... and to think he died of a curable cancer

Watch: Emerald Cloud Lab

Vimeo here. Run biotech experiments without leaving your workstation. Protein is the new programming language.

Currently my favorite company on the planet

Ginkgo Bioworks. Custom-tailored organisms to do all kinds of stuff. Read.

Cambrian Explosion

Austen Heinz, CEO of Cambrian Genomics, a company that sells built-to-order DNA strands, says you can imagine what will happen if biotech becomes as easy as software to try and to test. An “explosion of biotech companies is coming,” he says.

Wired Magazine: A Marked Man.

Man suffers for decades with cancer of the kidneys. Nothing helps. Gets tumor sequenced. Discovers the cancer in his kidney is actually pancreatic cancer. Man changes cancer treatment regimen, and lives. Full story in Wired.

How To Use MyGenomeBox

See the YouTube video here. 

De-Extinction

Add to the list of undreamed possibilities: bringing species back from the dead, or de-extinction. Stewart Brand talks about the possibilities in his Ted Talk. This is only one angle in the larger promise that Biotechnology will enable the reversal and/or repair of some of the more unfortunate impacts of the Anthropocene, along with proprietary crops to sequester CO2, proprietary algae to metabolize organic waste into more carbon-neutral fuels, etc. Hunted Species X into extinction? Oops -- our bad. Here -- we brought back Species X. Let's have a do-over, okay? (Link)

Stewart Brand TED Talk on De-Extinction