Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴

Engineer of stuff that is alive or computes.
Follow us all to that blue place.

[Joseph Allen @j_g_allen]

RFK, Jr tried to collapse mRNA vaccine research

[Eric Horvitz @erichorvitz]

Patrick Winston’s last lecture on “How to Speak.”

In 2019, as I was getting mic’d to give a lecture at MIT, Patrick slowly came down the auditorium steps with a cane. He handed me a copy of his new book, and we caught up briefly.

My host later told me he was very ill and had made a special effort to come by and say hello. Several months later, he was gone. I hadn’t realized he had come to say goodbye.

I deeply enjoyed our collaborations over the years. A brilliant and wonderful man.
https://t.co/nu36p5vS5n

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@DevelopmentsAI @JosephJacks_ The world is quantum. Atoms exist. What could it possibly mean to say 'consciousness is quantum?'

[Tara Blume @tcblume]

Science gasps for breath. They are removing all the ocean monitors to understand changes in currents and climate, and the excuse is a master class in obfuscation & double speak . (1/2) https://t.co/vs782YbcI3

[Dan Widmaier 🧬/acc @dwidmaier]

Facts, we are killing our homemade golden goose in biotechnology and justifying it’s okay with the fig leaf of a few who stand to profit arguing that capital efficiency and strategic priority have overlaid goals.

[Jason Kelly @jrkelly]

This is why it’s so important for us to not to offshore biotech R&D leadership now. Once you let it go, it’s very very hard to get it back.

@IAmBiotech should back the Biotech Investment National Security Act of 2026 bill that just was announced today ! Our biotech startups need it!

https://t.co/BBGDqYlxvV

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@theBentoLab Top tip for PCR problems: redesign your primers. I try PCR once, then again with gradient annealing, then throw the primers out and redesign. Life it too short to deal with bad primers.

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@Nature If only we were drowning in data. There is approximately zero data for modeling most biological systems compared to what we need. Remote 24/7 autonomous labs running diverse protocols are how we'll get it. Let's get started.

[Jason Kelly @jrkelly]

Nothing new in here, unfortunately, and biopharma VCs like @LifeSciVC continuing to push to offshore biotechnology without a care for strategic implications for US. It's not 2008 anymore -- we're simply in a different strategic relationship between the US and China now.

From the post:
"The reality is rank and file talent is less expensive in China.  Why wouldn’t we want to augment our global workforces with some of these resources?  Why would we want to be less efficient?"

Low cost scientific labor and more lax regulation around clinical trials are the two big drivers for the rapid offshoring a very strategic technology. We are now at 1/3 empty lab space in Boston area and R&D jobs declined by 1,100 in 2025 -- the first declines since @MassBio started tracking it. I'm disappointed that our leaders aren't stepping up to protect and invest in our US biotechnology R&D ecosystem that did so much for them. Doing the opposite in fact -- it's tiring.

We have the power to keep this strategic industry onshore -- it's much easier to keep it then to lose it and try to bring it back. Our power originates in the fact that US citizens are the source of 70% of the profits in the drug industry. We set the rules on what drugs can be sold, how USG reimburses for drugs, etc.

We should add biotechnology to the COINS Act list of strategic technologies! And lean in to be make our US R&D infrastructure and trials more efficient! We can do both! Let's get to work! I'd love you to help us Bruce!

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@ihtesham2005 One more important aspect: never have just one problem you are working on. Have many: some short term, some medium term, some you will work on for your whole life.

[Michael Koeris @mkoeris]

Either way, none of it weakens the case for national Data Factories.

Right thesis, through the drug-development lens. The wider scope isn't a correction — it's a proper division of labor. The deepest part of the moat is national.

Full argument → https://t.co/NClQJYfpws
Shorter on LinkedIn: https://t.co/dSzkv2fQJf

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@p_maverick_b And you somehow think this is unusual. Bitrot of old links is endemic.

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@MaureenLangloss As a local high school student in the 60's, the MIT libraries were essentially my only source for science books and journals. When the science citation index was in book form. Then, removed all of the books from the shelves, replaced by 'study carrels.' Now, they just gave up.

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@jrkelly The plates must flow ...

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@p_maverick_b @ATinyGreenCell If I grow a goatee, can I make mirror life? Could we test this suggestion with the suite of models?

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@hsalis @SynBio1 Publish away. Of course, I have been assured that oligo pools will definitely be subject to rigorous safety validation real-soon-now before delivery. I believe there is even now a law about it. So, what could possibly go wrong?

[Jake Wintermute 🧬/acc @SynBio1]

Dank memes for biosecurity red teams

[opdroid1234 @opdroid1234]

Just saying that no website being served by a lisp machine got hacked in the last 5 years. Security record speaks for itself.

[Tom Knight -- e/🦀🌴 @TomKnightSynBio]

@lvwerra Left-handed DNA watch ....

[Sebastian S. Cocioba🪄🌷 @ATinyGreenCell]

What are we doing about monitoring for the next crop pandemic? Interstellar shows us how vulnerable we are yet when I see discussions of biosecurity, crop protection is seldom mentioned...

@mkoeris 👀