. Tad kaip sudėtingomis temomis kalbėti lengvai ir paprastai? Ir kaip palengvinti vaikų, kurių tėvai skiriasi, gyvenimą? Pokalbis studijoje.Mokslininkams nerimaujant dėl organizmuose aptinkamo vis didesnio smulkių plastiko dalelių kiekio, ieškoma būdų, kaip efektyviai spręsti šią taršos problemą. Tarptautiniame konkurse „iGEM“ (tarti aidžEm) aštuonerius metus dalyvaujanti Vilniaus komanda šiemet siekia sukurti įrankį, kuris padėtų aptikti net ir pačias mažiausias - nanoplastiko - daleles. Iš Vilniaus universiteto studentų sudaryta komanda už savo darbus ne kartą pripažinta geriausia pasaulyje. Apie šių metų planus su laboratorijos komandos kapitone Emilija Dešč kalbėjosi Karolina Panto.LRT faktai.Ved. Živilė Kropaitė

Álex Pascual Cid es un joven biotecnólogo con intereses en Biología Sintética. Es fundador de la Asociación de Biotecnólogos de Navarra (NavBiotec) y ha participado en iGEM, la competición de Biología Sintética más importante del mundo. Hoy nos contará acerca de su trabajo de divulgación y conexión con la sociedad por parte de la asociación y de su experiencia en la competición. https://linktr.ee/caimanesporelmundo

Current automation is expensive and difficult to use. Scientists have to learn complex programming languages, becoming more programmers than experimenters. Machines they use understand basic commands such as ‘draw one ml of liquid from this tube to the next', yet the burden of ensuring that protocols and methodologies are complete, carried out accurately and without fault still falls with the scientists themselves. A mountain of manual labour is a main aspect of a scientist's job. Keoni and Roya from Trilobio want to change this. Their compact automation units and new standardised synbio language can bring a future where scientists have more time to think creatively. A future in which methodologies can be transferred using code and machines can complete protocols themselves. This will mean more experiments being done in a shorter space of time and a wider range of people gaining access to doing science. Imagine being able to do scientific experiments in your school years. Imagine wasting less time correcting iGEM cloning and transformation experiments and, instead, focusing on the innovation that can be unleashed. 

In dieser Folge heißt es mal wieder: From Science to Start-up! Erfahrt im Podcast mit Dr. Anne Vortkamp, wie Wissenschaftler:innen Probleme auf kreative Art und Weise lösen und wie aus Forschungsideen erfolgreiche Gründungen entstehen! Diesmal bei Anne zu Gast: Henrike Brandt vom iGEM-Team Münster. Die iGEM-Competition ist ein studentischer Wettbewerb, bei der sich 300 internationale Teams mit Fragen der synthetischen Biologie auseinandersetzen und anwendungsbezogene Problemlösungen entwickeln. Henrike und ihr Team arbeiten z.B. daran, ein neues, umweltfreundliches und kostengünstiges Verfahren zur Gewinnung eines Mittels gegen den Borkenkäfer zu entwickeln. Dabei nimmt das Team unter der Leitung von Prof. Dr. Jochen Schmid eine echte Vorreiterrolle an der WWU ein, denn sie sind das erste iGEM-Team aus Münster überhaupt! Übrigens: Das Feld der synthetischen Biologie ist gar nicht so einfach zu erklären, da es so extrem breit gefächert ist. Allerdings entstehen gerade deshalb aus den Ideen im Rahmen der Competition immer wieder innovative Start-ups. Mehr dazu und was man aus der Teilnahme an einem Wettbewerb wie iGEM für eine Gründung lernen kann, erfahrt ihr wie immer im Podcast – also hört rein! Mehr zu iGEM: https://igem.org Das iGEM-Team Münster: https://www.uni-muenster.de/Biologie.IMMB.Schmid/news/index.html www.reach-euregio.de Kontakt REACH-Team: info@reach-euregio.de

Kultūrinės spaudos apžvalga.Tarptautiniame sintetinės biologijos konkurse „iGEM“ aštuonerius metus dalyvaujanti Vilniaus universiteto studentų komanda šiemet siekia sukurti įrankį, kuris padėtų aptikti net ir pačias mažiausias nanoplastiko daleles. Apie tai kalbasi Karolina Panto.Penktadienio skaitymo rubrikai knygų apžvalgininkė Eglė Baliutavičiūtė pasirinko dvi kinematografiškas, bet kartu ir labai skirtingas knygas – airių rašytojos Sally Rooney „Gražus pasauli, kurgi tu“ ir amerikiečių rašytojo Peter Cameron „Kai ateina naktis“.Lietuvos nacionalinis dramos teatras prisijungė prie STAGES – Tvaraus teatro aljanso žaliai aplinkos kaitai skatinti. Jame 14 Europos teatrų partnerių ateinančius ketverius metus sieks išbandyti eksperimentinius būdus, kurie padėtų spręsti didžiausius klimato krizės keliamus iššūkius. Avinjono festivalio metu liepos 15 d. vyks šio projekto spaudos konferencija ir diskusija.Minėdami Ašigalio tyrinėtojo Roaldo Amundseno 150–ąjį gimimo jubiliejų, jo pėdomis sekame su Pietų ašigalį pasiekusiu keliautoju Dariumi Vaičiuliu.Nuo šiandien LRT KLASIKOS klausytojai gali tapti žymaus Didžiosios Britanijos muzikos festivalio „BBC Proms“ klausytojais. Festivalio tradicijas ir šių metų akcentus pristato Julijus Grickevičius.Šį vakarą festivalyje „Midsummer Vilnius“ audiovizualinio kūrinio „Tarsi Vilnius“ premjera, sujungsianti Eitvydo Doškaus kinematografiją, dokumentinius kino kadrus, Pauliaus Kilbausko bei Vyginto Kisevičiaus garso kompozicijas ir choro „Bel Canto“ bei orkestro (dir. Modestas Pitrėnas) gyvai atliekamą muziką.Šį savaitgalį vyksiantis „Žagarės vyšnių festivalis“ sieks atkreipti dėmesį ne tik į Ukrainos karą, bet ir į neraminančius tvarumo klausimus.Ved. Urtė Karalaitė.

Introduction to the Yale iGEM 2022 project and podcast.

Chris Kuffner has been a longtime BioBuilder -- starting in high school at Acton-Boxborough  High School in Massachusetts almost a decade ago, and now he serves as a BioBuilderClub mentor and workshop instructor. He pursued his early interest in synthetic biology at University of Maryland, where he participated in the hardware track of iGEM. His team engineered a -80 freezer that could be built from component parts that cost less than 10% of the commercial versions of the lab equipment. Chris is now at Boston University pursuing his PhD in BioEngineering. His thesis work is exploring ways to visualize RNA in real time inside living cells. 

"Медицина на кухне" возвращается! Сегодня у нас в гостях Александр Русинов, студент биологического факультета МГУ и один из ключевых людей в истории паблика "Какие-то Биохимические Мемы" (КБХМ). В этом подкасте, который мы записали прямо в кафе, мы решили, словно археологи, пройтись по истории паблика КБХМ и поговорить о его истоках. Поговорили также о других родственных пабликах, создании мемов, о том, как изменилось восприятие науки Александром и о его научных проектах, в том числе светящемся пиве. Важный момент: подкаст был записан еще в начале лета, и поэтому некоторые вещи могли измениться. Из хорошего: на упомянутом конкурсе iGEM отечественные команды заняли призовые места! - https://medach.pro/post/2750

Todd Is a senior research scholar and executive committee member at NC states genetic engineering and society center. His work explores the scientific and technological frontier, stimulating discovery and bringing new tools to bear on public policy challenges that emerge as science advances.He has been appointed to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) technical and policy task force on synthetic biology and gene drives, which culminated in the first comprehensive assessment of the impacts of synthetic biology and gene drives on conservation. In 2020, he was appointed to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity's Ad-Hoc-Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on synthetic biology.Todd plays a very active role at iGEM, as a long time judge and by serving as the co-chair of its sustainable development goals program and as the former co-chair of the human practices program.In todays episode we discuss:-Bringing the iGEM SDG working group to life.-The first few questions iGEMers should ask themselves when trying to develop an SDG project. -The intense, controversial and hopeful conversations taking place at the UN and within the convention of biological diversity.

Is climate change opening the floodgates of the germ zoo? Are Silicon Valley investors understanding and accepting climate change? In this episode, Zeeshan chats with Arvind Gupta and Po Bronson about their book, Decoding The World, where they try and decode the real cause of the pandemic, climate change, iGEM and SynBio & Silicon Valley!Arvind is the founder and a venture advisor at IndieBio, which is the world's first and leading accelerator dedicated to startups in biology to solve the world's problems. As founder, Arvind has redefined the possibilities of early stage biotech, investing in over 136 companies over five years and growing the IndieBio portfolio into billions of dollars in value. His current role is at the global VC firm, Mayfield, where he co-leads the engineering biology practice whose mission is to invest in science based companies that could change history. Po Bronson was a finance and tech journalist covering Silicon Valley for Wired, The New York Times Magazine, and an op-ed contributor for The Wall Street Journal. His science journalism has been honored with nine national awards, and he is the author of seven bestselling books that are available in 28 languages worldwide. Po is currently the Managing Director of IndieBio and General Partner at SOSV, the venture firm that backs IndieBio.

Ausgabe 11 des Science Busters Podcasts: Kabarettist Martin Puntigam und Denise Schaffer, Technische Chemie, und die Magdalena Haller, Biotechnologie, erklären, was man tun muss, um die Goldmedaille in iGEM zu gewinnen, welche Alkohole man bei gereiztem Darm nicht essen sollte und wer die vielen Videos anschaut, die beim PCR-Test "Alles gurgelt" entstehen.

SynBio storytelling combines the creativity of writing and media with the intellectual fascination of the field. The goal of iGEM podcasts is to provide a platform through which the worldwide SynBio community can communicate, share ideas, debate and engage with central SynBio ideas and innovations.

Today I'm speaking with Tessa Alexanian. Tessa is focused on steering towards nice futures for biotechnology. To that end, she works at iGEM; creating incentives and programs that encourage synthetic biology development that is responsible, responsive, safe, and secure. She used to spend her days wrangling robots to do biological engineering but now spends more time wondering how to get biologists to engineer the right things. We cover everything from the fun to the glamourless realities of babysitting robots to the difficulties with balancing optimism and honesty in the face of great uncertainties; and also touch upon the 'Germy paradox' — why have we not seen more biological weapons used yet? => Shownotes

Welcome back after a short break for our second season of podcast releases! Here is our conversation with Dr. Cameron Kim, Lecturer in the BME department at Duke. As a Duke alum, Dr. Kim has had some pretty crazy and exciting experiences, from being on college jeopardy, mentoring the award winning synthetic biology team (iGEM team) at Duke, and pursuing a career as a semi-professional curler! Also make sure to check out "Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom," a book by Bell Hooks that Dr. Kim highly recommends! If you want to learn more about Dr. Kim, you can find more information about how to reach him at (https://bme.duke.edu/faculty/cameron-kim).

Jude Clapper started teaching synthetic bio at Taipei American School (TAS) in 2013 after attending one of Natalie Kuldell's Biobuilder workshops at MIT. He is now the chair of Scientific Research at the school, as well as an advisor for their iGEM team - which has won three high school grand prizes and countless nominations, as well as inspiring hundreds of kids to pursue scientific research.

Hear the UCL iGEM team's Rupali Dabas interview her peers and professors about perceptions and misconceptions surrounding synthetic biology.

About the hostZeeshan Siddiqui is a Synthetic Biologist from Sydney, Australia. He completed his undergrad in Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics from UNSW, Sydney. In 2020, he joined the iGEM team as an ambassador, with the goal of promoting science communication and education. He intends to pursue a PhD in protein engineering, as well as launch an online science journalism platform about sustainable synthetic biology.

Team work makes the dream... over Zoom? The Lambert iGEM team always have worked together in a Lab or a classroom to create their project, but this year their plans had to change to respect social distancing guidelines. Working around what they were given, on this episode we learn about how their projects have been going despite being apart. With makeshift home labs and sketchy equipment drop offs, our iGEM team has tried their best to replicate their lab settings through video calls and group chats. Listen in to this episode to see exactly how they have been getting around these barriers and rising above. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Сегодня у нас в студии команда молодых исследователей, которые разрабатывают биосенсор для экспресс-диагностики боррелиоза. Также ребята едут в Бостон на IGEM – престижный биотехнологический конкурс, где они будут единственной командой от России. Мы попросили их рассказать о своем проекте, конкурсе IGEM, диагностике боррелиоза о том, как им удалось собрать команду и организовать рабочий процесс. Также вы можете поддержать их проект (и поездку в США в особенности) с помощью краудфандинга: https://boomstarter.ru/projects/954548/uchastie_studentov_moskvy_v_konkurse_po_bioinzhenerii_igem

Today's Flash Back Friday comes from Episode 227, originally published in September 2014. Best-selling author and creator of the SIGMA book series, James Rollins, uses his latest novel ‘The 6th Extinction' as the basis for today's Holistic Survival Show. He and host, Jason Hartman, discuss some of the latest scientific advances, the potential for human immortality and the impact of our actions on this race as a whole. Key Takeaways 01.45 – The latest instalment of the SIGMA series deals with the very real concept of an impending extinction on the scale of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. 02.20 – The inspiration for many of today's novels comes from scientific discoveries and advances that have a real bearing on our lives. The fact that 30,000 species become extinct every year cannot be overlooked. 02.48 – With the notion of the sixth extinction, the main difference is that we, humans, seem to be the cause, and there are some authorities on the matter who believe we only have one or two generations until it happens. 04.30 – Only 1 out of 10 cells in our body has human DNA in it. 06.10 – Scientists are now at a point when they can create from scratch. Designer yeast is one of the more recent creations, but what's next? 08.00 – Novice scientists can be a part of the Bio-Punk movement by paying $40 and receiving some genetically modified weed seeds that glow in the dark. 10.10 – In these situations, it's not a case of if something bad will happen; it's a question of when. 11.00 – IGEM programs are even allowing for High School students to get involved in the field. 12.50 – Where computer code hacking used to be at the forefront, it's now being taken over by this new and growing trend of hacking into gene codes. 13.17 – 2040 is now predicted to be the year that man becomes immortal – to a degree or almost doubling our life expectancy. Website: www.JamesRollins.com www.Facebook.com/SigmaForce