Biofounders: Fun conversations with unconventional founders, biohackers, CEOs, and investors you haven’t met yet | Follow along on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram | Support the podcast with a 5-star rating on Spotify ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

In this Biofounders episode:

* [0:00 - 1:53] Introduction by Sofia

* [2:29] Grace introduces herself

* [8:14] Turning a design hobby into a job in biotech branding

* [11:21] How branding in biotech has changed in the last decade

* [16:08] Common fears around branding and storytelling in biotech founders

* [18:48] B2B vs B2C biotech branding fears and needs

* [22:35] Bringing dinosaurs to the NYSE for Ginkgo’s IPO

* [24:21] How AI has changed our jobs

* [29:09] Questions relevant in today’s biotech ecosystem

* [34:10] Going from biotech tools to products that people want

* [35:30] How do you build a brand when everybody’s doing the same thing?

* [38:25] New formats for biotech branding and a secret new project

* [41:28] What makes Oscillator unique

* [43:38] Making things that don’t suck and branding as a means to make science work

* [47:33] Working with Christina Agapakis and finding her own voice

* [51:29] Rituals to stay creative

Grace is a chemical engineer turned creative director, or as we would both agree, a Biocreative.

At Ginkgo Bioworks, she orchestrated branding for the company’s IPO, which was the largest of a biotech startup ever, and she cofounded GROW, a magazine about the societal aspects of biotechnology, which circulated more than 15,000 copies around the world.

She was the first scientist to be recognized by Young Guns as one of the top creatives under 30 in the world, and her work has been recognized by the Art Directors Club, Webbys, Society of Publication Designers, and PRINT.

In 2022, she started doing freelance work for companies like Bitbiome and Solugen, and last year, she joined forces with Christina Agapakis to start Oscillator, an agency that crafts new stories where biology and technology meet.

This episode is definitely for the biocreatives, whether you’re into branding or storytelling, or you’re simply curious to learn how it’s like to work at the intersection of art and science.

We talked about why branding can sometimes feel like therapy for scientists, fears of B2B and B2C biotech companies in their storytelling, what questions she would ask if she was leading a biotech magazine today, what biotech is missing these days, new branding formats, and the Oscillator ethos.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

As part of his work in the public sector, Alexander Titus is one of the Commissioners at the United States National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. He previously worked at the DoD as the Head of Biotechnology Strategy, and helped launch PPPs BioMADE and armi.

With too many interests to count, Titus was also part of early-stage startups like Colossal Biosciences; he worked at Google’s healthcare and life sciences division, and cofounded Dauntless Ventures and Decycle Bio.

We’ve followed each other since he ran the BioXYZ publication in 2020. Today, he writes about the intersection of science, technology, policy, futures, and fiction through The Connected Ideas Project. His first science fiction novel, Synthetic Eden is now available.

In this Biofounders episode:

0:00-3:53 Introduction

3:55 Public and private sector in biotech innovation

10:11 Questions the Pentagon asking about biotech during the pandemic

13:13 Building credibility as biotechnologists through different storytelling

17:49 Lessons from Bioeconomy.XYZ, The Connected Ideas Project, and Synthetic Eden

21:05 How to think about genetically engineered human embryos

27:11 Increasing our reliance on AI and robotics-powered biotechnology

32:35 US-China biotechnological race

36:20 Metrics to assess the progress of biotech

40:37 Lessons from the last few years of the biotech industry and analogies to the tech industry

46:09 How Titus personally decides what to work on at a given time

Biofounders: fun conversations with unconventional founders, biohackers, CEOs, and investors you haven’t met yet | Follow along on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram | Support the podcast with a 5-star rating on Spotify ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

>FASTA: weekly short reads of the global biotech ecosystem | Papers and patents, acquisitions and bankruptcies, biotech philosophy | Read in under 5 min | Follow on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and Instagram | Versión en Español

Pilgrim is proud to sponsor >FASTA! They’re building the next generation of military medicine for rapid wound healing and pathogen detection—advancing solutions from frontline emergencies to everyday healthcare.

1. 🧬 Embryo optimization arrives in Mexico

2. 🍫 Cacao embryos

3. 🤖 Trilobot One and Trilobio OS

4. 👗 Scaling plant-based nylon

5. 🦠 CoBiotics

6. ⚕️ The Nobel Prize on the immune system

7. 💊 A world without antibodies?

8. 🧠 Atlas BCI

9. 💪 Altagenics and muscle wasting

10. Glass Life

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

>FASTA: weekly short reads of the global biotech ecosystem | Papers and patents, acquisitions and bankruptcies, biotech philosophy | Read in under 5 min | Follow on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and Instagram! | Versión en Español

1. Astra Zeneca's at-home flue vaccine

2. Holmes' return

3. Influencer marketing for MRI scans

4. Novo x Replicate to target obesity with RNA

5. Believer meats update

6. Debut raises $20M for AI-designed beauty products

7. Glowing succulents

8. How China will win in BCIs

9. Brain stimulation bands for ADHD

Drop me a line on Twitter, LinkedIn or Substack @SofiasBio if you're interested in sponsoring more Biopunk content.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

In the year 2000, Michael Elowitz and Stanislas Leibler published the first paper on a genetic circuit built in E. coli. A couple of years later, the first mammalian synthetic circuits emerged with work from Fussenegger in human cell lines.

Genetic engineers remained blind to plants until the late 2010s, when similar genetic engineering efforts started in the autotrophs. Long time scales, heterogeneous cell types, and high polyploidy are only some of the technical challenges of plant engineering.

Meanwhile, plants account for 80% of all biomass on Earth, they are our carbon capture machines by excellence, the original source of most pharmaceuticals in the world, and the basis of all of agriculture.

For startups and academic labs alike, the fact that plant (genetic) engineering lags ~15 years behind other organisms means that the ocean is blue, and a green field lies ahead.

When engineered, plants can serve as low-cost, natural bioreactors for pharmaceutical and cosmetic ingredients, for textiles and functional food… they can fix more carbon from the air and produce more food and, in some weird cases, they can even be turned into digital data storage devices and metal mining machines.

The following is a Biopunk Tour of the Brophy Lab in Stanford, where they are building new genetic engineering tools for plants and their associated microbes, towards a sustainable future. Their PI, Jennifer Brophy, famously built the first logic gates in plants during her postdoc, setting a precedent for the Brophytes 🌱.

PhD student Vivian Zhong and Postdoc Alexander Borowsky were kind enough to answer lots of questions about their current work, challenges and opportunities in industrial plant genetic engineering, under- and over-hyped plant biotechnologies, and societal challenges of engineered plants.

* 00:00 — Inside the plant incubator

* 00:36 — Vivian’s work to overcome random DNA integration

* 01:30 — Alex’s work controlling gene expression in plants

* 02:10 — The Brophy Lab’s mission

* 02:40 — Overhyped plant biotech

* 04:00 — Underhyped plant biotech

* 07:50 — Why you should consider doing plant genetic engineering

* 08:40 — Public Perception & communication about GMOs

* 11:30 — Lab Tour: Plant Transformation & Screening

* 14:30 — Microscopy: Visualizing edited plant cells

* 15:00 — Building gene constructs on Benchling

* 16:15 — Bioengineering: for what purpose?

* 17:10 — Futuristic plant biotechnologies

More Biopunk Tours of companies, research labs, and perhaps whole biotech cities could be possible — If you’re interested in supporting this content as a sponsor, drop me a line via LinkedIn, Twitter, a Substack comment or message, or by replying to this email!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

>FASTA: weekly short reads of the global biotech ecosystem | Papers and patents, acquisitions and bankruptcies, biotech philosophy | Read in under 5 min | Follow on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and Instagram! | Versión en Español

Pilgrim is proud to sponsor >FASTA! We’re developing the next generation of military medicine to meet the operational demands of modern warfare—moving beyond theory and bringing biotechnology from the benchtop to the battlefield.

1/10: Tour of the Brophy lab

2/10: GPT coming to your brain in the 30s

3/10: GLP-1 or just a scam?

4/10: Fix baby formula

5/10: Michael Trịnh

6/10: Timed caffeine pill

7/10: HHS abandons mRNA vaccine research

8/10: Harvard & Valley DAO

9/10: Poetic science

10/10: Designer fruit

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

Michael Florea is the co-founder and CEO of Olden Labs, an SF-based company developing and shipping AI smart and low cost cages for animal studies. Michael has had a long term vision to advance human longevity since he was a teenager. After his PhD in biology at Harvard Medical School, where he worked on whole body gene delivery systems, he choose to accelerate biotechnology by building Olden Labs. In just one month after launching, they’ve got over 100 labs, companies, and institutions to sign up for their cages. As of February 2025, they’ve shipped close to 40.

In this episode, we talk about the state of longevity, the state of the art in animal monitoring, how the Olden Labs smart cage works (watch YouTube video below for that), why animals are still relevant in a world of virtual biology and organoids, how the data they collect can further improve research, and my personal take on longevity.

Biofounders: fun conversations with unconventional founders, biohackers, CEOs, and investors you haven’t met yet | Follow along on LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram | Support the podcast with a 5-star rating on Spotify ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Timestamps

02:18 Upbringing and early interest in biology and longevity as a teen

7:15 PhD work in whole body gene delivery

13:02 State of the art and challenges of animal cages in research

18:40 Design of Olden Labs cages

27:40 Other companies in the space and vision

29:14 Cloud Lab vision for the next 5-10 years

31:58 Why we still need animals despite advancements in organoids and simulations

35:19 Capturing data for biomedical research

37:02 Longevity questions and discussion

Subscribe to weekly updates on the latest biotech outside trad pharma and never miss a Biofounders episode!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

>FASTA: weekly short reads of the global biotech ecosystem | Papers and patents, acquisitions and bankruptcies, biotech philosophy | Read in under 5 min | Follow on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and Instagram! | Versión en Español

Pilgrim is proud to sponsor >FASTA! We’re developing the next generation of military medicine to meet the operational demands of modern warfare—moving beyond theory and bringing biotechnology from the benchtop to the battlefield.

1/10: Our sponsor cut open his leg and raised $4.3M

2/10: Why LuxBio sells glow sticks to NASA

3/10: Geltor is back in the game with consumer peptides

4/10: Prepare for more biotech defense bills

5/10: A keto cure to schizophrenia?

6/10: Evolved CRISPR-associated transposases (CasTs)

7/10: Profluent's Open CRISPR-1 outperforms baseline

8/10: Strand Tx raised $153M

9/10: Josie Zayner’s story

10/10: Stop playing God. Become one.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

Arye Lipman cofounded Biosphere, a startup building UV-sterilized bioreactors that replace the 1950’s steam reactors to reduce biomanufacturing costs. Previously, he built a network of biotech labs for startups like Minicircle and invested in some of them. Biosphere came out of stealth this year through a USD $8.8 M seed round led by Lowercarbon Capital and VXI Capital, with participation from Founders Fund.

Biofounders: fun conversations with unconventional founders, biohackers, CEOs, and investors you haven’t met yet | Follow along on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram | Support the podcast by sharing a rating on Spotify ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

In this episode we cover:

* Upbringing in the California countryside and falling for biology (0:00 - 2:44)

* Early start in biotech as part of the founding team of an antibodies company (2:52 - 03:35)

* Why he built a network of biotech labs and why it wasn’t a good business (03:52 - 8:52)

* Investing in biotech through Mars Bio (8:52 - 10:26)

* Deep dives into the biomanufacturing industry and why sterility is a key constrain in costs (10:27 - 13:41)

* Superstition in biotechnology and redesigning the bioreactor from the ground up (13:50 - 15:59)

* Scaling up to move the needle (16:02 - 16:45)

* How UV sterilization and cleaning compare to steam (16:54 - 18:00)

* Testing performance in plastic and other materials (18:12 - 19:00)

* Building both biotech software and hardware to generate feedback loops (19:14 - 21:09)

* What the DoD is doing with biotech and how Biosphere is working with them (21:26 - 24:28)

* Why they’re not too concerned about downstream innovation (24:51 - 26:40)

* The Biopunk vision of industrialized photosynthesis and the realistic future of taking over the chemical industry with industrialized biology (26:41 - 29:32)

* Especially if you’re young, take the risk. Join a biotech startup or found your own! (30:00 - 31:16)

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe

>FASTA: weekly short reads of the global biotech ecosystem | Papers and patents, acquisitions and bankruptcies, biotech philosophy | Read in under 5 min | Follow on LinkedIn, X, and now Instagram too! | Versión en Español

Pilgrim is proud to sponsor >FASTA! We’re developing the next generation of military medicine to meet the operational demands of modern warfare—moving beyond theory and bringing biotechnology from the benchtop to the battlefield.

1/10: ViaGen clones polo mares 🐎

2/10: Threesome IVF babies 🧫

3/10: In-ovo matriarchy now in stores 🐣

4/10: Helania’s athletic lactoferrin 🍼

5/10: Kascaid wants your interstitial fluids 👀

6/10: AstraZeneca pledges $50M for US biomanufacturing 💵

7/10: Puna Bio goes international with the Gates Foundation 🦠

8/10: Plants vs microplastics 🌱

9/10: Alphagenome 🧬

10/10: Augmentation Lab's Hacker Houses 🧠

Poets: What happened to biotech DAOs?

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.biopunk.life/subscribe