Atoms & Bits

I am captivated by the frontiers of science and its unbounded potential to solve many of the problems we face.

Much like the Computing Revolution was marked by the iterative discovery behind the microprocessor, digital & binary logic, programming languages & personal computers, we are witnessing the start of a Biological Revolution. Fuelled by plummeting costs of sequencing technologies to 'read biology', the discovery of new editing tools like CRISPR, base & prime editing to 'write biology', and the application of AI architectures into biological workflows to 'understand biology'. The respective advances in these fields have equipped humanity with a newfound ability to design life - from hijacking cells to craft complex biologics like AAV's to programming the genetic code of cells to combat cancer.

The promise that lies downstream of these innovations, namely, the ability to cure disease, design resilient plant varieties and harness biology's manufacturing capabilities - is what keeps me up at night.

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At its most fundamental level, I think biology can be thought of as an information processing system, albeit an extraordinarily complex and dynamic one. Taking this perspective implies there may be a common underlying structure between biology and information science - an isomorphic mapping between the two - hence the name [..]. Biology is likely far too complex and messy to ever be encapsulated as a simple set of neat mathematical equations. But just as mathematics turned out to be the right description language for physics, biology may turn out to be the perfect type of regime for the application of AI.

- Demis Hassabis [Isomorphic Labs]