Email

• Ora et Labora (Ps 37,5)
• I laugh at my own jokes 🙃
• Building Biotic, a public-benefit research organization focused on the safe development of chemically and functionally defined synthetic cells, with Kate Adamala, Drew Endy, and Chris Raggio
• Previously at ESA, working on astrobiology and space bio-mining
• My academic interests center on how life-like processes can be studied, modeled, and experimentally reconstituted under controlled conditions. I am particularly drawn to synthetic cells, artificial tissues, and “intelligent” materials that integrate sensing, computation, and actuation.
• I like to collect and climb on rocks 🪨 🌝 ⛰️

Questions I work on/ think about

1. Can you bootstrap a “living” cell from the bottom up?
2. What is the minimal set of coupled subsystems (compartment, metabolism, replication..) sufficient for autonomous self-maintenance?
3. What are the minimal requirements for cell-free ribosome biogenesis, the self-assembly of the machine that translates everything else?
4. Is “Life” a phase transition in active matter? What is the relationship between “Living” and “Intelligent” and “Adaptable” systems? Is “Life” “just” a complex adaptive system?
5. How do cells store, process, and act on information and what exactly separates “computation” from “ordinary chemistry”?
6. How do decentralized living systems like ant colonies, slime molds and siphonophores compute collective behavior and form without central control? Can we learn to engineer it?
7. Can we learn how to steer morphogenesis into pre-defined target states by using genetic engineering, external fields, gradients, flows, mechanical stress and other parameters?
8. What are the physical limits (bandwidth, specificity, signal-to-noise) on read/write processes into a living cell?
9. How do we transform biology, currently an esoteric craft requiring years of specialized, hands-on study, into a domain as accessible as "vibe coding" is for software today? I believe we must first establish robust standards that machines can work with, reducing the reliance on chaotic, lab-specific protocols; then, building upon projects where every molecule's function is defined, we can construct a biological Graphical User Interface (GUI) analogous to what Xerox PARC did for computing. The goal is to empower ordinary people to engineer life itself through intuitive tools, just as they now use smartphones to harness complex technology without understanding the underlying code.
10. How does one responsibly distribute next-gen technology (like Claude Mythos or synthetic-biology capabilities) widely while engineering misuse-resistance into the tools themselves? I see synthetic cells as the foundation of biological security: only by building biology from first principles can we safely design and govern it. I am curious how synthetic-cell platforms will change how we think about technological standards, institutional design and the future of biosciences.
11. Can great science be organized on purpose?
12. How do you become, and stay, a genuinely good and honest person over a whole life? Is goodness something you maximize/ optimize for (do the most good you can, EA crowd), something you cultivate (character, conscience, tradition), or something you receive (grace), and can it be all three at once, if you engineer the incentives and self-interests to bend the compass?