Biology is becoming engineering and not just science

During a recent interview, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasized his interest in how Nvidia’s AI processing chips could transform the science of life. He noted that this science, when properly understood, could evolve into a new form of engineering. Currently though, we lack the knowledge of how the extreme complexity of biology works, nor do we have models — namely AI models — to process that complexity.

We may not have a perfect understanding of biology, but our toolset has expanded dramatically over the past ten years. Now, with the combination of data, biology and AI, we’re seeing the early signs of a golden era of biological progress, with large-language models that are able to predict everything from protein folding to increasingly, protein function. Entire spaces of our map are being discovered and filled in, and that is leading to some bullish scientists and investors to call the period we are living in the century of biology. But much remains to be done, and that’s the topic of our episode today.

Host Danny Crichton is joined by Lux Capital’s bio investor Tess van Stekelenburg. Tess and Danny talk about Nvidia’s recent forays into biology as well as the new foundational model Evo from the Arc Institute. They then look at what new datasets are entering biology and where the gaps remain in our global quest to engineer life. Finally, they’ll project forward on where evolution might be taking us in the future once unshackled by nature.

Produced by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Christopher Gates⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Music by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠George Ko⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠