146. Pump It Up: Benji Leibowitz on DAO-ing Science Differently

[00:00:00] Erum: I wanna welcome everyone at the Bio Fab Fair 2025.

[00:00:03] Erum: Thank you so much for being here. Yes, yes. And also I want to. Say hello to our listeners from all around the world. this is a very, very special episode.

[00:00:14] Karl: Yeah, so this is actually our hundred and 50th episode. We've been doing this for almost three years. We do release an episode every week. It doesn't mean we've done 150 interviews, but most of the episodes are interview episodes.

[00:00:27] Karl: so we've probably interviewed something like 120 innovators in this space. and so it felt appropriate for us to do this recording here, bio Fab. Suzanne has actually been on the podcast twice and there's a number of people who are in the audience that have been on the podcast at least once.

[00:00:43] Erum: Yes. And for the uninitiated, what do we talk about on this podcast?

[00:00:48] Karl: So we like to say, we talk about biology as technology in all its forms. What we don't really talk about so much is biotech in pharma, though we do occasionally veer into health. But mostly it's like our people using biology very creatively, whether with biotech or natural unused biology.

[00:01:05] Karl: to do really interesting things.

[00:01:07] Erum: And that's why it's perfect to have this recording at the Bio Fab Fair. We have seen incredible innovation in materials and personal care and beauty. I'm just so floored. You've been going to buy fabricate since day one, right? What was that

[00:01:20] Karl: like? So day one, I think we did it in, New York City in 2014, and it was in a space, it was probably the size of this, maybe double the space.

[00:01:30] Karl: it's Microsoft's, conference space just in Times Square. And what I remember the most about that. Particular event was, it was impossible to leave because every time you'd try to walk out the door, someone would grab you and wanna have a conversation with them because the conversations were so good.

[00:01:46] Karl: So it was a really special event. And, I think I've come to every bio fabricator except for one that was here in the uk and you've been coming for a number of years too, ira, right?

[00:01:55] Erum: Yeah, yeah. But not as much as you, so you're definitely like the platinum member. that's incredible. And, and you've seen these companies evolve, right?

[00:02:03] Erum: You've seen like, INE who hopefully they come up, they've been, wheeling and dealing downstairs, but you know, when they just had, a little bit of, a fabric and not even fabric, I mean, they had a spark in their eye. And then look at them now. And we can't wait to have them on. And you guys will, we'll get into their history and like what they're doing.

[00:02:20] Erum: I think they're launching a new product here, which is what people do at Bio Fabricate. and we have some amazing guests that will be on today. but before we go into that, we had day one. This is day two and a half, the first half of day two. We've seen any reflections from day one. You wanna share?

[00:02:39] Karl: I felt like day one was much more like design and biomaterials, whereas day two has been very heavy and complicated because it's really talking much more about the science. And, you know, we did a panel on ai, which again, hopefully maybe made things simpler. But again, all of these things are very complicated and when you're talking about making biomaterials and designing high performance biomaterials, it can get complicated very quickly.

[00:03:03] Karl: Yeah. What did you think you wrong?

[00:03:04] Erum: day one I thought was phenomenal. Like you're saying, color and texture, hitting things off was really cool. for the people in the audience, I mean, if you saw the, goin video yesterday was phenomenal. Hopefully we can get that video and we'll put that in the show notes for everyone to see.

[00:03:20] Erum: But I think it deserves like an Oscar nomination because it was so good. The audio alone. Just the audio was. Incredible. they had like a scene where someone's writing and you just hear the scratch of a pencil and you're like, oh my God. They really thought about every single sound that needed to be in that video.

[00:03:39] Erum: And it was like their commercial pitch video. Yeah. So it was like not even a commercial, like for like direct to consumer to be on tv. It was to investors. And I was like, wow. Like when you bring creative people, science, everyone together, I just was amazed by that video. that was a big takeaway.

[00:03:56] Erum: also of course, seeing our friends. we had a two time guest, ginger Dozier. She did an incredible job. She has been on stage a few times talking about biome consortia, which is really cool, which is really looking at how to create an open source microbiome Base connective tissue, I guess you can say.

[00:04:15] Erum: Yeah, she's gonna hate me for saying that. I did not get that right. but yeah, that was really cool. And then what else? Anything else that sticks out in your mind about. I know you've been busy running our mad. I know Carl barely comes to actually watch the talks. He just reels and deals on the sidelines.

[00:04:31] Erum: Yeah, that's not true.

[00:04:31] Karl: I was in the, I was, I was in every talk yesterday. Yeah. So I was the bar taking notes.

[00:04:37] Erum: Okay. Not

[00:04:37] Karl: drinking, but definitely taking notes the whole time.

[00:04:39] Erum: And so then what did you wanna share?

[00:04:41] Karl: From yesterday. Yeah. I mean it's again, it's like seeing the progress that people are making is incredible.

[00:04:46] Karl: There's a lot of interesting new materials that are being developed and like people thinking about end of life and how complicated that is, thinking about recycling and how, complicated that is. I think those things, those conversations need to happen on a broader scale, but one of the things I like about Bio Fabricate is the conversation.

[00:05:02] Karl: Stay here, and then it's up to us, the people who participate to go and take the conversations out to the bigger world.

[00:05:08] Erum: Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Well, that was a little taste, a little introduction of what you've seen. this is a very special episode, live in front of a live studio audience, and how today's gonna work is that we're going to interview a few amazing people, some previous guests.

[00:05:23] Erum: and we'll go from that. I think some of our guests are here, but some aren't. So let's see what actually happens. There's a lot going on right now. and we'll get started with our first guest who has been traveling around the world singing songs of biology, bio punk, community development. His name is Elliot Roth.

[00:05:42] Erum: Please join us on stage.

[00:05:44] guest 1: What's up? What's up?

[00:05:45] guest 1: you can't see that Elliot is wearing a beautiful, divided white and black shirt.

[00:05:50] guest 1: Yeah. no gray areas. Only back in white.

[00:05:54] Karl: So when you were last on, grow everything, you were talking about Sphera, which is your, algae color company, if we wanna call it that. And I just saw you last week in New York and you were singing the Song of Biopunk. Why don't you talk about that?

[00:06:08] Karl: what have you been doing?

[00:06:09] guest 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Spears spun out about two years ago, and I had a brief stint at Adventure Studio called Deep Science Ventures. So I started playing for the other team on the other side of the table and making investments in various biotech companies and helping spin up businesses.

[00:06:25] guest 1: And then, at probably about this time last year, I learned the nitty gritty, how the sausage is made a venture, and decided to leave that and find a new system of setting up and establishing biotech companies. And in particular, I was really struck by a frustration that I had. Seeing people struggle from going from concept all the way to clinic and pilot and implementation, and many of the companies here still face that struggle.

[00:06:52] guest 1: And I think it's mostly because of these systemic challenges that we've set up. And I really. Started putting together a community of people in San Francisco and globally started connecting to a global community of people that want to shift from this kind of like hacker ethos to a more punk ethos.

[00:07:10] guest 1: And this idea that we are, trying to buck traditional ways and manners of doing things.

[00:07:15] Karl: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:16] guest 1: that's wellspring of all of that. And then I've traveled around the world the past few months just connecting to these decentralized labs and starting to, Find other punks out there who are really interested in doing weird different things.

[00:07:29] Erum: Yeah. That's incredible. I really wanna get into that global community development that you're doing is so fascinating, but can you tell us what's the difference between hacker and punk? what's punk?

[00:07:38] guest 1: so a hacker really is into the exploitation of a system, mostly for personal gain.

[00:07:43] guest 1: And it's really the understanding and deconstruction of a system and then trying to figure out some sort of way to exploit said system. and I think that serves really well from like a computer ethos, right? But biology, when you hack biology and you're taking it apart, there's this really wonderful Neil Deras Tyson quote where he says, if you remove all of your veins and arteries and lay them end to end, you would die.

[00:08:07] guest 1: And so. I think that there's this really interesting, ability, especially when we look at these massive organizations that have been built in, pharmaceutical development and in vc where conventional means just don't work for biotech development. And so the punk movement was, an anti-establishment reactionary force in the 1960s and seventies that sprung up against corporate greed and this idea of.

[00:08:34] guest 1: DIY ethos, rebellious spirit, this, sort of mentality around, keeping things really authentic and real. Mm-hmm. And I think that's some of the core of what we're missing so far when it comes to building things with biology.

[00:08:46] Karl: So one of the things you said when we saw you last week in Brooklyn was that community labs do yourself, labs that people can have access to are having a moment.

[00:08:54] Karl: Why is that?

[00:08:55] guest 1: Yeah. I think you saw this there. we have these trends. And like every 10 years or so, we go through another kind of cultural revolution. And I think in the early two thousands that was the dotcom bubble and everything crashed. And, my parents used to say, when, the economy drops out, everybody falls into Texas, right?

[00:09:13] guest 1: So, so income, taxes are low and whatnot. So, We've seen these cycles though, where people move to places where you're able to, experiment and work on the very fringe and do things cheap and affordably and whatnot. And so you saw this cycle in late 2009, 2010, when you first had the first wave of, biotech labs get started in the post-doc lips that Ethan Burstein coined.

[00:09:36] guest 1: And this idea of. Many of these companies going out of business. You have cheap equipment, you have available spaces that you can squat in basically for very, very cheap and get set up. And so now I think we're on the second wave of, bio community bio labs. We used to call 'em DIY bio, now they're community bio labs.

[00:09:53] guest 1: And they're getting set up all over the place because real estate's, stupid cheap, all the corporate real estate's moving out because they're AI companies, they don't need the space. They can work remote. And then at the same time, equipment's stupid cheap because all these companies are gonna have business.

[00:10:05] guest 1: Yeah. And so you can get set up. All you really need is like a pipette and some time, and so, and a failed

[00:10:10] Erum: company to buy all their things.

[00:10:12] guest 1: Exactly. man, the government auction sites are popping right now. It's great.

[00:10:16] Karl: Well, and the other thing that you mentioned last week was the fact that. There's downsizing happening and there's a lot of people who have biotech skills that are looking to experiment and looking for places where they can do that.

[00:10:27] guest 1: Exactly, yeah. And you now have at least like a little bit of money saved up, so you need a cheap space. And conventionally what happens right now is that you go around trying to shill an idea to somebody with money. in order to even pay for a space, which doesn't really make sense, like you're already giving up a big chunk of whatever you're doing before you even get started.

[00:10:46] guest 1: And so instead, flip that mentality and start with a proof of concept in an independent lab space. And then you don't have to give up a chunk of your ip. I really wanna emphasize part of this punk mentality is doing real things for the people around you. Mm-hmm. Like you wanna make real shit for the people who matter to you.

[00:11:01] guest 1: whether it's curing a seemingly incurable condition or creating something really cool so that you can wear it in a fashion show.

[00:11:09] Erum: Yeah, I mean, I think a part of what you're talking about is right. You're gonna create something new, but then you have, it's something very valuable. How do you scale up?

[00:11:16] Erum: And when you said earlier, you were at a deep science ventures Sure. And you saw how the sausage was made and it sounded like it put you off. What was it about venture that put you off but then how do we finance these ideas that come out of the Biopunk

[00:11:30] guest 1: movement? Yeah. when you look at, people like drawing analogies to the computer movement of like the 1970s and eighties, but we in biotech have completely skipped over small business biotech, like almost completely who, where are the mom and pop shops that just like sling some local DNA.

[00:11:46] guest 1: Right. We don't have that. And so what bothers me is that we don't have anything to fall back on and therefore it's go big or go home. And most people are home. And it's really frustrating because VCs look at, when they invest just a little bit of money, they're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars that they want in terms of return.

[00:12:04] guest 1: And if that's the only method that we have to get somebody into a lab space, the two paths that are you're facing when you're like in school trying to figure things out. Do you go do a PhD where you're gonna spend 10 years and then try to scrabble for some government money that's no longer there?

[00:12:19] Erum: 10 years and like $200,000.

[00:12:21] Erum: Right?

[00:12:21] guest 1: Exactly. In the us? In or on the other end. Do you, kiss the boot of VCs and then, work your ass. For hundreds of millions of dollars that you'll never see because the investors will own the company. Mm-hmm. That is a shit deal, and no one should take that deal.

[00:12:35] : Yeah,

[00:12:36] guest 1: yeah.

[00:12:36] Karl: Yeah.

[00:12:36] Karl: I love the mom and pop analogy because I've always thought that, you're right, it is totally missing from biotech. And I had visited, incubator slash accelerator in Maine in the United States where there were incubating companies that could only exist in Maine. They were solving Maine. Local problems.

[00:12:53] Karl: And I think that's a big thing that we can do in biotech is solve local problems and build these mom and pop shops that you know, hey, you need paint removal. We've got a biotech way of doing that, that's gonna clean your house and whatever that looks like. Yeah. So I think we've got like, infinite problems to solve and biotech is one of the big solutions.

[00:13:11] Karl: Yeah.

[00:13:11] guest 1: There's this weird company I like called and they make like nano bodies, right. They're literally like getting these little antibodies from llamas or alpacas or whatever. Right. And then they source them. They take the blood, they source them, they isolate them, and then they use them in an anti-allergy solution as a spray.

[00:13:30] guest 1: Yeah. And like there's these weird edge cases and I think when the going gets tough, only the strange survive. Like, you really gotta do some weird shit at the very fringe, because the conventional way of thinking, and this is in pharmaceutical development, this is in cosmetics, this is in fashion, this is in whatever, is, we see a lot of the same companies going after the same problems.

[00:13:51] guest 1: And it's particularly because the creativity is in emphasized. You know, you want. An investor is looking at their portfolio and they say, oh, I need an algae company in my portfolio, or I need a mycelium leather company in my portfolio. They're doing portfolio construction. They're not really looking at are you just making something for people?

[00:14:08] guest 1: and they don't care as long as the line goes up. And so they're just looking at the line. Go up.

[00:14:13] Erum: Yeah. Yeah, met the package in guys and the cat allergen spray, right?

[00:14:16] guest 1: Yeah. Which is

[00:14:17] Erum: like, and they did a great job. It's like they're going to ccp g,

[00:14:20] Karl: direct

[00:14:20] guest 1: to

[00:14:20] Karl: consumer. Right?

[00:14:21] Karl: Direct to consumer. I can get a cat that I'm allergic to. I have a cat that I'm not allergic to because. She's that kind of species. But does that mean I can get a cat that I would be allergic to? I

[00:14:30] guest 1: mean, we can also find ways to make cats. You allergic to cats if you want.

[00:14:35] Karl: I wanna be allergic. I found another edge case.

[00:14:37] Karl: So there's these cats called. Scottish. Someone in the audience, you guys should know. They, they have like a cartilage problem, and so they look so cute. I've got pictures on my phone. Maybe we'll post them in their show notes. Like cats. Well, no. Yeah, they're, kinda like that, but their ears are floppy and they're so cute, but it turns out they have these.

[00:14:54] Karl: Horrible genetic diseases. Yeah. And they die really young. They get arthritis. So this is another kind of like more sophisticated edge case where we can come along and cure all that

[00:15:03] guest 1: stuff. Yeah. Well I was like meeting this guy on the road. there's these people doing things at the fringe that are really, really cool.

[00:15:08] guest 1: This guy gets paid $50,000 to clone pets. Of his garage space in Croatia.

[00:15:14] Karl: And like, I thought, I thought the was 10,000.

[00:15:16] guest 1: Well, I mean, like 50 is a lot. So, so if you're doing like a, award-winning race horse Oh yeah. And you wanna preserve the genetic lineage or whatever it is, you'll 50 K is.

[00:15:24] Karl: Yeah.

[00:15:25] guest 1: Right, right. But if you're doing like, He told me about how he cloned some bunnies for somebody, and he was like, I don't know why they did that. They just really loved their bunnies.

[00:15:33] Karl: Yeah. 'cause bunnies they're like ubiquitous and they're, incredibly reproductive.

[00:15:37] Karl: But

[00:15:37] guest 1: if you have skills with micro manipulator and you're able to get set up, like you can do stuff like that, there are these weird things that are happening where I think the top is completely blown off. Of possibilities that we can do with biology. And it's more a matter of, the Overton window is shifting and do we catch that window?

[00:15:54] guest 1: Do we catch that ride? Yeah.

[00:15:56] Erum: Yeah. And continue talking about the weird things that you see around the world. I mean, I know that there was something you mentioned in when you were in Long Island City at, was it Inop? No, the biotech Without Borders. Without Border.

[00:16:07] guest 1: Yeah.

[00:16:07] Erum: Yeah. There was a story about maggots.

[00:16:09] guest 1: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. To share. So, all kinds of weird things. So One of the things that we did, we've been having monthly hackathon, so I think punk is a reactionary philosophy and it's a reactionary philosophy to what you see where there's this almost like corporatism and so I love Symbi Beta, but John, you gotta stop charging 2,500 for a ticket, right?

[00:16:28] guest 1: Like that's, it's just hard to go, it's hard to participate. And when you gate financially, I love I GM for what it does for students, but there hasn't been a single African team in, I like. In years. Yeah. Yeah. In years. In years. That's insane. Right? Like, it's not that they don't have good ideas and they're not interested and they're not talented, it's just they can't participate because financially they can't get involved.

[00:16:50] guest 1: And so instead of doing I gm, we were like, fuck that. Mm-hmm. Like let's give kids money to play around with ideas and see what weird shit they come up with. And let's do it in a week, not in an entire summer. Yeah. And so we have a weekend of concept pitches. We have a week of building in the lab, and then they have a week of presenting what they built.

[00:17:07] guest 1: And we've done that every single month since we got started. Wow. and so different topics. So we had a sponsor, around biosecurity, and they were talking about wound healing. And these, girls that had never been in a lab before ever, they were like really undergrads, first year, second year undergrads, something like that.

[00:17:23] guest 1: they were like, we always wanted to be in a lab, but we never could get access 'cause like community college or whatever. they were like, well, there's this weird thing where maggots eat dead tissue but leaves the live tissue. And they have these enzymes in their mouths that are antimicrobial.

[00:17:37] guest 1: And so they were like, well, what if we just grabbed a bunch of maggots and then blended them and then used that maggot isolate and extract as a bandage in some kind of way for, antimicrobial bandage. So that's what they've been doing. That's amazing. It's like I show up and they're in the lab and they're blending maggots and they're like, look at this maggot go.

[00:17:54] guest 1: And I'm like, and

[00:17:55] Erum: I just, yeah, the maggot goo, they just put on the bandaid. Oh, yeah,

[00:17:59] guest 1: yeah. Yeah. or like other weird stuff, like, I had a bunch of kids. they're like 16 year olds, and they contacted me and they were like, Hey, we really wanna set up a sperm racing league.

[00:18:08] Erum: Oh, that's a big thing. Yeah, a big thing.

[00:18:10] guest 1: Well, they turned it into a big thing. So that's

[00:18:12] Erum: espn. Yeah.

[00:18:13] guest 1: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was, yeah. Yeah, it was a whole thing. They, they we're board people, so they contacted me and they're like, no one will let us. Have lab space, like, and I was like, yeah, fuck yeah. Come on by.

[00:18:22] guest 1: Like, do whatever, just like whatever sample you're handling, just be whatever do it. Protocol. Right, right. So, but they were doing really interesting stuff. So we had the lead scientists come on by and give a talk at our unconference. We do the unconference the weekend before SynBioBeta. Yeah. So people flying into town can come and like have a cheaper option and like something fun to do ahead of time.

[00:18:45] guest 1: and so. the lead scientist, he's like 21, 22. And so he was like one of the oldest people on the team. It was just like a bunch of these teenagers that are really into like male health. 'cause they, they see this declining male fertility crisis that's happening. Mm-hmm. And they're like, well I have microplastics in my balls and I like, don't want that.

[00:19:04] guest 1: And so how do we start motivating people to do something more and they, they like set up this, fight. where they had a weigh in of UCLA versus USC of like sperm donations and like, oh my God. And then they had this appropriate crazy animation. I mean, these are the wild things that are happening because people are able to get creative, right?

[00:19:23] guest 1: Yeah. We're not. Emphasizing that in conventional biotech, and I really think we're missing out.

[00:19:29] Erum: Where's a sperm racing to like an egg.

[00:19:31] guest 1: this was the interesting thing is what they did is that, they took, microscopy imaging and they averaged out the sperm and their motion and then put it in a microfluidic channel.

[00:19:40] guest 1: And so it wasn't like a live. Video of it. Yeah. But it was all the data from that they translated into an animation, like an AI generated animation.

[00:19:48] Karl: Oh wow.

[00:19:48] guest 1: And so people were like rooting. There was like a thousand people in this arena,

[00:19:52] Erum: my God. Like

[00:19:52] guest 1: rooting for

[00:19:53] Erum: sperm.

[00:19:54] guest 1: That was just swimming along

[00:19:56] Karl: All right. So, you know, one of the things that you also talked about in Long Island City was you've been on this global tour Yeah. And you saw a bunch of weird shit in Asia. Can you talk a little bit about that?

[00:20:04] guest 1: Yeah, yeah. So, there's two conversations that happen over dinner in Asia.

[00:20:08] guest 1: It's like, what weird food have you eaten recently? Like, everybody wants to know what's tasty out there? Mm-hmm. And the second is, what strange clinic did your auntie go to? Right? Yeah. And that's what's been happening. And then kind of like cultural consciousness. It's like, oh, there are these clinics all over the place.

[00:20:23] guest 1: Yeah. And there longevity clinics. Yeah. There's cosmetic clinics. people in South Korea when they graduate, they're gifted like cosmetic surgery even. which is just like a whole shift in mentality. It's really weird. Yeah. For like more westernized audiences, but like in general, except for in

[00:20:38] Erum: LA probably, yeah.

[00:20:40] Erum: No offense from la but,

[00:20:42] guest 1: but like, I think on the whole, what's been happening is that there's this, collective consciousness of especially if you have the financial wherewithal to go to these places to do things, there's like this funny meme of Turkish hair. Right. Yeah. And so you see these, pictures of people where they have hair transplants and it's because they're flying on Turkish Airlines where they're flying to Istanbul to get like hair treatments and whatnot.

[00:21:04] guest 1: And everybody knows somebody who has done medical tourism. 'cause the system in the United States is so fucked. Yeah. And you go around to some of these clinics in Southeast Asia and they're doing, like, they were marketing PRP, like plasma replacement. in era Asia, in the flight guide. Oh wow.

[00:21:19] guest 1: Right. Like on the plane.

[00:21:21] Karl: Yeah.

[00:21:22] guest 1: That's nuts. And like people are injecting exosomes that are for research use only. Yeah. And like people are doing peptide therapies and like it's moving quick, it's moving real quick and like you cannot, not recognize like you. Recognize the influence of China everywhere, where I was talking to a friend who just got placement in Shanghai in a medium sized biotech research work.

[00:21:44] guest 1: This isn't a big one or anything, but they have 3000 biotech startups in this tiny research work.

[00:21:50] Erum: Oh, geez. And, and like

[00:21:51] guest 1: all of them are working on new stuff.

[00:21:52] Erum: You went there.

[00:21:53] guest 1: I didn't get a chance together. I got invited to this like syn biopunk thing that somebody was hosting in Beijing, but I didn't get a chance to go to China's like a whole nother cannabis.

[00:22:02] guest 1: Tell us, don't go in there. You're gonna, what

[00:22:03] Karl: reminds, what it reminds me of is if anybody has seen like the, the hardware, computer hardware, Superstore. Yeah. In, Guanjo or, yeah, that's, it's like basically, any kind of computer component that you could imagine and being iterated on.

[00:22:19] Karl: Constantly. So they're being constantly optimized. So you can imagine that for biology, right? a mall or a skyscraper that is just full of companies that are iterating and creating. All this weird shit. And some of it might be for ag, some it'll be for materials, some it's gonna be for cosmetic purposes.

[00:22:36] Karl: You know what, sign me up.

[00:22:37] guest 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, like it's funny, you go around East Asia and there's these wet markets, right? Yeah. And that's

[00:22:45] Erum: what COVID came from, right?

[00:22:46] guest 1: Yeah.

[00:22:47] Erum: I'm kidding.

[00:22:48] guest 1: But this. Kind of idea of hardware and software, and we need to have like wetware, right?

[00:22:53] guest 1: Yeah, sure. We gotta have these places where you go to, where you're able to play and experiment because we don't have that right now. there's nowhere you can go to play and have accessibility to some of these tools of creation. Mm-hmm. In a way that is approachable and easy and you start learning,

[00:23:07] Erum: unless you're in Brooklyn.

[00:23:09] guest 1: Right. Yes. Right. And then friends at Gen Space, there's, these pockets in different places. I mean, even London has this, amazing space called Life Fabs. where Digby is speaking later today. Yeah. so I'm like making the tour to all these community lab spaces because these are community organizers who recognize the need for lowcost space for people to get started.

[00:23:27] guest 1: And it's a feed into everything else, right? we really have. These bottlenecks in biology where you need to go get a PhD, even the money that you receive for an idea, the legitimacy is granted by a PhD because it's a proxy for knowing what you're doing. It's not actually knowing what you're doing.

[00:23:44] guest 1: Mm-hmm. When computer science shifted from needing a PhD to building a thing and then having a portfolio is when things really exploded. Mm-hmm. And so I think the same is true in biology and When you're looking at the race between humans and ai, we're losing.

[00:23:58] : Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:23:59] guest 1: And that needs to change and change quick.

[00:24:01] guest 1: Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:03] Erum: Well that's great call to action to end on, but. What about your call to action for Biopunk? what do you want the audience to do? How do we enable people?

[00:24:10] guest 1: Yeah. part of what I've been looking at is how do we speed up, everybody's route to get ideas out into the world?

[00:24:19] guest 1: Yeah. And how do we set up new systems to make that happen? And so what we're really trying to do with this network of labs is set up new systems, new methods. I've started building this network of, contract research organizations and contract manufacturers all around the world, to be able to pair startup companies or individuals if you wanna make something there are people with the tools and resources and, actual reactors and stuff out there already that are able to help you with that in a low cost way anywhere in the world.

[00:24:46] guest 1: and the other thing too is a line of money that is. Really founder friendly. Mm-hmm. And focus much more on your experiments and piecemeal, like the individual things that you'll need. Like specifically what do you need to get to market. and so we're building this more like a studio of some sort of new mentality around a studio.

[00:25:03] guest 1: So this Biopunk studio to go from concept to clinic. And the end placement is in these like weird, special economic zones and like regulatory gray areas. Mm-hmm. even though I'm wearing black and white.

[00:25:13] : Yeah, sure.

[00:25:14] guest 1: I think there's these, locations that really push the envelope of what can happen in the world.

[00:25:19] guest 1: Yeah. And so I think that it's really important to take a look at some of these spaces around the world and, yeah, you can go to biopunk lab.com, in order to check out some more of what we're doing and then. Join the community discord and start a conversation. Awesome. Amazing.

[00:25:34] Erum: Thank you so much, Elliot.

[00:25:35] Erum: Thanks Elliot. Yay.

[00:25:41] Erum: Alright. Alright, so let's keep the guest gravy train going.

[00:25:45] Karl: Amanda, you're here, so why aren't you coming?

[00:25:48] Erum: Might as well. Great. Great intro.

[00:25:52] Karl: Sorry. Might

[00:25:53] Erum: as well come up random lady.

[00:25:55] Karl: Okay, so, let's do the formal intro then. Well, I

[00:25:58] Erum: don't have, this is, this is one.

[00:26:00] Karl: Okay. I don't

[00:26:00] Erum: have that. Okay.

[00:26:01] Erum: So I can do it.

[00:26:02] Karl: Okay, go ahead. You do it.

[00:26:03] Erum: Well, first of all, Amanda is an incredibly intelligent person, so, yes. Yeah. MIT Stanford. were you the CTO of Panaya? The Chief Innovation Officer. Chief Innovation Officer of panaya and now is working on something so incredible mothership materials, CTO of that company.

[00:26:20] Erum: And you did an amazing presentation earlier today. I was like, I see you all the time and we have great, not enough. Not enough, but like not Yeah, so true. Not in because we're

[00:26:29] Karl: neighbors actually.

[00:26:30] Erum: Yes. And we have these casual conversations. I went to your birthday, it was so much fun, but I saw you on stage.

[00:26:35] Erum: I'm like, who is that woman? Oh my God, you're so good. So good. Thank you. So I'm excited to have you on the pod because there's so much to talk about, so much to catch up on.

[00:26:45] Guest 2: But isn't that good that I'm able to be a normal human and not a scientist all the time too. So yeah, I pride myself that you dunno what's going on with me actually, friends.

[00:26:55] Guest 2: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:26:56] Karl: Yeah. Amanda, Okay, so you were a guest on Grew Everything a while back representing Panga. Mm-hmm. But now you're doing Mothership materials. Why don't you give us a little intro to what Mothership Materials is?

[00:27:07] Guest 2: Okay. So. Scholarship materials is a breakthrough technology that is based on separating and valorizing agricultural waste into component ingredients.

[00:27:19] Guest 2: So on a molecular level. So, originally founded by two brilliant women, Joe Marini and Dr. Agnes based on technology. That was developed for med tech, for blood separation, system. So we're basically taking it and low rising it. So it's, already been through, it has, you know, nine patents, 12 years of research to know that it really will separate.

[00:27:40] Guest 2: these components and we're applying it to a new space. So I love this sort of transfer of, Tech Transfer across industries is a really important way to bring new innovations into light when taking advantage of all that research that's been done in one space and, and using it for something else.

[00:27:54] Guest 2: the system works what we have, there's a biological capture particle, which is specifically designed To attract whatever molecule you're going after, say it's glucose or cellulose. Mm-hmm. And then that is matched by the internal geometry of the spinning disc, which is, basically like a stacked centrifuge system.

[00:28:10] Guest 2: And so we can go after, glucose, cellulose, pectin, lipids, protein, basically anything that's, design the specific particle and then it will match. and so. we're really getting it fully off the ground. I joined as a CTO, a few months ago and getting our first industrial system installed.

[00:28:28] Guest 2: in January. Yeah. That's the plan. And, yeah, just really trying to ramp up And the reason that this is so important for biofabrication,is that, we're talking about scaling biomanufacturing glucose is key micros need to eat something in order to produce material. Mm-hmm. And we do not have. Well, or any, quality glucose that's available at a reasonable price. and even, you know, using off the shelf sugar where you're growing a crop and then using it to feed a microbe does not make any sense in terms of carbon balance and impact assessment.

[00:29:00] Guest 2: So we have to have a source of glucose from waste in order to successfully stream, the biofabrication industry. Full stop. Mm-hmm. Then everything else on top of that we're, next targeting cellulose, which goes into Lysol, Visco, all manmade cellulosic, the fastest growing material inside of fashion industry, and a way to make, those are all materials that can mimic synthetic properties.

[00:29:21] Guest 2: while being biobased. So it's a really important component of the fashion industry as well. So, and then the list goes on and on to like getting every nutrient and every ingredient we can from waste.

[00:29:31] Karl: Yeah. Okay. So I was gonna say, so for anybody who has followed the podcast or follows by manufacturing, you may know that many of the bio manufacturing facilities.

[00:29:40] Karl: Are being put in places where there's a lot of agriculture because you can take the agricultural waste and feed your microbes, but you can't do that everywhere. So if you wanna like have Biomanufacturing in a place like London or Los Angeles, you have to have localized feedstock or New York City. New York City happens to generate 22,000.

[00:29:58] Karl: Tons of garbage every single day, and the city spends something like $1.5 billion to get rid of its waste. That is a valuable resource. Yeah.

[00:30:08] Guest 2: But even to point out that if you are next to the biofabrication facility is next to a farm or a place that natural waste, right now, there's no way to process it cost effectively and equality to actually use it in that way.

[00:30:20] Guest 2: So we're sort of struggling with the whole scale up so we can actually, it's all about bringing the cost down because of this. Simplicity of this technology. there's no chemistry, there's no heat. Right? It runs off of very low power and it's quick enough to, all these things make a huge difference.

[00:30:33] Guest 2: in my past startup that was in algae biofields. I did this same thing. We took something from the, actually this, flat panel display industry about how lighting works and tried it to optimizing photosynthesis.

[00:30:43] Guest 2: So I just love the how these things. it's like having a interdisciplinary world and mind and team and trying to think about. Problem solving different ways. I didn't do this, by the way, for, for our company. this was Joe and Agnes, but Yeah.

[00:30:53] Karl: But you had a quote on one of your slides that said the most underrated form of innovation is basically stealing from other industries.

[00:31:01] Guest 2: Appropriation. tech transfer, let's just, you know, we've put in all this time and money to do this r and d and then we should use it for as many things as, it applies to.

[00:31:09] Guest 2: And there's. A problem there around, sometimes it's about patents and whatever, but, the point is that if somebody does have a patent on something, they're most likely gonna want it to be used for something else. There's another revenue stream, right? there's all these ways to kind of get around it.

[00:31:21] Guest 2: I think it's more about information sharing and sort of scientists being interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary and So

[00:31:27] Erum: yeah, I think that's, a very powerful thought because, right now with mothership materials, you have this, low res. distiller. I mean, what do you call the machine?

[00:31:36] Guest 2: Yeah.

[00:31:36] Guest 2: And I don't wanna, it's not low res in the sense that it's like it works and creates high levels of purity. Yeah. it's lower res than working on blood chemistry. You know, we're working on like piles of, bamboo that's ground down. So versus, tiny sub cell anemia

[00:31:53] Erum: application. Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:54] Erum: But also has, requires less energy than maybe other processes that process feed stocks perhaps. but then you're also creating a product outta Yes. This, right.

[00:32:02] Guest 2: point is that there's a two revenue streams, which is always great for, we need a company with a business model that Yes, that has sustainability at its core, but also will make money because.

[00:32:11] Guest 2: That means it's a real business. yes. And so the, actual products that come out are the secondary revenue stream or the primary, however you wanna think about it. And today we launched, the announced the first product, it's called Microbe Munch. And this is the first ever sugar that's designed specifically to feed microbes.

[00:32:26] Guest 2: It's not for people. And, planning for spring 2026

[00:32:30] : mm-hmm.

[00:32:31] Guest 2: On this. And we do any startups that are in the space of bio fabrication that are looking. affordable glucose for their microbes. Please get in touch. Go to our website, my mothership materials.com and lots more to come after that.

[00:32:43] Erum: Yeah, we'll put all that in the show notes. Of course, I have to say that. but that's incredible because first of all, it would be cool to make a cereal just like a limited run, like just future micros feed yourself because you can, it's edible, right? So, it's expensive. It'd be like $80 for a

[00:32:59] Karl: a box.

[00:32:59] Karl: I'm

[00:32:59] Erum: gonna put a box of cereal box.

[00:33:01] Guest 2: we're working on that. But no, it might, no, but it probably it be cheaper. it would be really risk because it'd be pure sugar. Well, maybe for kids, but all cereal is pure sugar. I know. And it's not for kids. Shouldn't be for kids. Exactly. No, exactly.

[00:33:17] Guest 2: that metaphor came up because. science, really think about their microbes as their babies, right? This is, you're developing this, you're, cherishing them and you really want to take care of them and feed them well. Yeah. So we think about, I guess like sugar cereal is not great in terms of caring for kids, but this whole idea of having this specialized product that also does from a comms perspective have a bit more of a B2C feel just to think about it, it's not just,

[00:33:41] Guest 2: Lab media that comes in an indescript bottle you guys know all about messaging and how important that is. So moving, you know, in both, Joe and I, that she's the co-founder. I've worked a lot in design and branding and we know how important a lot of those things can be just for the look and feel of what we're doing in biotech.

[00:33:57] Guest 2: We want it to feel friendly and not scary. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:00] Karl: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you showed the video and I felt like I was, could have been watching like a TV commercial for something that I wanted or I wanted to know more about it. The very end. I

[00:34:09] Erum: want, I want it, I'm not making biomaterials, but I want it just to like, make something perfect that's

[00:34:14] Karl: accomplished.

[00:34:16] Erum: And I think this, idea like. looking at other industries. Right. I, went to an event where Millipore Sigma was there and Millipore Sigma, they make a lot of lab equipment. I think they make reagents too.

[00:34:25] Karl: Yeah, they do.

[00:34:26] Erum: They make reagents and like for the bio economy and biotechnology, you're making the reagent, you're making the media, and that's a huge industry, like for the chemical industry.

[00:34:35] Erum: So what are those tools and things that you, you need? So let's take a look at the chemical industry and like, how do they operate? How much money comes part of their, like their whole like process the equivalent by economies would be really interesting. And you're doing

[00:34:48] Guest 2: that.

[00:34:48] Guest 2: Yeah. we're just getting more and more inbound. We haven't even really thought. Holistically about the potential of all the things we can process. And we, get inbound from every industry asking for all these things that we have to Google and be like, what would they want this for?

[00:35:02] Guest 2: Why? that's amazing. But we're trying to not get distracted with that. 'cause we could start swirling around and the, potential of everythingness. Yes. So we're trying to stay directed as, you know, in a startup. So in that way. I think one other point on the whole, talking about technologies from other industries, the thing that I did in my first startup was actually looking at a technology that was proposed in the seventies for the National Renewal Energy Lab.

[00:35:24] Guest 2: and it was about light flashing, but they did not at the time have the LEDs that were able to flash at these frequencies.

[00:35:30] Karl: Hmm.

[00:35:30] Guest 2: they said, I think this will work. We had this how the cells, but they weren't able to actually test it. And then we went in, in 2005 that when we did have LEDs and were able to prove out.

[00:35:40] Guest 2: So old research that has gotten left behind there was so much good stuff in the seventies on energy. that got killed in the eighties. It's being built now. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that that's also a really interesting stream of like tech that hasn't been followed through on as well.

[00:35:55] Karl: Yeah. I mean, to me, one of the things that's most exciting about what Mothership materials enables is this idea of, distributed biomanufacturing. Yeah. And for that to happen, you need to have this cheap feed stock for your micro.

[00:36:07] Guest 2: Yeah.

[00:36:07] Karl: And so I see these things co-located everywhere. There's a bio manufacturing facility.

[00:36:12] Guest 2: Yeah. And also. This whole idea, I mean, I'm just obsessed with What if we could understand where every ingredient is? I love that in the world. Right? someone needs feedstock over here, and you're like, well, what's next to you? Yeah. And, and then how do we map this into a global database of all theoric acid in the world can is like, here's where all the orange peels are and like Yeah.

[00:36:31] Erum: And what's a value of that then?

[00:36:32] Guest 2: Oh, the value? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:36:33] Erum: That then that gets really

[00:36:35] Guest 2: interesting and that's a point where if you stop having to ship things around, and I mean the amount of. Even if we start with let's not ship water around the place. Yeah. Oh

[00:36:42] : God. Yeah. Because

[00:36:43] Guest 2: we also are pulling water out.

[00:36:44] Guest 2: But in general. It's like, what is next to you and what can we make from it? So

[00:36:48] Erum: yeah, that's gonna be incredible. Oh wow. Well, I'm really excited for you man. This has been a little special treat. We'll have to have you back on as things progress. Yeah.

[00:36:57] Guest 2: You and

[00:36:57] Karl: Joe, come on.

[00:36:58] Guest 2: Absolutely. That'd be great.

[00:36:59] Guest 2: And we can do, yeah, yeah. When we get look at things up and running, I'll go back into the, back end on the tech as well. Yeah. I love that.

[00:37:06] Erum: So much fun. Alright, well thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Everyone go to mothership materials do com.

[00:37:11] Guest 2: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. And also big shout out to Bio Fabricates my favorite event of the year.

[00:37:16] Guest 2: yeah, just super important like it feels like. Yesterday it's like the cheers of conferences.

[00:37:23] Karl: Everybody has

[00:37:24] Guest 2: day,

[00:37:27] Karl: Nice. Well thanks for coming on. I

[00:37:29] Guest 2: really appreciate it.

[00:37:34] Karl: Do our other two guests. I think they

[00:37:36] Erum: probably raised money. I think they met investors downstairs and they're like, I can't do this 20 minute segment with those guys. Yeah, we'll get them later. We've

[00:37:44] Karl: already been on the podcast once, so except for David. So, don't know. What do you wanna do?

[00:37:49] Erum: I think we just wrap it up so we can actually eat lunch, because this is happening during lunch.

[00:37:54] Erum: but we did a nice journey. We had community biotech labs. We talked, with Amanda, so it was startup culture and we'll just wrap it up.

[00:38:02] Karl: Alright, well thank you everyone who came up and interrupted your lunch or ate your lunch here. We really appreciate you being at Bio Fabricate and also listening to us.

[00:38:11] Karl: you know, you can listen to us on all the streaming channels. subscribe and like. Our podcast, particularly on YouTube 'cause that's where we're getting a lot of love. And if you have any questions, hit us up after we turn the recorders off.

[00:38:24] Erum: Yes. And thank you everyone. Special thank you to Lizette, who is our associate, and also Amplify Media who also does a production work.

[00:38:32] Erum: And of course to bio fabricate. Suzanne and Amy are incredible, so we're so happy to be here. And also to Big Penny Social for really helping us figure out this AB stuff. Oh yeah, Johnny, because we didn't.

[00:38:42] Karl: Johnny was a huge help in setting this up. So thank you, Johnny, and Big Penny Social.

[00:38:47] Erum: All right.

[00:38:48] Erum: See you guys later. Thank you so much. Yay. Woo. Recording the cheers. Okay, good. All right. Scene. That's the po.