What if we could reprogram living matter the same way we program software?In this deep-dive conversation with Professor Thomas Gorochowski, biological engineer and former Turing Fellow, we explore the rapidly emerging field of engineering biology — and how AI is accelerating our ability to rewrite the code of life itself. From reprogramming immune cells to hunt down cancer, to designing entirely new biological machines, this episode dives into how computation and biology are merging in ways that once felt like science fiction.
We discuss:
🔹 How immune cells are already being reprogrammed to target cancer
🔹 Whether we could realistically cure the majority of diseases within 10 years
🔹 Why biology may be the most sustainable technology on Earth
🔹 The rise of biological “computation” and programmable cells
🔹 Why AI models like AlphaFold are transforming drug discovery
🔹 The economic and ethical bottlenecks slowing medical breakthroughsIn this episode, we also explore:
• The concept of biological systems as self-powering computers
• Why evolution is a self-improving loop
• The limits of “scaling” in medicine and AI
• The future of biological computing and silicon-biology hybrids
• Whether we’re approaching an exponential inflection point in human healthThis isn’t just about medicine — it’s about understanding the underlying operating system of life.
If biology is programmable, the question becomes: who writes the code?