'Time-Gated Fluorescent Aptamer Sensors Eliminate Autofluorescence during Continuous Molecular Detection in Complex Biological Matrices' from ACS Sensors is currently free to read as an #ACSEditorsChoice.
📖 Read the article: https://t.co/OXHGMaO6wt
i come from a programming background, so i didn’t have strong physics/engineering mental models for biology
inspired by the Quant Bible from MIT, i created an equivalent for engineering in biology
it’s not deep but has been helpful for me
link: https://t.co/4mjghhW4xe
Demis Hassabis just described what might be the end of genetic disease.
Google DeepMind built a system called AlphaGenome. It reads human DNA the way a software engineer reads source code.
Every letter. Every position. Every mutation across 3 billion characters.
Hassabis: “AlphaGenome is the best system in the world for predicting if a mutation will cause disease or if it’s benign.”
98% of your genome doesn’t code for proteins. For decades scientists treated it like dark matter. Present everywhere. Readable nowhere.
AlphaGenome reads it.
Now pair that with CRISPR. Jennifer Doudna’s gene editing tool can already target any DNA sequence on command.
The bottleneck was never the scalpel. It was knowing exactly where to cut.
Hassabis: “A combination of things like AlphaGenome and CRISPR could be incredibly powerful.”
That might be the most restrained sentence ever spoken about the future of medicine.
AI locates the exact mutation killing you. CRISPR goes in and deletes it. Not treatment. Not management. Deletion.
The hardest cases are multigenic. Mutations that cascade and compound. Hiding behind each other. Too complex for any human mind to untangle in a single lifetime.
Hassabis: “Those are even harder to detect, but actually perfect for AI to try and help with.”
The diseases that have defeated medicine for centuries are the exact ones AI is purpose-built to solve. That’s not a coincidence. That’s the turning point.
Every parent who sat in a white room and heard “there’s nothing more we can do.”
Every patient who watched their own biology turn against them with nothing to fight back.
Every name carved into stone because we could name the disease but couldn’t disarm it.
That era now has an expiration date.
Humanity spent 10,000 years fighting disease with observation and guesswork. We’re about to fight it with comprehension.
Your grandchildren may read about genetic disease the way you read about smallpox. As something that once ended millions of lives before we learned to read the code that wrote them.
Somewhere right now a child carries a death sentence folded into their DNA. Born with it before they ever opened their eyes. They don’t know it yet. Their parents don’t know it yet.
But for the first time in human history, the answer might arrive before the disease does.
That’s not technology. That’s the moment our biology stopped being our fate.
@jenshepp@Kevin_McKernan@ShivenChabria There is a great biography of Genentech. Even a big Danish drug company *ahem* came by after it was already producing insulin and didn’t buy it…
@Kevin_McKernan My postdoc supervisor said that you apply to NIH once you have 80% of the data…. that is not taking a risk. Hopefully now you can reduce some of the complexity and initial cost in silico
Probably Craig Venters last interview.
The people who drone on about the necessity of NIH “basic science” are the duds and dropouts of the class.
It’s food stamps for the underachievers.
you have no idea how much better it's getting in 2026
- peptides are viral and legal
- humans are being gene edited
- genomes are getting sequenced on kitchen tables
- psychedelics just got a presidential executive order
- cellular age reversal just entered human trials for the first time
- embryo selection for IQ is a commercial product you can buy today
- pig kidneys with 69 gene edits are keeping humans off dialysis
- AI is designing and validating drugs without human researchers in the loop
but somehow the society will not accept the science
To all scientists immigrants: This is an amazing opportunity. The Vilcek family is super generous and has rewarded many immigrant scientists including Nobel Laureate @kkariko. Hope everyone eligible applies !