Nayanika Biswas

AI × Neuroscience × Human Behavior | Robotics @ Georgia Tech

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

Should Ed Boyden have been awarded the Nobel prize for this too?

Turns out the Nobel prize can only be shared by 3 people.

Until today, Ed Boyden and Karl Deisseroth both were credited at the pioneers of optogenetics.

What happens to that statement after today?

[The Nobel Prize @NobelPrize]

BREAKING NEWS
The 2026 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

Holy shit!!!!!!

This one hits close to home.

[The Nobel Prize @NobelPrize]

BREAKING NEWS
The 2026 #NobelPrize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel “for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics.”

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

@birdman9550 Yup. It’s getting better at other genres too. 👀😂

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

For part 3 of the fly brain connectome series, I wanted to create animation to help with the explanations. It alsp happened to be the exact moment opus 5.5 dropped. So I decided to put Opus 5.5 against Astra with a small experiment and choose the model that won.
Experiment conditions: Same prompt. 1 shot.

The outputs blew my mind. Both got it right in 1 try. Both were scientifically accurate. But Astra just hit it out of the park. It looked more polished. It even added a voice over narration to explain the whole thing.

Opus 5.5 took 17 minutes and Astra took 19.

Infact I wanted to set both to high effort but only ended up setting 5.5 to high and Astra ended us being on medium effort.

Which makes Astra's output even more impressive. OMFG. THIS IS INSANE.

No matter how well read I am about AI, seeing them in action is so surreal.

But more importantly. The way we learn is completely going to change. Education is going to completely change. AND THAT IS EVEN MORE INSANE.

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

This feels illegal. I just randomly had an idea, fired up my laptop, switched opus 5.5 to high and it one shot-ed the whole animation in 17 minutes. 17 minutes from idea to final output. The way we learn and study is going to change forever.

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

All their events this week

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

This is why I love New York.

I was just sitting on the stairs of the NYPL and sipping my coffee when this fashion show started.

And me being me, I started talking to the models to find out that it’s the New York Climate Week and they are trying to spread awareness about the dangers of fast fashion on the climate.

I love it so much. A random eye contact led to such a cool conversation.

If you are in the city, you should attend their show.

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

The next generation of education is here.
I wish I had a curriculum like this. I kinda made mine like this by skipping classes and spending all my days in the my robotics club building 3D printers, war bots, and autonomous underwater vehicles but there was little mentorship if you wanted to take the unconventional route. And so I always left like I never fit in. Super excited to see this.

[Gagan Biyani 🏛 @gaganbiyani]

Today, we’re launching an ambitious new school called The Horowitz Andreessen Academy.

Based in San Francisco, The Academy serves the most promising young high school graduates.

We think this can be an elite institution that attracts top tier talent. One that prepares students for the future rather than remaining stuck in the past.

The #1 goal is to help students learn to build, which is the most important skill in the AI era. They'll learn primarily by pursuing their own projects, either individually or in groups. There are classes and guest lectures, too, from some truly amazing people who have built modern-day Silicon Valley.

The Academy is designed as a network, since that’s the reason students go to school in the first place. Core to that network are our 10 Founding Partners: Anduril, Anthropic, Coinbase, Google, Meta, NVIDIA, OpenAI, Palantir, Replit, and Stripe. The network includes over 50 hiring partners and over 200 speakers and mentors. To join as a hiring partner or faculty member, you can apply on our website.

We raised $42M in funding led by @a16z. I'll be CEO and @pmarca and @eriktorenberg will join me on the board.

Applications are open for our Founding Class Fellowship, which will be one year and tuition-free. Eventually, pending regulatory approval, we plan to offer a two-year program that charges tuition, similar in cost to an elite private university.

We're looking for the most unusually ambitious young builders on the planet. Come join us in San Francisco:
https://t.co/NfavmBy2ex

[Patrick Malone, MD PhD @patricksmalone]

surprised this hasn't generated more discussion, but openevidence is getting into the drug dev biz.

OE has a specific distribution advantage unlike any other drug developer: physicians actively seek its input at the moment they're deciding how to treat a patient.

this changes two constraints that often influence which drugs get developed:

1. how much complexity a physician has to remember. a drug can be valuable in a narrow patient subgroup / in context of specific biomarker / at a specific point in treatment. these details make it hard to commercialize. OE helps physicians navigate this clinical complexity and prescribe the drug.

2. how large a market needs to be to support commercial infrastructure. small / fragmented patient populations can be expensive to reach. OE could reach physicians through a platform they already use and spread engagement costs across many drugs, lowering the revenue each drug needs to justify commercialization.

with large pharma needing ever-larger commercial opportunities to justify investment, good to see a model that could make smaller indications and more complex therapies commercially viable.

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

Having withdrawal symptoms from the lack of fruit fly sims on my feed… why has the world moved on so quickly?

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

@BrainsAndTennis @nicochristie Interesting.

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

@Object_Zero_ I am actually creating a series to explain the fly connectome, Why it’s such a big deal and what kind of experiments are possible. Do check it out if you are interested :) it’s on my page

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

@sharenarice Love the pun

[Sharena Rice, PhD @sharenarice]

The many reposts
of this recursion
are what I call
a flywheel effect.

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

@nicochristie @Polymarket 😭😂lol

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

@anshu4321 @SAIRfoundation @dirac_labs @birdman9550 So cool!!!!!

[Sharena Rice, PhD @sharenarice]

Happy to be working from @MeetRadial’s Midtown Manhattan HQ for a month or so!

Neuro is a fragmented field, yet also a small world in its subdomains. Bringing people from many walks of life together helps people find what they need faster: information, talent, the opportunity to contribute to research, and encouragement to keep building.
Nearly everyone I’ve met in this field works in neuro because they want to help other people.
As soon as we emerge from the elevators, we are more de-siloed! Especially as we can continue seeing each other through the virtual hallways from wherever we are onwards.

If people do not talk to each other,
discoveries are made but might take longer to be used,
technology advances slower than it could,
treatments that work faster and are covered by insurance exist,
… and if not enough people know about them!
So fewer people benefit!

It’s good for neurotech, neuroscience, neuro-anything for the humans in neuro to be connected.
It allows for better integration.

Thanks, NeuroNYC and @PrecisionNeuro_, for hosting the BCI event last night: it is wonderful to connect in person while in an extended work trip!
The event space was packed with joy.
I’m glad to have packed light - and share delight!

[Nayanika Biswas @nayanikab20]

Part 2 out now. Since everyone is using the connectome for memes (which I am absolutely obsessed with) imagine how much better they will get if people understood the science just a bit better. Or maybe I should also make the fly skateboard while watching bad apple and flirting with another fly.

[evnsnclr @evnsnclr]

I’ve successfully run the full retained MaleCNS v1.0 fruit fly connectome, all 166,700 neurons, inside Minecraft, with its simulated neural activity driving a fly’s movement.

V1 Currently in development. Built with the help of GPT-6 Astra.

Props to the @OpenAI team and @thsottiaux for this release. Code and mod coming soon!