We're expanding our life sciences work through a new division Radial led by @beckypferdehirt.bsky.social as CEO. Becky will work closely w @pracheeac.bsky.social & @seemaychou.bsky.social to lead experiments with approaches to enabling and publishing science 1/ www.statnews.com/2026/03/11/r...

New nonprofit launches with at least $500 million to modernize scientific process for AI era

A new nonprofit called Radial is launching with at least $500 million to modernize the scientific process for the AI era.

statnews.com

We’ve been heads down @ArcadiaScience for a bit but the @arenabioworks news this week caused me to dump thoughts. hard things are hard; don’t be such a fucking hater. Reflections on parallels w our own institutional experiment here seemay.substack.com/p/big-experi...

Big experiments are only big if they can fail

Some reflections on Arena Bioworks' unexpected wind down as a fellow institutional experimentalist

seemay.substack.com

I spend a lot of time talking to potential grantees about our open science policy. Some field notes here: open.substack.com/pub/seemay/p...

Why careerism can be bad for science training

Some field notes from scholarly publishing discussions with scientists

open.substack.com

Want to get involved, share your ideas, or just stay in the loop with email updates? Let us know here: forms.gle/37pK2smABwbg...

Diffuse Project Interest Form

Interested in the Diffuse Project? Please provide your information to help us shape community engagement and potentially direct you to the right project member.

forms.gle

A note in here for other science philanthropists… we have a chance rn to help scientists rethink systems, technical & operational. They’re game to take useful risks, let’s help them. Coming soon: more open science research, experimenting outside journals… seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...

Seemay Chou@seemaychou.bsky.social · 12mo ago

More on our reflections here seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...

We are thrilled to be part of Project Diffuse, building infrastructure for the dynamic future of structural biology. We are helping to lead the modeling and encoding efforts of this project, including designing infrastructure that allows AI to learn from the full complexity of experimental data.

Seemay Chou@seemaychou.bsky.social · 12mo ago

What’s the next PDB? Maybe it’s …the PDB. We just launched @diffuseproject.bsky.social a structural biology initiative exploring protein motion & rethinking how we generate and use experimental data. Quick 🧵👇 www.diffuse.science

Announcing the Diffuse Project! We're unlocking protein dynamics through diffuse X-ray scattering - the overlooked signal that could revolutionize how we understand protein motion. seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...

From systems operators to systems architects

Going up a level from data generation to think about the data systems we design and embed

seemay.substack.com

What’s the next PDB? Maybe it’s …the PDB. We just launched @diffuseproject.bsky.social a structural biology initiative exploring protein motion & rethinking how we generate and use experimental data. Quick 🧵👇 www.diffuse.science

The Diffuse Project

The Diffuse Project

diffuse.science

After many yrs building internally @arcadiascience.com we're now able to partner more with others on cool organisms. You won't hurt my feelings if you don't read my post, but don't miss out on our first organismal spotlight animation featuring sea squirts -- just skip to the bottom! 🧵

A v common suggestion I get re: publishing work outside journals is "if you just get some elite scientists to do it, everyone else will do it." This is an instinct that may seem sound, but here's what I've found irl:

Seemay Chou@seemaychou.bsky.social · last yr.

We're excited to take this step, and to talk to other folks who are interested in experimenting. If you have something you're excited to try, reply here -- and we might even fund it. asterainstitute.substack.com/p/scientific...

We did something radical that shouldn’t feel radical: we stopped funding science built for journals so that we can reimagine scientific publishing. First @arcadiascience.com. Now at @asterainstitute.bsky.social.

We @navigation.org are looking for proposals on how to move scientific publishing into the future. If you think we can do better, stop complaining and come build by applying AI towards open science os.nav.fund/ai-for-os/

Zoogle! Our new tool from @arcadiascience for picking research organisms. Even if you’re not a scientist, you should care that we spend >$50B/yr on clinical trials based on organismal models (>90% failure rate). Read more about Zoogle here: arcadiascience.com/blog/zoogle

Introducing Zoogle: An Organismal Search Tool

Arcadia Science is pushing the boundaries of open science and innovating at every step in the research, development, and commercialization process.

arcadiascience.com

Arcadia Science@arcadiascience.com · last yr.

Happy Darwin Day! Today, we’re thinking about how to use evolution to accelerate biomedical research. We think the answer is to expand the repertoire of organismal models. Search for the best ones using our new portal, Zoogle: zoogle.arcadiascience.com 🧵

Today we're sharing a new data initiative @asterainstitute.bsky.social near and dear to my microbiologist heart. W all the chatter about predictive models, what would it actually take to generate data that are broadly useful/interoperable for predicting functions? astera.org/request-for-...

Request for Information - Astera Institute

Data Requirements for Microbial Machine Learning Models What microbes can do Microbes have fundamentally shaped our bodies, our environment, and our understanding of biology. As a window into living s...

astera.org

I’ll forgive @wilbanks.bsky.social for dropping the P-word (just this once) — if you’re curious about what kinds of data initiatives we’re gettin after @asterainstitute.bsky.social give his talk a listen. More deets on some big projects coming soon 👀 youtu.be/4Xnlf-sI0DM

Building scalable public data sets for scientific innovation

YouTube video by Roots of Progress Institute

youtu.be

An example of how the limited and biased availability of data narrows the range of functional biology PLMs tap into for prediction and design research.arcadiascience.com/pub/result-p...

The known protein universe is phylogenetically biased

Many protein prediction and design models rely on evolutionary comparisons. We show that popular databases are phylogenetically biased, influencing the statistical utility of the known protein univers...

research.arcadiascience.com

Seemay Chou@seemaychou.bsky.social · 2y ago

Another way to structure data is thru lens of evolution. People forget this was a key unlock for protein predictions (MSAs). There's not enough data/compute/$ for big AI promises without. Why I've devoted all my energy to old school, open evo tools @arcadiascience.com -- that's "big bio" IMO

Here's another cool example from Matt Daugherty's group on how tracing evolutionary signal gives us insights into how bio inventions like vertebrate eyes were "engineered" in the wild (my only complaint is that there is no preprint for this Matt 😉). www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Seemay Chou@seemaychou.bsky.social · 2y ago

Another way to structure data is thru lens of evolution. People forget this was a key unlock for protein predictions (MSAs). There's not enough data/compute/$ for big AI promises without. Why I've devoted all my energy to old school, open evo tools @arcadiascience.com -- that's "big bio" IMO

Picking the right research organisms/models in a data-driven way is a huge problem that will require all of us to fix -- no one denies this is a problem, no matter who you talk to (academia, pharma, etc). Yet we pour BILLIONS each year into clinical trials based on faulty animal models.

Seemay Chou@seemaychou.bsky.social · 2y ago

And disease models: research.arcadiascience.com/pub/result-e...

Another way to structure data is thru lens of evolution. People forget this was a key unlock for protein predictions (MSAs). There's not enough data/compute/$ for big AI promises without. Why I've devoted all my energy to old school, open evo tools @arcadiascience.com -- that's "big bio" IMO

Sam Rodriques@sgrodriques.bsky.social · 2y ago

The essential role of natural language in representing biology --AI-Science community all-in on bio foundation models, will no-doubt be awesome --However, the representation spaces in those models are too structured for most phenomena --Language will be essential, currently largely underappreciated

The last 2 weeks have brought so many changes, I’ve found it hard to say anything that encapsulates — taking a work hiatus for the first time in my adult life, the election, giving birth. For now I’ll just intro to my latest biology experiment. Meet Hazel everyone👇🥰

Finally stepping into the 🔵 here, looking for people to follow. Interested in science, startups, and a sense of humor - recs?

1 more week before we dig into EA apps @ArcadiaScience. Know someone unapologetically TypeA who wants front row seats to building a new science org/biotech start-up? I hope they quickly grow into Chief of Staff. I value drive/generalist competence >>> experience/polish. jobs.lever.co/arcadiascien...

entrepreneurs also know about failing fast, but it sucks to not share learnings. i'm interested in funding ~10 icebox experiments thru @AsteraInstitute for start-ups that want to publish their science as/after they ramp down. hit me up: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

Icebox: Biotech Start-up Edition

Information gathering on biotech start-ups that are ramping down and want to publish their results.

docs.google.com

I’m bullish on the future of science, and we are putting money where our mouth is. Know someone stellar who can help us accelerate progress in open science? boards.greenhouse.io/navigationfu...

The Chow Lab is looking for multiple postdocs to work on Precision Medicine for rare disease! Opportunities to work with industry, patient foundations and physicians. Starting pay will be substantially higher than NIH minimum. DM or email me! https://t.co/gQA8peq22G

Do you know of any important scientific or public health efforts that are currently blocked by access to compute? (ie need cards in next 6 months) #plzRP