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#61 - Biology Doesn't Scale. Systems Do. | Rich Cohen, Ginkgo Bioworks
Spider silk in yeast. Antibody AI models. Pharma companies pooling data across competitors. Rich Cohen has been at the intersection of biology and systems for over a decade — and he's here to talk about what actually scales and what doesn't.
Rich Cohen is Senior Director of Ginkgo Datapoints at Ginkgo Bioworks, working at the intersection of antibody drug discovery, data and product strategy. He started at the bench, moved through technical program management at Bolt Threads, and now helps build the platforms and data products that pharma actually needs.
In this episode:
→ Why biology doesn't scale on its own
→ What most biotech gets wrong about products
→ Where AI is actually delivering value
→ Why de novo drug design is still overhyped
🎙️ Guest: Rich Cohen — Ginkgo Bioworks / Ginkgo Datapoints
👥 Hosts: Sura Hadi & Mike Ouren
📁 Series: Systems of Science
🔗 Resources mentioned in this episode:
🧬 Ginkgo Data Points — Services and sample datasets
https://datapoints.ginkgo.bio/services
🤝 Antibody Developability Consortium — Ginkgo Data Points x Apheris
https://www.apheris.com/join-a-networ...
🧪 Amazon Bio Discovery — Design antibodies and order testing directly from Ginkgo
https://aws.amazon.com/biodiscovery/
🧪 Tamarind Bio — Another platform for designing antibodies and ordering Ginkgo testinghttps://tamarind.bio
📦 Order Ginkgo Data Points services on https://www.scienceexchange.com/ and https://scientist.com/
📊 Download Ginkgo datasets on https://huggingface.co/
📄 Journal Articles:
→ A high-throughput platform for biophysical antibody developability assessment to enable AI/ML model training: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.10...
→ 2025 Ginkgo Datapoints Antibody Developability Competition — results and observations: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
→ Using a GPT-5-driven autonomous lab to optimize cell-free protein synthesis — OpenAI x Ginkgo collaboration: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64...
🔗 Follow Rich on LinkedIn: / cohenrich
🔗 Ginkgo Datapoints: https://datapoints.ginkgo.bio
CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold Open
00:16 Welcome & Guest Intro - Rich Cohen, Ginkgo Datapoints
02:06 Icebreaker - When Did Biology Stop Being Science?
03:20 Segment 1: When Biology Becomes a System
14:44 Segment 2: Why Most Biotech Never Becomes a Product
26:50 Segment 3: AI and Data in Antibody Discovery
40:48 Segment 4: What Everyone Gets Wrong About Scaling Biotech
46:51 Shout Out to Ops & Dreamers
47:34 Pick of the Week - Company Retreat
51:58 Where to Find Rich
👉 YouTube: / @helicalbrew
🎧 Spotify, iTunes & Amazon Podcasts
📍 @helicalbrew everywhere
#HelicalBrew #SystemsOfScience #Biotech #LabAutomation #AI #DrugDiscovery #AntibodyDiscovery #GinkgoDatapoints #GinkgoBioworks #SciencePodcast #Podcast #BiotechOps #laboratory #science #projectmanagement #viralvideo
View all episodes
By Sura Hadi | Mike OurenSpider silk in yeast. Antibody AI models. Pharma companies pooling data across competitors. Rich Cohen has been at the intersection of biology and systems for over a decade — and he's here to talk about what actually scales and what doesn't.
Rich Cohen is Senior Director of Ginkgo Datapoints at Ginkgo Bioworks, working at the intersection of antibody drug discovery, data and product strategy. He started at the bench, moved through technical program management at Bolt Threads, and now helps build the platforms and data products that pharma actually needs.
In this episode:
→ Why biology doesn't scale on its own
→ What most biotech gets wrong about products
→ Where AI is actually delivering value
→ Why de novo drug design is still overhyped
🎙️ Guest: Rich Cohen — Ginkgo Bioworks / Ginkgo Datapoints
👥 Hosts: Sura Hadi & Mike Ouren
📁 Series: Systems of Science
🔗 Resources mentioned in this episode:
🧬 Ginkgo Data Points — Services and sample datasets
https://datapoints.ginkgo.bio/services
🤝 Antibody Developability Consortium — Ginkgo Data Points x Apheris
https://www.apheris.com/join-a-networ...
🧪 Amazon Bio Discovery — Design antibodies and order testing directly from Ginkgo
https://aws.amazon.com/biodiscovery/
🧪 Tamarind Bio — Another platform for designing antibodies and ordering Ginkgo testinghttps://tamarind.bio
📦 Order Ginkgo Data Points services on https://www.scienceexchange.com/ and https://scientist.com/
📊 Download Ginkgo datasets on https://huggingface.co/
📄 Journal Articles:
→ A high-throughput platform for biophysical antibody developability assessment to enable AI/ML model training: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.10...
→ 2025 Ginkgo Datapoints Antibody Developability Competition — results and observations: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
→ Using a GPT-5-driven autonomous lab to optimize cell-free protein synthesis — OpenAI x Ginkgo collaboration: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64...
🔗 Follow Rich on LinkedIn: / cohenrich
🔗 Ginkgo Datapoints: https://datapoints.ginkgo.bio
CHAPTERS
00:00 Cold Open
00:16 Welcome & Guest Intro - Rich Cohen, Ginkgo Datapoints
02:06 Icebreaker - When Did Biology Stop Being Science?
03:20 Segment 1: When Biology Becomes a System
14:44 Segment 2: Why Most Biotech Never Becomes a Product
26:50 Segment 3: AI and Data in Antibody Discovery
40:48 Segment 4: What Everyone Gets Wrong About Scaling Biotech
46:51 Shout Out to Ops & Dreamers
47:34 Pick of the Week - Company Retreat
51:58 Where to Find Rich
👉 YouTube: / @helicalbrew
🎧 Spotify, iTunes & Amazon Podcasts
📍 @helicalbrew everywhere
#HelicalBrew #SystemsOfScience #Biotech #LabAutomation #AI #DrugDiscovery #AntibodyDiscovery #GinkgoDatapoints #GinkgoBioworks #SciencePodcast #Podcast #BiotechOps #laboratory #science #projectmanagement #viralvideo