Elliot Hershberg Profile Banner
Elliot Hershberg Profile
Elliot Hershberg

@ElliotHershberg

11,518
Followers
925
Following
428
Media
2,719
Statuses

Genomics @Stanford , writing , writing/investing @notboringco

San Francisco, CA
Joined October 2011
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Pinned Tweet
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
We are currently pursuing the industrialization of biotech 🏭 In a new essay, I explore the following question: What if we pursue the biologization of industry? 🧬
Tweet media one
16
73
517
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
7 days
Humans: nanotechnology will never work!!! Bacteria: hold my beer.
68
520
6K
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 months
In the past few weeks, there's been an explosion of new tools for programming DNA and RNA 🧬 A thread with everything you need to know about these new results:
Tweet media one
8
167
845
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
I've spent several years building software tools in genomics. While the work couldn't be more exciting, there are unique challenges and tensions in the world of scientific software. How does software in the life sciences actually work (and not work)?
14
189
691
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
It's dizzying keep up with BioML 🧬 Not one, not two, but THREE exciting papers from the @MetaAI Protein Team before the end of the year. Here's what they released:
Tweet media one
8
83
603
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
In the future, medicines will be programmable 🧬 An exciting day for RADAR technology:
Tweet media one
8
86
521
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
AlphaFold wouldn't have been possible without the PDB. What will be the equivalent be for structure-based *drug discovery*? Very cool new resource called MISATO: nearly 20,000 experimental structures of protein-ligand complexes + associated properties:
Tweet media one
5
85
507
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 years
The {shiny} web framework is an incredibly powerful tool for #rstats users, and it's been really important for several of the scientific tools I've built. After recently finishing the Mastering Shiny book by @hadleywickham , I thought I'd share a roadmap for learning Shiny: 👇🧵
9
109
499
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
5 months
Rocket science is hard. Designing systems capable of launching materials—including humans—into orbit and then smoothly landing back on terrestrial ground is one of the greatest feats of engineering we’ve achieved. But surviving in space will be even harder. In his brilliant…
Tweet media one
38
84
487
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Language Models in Biology 🧬 A short preprint published earlier this month from the @lab_berger at @MIT_CSAIL showed that pre-trained language models are now state-of-the-art for drug-target interaction prediction.
Tweet media one
5
78
424
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
8 months
No technology has ever improved more rapidly than DNA sequencing. The resulting explosion of genomic data has played a central role in transforming biology into an information science. We now browse genomes, search vast databases of biological annotations, and explore digital…
Tweet media one
14
78
378
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
My final essay for 2022 🧬 The genomics revolution is now enabling a broad exploration across the Tree of Life. Let's explore the wild world of Extreme Biology:
Tweet media one
5
57
359
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
The Meta team modeled the metagenomic protein universe 🧬 More than 617 million new structure predictions of metagenomic proteins are now available. Predictions made using the largest protein language model to date. (15B params) Now *that* is meta... 🤯
Tweet media one
4
67
358
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 years
Should we start a Kickstarter to try to raise enough money to convince @3blue1brown to be the director?
@AnnaGHughes
Anna Hughes 🇵🇸
3 years
The Matrix but it's just a three hour movie about linear algebra
160
952
9K
2
7
338
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
One of my absolute favorite quotes about science, by Peter Medawar who won the Nobel prize for discovery of immune tolerance 🧬 There is no monolithic Scientist, people join in the pursuit for many reasons.
Tweet media one
3
67
339
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
6 months
From lab to approval in 11 years 🧬 And the thing is, medical applications of CRISPR are just getting started... Just yesterday, the @doudna_lab released two juicy preprints on improved delivery methodologies for CRISPR editing machinery: 1. Lung and liver editing by lipid…
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
@doudna_lab
Doudna Lab
6 months
I am excited and a bit overwhelmed with emotion at the news of the approval of CASGEVY in the UK. Going from the lab to an approved #CRISPR therapy in just 11 years is a truly remarkable achievement. (1/3)
36
839
5K
2
63
299
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Distributed biomanufacturing is not sci-fi 🧬 It's already happening. I want to share a few tangible recent examples of the *Atoms are Local* thesis in action:
Tweet media one
8
42
262
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
The postdoc shortage has been a point of wide discussion recently 🧬 What is *actually* happening? Where are all of the postdocs going?
Tweet media one
7
48
254
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
New essay 🧬 Early immunotherapies have already *cured* cancer patients, but still face many challenges. Where are we going from here?
Tweet media one
4
31
244
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 years
Hear me out... @LambdaSchool , but for bioengineering/comp bio/synbio
19
7
221
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
The AlphaFold discourse is strange... No, "AlphaFold won't revolutionize drug discovery" but neither did the Human Genome Project. However: AlphaFold is arguably the first *major* empirical science win for AI after so much progress in games and virtual worlds.
11
19
217
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Synthetic biology is maturing into a quantitative engineering discipline 🧬 Powerful ability to predict specific dose response curves (left), and engineer new mutations with expected outcomes (right) using ML.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
1
31
217
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 years
I've started a new Substack called The Century of Biology. Here is my first post: A short thread 🧵 (1/5)
3
36
216
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
8 months
A 3D printed DNA extraction device 🧬 How can we make biotechnology cheaper and more accessible? I talk a lot about the absurd genomics cost curve, and recently chronicled Illumina's journey towards making DNA sequencing ubiquitous. But beyond DNA sequencing, what about the…
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
5
38
212
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
A representation of the global landscape of regulatory sequences 🤯 🧬
Tweet media one
2
38
218
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
I’d like for all of you to meet my editor. Her name is Kelda. Next weekend, I’m going to marry her.
Tweet media one
21
0
209
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
9 months
CRISPR screening + microscopy 🔬🧬 This past week, @insitro posted a new @biorxivpreprint detailing a screening platform that combines large-scale CRISPR screens with an optical readout. Who is Insitro? Founded in 2018 by @DaphneKoller , former Stanford professor and @coursera
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
2
34
204
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Tech investors: really like their vision, but kind of a red flag they didn't drop out of college to pursue this earlier 🤔 Biotech investors: they've spent the past decade doing their PhD and postdoc building this, but we need a leader with more experience 🤔
7
14
199
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 years
In the world outside of genomics, I had a major life milestone this week. I proposed to my girlfriend Kelda, who I have loved for nearly nine years (!!), since we were two high school kids in Seattle borrowing our parents cars to see each other 🥰 I couldn't feel more lucky!
Tweet media one
23
2
201
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Single-cell genomics, without the microfluidics 👀 While single-cell has enormous power, people have been working to tackle the microfluidics bottleneck (scalability, cost, simplicity). This emulsification-based approach seems promising 🧬
Tweet media one
5
47
200
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
9 months
Implementing neural networks... in DNA 🧬 Neural networks are an example of a bio-inspired algorithm. We used neuroscience as an intuition pump for making learning systems. But what if we took our C.S. innovation in neural nets, and... implemented that using biology? How would…
Tweet media one
11
32
199
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
10 months
Organ-on-a-chip for CAR-T cell therapy 🧬 I've been digging into the current state-of-the-art for new in-vitro drug discovery models for an essay I'm currently writing 👀 For small molecule discovery, Big Pharma companies like Roche have announced major investments in this…
Tweet media one
4
19
197
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Protein-protein interactions seem like an obvious frontier for protein science in a post-AlphaFold world. Excited to see a new study with some of the top minds in BioML and protein science working together to build a scalable sequencing-based measurement platform 🧬
Tweet media one
4
28
185
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
The fact that we can hot-wire a patients own T cells to attack certain types of tumors is absolutely incredible. And the thing is, we're just scratching the surface when it comes to cell therapy.
Tweet media one
6
24
185
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
I've been awarded the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship! Motivated to make the most of it 🧬 🖥️
25
1
184
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
BioConvert: a comprehensive format converter for life sciences Bioinformaticians shouldn't worry about being replaced by ChatGPT. This is the real threat!
Tweet media one
9
32
183
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
10 months
A structure/sequence representation for Protein Language Models 🧬 To date, Protein Language Models (PLMs) have been trained on large databases of protein sequences, primarily with the trained objective being to predict masked amino acids. Simultaneously, with incredibly fast…
Tweet media one
2
27
177
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Bugs as drugs 🦠🧬 Engineering edible microbes (spirulina) to produce acetaminophen (Tylenol) POC for "small molecule production derived from CO2, H2O, and light in an edible host for bioavailable, oral drug delivery" 🤯
Tweet media one
5
31
171
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Cell-free systems are a powerful approach to creating bio-sensors in synbio 🧬 A new study encapsulates one of these sensors into lipid vesicles
Tweet media one
3
37
168
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
9 months
We can program cells to produce drugs, perform logic operations, and attack tumors. What does it take to write a new cellular program? Trial and error, of course. Biology is complicated, and we shouldn’t ever expect our designs to work the first time. Individual genes interact…
Tweet media one
1
38
168
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
11 months
The future is going to be really weird. In April, I traveled to Montenegro for the @SynBioBeta "Blockchain Meets Bio" Summit. This event was held at Zuzalu, a pop-up city experimenting with crypto citizenship. Key leaders of both technology communities spent several days…
Tweet media one
11
35
167
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 months
Beyond Steel Tanks 🏭 It's been fascinating to watch the growth of GLP-1 drugs. For the first time, a bioproduct could outsell the iPhone. But we can't make anywhere near enough of these medicines to meet demand right now in the United States—let alone globally. I was…
Tweet media one
6
35
162
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Biology is far better than us at chemistry, computation, and manufacturing 🧬 Our goal should be to strengthen our partnership with Nature.
5
16
161
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
9 months
Transferrin Receptor Targeting Chimeras (TransTACs) 🧬 The field of targeted protein degradation is going through a renaissance. The core idea: use a bifunctional molecule to bring a protein in proximity to a degrader. The first wave (PROTACs) primarily used E3 ligases as the…
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
3
29
159
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
10 months
Biopharma is a strange business. Drug candidates routinely fail in clinical trials at a rate that would be unacceptable in most other industries. Why should we accept this as the norm? What if we could produce medicines in such a reliable way that their clinical success was…
Tweet media one
5
29
144
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Moved to SF this past weekend 🌊 We’re closer to the school where my wife teaches, and the ocean! I’m also enjoying the little office nook I’ve fashioned for myself.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
13
1
148
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 years
We are living through a renaissance in the field of computational protein science. This has enormous implications for biotechnology at large. Check out my COB highlight of the amazing recent work from @UWproteindesign on protein binders:
1
31
145
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
My longest COB essay to date... 🧬 Techbio taxonomy 🧬 What actually is a *techbio* company?
9
37
143
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Excited to be back with another essay 🧬 I normally focus on *what* is happening: a biotech revolution. I also focus on *how* scientists and engineers in this space are building the future. Here's *why* I view it is a moral and aesthetic imperative to pursue biotechnology:
Tweet media one
5
13
140
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
7 months
Internal Pharma AI efforts at Sanofi 🧬 It can be easy to paint a caricature of Big Pharma companies as Leviathan institutions that aren't capable of internal innovation. Yes, many of the top companies are hundreds of years old (seriously: ), but that…
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
4
24
143
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
5 months
A genomic smart watch 🧬 @JShendure is one of the most creative scientists in the field of genomics. My time working at the @uwgenome was extremely formative for understanding the enormous potential of the NGS revolution beyond personalized health. He believes that NGS is…
Tweet media one
2
36
137
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Designing regulatory DNA with AI 🧬 🖥️ 🤯 Three elegant new strategies from a recent preprint led by @ibrahimihsan from the @steinaerts lab:
Tweet media one
1
32
138
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
7 months
This year's Nobel Prize announcement has stirred up a lot of conversation about institutional blindspots that hinder great work. Dr. Katalin Karikó struggled for years to pursue her foundational research program that ultimately enabled the global dissemination of mRNA vaccines…
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
3
27
136
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
5 months
Bioengineers cooking up a future worth living in 🧬
6
13
133
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
The claim by @lpachter that "hardly anyone reads papers anymore" is super interesting, and has generated a lot of discussion. I think that there is a lot going on here...
Tweet media one
8
29
134
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Here's an attempt to circumvent *The Algorithm* 🧬 I worked really hard on this one, and I'm proud of it. I hope that you check it out and enjoy!
Tweet media one
7
17
133
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
6 months
On biotech platform strategy 🧬 For biotech founders and investors, not all types of risk are the same. Opinions vary, but three major buckets of risk are scientific/technical risk, team/execution risk, and market risk. In other words, how likely is it that the technology will…
Tweet media one
3
12
130
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Biology is being transformed by incredible new measurement technologies 🧬 This transition requires a new Software stack:
Tweet media one
4
30
125
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Biology as technology 🧬 Moving up the ladder of complexity from designing individual proteins to extendable protein multiplexes. The rate of progress in the Baker Lab is insane.
Tweet media one
1
12
122
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
5 months
Delivering the delivery vector 🧬 Gene therapies aim to reprogram diseased cells by delivering nucleic acids or gene-editing machinery. A central bottleneck is precise delivery to the targeted cell type while evading the immune system. To date, adeno-associated viruses (AAVs)…
Tweet media one
3
16
120
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
How can we learn to rapidly compose new genetic circuits? In a new essay, I explore recent work from the frontier of ML-driven biodesign 🧬 We're expanding from models of genetic parts, to models of genetic circuits:
Tweet media one
2
20
120
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
9 months
When Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan announced their philanthropic efforts to “cure, prevent, or manage all diseases by the end of the century” in 2016, they were ridiculed. Skeptical scientists leaned back from their lab benches and groaned collectively. More tech money…
Tweet media one
4
12
121
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Illumina announced they will pursue their own drug discovery efforts this month 🧬 What product companies have successfully become discovery companies? It turns out another valid question is: what major pharma companies *didn't* start selling products?
Tweet media one
7
14
118
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Definitely don’t move to SF. It is a hell scape.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
Tweet media four
15
4
117
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Nanopore Sequencing x Single Cell Biology 🧬 A new technique (scNanoGPS) from the @Ruli_Gao Lab was able to detect expression and isoform differences (the phenotype) *and* mutations (the genotype) in single cells—without short read information.
Tweet media one
3
36
118
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Another update... I'm incredibly excited to be joining @8vc this Spring as a Bio-IT Fellow! A short thread on 1) why, and 2) what I'll be up to:
Tweet media one
13
4
116
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
10 months
Some thoughts on Agency. What is Agency? The belief that you can change the world around you. One of my favorite quotes comes from @pmarca : “The world is a very malleable place. If you know what you want, and you go for it with maximum energy and drive and passion, the world…
Tweet media one
3
17
114
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Has the Bay Area peaked as a tech hub? For the life sciences, I don't think so. In a new essay, I explore why I'm Betting on the Biohub 🧬
Tweet media one
10
7
115
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
It was my birthday yesterday. To celebrate, my wife and I walked the SF Crosstown Trail—a diagonal route through the city connecting many of the parks, gardens, and greenways 🌳🌱 It was a really cool 17-mile journey:
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
Tweet media four
16
1
113
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
What are some of the major recent biotech advances? 🧬 CRISPR. Next-gen sequencing. CAR-T therapy. Does the creation of bioRxiv count? I think it should:
Tweet media one
2
19
112
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
New essay 🧬 Physical predictions. Biology is the most powerful way to transform the physical world using AI:
Tweet media one
3
17
112
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Extreme Biology goes mainstream 🧬 Paratus Sciences recently raised $100M from top biotech investors to build a comparative biology platform to understand bat biology.
Tweet media one
4
13
110
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 months
Wow! The T2T crew (team that produced first gapless human genome assembly) is back at it... Were able to complete a nearly perfect assembly of the human genome (plus tomato and maize) using only one sequencing technology: Oxford Nanopore Tech. This is big!
Tweet media one
3
12
111
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
If you haven’t read this deeply researched primer on biomaterials by @tsungxu yet… you should now 🧬 Packed with information and ideas, I ended up reading twice.
3
13
109
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 month
A new preprint introduced: 1. A new RNA database 2. A language model architecture for RNA 3. Experimental demonstration of in silico predictions for mutations increasing ribosomal thermostability All started from a Berkeley hackathon w/ undergrad participation!
Tweet media one
3
17
110
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 months
Very evocative figure. "We present an alternative to Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) termed Graph Structured Neural Networks (GSNN), which uses cell signaling knowledge, encoded as a graph data structure, to add inductive biases to deep learning."
Tweet media one
1
17
108
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
4 months
Experimental biology revolves around a central process: Manipulating small volumes of liquid. Researchers at Cornell recently invented a new system for doing this, called SPOTs. The idea is to use a liquid-repelling coating organized in precise geometries—no pipettes needed.
Tweet media one
7
8
107
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 months
From the cutting room floor of my most recent essay: The cost of precision fermentation is falling exponentially. This should expand the set of commercially competitive bioproducts—even in sectors where previous efforts have failed.
Tweet media one
9
19
105
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
A big milestone: I joined my thesis lab this week! I can’t wait to keep working with @sbmontgom at the intersection of human genetics and multi-omics 🧬
Tweet media one
3
2
102
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
4 months
Progress in reading, writing, and editing DNA has been relentless. With all of these new tools, why haven't we successfully cured every disease with a genetic basis? There are several reasons—including financing the cost of clinical development for rare diseases—but there is a…
Tweet media one
4
22
100
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Epic start to the Founder-led Biotech Summit 🧬 After a great overview from @kulesatony , we got to hear the founding story of @TwistBioscience directly from @EmilyLeproust . Next founder up is @srikosuri . Also a cool cellular visualization of the founder-led ecosystem 🤯
Tweet media one
5
11
102
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
On a recent trip to NYC, I spent time thinking about the staggering complexity of maintaining all of the manmade infrastructure that we rely on. What if our tunnels, subways, and buildings could grow and regenerate like biology? 🧬
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
Tweet media four
8
3
100
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Say what you will about AI in biology being overhyped, but something special is happening. What problem is most primed for the next AlphaFold moment?
@demishassabis
Demis Hassabis
1 year
Big milestone: 1M+ researchers have now made use of #AlphaFold in their vital work, in the 18 months since we made it freely available. From antibiotic resistance to crop sustainability, it's been amazing to see the impact of ‘Science at Digital Speed’:
72
385
2K
5
11
100
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 months
SF is a living embodiment of one of @GreatDismal ’s core themes: The future crawls clumsily out of the past. Victorians with dual monitor workstations in their bay windows. Driverless cars silently traversing streets along the Pacific lined with Spanish row homes.
2
16
99
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 years
This week on The Century of Biology, I highlight the really impressive new work led by @Avsecz , @vagar112 , @drklly , and Daniel Visentin. A short thread 🧵:
2
27
96
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Hot take: the recent acquisition of Prometheus Biosciences by Merck for $11B should be counted as a win for TechBio 👀 You may be saying: that's not TechBio!1!1 😖 Consider suspending skepticism for this analysis:
Tweet media one
3
16
95
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Lot's of debate and questions about what is and isn't TechBio 🤔 In my view, it's biotech all the way down. TechBio is useful for describing a subset of companies with new founders/investors/tech/biz models. Over time, it will be an irrelevant distinction like molecular bio 🧬
Tweet media one
9
5
94
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Single-cell atlases aim to "create comprehensive reference maps of all human cells" 🧬 Read about a powerful new bridge between these atlases and diverse single-cell omics technologies:
1
31
95
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
It's time for biotechnologists to show plants more love! 🌱 🧬 Read more about new advances in designing plant genetic circuits:
1
14
93
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
It was a blockbuster biotech breakthrough when Genentech successfully synthesized human insulin in 1978. Now, many dream of an entire economy where *everything* is @BuiltWithBio What technology will enable this revolution?
Tweet media one
7
11
90
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Just a matter of decades ago, a PhD in genetics often consisted of sequencing *a* gene. Now, graduate students can carry out massive functional studies perturbing every gene in the genome. What has changed to make this possible?
Tweet media one
3
11
89
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
10 months
Books are phenomenal bioproducts. Thin sheets of processed cellulose fibres transduce neural signals between apes across space and time. They are a memetic portal to our ancestors. A record of our civilizational conversation. I will never take this for granted.
5
12
89
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
20 days
Engineers love general solutions. Normally, biotechs focus all their efforts on a set of specific solutions. These solutions are what create value. But the engineer's central urge is to improve *the way* that we arrive at these solutions. It's a really long-term bet.
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
5
6
91
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 months
The success rates for antibodies are going up across nearly every clinical phase transition. Figure shows "rates for antibody therapeutics for any therapeutic area that entered clinical study during 3 periods." Very exciting, compared to industry benchmarks across modalities.
Tweet media one
10
8
87
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Impressive recent @PacBio preprint 🧬 SMN1 is a gene that plays a central role in spinal muscular atrophy. It's tough to analyze because it has a very similar paralog SMN2 (below). They were able to detect both, call phased variants, assess copy number.
Tweet media one
1
15
88
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
17 days
Lipid nanoparticles are very inflammatory. This makes them a great vaccine adjuvant, but a difficult vector for universal delivery of nucleic acids. A recent study showed that endosomal escape—the mechanism for RNA delivery—is also the driver of this inflammation.
Tweet media one
1
13
90
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
3 years
This increasingly worries me. It too greatly resembles the initial conditions for “The Jackpot” @GreatDismal has written about: a future where systemic problems (stagnation, pandemics, climate) collapse all but 20% of society who survive w/ godlike tech (1/2)
@tsuname
Pablo Cordero
3 years
Stark dissonance between what I hear from folks at the edge of their fields imagining the future and assessing our current trajectory. There's crazy stuff going on that will change the world for good in the short term, but at the same time the world is increasingly on fire
1
1
27
2
24
83
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
More bugs as drugs 🧬🦠 This study led by @yerinchen from @mfgrp lab (my lab) absolutely blew me away the first time I saw the data. Engineering commensal skin microbes to express cancer antigens leads to highly effective T-cell mediated cancer killing.
Tweet media one
3
19
87
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
1 year
Base editors, with an on-switch 🧬 By using a molecular glue—a technology that triggers protein degradation—it's possible to program the half-life of Cas-based gene editing therapies. The pace of progress in the CRISPR field is only rivaled by AI right now.
Tweet media one
1
13
85
@ElliotHershberg
Elliot Hershberg
2 years
Combining synthetic biology and ML to systematically engineer CAR T cell signaling 🧬🖥
Tweet media one
5
9
85