The hottest Bioengineering Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Science Topics

Solving the Electroporation Bottleneck

Asimov Press • 335 implied HN points • 15 Jan 26
🔬 Science Bioengineering
  1. Electroporation has a huge space of possible settings, so getting DNA into non-model microbes is often slow, hit-or-miss, and leaves researchers unsure why experiments fail.
  2. A robotic electroporator that tests many buffers, voltages, waveforms, and plasmid origins—and uses a Bayesian optimizer to choose conditions—can rapidly find working protocols and massively improve transformation efficiency.
  3. Scaling cultivation and transformation for diverse microbes will open up study and engineering of vast, untapped biological diversity, leading to new enzymes, tools, and biotech applications beyond standard lab organisms.

Solid State Nanopores - Cambridge Nucleomics!

ASeq Newsletter • 7 implied HN points • 12 Mar 26
🔬 Science Bioengineering
  1. A Cambridge-based solid-state nanopore company founded around 2021 recently closed a $736K seed round.
  2. Their method hybridizes barcodes with bulky loops to RNA or DNA and threads them through a solid-state nanopore. Varying the loop patterns or spacing creates distinct labels that can be counted.
  3. They’re targeting clinical counting applications such as point-of-care sepsis tests, early cancer detection, and minimal residual disease monitoring.

ACX Grants Results 2024

Astral Codex Ten • 9429 implied HN points • 10 Feb 24
💼 Business Bioengineering
  1. The ACX Grants Results for 2024 announced several innovative projects that received funding, ranging from lead-acid battery recycling in Nigeria to lobbying for changes in kidney donation laws.
  2. The grantees included projects like developing anti-mosquito drones, creating germicidal UV lightbulbs, and advocating for a specialized pandemic response team at the FDA.
  3. The ACX Grants covered a diverse range of causes, including animal welfare, educational attainment, political change, and innovative medical research like artificial kidney creation and phage therapy.

The Renaissance in Biology

Solve Cancer in 365 days • 19 implied HN points • 01 Sep 24
🔬 Science Bioengineering
  1. Biology can be understood like hardware and software. While genes represent the hardware, we need to pay attention to the bioelectric signals, which act like the software, guiding how cells function.
  2. Traditional approaches focused too much on altering genes without comprehending the complexities of how these changes affect everything else in the body. We often miss how the interactions among different cell signals can impact health.
  3. By understanding bioelectricity, scientists might find better ways to tackle diseases. Instead of random discoveries, aligning the right signals could lead to effective treatments and innovations in biology.

LLM Links, 1/27/2025

In My Tribe • 318 implied HN points • 27 Jan 25
🕹 Technology Bioengineering
  1. AI is improving quickly, making it easier for students to answer essay questions by providing high-quality responses from various texts. This change may reduce the value of traditional essay exams.
  2. A World Bank project in Nigeria successfully used AI in education, enhancing learning equivalent to nearly two years in just six weeks. This shows promise for AI to help education in underdeveloped areas.
  3. OpenAI is developing AI models to transform science, including engineering proteins that enhance cellular functions. This could lead to significant advancements in fields like bioengineering.
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An Applied Crop Genetics BBN

FreakTakes • 7 implied HN points • 30 Jan 26
🔬 Science Bioengineering
  1. The team’s North Star is to make plant engineering like chip design — building synthetic chromosomes and easy, plug-and-play genetic parts so people can design complex, adaptive plant traits.
  2. Progress is blocked by three main technical bottlenecks: transforming and regenerating many plant species, a lack of validated higher-level genetic circuit libraries, and immature hardware to build and iterate large DNA programs.
  3. They fund tool development by mixing contracts and grants, using a high-throughput screening platform to offer screening and co-development services, and aim to grow into an engineering research institute that would need roughly $3–7M per year for about a decade.

The CycloneSeq 40K Pores? 400Gb/Run?

ASeq Newsletter • 7 implied HN points • 17 Dec 25
🔬 Science Bioengineering
  1. BGI’s CycloneSeq claims to use novel motor and pore proteins found in extreme ocean environments as the core components for its nanopore sequencing chemistry.
  2. The device reportedly uses a spider-web-inspired, nano-imprinted micro-well chip design to achieve ultra-low electrical noise and stable membrane embedding, enabling very long sequencing runs (up to about 107 hours).
  3. Slides and coverage suggest high throughput — on the order of tens of thousands of pores and around hundreds of gigabases per run (e.g., ~40K pores and ~400 Gb/run) — implying significant per-run data yield if accurate.

QuantumSi - Chips No More!

ASeq Newsletter • 14 implied HN points • 21 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Bioengineering
  1. QuantumSi shared new information during their investor day, showcasing their advancements. They seem to be moving beyond traditional chips in their technology.
  2. The QuantumSi project is gaining attention, and many connections are being made in the community. It's a good time to get involved and learn more.
  3. Readers are encouraged to check out the investor day presentation for deeper insights into QuantumSi's direction. It might be useful for those interested in tech innovations.

TechBio Adventures

Kesav’s Lab • 1 HN point • 16 Feb 24
🕹 Technology Bioengineering
  1. TechBio combines biology and technology to make advancements in healthcare. This approach allows for faster and more efficient drug development.
  2. Understanding DNA and using software tools are key parts of TechBio. This lets us design new biological systems to solve complex problems.
  3. There are two main areas in TechBio: industrial and clinical applications. Both aim to improve health outcomes and automate biological processes.

How to prepare your life for the Technological Singularity

The Future of Life • 0 implied HN points • 12 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Bioengineering
  1. It's important to be creative and adaptable in your career as traditional jobs may disappear. Focus on gaining broad skills that allow you to be self-directed and entrepreneurial.
  2. Prepare for changes in wealth due to rapid technology growth. Diversifying your investments and being flexible with your assets can help secure your financial future.
  3. Health will move towards personalized medicine and bioengineering. Staying informed and proactive about your own health choices will be crucial as new treatments emerge.