The Century of Biology

The Century of Biology is a weekly newsletter dedicated to exploring the forefront of biotechnological research and innovation. It covers topics from immune engineering and synthetic biology to the influences of AI and strategic company analyses within the life sciences, emphasizing genetic technologies and their applications in medicine and industry.

Biotechnology Synthetic Biology Genetic Engineering Drug Discovery Clinical Trials Artificial Intelligence in Medicine Natural Product Discovery Nucleic Acid Therapeutics DNA Sequencing Technologies Biological Data Analysis

The hottest Substack posts of The Century of Biology

And their main takeaways

New tools for programming biology

472 implied HN points • 18 Feb 24
🔬 Science Biology Genetics CRISPR
  1. CRISPR technology has revolutionized biology with its programmable gene editing capabilities, leading to rapid advancements and commercial interest.
  2. New tools like HACE for targeted genetic variation and technologies for RNA writing are expanding the toolkit for programming biology.
  3. Exploration of retrons as a tool for DNA production and genome editing reveals the potential for diverse applications in genome engineering.

Spill the TEA

453 implied HN points • 28 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Biotechnology Economics Synthetic Biology Fermentation
  1. Industrial biotechnology aims to transition our economy to more sustainable biomanufacturing.
  2. Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) helps forecast new technology's competitiveness in industrial markets.
  3. Synonym's tool Scaler simplifies TEA for synthetic biologists, potentially changing the financing structure of biomanufacturing.

Illumina: The Measurement Monopoly

535 implied HN points • 17 Sep 23
🕹 Technology Biotech Genomics Market dominance Business strategy
  1. DNA sequencing technology has rapidly advanced, transforming biology into an information science.
  2. Illumina emerged as a dominant force in genomics by inventing a new measurement technology and establishing enduring differential returns over time.
  3. Illumina's strategic business properties like cornered resources, switching costs, network economies, scale economies, and branding have enabled its market dominance and recurring revenue from consumables.

Vial: Reimagining Clinical Trials

308 implied HN points • 30 Jul 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Clinical Trials Drug Discovery Medical Technology Healthcare system
  1. Vial is working to reduce the cost of clinical trials by innovating new technology.
  2. Vial's Act I focuses on structuring, digitizing, and automating the clinical trial process to drive efficiency.
  3. Vial's Act II, Battery Bio, aims to revolutionize drug discovery by integrating software and advanced technologies in a vertically integrated approach.
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Immune engineering

390 implied HN points • 19 Feb 23
🔬 Science Genetic Engineering Cancer Treatment Biotechnology
  1. The immune system is a major frontier for the future of biotechnology and medicine.
  2. Engineered T cells, like CAR-T therapy, show promise in treating diseases like cancer by programming immune cells.
  3. Immune engineering, especially in combination with the 4-S stack, holds great potential for designing new therapies and advancing genetic engineering technology.

Accelerating genetic design

272 implied HN points • 26 Mar 23
🔬 Science Genetics Biotechnology Data Analysis AI Medical Research
  1. Multiple important technological paradigms are converging in the life sciences, impacting life on various scales.
  2. Synthetic biology focuses on designing new genetic circuits to program cells for new tasks.
  3. Using a platform like CLASSIC, genetic circuits can be systematically tested to learn composition-to-function relationships.

Cellular shuttle systems

199 implied HN points • 18 Jun 23
🔬 Science Biology Therapeutics Engineering Research
  1. Nucleic acid therapeutics are expanding with tools like mRNAs, guide RNAs, and CRISPR.
  2. The key challenge in genetic therapy is delivering therapeutic messages effectively.
  3. Extracellular vesicles show promise as a natural delivery system for molecular cargo, though there are still engineering hurdles to overcome.

About v1

27 implied HN points • 04 May 23
🔬 Science Biology Genomics Bioinformatics Synthetic Biology
  1. The rapid progress of biology is driven by advancements in DNA technology and communication.
  2. The newsletter aims to highlight exciting new research in genetics, genomics, and bioinformatics.
  3. The newsletter does not focus on peer review but instead aims to share exciting discoveries and findings.

Solugen

1 HN point • 19 Mar 23
💼 Business Technology Industry Innovation Entrepreneurship Economics
  1. Biology is essential for solving problems in the physical world that software cannot address.
  2. Solugen aims to revolutionize the petrochemical industry by utilizing biology for sustainable chemical production.
  3. Solugen's success lies in deep integration of lab and production, customer focus, and commitment to operational details.