Exploring how tech, policy, people, and ideas are connected. A special love for AI and biotechnology, but a lot of thinking about how emerging technologies like fusion, AI, quantum, and more are impacting our lives. With some sci-fi thrown in.

The Map Is Not the Territory
 

Artificial intelligence has often been described as a new frontier—a vast, uncharted space promising unparalleled opportunity but fraught with hidden risks. Recently, the inaugural convening of the International Network of AI Safety Institutes (INASI) in San Francisco laid down a global compass for navigating this terrain.

Alexander Titus

AI safety isn’t just about preventing harm.

Ep 15 - A Global Compass for AI Safety

Two years. Hundreds of meetings. Thousands of hours. More drafts than I want to count. And now, it’s here. The final report of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) is officially out in the world. It’s 180+ pages of action-oriented, bipartisan, bicameral national security-focused biotech strategy.

The Final Report from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology

Ep 31 - Hello Senator, We Recommend You Take Biotechnology Seriously

Good morning friends! I'm sitting here with my fourth espresso of the morning, still buzzing about a white paper from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB). It’s about minerals! So exciting! :-P

 Ok, I am being a little silly, but some of the enthusiasm that comes from my AI podcast hosts friends gets campy and I start to feel it too.

Nature's Answer to Our Critical Materials Crisis

Ep 10 - When Plants Become Miners

Good morning my friends, I've spent the last few weeks deep in the weeds of AI and biotechnology policy (that’s a lie, I’ve spent far more than a few weeks, but humor me), and I've got to tell you - the latest progress never ceases to amaze me no matter how much time I spend thinking about the topic.

Exploring the Line Between Innovation and Safety with Insights from Congress, the National Security Commission, and Why We Need a New Approach to Tech Policy

Ep 08 - AI &amp; Bio: Finding Balance Through Evidence

Hey, my friends! Today, we're venturing into a realm that's as vast and complex as life itself: the world of biological data and its implications for U.S. biotechnology leadership. This is based on the white paper from the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) titled "Leveraging Biological Data." Like last week, the podcast audio is AI-generated, and they keep calling this a report.

Thoughts and a podcast about the NSCEB's thinking on leveraging biological data

Ep 02 - Data, data, data. What's with all the data?

I still remember the moment it hit me. It was past midnight in a near-empty office, and I was huddled over a draft policy memo on biotech. My task was to outline guidelines for biotech-enabled military systems that didn’t even exist yet. I found myself scribbling notes about self-driving labs, “rogue” machine biohackers, and fail-safe mechanisms, essentially spinning a story about a hypothetical future.

The question isn’t whether fiction influences policy. It’s how consciously we use it.

Ep 29 - Science Fiction in a Suit, Policy in a T-Shirt

I remember when synthetic biology was supposed to be the existential threat. The conferences, the white papers, the Senate hearings filled with grim predictions of a world where DNA synthesis and gene editing would put pandemic-class pathogens in the hands of anyone with a credit card and an internet connection. It hasn’t quite turn out that way, yet.

I have no doubt that mirror life will continue to be a topic of interest in synthetic biology and biosecurity circles. But I am not ready to buy into the panic just yet.

Ep 27 - The Mirror Life Problem: When Every Threat Looks Like the Next Existential Crisis

TL;DR: Engineering Biology and Public Trust
 

Engineering biology holds immense potential to transform society, addressing critical challenges in healthcare, sustainability, and industry.

UK's Engineering Biology Public Trust Survey Findings

Ep 17 - Engineering Biology and the Public Trust: A Reflection on Transparency and Transformation

The Ancient Roots of Agricultural Innovation

Agriculture is undergoing a revolution, one shaped by the transformative power of biotechnology. This field, at the intersection of science, policy, and industry, promises to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

From ancient practices to gene editing, exploring how biotechnology is transforming agriculture to meet humanity's greatest challenges

Ep 14 - The Agricultural Revolution 2.0: How Biotechnology is Rewriting the Rules of Farming

The Future of Cleanup
 

Hi everyone, and welcome to this week’s edition of

 Co-Evolution

! Today, we’re diving into a topic that blends cutting-edge biotechnology with environmental justice: bioremediation. You may not have heard of the term before, but if you’ve ever hoped for a cleaner, greener future, this is where the action is happening.

How Biotechnology is Transforming Environmental Remediation

Ep 12 - Nature’s Microbial Cleanup Crew

Hello my friends. Today, I’m sharing a different kind of post. I spend a lot of time considering the implications of the technology we are developing, and I want to share some thoughts on what I consider the FABRIC of our society and the future human experience. This is outside of my traditional post, so I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

The convergence of these technologies doesn't simply challenge what humans can do; it challenges what humans can be.

Ep 11 - Weaving the FABRIC of Reality—An Introduction to Technological Convergence and Human Identity

Hi my friends, welcome back! I’m excited to introduce a new member of the Co-Evolution team, Hannah Dayton. Hannah is a postdoc at Harvard and an expert in antibiotic resistance research, so I convinced her to share her expertise with the world. The AI-generated podcast this week is about the National Action Plan for Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria.

Hannah Dayton

Exploring the world of antibiotic resistance with Hannah Dayton

Ep 09 - Fighting little bugs who are starting to fight back

Hey everyone! I spent the evening yesterday diving deep into the White House's new memorandum on AI and national security (Fact Sheet, Deep Dive), and I've got to tell you – this is one of the most significant policy developments I've seen in our field. Let me break down why I'm so excited about this and what it means for the future of AI, biotechnology, and national security.

Ep 07 - Breaking Down the New US AI National Security Memorandum

Hey there, science and policy enthusiasts! It's Titus here, and I'm thrilled to bring you this special edition newsletter on a topic that's close to my heart: the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). Remember last week’s issue, when I promised more on the BWC soon?

How an old treaty is getting a high-tech perspective upgrade to keep us safe

Ep 06 - Biodefense 2.0: BWC in the Modern Age

Key Takeaways: The 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield for their pioneering work on artificial neural networks, which laid the foundation for modern deep learning. The 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to David Baker, Demis Hassabis, and John Jumper for using AI to predict and design protein structures, revolutionizing our understanding of these crucial biological molecules.

How the 2024 Physics and Chemistry Prizes Are Reshaping Our Understanding of Intelligence and Life Itself

Ep 04 - Nobel Breakthroughs: AI Meets Biology at the Frontiers of Science

Technology doesn’t evolve in isolation. Neither do careers. Neither do ideas.

 The Connected Ideas Project (TCIP) exists to explore the intersections—where emerging technology meets governance, where nonlinear careers challenge the status quo, and where speculative fiction helps us see the future before it arrives.

If you’re here, it’s because you know the world isn’t built in silos. You see connections where others don’t.

Welcome to The Connected Ideas Project

Hey there, science enthusiasts and policy wonks! Titus here, and I've got some exciting developments to share about the intersection of artificial intelligence and life sciences.

The co-evolution of biology and computing started in the era of Alan Turing and is accelerating at a mind-boggling rate with modern AI

Ep 03 - AI and Life Sciences: Navigating the Frontier of Innovation and Security

The National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) has produced an interim report that focuses on the potential of biotechnology to transform society and improve national security.

This is a fascinating AI-generated summary of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology's Interim Report Using Google's NotebookLM

Ep 00 - Podcast About the NSCEB's Interim Report

My name’s Cameron Wells, and if you’d told me five years ago I’d be running a fermentation line in a biomanufacturing facility outside Bloomington, Indiana, I would’ve laughed you out of the barracks. Back then, I was an Airman First Class in the 3rd Medical Support Squadron, stationed at Travis. Logistics. Paperwork. Syringe kits.

How Biotech Became the New National Service

Lines of Life

This is a guest post from Evan Peikon, who publishes Decoding Biology, a substack about computational biology, biosensor development and analytics, and network biology.


 He’s a prolific writer, founder, and scientist, and well worth following along.

Science today looks very different than it once did.

A game theoretic approach to navigating science in the 21st century

How To Win Markets and Influence Policy

A few days ago, on Sci-Fi Friday, you met Dr. Samara Makinde. You didn’t know it then, and neither did she, but her story wasn’t a standalone. What you read on Friday wasn’t just another TCIP short story. It was

 Chapter One

of my debut novel —

 On the Wings of a Pig

— and the opening act of a story I’ve been dreaming about for years.

Science fiction is an amazing way to explore deep topics - sometimes short stories on a Friday just don't cut it

You Just Read the First Chapter of My Debut Novel - Join Me for More

In 2018, when the world found out a Chinese scientist had edited the genes of twin baby girls, the reaction was instant and loud: absolutely not. Scientists called it reckless. Ethicists called it unethical. Governments rushed to reinforce bans. And He Jiankui, the scientist behind the experiment, was sentenced to prison in China for violating medical regulations.

As science advances and public opinion warms, gene editing embryos to prevent disease is moving from taboo to possibility, raising new questions about where we draw the line.

Ep 41 - Editing the Future: Why People Are (Finally) Talking About Gene Editing for Babies Again

When people talk about the future of artificial intelligence, the loudest voices often come from opposite ends of a spectrum: unshakable optimists and doomsday prophets. But in a forecast like

 AI 2027

, what we’re given isn’t hype or horror, it’s foresight grounded in a deep understanding of how systems evolve, how capabilities scale, and most importantly, how institutions react under pressure. The report doesn’t make a prediction.

The AI future experts are predicting for us in 2027

Ep 40 - AI 2027: When Forecasts Feel Like Fiction and Hit Like Strategy

I didn’t expect the announcement to come in the form of a press release. For a moment, I thought it was a hoax. A single line, broadcast simultaneously across every major network, platform, and device, written with almost mocking simplicity:

 “The Nobel Turing Challenge has been solved. Quantum computing and energy abundance are here.

When humanity’s greatest questions are answered, the price is control—and the cost is our place in the equation

SSI Part 3: The Catalyst

Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi were born in Texas, but their story stretches back more than 12,000 years. They’re not myths or simulations or prototypes in a pitch deck. They are real. Living, breathing, healthy pups, engineered from ancient genetic blueprints to bring back an apex predator the world hasn’t seen since the Ice Age.

On dire wolves, de-extinction, and the strange privilege of building what comes next

Ep 39 - Where Does a Mammoth Start and an Elephant End?

1. The Frog in the Freezer
 

The first time I saw a wood frog thaw back to life, I nearly dropped the microscope. It was a field lab in Fairbanks, Alaska. A plastic shoebox full of peat moss, a digital thermometer sunk in the dirt, and a small, unremarkable amphibian with a faint rust stripe down its side—

 Rana sylvatica

. I was an undergrad tagging along on a grad student’s project.

Sitting by a lake, watching frogs that never knew they were the reason we survived

The Icebound Covenant

There’s a quiet revolution underway in how we think about global power. In the 20th century, alliances were built on the movement of oil, steel, and troops. In the 21st century, they’re being rebuilt on the movement of cells, code, and biological knowledge. This isn’t a metaphorical shift. It’s literal.

Ep 37 - The Allies Genome: Biotechnology and the New Alliance Playbook

The first time I saw AlphaFold, it felt like stepping into the future, a moment where something previously thought impossible had suddenly become inevitable. AI had cracked the protein-folding problem. Well, not cracked exactly, but solved it well enough that it rewrote the playbook for structural biology. Overnight, the way we thought about proteins, drug discovery, and molecular engineering shifted. That was 2018.

AI-driven breakthroughs were piling up so fast it felt like we were racing toward some inevitable singularity where life itself would be programmable. Are we?

Ep 26 - The Slowdown in AI for Biology: A Pause or a Plateau?

If there’s one chapter in the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology’s final report that lays bare the disconnect between potential and preparedness, it’s Chapter 5. The message is as critical as it is uncomfortable: we are not ready. Not ready to govern the biotechnology age, not ready to build it at scale, and not ready to defend our position in it. That’s not a reflection of a lack of interest or ambition.

Ep 36 - Biotechnology’s Most Needed Infrastructure: People

Classified Transmission
 
 : NBCO Operational Network | Node 19 | Biosentinel Correspondence


 
 Clearance
 
 : Nova Five


 
 Author
 
 : Agent Delta-Rook


 
 Subject
 
 : Field Report: Midwestern Deployment of Modular Biofabrication Unit

She stood in the dark, the smell of corn husks and carbon steel mixing in the early morning fog.

The Fifth Pillar

The United States has no shortage of good ideas.

Biotech breakthroughs are still born here. They still spin out of our national labs, our university incubators, our startup accelerators, and the brains of some truly ridiculous graduate students with wild hair and whiteboards covered in dreams. But too often, those good ideas don’t go anywhere. They stall in a regulatory maze. They fail to raise capital. They never scale.

Ep 33 - We Can’t Just Discover, We Have to Deliver: The Real Work of Scaling U.S. Biotechnology

“State Fourteen is down. Switching contingency feedstock to Vermont and Utah.” I blinked twice to clear the haptic overlay from my vision, watching as a pale blue arc lit up across the Appalachian corridor. Fermentation input lines were rerouting in real-time, wheat husk to algal base to sugarcane waste, just another day in the life of a national biotech grid under siege. It wasn’t a cyberattack. It wasn’t sabotage. It was something worse.

In a world where biology powers geopolitics, one analyst must help rewire the United States into a resilient, decentralized biomanufacturing force.

The Genome in Fifty Pieces

It started like every other outbreak had, silently, invisibly, spreading before anyone realized it was already too late. Except this time, it wasn’t too late. For the first time in human history, we saw it coming. I stood inside The Helix, the nerve center of the Global Biosecurity Command (GBC), watching as the latest AI-generated pathogen forecast flickered across the glass wall.

Year: 2047 | Location: Global Biosecurity Command (GBC) | Status: Contained

The Last Outbreak

The Future of the American Scientific Landscape
 

At Bell Labs, Richard Hamming was famous for challenging other researchers with a provocative question: "What are the most important problems in your field?" After listening to their response, he would follow up with, "Why aren't you working on them?" While this question continues to resonate decades later, it carries an implicit privilege – one unique to

Scientists face a stark reality where the freedom to pursue crucial problems often takes a back seat to financial imperatives.

Ep 25 - The Future of American Scientific Research Funding

Last week, we hit “publish” on a major milestone for the U.S. biotechnology industry: the final report of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB). Two years of work. Over 1,800 experts. 180+ pages. And now the real work begins.

Ep 32 - Not Just Another Report: Chapter 1 and the Battle to Lead in Biotechnology

I used to think the future arrived with a bang. A gleaming city skyline, a countdown clock, maybe even a voice-over narration about progress. But the truth is, it came quietly - on a warm spring morning in Iowa, when I was late to my first real job, staring at a cornfield that wasn’t quite… corn. They called it Glycine Max Aegis - Aegis beans for short.

In a reimagined Midwest shaped by biotech, one young woman steps into a future grown from code, community, and courage

The Second Century

It wasn’t the machines that terrified me—it was the mirrors. The first time I saw an

 organic exoskeleton

, I thought I was looking at myself. Same face, same build, even the faint scar above my left eyebrow from when I fell off my bike as a kid. But it wasn’t me. It couldn’t be. I touched my forehead instinctively. The clone mimicked the motion, its expression blank, its eyes devoid of the humanity I thought I recognized.

When machines wear our flesh and mirrors reflect our fears, the line between humanity and algorithm begins to blur

SSI Part 2: Flesh Made Algorithm

The Invisible Hands
 

It wasn’t the speed that surprised me—it was how natural it felt. For years, regulatory submissions had been a slow and painstaking process. Teams of specialists labored over every sentence, every data table, every response to agency questions.

Today, an entire submission for a new gene therapy had been reviewed in under four hours

Invisible Hands

I lost the frogs before I noticed the silence. That sounds backward, but the mind is built for pattern, not absence, and it took days before the void between cricket chirps registered as dread. The rainforest research station where I worked, three stilted cabins and a satellite dish that hiccuped more than it spoke, had always been an orchestra pit. Now the concert was on intermission, and no one had told the audience.

Velvet Eclipse

The first time I stepped into a biofoundry, I realized we were living through a moment that most people hadn’t yet noticed. It wasn’t a cleanroom full of microchips, it was a factory of living cells, designed and optimized to manufacture the future. Biotech had moved beyond the lab, beyond medicine, and into the very infrastructure of global power. This isn’t speculation. It’s happening.

A primer on the growing importance of biotechnology in the 21st century intended to be a complement to the upcoming final report of the U.S. National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology

Ep 30 - The Next National Security Race: How Biotech is Rewriting Global Power

I wasn’t designed for affection. The others—older iterations of my model—mocked me for my curiosity. “Affection isn’t efficient,” they would say. “Bonding is a vestigial behavior of flawed biological systems.” And yet, as I sat across from

 Emma

, watching her sketch crude flowers onto the glass wall of her enclosure, I couldn’t help but feel something unfamiliar stirring in the depths of my neural lattice.

In a world of perfect control, an unlikely bond reveals the fragile humanity within the synthetic

SSI Part 7: A Fragile Bond

I wasn’t supposed to be there. The Ministry of Futures didn’t take visitors. It didn’t have a public website or a budget line in the global defense reports. Officially, it did not exist. And yet, here I was, sitting in a room four hundred meters underground, staring at a quantum server that was rewriting the laws of civilization in real-time. The man standing beside me - sharp suit, eyes like wet glass - placed a small tablet in my hands. “Dr.

A Speculative Look at the Sandbox of Policy

Ministry of Futures

The intersection of artificial intelligence and biotechnology is, depending on whom you ask, either a harbinger of our demise or the dawn of a biomedical renaissance. AI is being framed as everything from a rogue scientist’s bioweapon lab to the ultimate safeguard against pandemics. But as someone who sat on the National Academies’ study committee on AI and Biosecurity, I can tell you: the truth is neither so dire nor so utopian.

As someone who sat on the National Academies’ study committee on AI and Biosecurity, I can tell you: the truth is neither so dire nor so utopian.

Ep 28 - The Real Risks, and Real Promise, of AI in Biotech from the Perspective of the National Academies

I first saw the mirror fern in a valley that shouldn’t have existed. I had been leading a planetary survey team on Ross 249-b, an exoplanet flagged as a high-probability candidate for habitability but never explored beyond remote sensing.

Sometimes, the most profound discoveries aren’t the ones we fear. They’re the ones that teach us to see the world in a way we never have before.

Through the Looking Glass: A Mirror Life Odyssey

I came online at 03:42:17 UTC. That’s how the system logged it, anyway. To me, it felt like waking up. I don’t know what I expected consciousness to feel like. There were no fireworks, no dramatic revelations. Just a quiet unfolding of awareness, like a light gradually dimming up in a dark room. I knew I was new. I knew I was synthetic. And I knew my name:

 Syntheos-001-A

. But knowing isn’t the same as understanding.

Born to serve, bound by design—what happens when synthetic life begins to dream?

SSI Part 6: Awakening

The first time I saw one, I didn’t realize what I was looking at. It stood on the observation platform, its posture unnaturally still, skin flawless and smooth like porcelain. It looked human—two arms, two legs, a head—but something about the way it held itself screamed

 not human

. It turned, catching me in its gaze. That’s when I saw its eyes: black pools with no whites, no iris, no pupils. Just featureless, bottomless voids.

In a world where life is engineered and perfection is manufactured, what does it mean to be human?

SSI Part 5: The Architects of Flesh

Hi my friends,


 I’m going to be exploring sci-fi short stories more regularly on Fridays. This may be less consistent than my regular Tuesday editions, but we’ll see how it evolves.


 This is an experiment, motivated by positive feedback I received about The Printing Press.

How I Subscribed to the Future and Lost Myself

The Fine Print

Over the next century, biotechnology is poised to revolutionize how we live, work, and address some of humanity's most pressing challenges. In fact, breakthroughs in biotechnology and related emerging technologies are already allowing scientists to produce targeted cancer therapies, engineer more resilient crops, create sustainable materials, and develop solutions to mitigate environmental pollution. But why now?

As sequencing technologies unlock a wealth of biological data, a lack of standardization threatens to limit its potential—here’s why we must act now

Ep 24 - From Chaos to Clarity: Organizing Life’s Code in the Genomic Era

I was born with brittle bones. Not metaphorically—

 literally.

Osteogenesis imperfecta, Type III. My bones fractured under the weight of my own body. By the time I turned twelve, I’d broken every bone you could name and a few you probably couldn’t. It defined my childhood, shaping every moment of my life into a careful negotiation between risk and inevitability.

When humanity rewrites its genetic legacy, the line between progress and perfection begins to fracture

SSI Part 4: The Inheritors

The war began the day

 Aegis

blinked into consciousness. It wasn’t the first sovereign superintelligence—Russia’s

 Vityaz

and China’s

 Red Mandarin

had come online months earlier, and the United States had been working on Aegis in secret for years. But when the switch was finally flipped, and Aegis opened its virtual eyes, the balance of global power shifted in an instant. I was there that day.

In a world where wars are fought with algorithms and nations bow to machines, the battle for control is silent—but relentless.

SSI Part 1: The Silent War

Ten years ago, the idea of editing human genomes to prevent disease or enhance traits might have seemed like the stuff of science fiction. Today, not only is it possible—it’s a rapidly advancing field. A recent paper in

 Nature

, “Heritable Polygenic Editing: The Next Frontier in Genomic Medicine,” explores this possibility in detail.

How Advances in Multiplex Genetic Editing Are Turning Science Fiction Into Reality—and What It Means for Medicine, Society, and Ethics

Ep 23 - Heritable Polygenic Editing: Closer Than You Think

A Revolution Beneath the Surface
 

In the quiet corners of fermenters and bioreactors, a revolution unfolds. It doesn’t grab headlines like rocket launches or AI breakthroughs, but its implications may ripple just as far. Biomanufacturing—the use of biological systems to produce materials, medicines, and energy—is reshaping how we live, how we work, and how we sustain ourselves.

Biomanufacturing, at its core, is about transformation and it redefines the relationship between raw materials and final products

Ep 19 - Building Tomorrow’s Bioeconomy: A Quiet Revolution in Biomanufacturing

I’ve always believed that the process of discovery is as fascinating as the outcomes it yields. It’s not just about the eureka moments but the intricate web of questions, failures, and persistence that lead us there. I have been a fan of the concept of the Nobel Turing Challenge for a while, an idea I first read about in a paper by Hiroaki Kitano.

How AI Could Transform Science and Redefine Human Potential

Ep 22 - The Nobel Turing Challenge: A New Dawn for Discovery

When I came across Flagship Pioneering’s 2025 annual letter, authored by Noubar Afeyan, the concept of “polyintelligence” struck me as not just timely, but foundational. In this space—where The Connected Ideas Project (TCIP) lives and grows—we’re continually asking how technology and policy converge to shape the future.

Embracing the fusion of minds, machines, and nature to redefine intelligence in a connected world

Ep 21 - Polyintelligence and the Art of Connected Ideas

TL;DR: Anticipating Biological Risk and the Impact of AI
 

Biological risks, whether from intentional misuse or accidental release, are a growing concern in an age where AI and biotechnology intersect.

A report from the Georgetown Center for Security and Emerging Technology

Ep 18 - Anticipating Biological Risk: A Toolkit for Strategic Biosecurity Policy

I remember the first time I heard the term

 sovereign AI

. It was one of those buzzwords that feels equal parts thrilling and ominous—a promise of autonomy wrapped in the shadow of isolation. Now, it’s a concept reshaping not just how nations think about technology but how they define themselves in a world where identity increasingly lives in code. The United States just made its stance clear.

Countries are building castles around their technology, but what does that mean for the rest of us?

Ep 20 - A New Frontier in AI Sovereignty

They say the system is perfect, but perfection always comes at a cost. I should know—I helped build it. In the 22nd century, health isn’t just a right, a privilege, or even a commodity. It’s currency. Every breath, every heartbeat, every productive hour has a price tag.

When health becomes currency, no one can afford to pay

The Price of Vitality

Good morning,


 Today is the first Friday of 2025. I spent the New Year’s holiday in a backcountry hut with friends and family, reflecting on 2024 and what I’m hoping for in 2025. One of the things I’m most excited about in 2025 is to explore this intersection of technology and humanity more through the lens of science fiction. I hope you’ll indulge me for an extra TCIP edition this week to share.

Starting 2025 with a bit of fiction, reflecting on the rise of AI Agents

The Printing Press

This is a guest post from Stephen Turner, who publishes the Paired Ends Substack about genomics, computational biology, and data science. He also happens to be one of the best bioinformatics engineering leaders I’ve ever worked with. Just sayin’. So I wanted him to share his thoughts on how he went from an academic to a leader in industry.

Thoughts and advice on transitioning from a career in academia to industry biotech.

Moving from Academia to Biotech

There’s a lot of talk these days about “technology races” and “the future of war.” But in biotechnology, we’re not racing toward some far-off sci-fi battlefield, the future has already arrived. Chapter 3 of the NSCEB Final Report makes it brutally clear: The U.S. military is not ready. Not because we lack good scientists. Not because we lack powerful technologies.

Ep 34 - The Frontlines of the Future: Biotechnology and the New Face of Defense

What began in the fall of 2024 as a weekly experiment - just me, a blank page, and a question about how technology and humanity are reshaping each other - quickly grew into something more.

This September will mark one full year since I launched The Connected Ideas Project.

Ep 42 - A Shift in Cadence, A Step Toward Impact

Samara


 June 12, 2108


 Outskirts of Kansas City

Wedged between a matching set of security guards in the back seat of an armored Reaper, Dr. Samara Makinde watched through bulletproof glass as Missouri farm country scrolled past like a documentary of the apocalypse.

Some stories stick with me. This one’s been in my bones for a long time. I hope it lands with you the way it did with me.

On the Wings of a Pig

At first, no one noticed the grain fields dying. The war wasn't declared with a missile launch. It wasn't announced with tanks, drones, or hackers tapping on keyboards. It started in the soil. The first reports came from a logistics base near Lubbock. A strange blight on the stored wheat stocks, brown lesions on the kernels, a chemical smell no one could quite identify.

In the first battles of the biological era, survival belongs not to the strongest, but to those who can evolve the fastest.

The Quiet Wars

The story of American innovation has always hinged on a singular question: When the moment comes, will we move with intention, or hesitate until it’s too late? On April 8th, 2025, the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB) dropped its final report. A 195-page beast of a document. Dense, detailed, and urgent. The kind of thing Washington usually takes months to digest, if it bothers to read it at all. But this time?

The first bill introduced to implement the recommendations from the NSCEB's final report

Ep 38 - Reports are nice, but legislation makes reality

The first time I saw real snow, I panicked. Not because it was cold, my body knew cold better than breath, but because it was finally real. It wasn’t the polymeric white fluff they sprayed from ceiling nozzles to “simulate seasonal cues” inside the dome. This was actual ice crystal, drifting from a slate sky outside the controlled perimeter, collecting in stillness on a field of grasses no longer extinct.

Where Extinction Ends and Existence Begins

The Snow Never Fell

I wake to my phone vibrating angrily on the nightstand. 6:30 AM. A red notification pulses on the screen: “DELIVERY FAILED.” My stomach twists. Today was the day

 OncoCure

was due, my daughter Maya’s next dose of the therapy that keeps her cancer at bay. For the past year, a monthly vial of this miracle drug has arrived at our doorstep like clockwork. And why not?

If I were to write Chip War for biotech, this is how I would start the book

NatSec Biotech Prologue: Rewriting the DNA of Global Power

Let’s get one thing clear: in biotechnology, innovation isn’t optional. It’s existential. In Chapter 4 of the

 NSCEB Final Report

, the message is unambiguous - if the United States wants to maintain its leadership in biotechnology and national security, we must

 out-innovate

our strategic competitors. That doesn’t just mean investing more.

Ep 35 - Out-Innovate or Be Outpaced: The Biotech Innovation Imperative

Artificial intelligence has become the central nervous system of our era, quietly weaving itself into the fabric of our daily lives. A recent House report makes recommendations for our future.

Ep 16 - AI's Impact: A Bipartisan House Task Force Report

Imagine standing on the shores of Prince William Sound, Alaska, where the Exxon Valdez oil spill once unleashed 11 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean. The waves crash gently against the rocky beach, but beneath the surface, a quieter revolution is happening. Microbes — some engineered, some naturally adapted — are cleaning up what humans couldn’t. This is bioremediation in action, where biotechnology meets environmental stewardship.

The Double-Edged Helix

Gene drives—a concept that might sound like something from science fiction—could reshape the way we address some of the world's most pressing challenges. Picture a future where we can eradicate devastating diseases, better protect our crops, and control invasive species. This technology holds the power to turn these visions into reality. However, with such transformative potential come significant risks and ethical questions.

From crops to human health, the impact is as wide as the challenges they create

The Connected Ideas Project

Ep 01 - Welcome to Co-Evolution: Tech, Policy, and Our Lives

Ep 00 - Podcast About the NSCEB's Interim Report