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Saturday, March 02, 2024

Appealing to the Authority of Man

At some point, if you are a Cargo Cult, you begin to realize that the Gods aren't going to step in. You are failing at getting the Cargo and the natives are getting restless. You must appeal to something more reasonable, something you can control. You find the highest ranking human in your group and begin to set up a new strategy. The big metal birds are not landing no matter how you reshape your runways. The headset made of coconuts and sticks cannot be made to summon the cargo planes. It has to be that the people are doing something wrong. They are not using the airport you have designed properly.

The first step is to set up a new agency. Then set up a few more.  Devote more resources towards the new groups. Let them define the issues and new terms to discuss said issues. Have meetings. Make claims that things are beginning to succeed, according to the new way of thinking...

BOSTON and LEXINGTON, Mass.Feb. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- The Defense Threat Reduction Agency's (DTRA) Joint Science and Technology Office (JSTO) for the Chemical and Biological Defense (CBD) Program has awarded, through the Medical CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear] Defense Consortium (MCDC) requirement 22-05, "Adjuvant Activity to Vaccines Prototype," a 5-year contract totaling up to $31 million including program options to the team of Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. (NYSE: DNA) and SaponiQx, Inc. (a subsidiary of Agenus Inc., NASDAQ:AGEN) to discover and develop next-generation vaccine adjuvants. Partners in adjuvant discovery and development since 2021, Ginkgo, which is building the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity, and SaponiQx, developing a visionary adjuvant development platform, will use a combination of high-throughput empirical and artificial intelligence/machine learning approaches, including Generative Molecular Design (GMD), to develop superior novel saponin-based adjuvants.

If you look at the SaponiQx website you see a rather sparse pipeline. QS-21 (available for supply) QS-7 and QS-X (R&D phase). At the inception of the company, which coincided with their partnership with Ginkgo, QS-21 was already "available for supply". Very little seems to have been done since 2021 in spite of the two powerhouses in the vaccine adjuvant space.

What has been accomplished is a $31M 5 year contract to develop what the two companies said they were going to develop using their combined expertise. The final piece of the puzzle was this agreement from DTRA, JSTO, CBD through the DBRN, MCDC requirement 22-25. 

If all goes according to plan there will be cargo by the year 2029. 

Friday, February 23, 2024

So Many Collaborations



I asked Gemini, "Who is The Cargo Cult Scientist?

"The term originated from a famous speech by physicist Richard Feynman called "Cargo Cult Science." He used the analogy of cargo cults in Pacific islands, who built elaborate mock runways and control towers in hopes of attracting cargo planes. Similarly, "cargo cult scientists" might go through the motions of research, collecting data and conducting experiments, but their work lacks the underlying foundation of scientific rigor and ultimately fails to produce meaningful results or contribute to genuine scientific understanding."

Okay then! Now let's look at a possible Cargo Cult Science project:

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency's (DTRA) Joint Science and Technology Office (JSTO) for the Chemical and Biological Defense (CBD) Program has awarded, through the Medical CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear] Defense Consortium (MCDC) requirement 22-05, "Adjuvant Activity to Vaccines Prototype," a 5-year contract totaling up to $31 million including program options to the team of Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. (NYSE: DNA) and SaponiQx, Inc. (a subsidiary of Agenus Inc., NASDAQ:AGEN) to discover and develop next-generation vaccine adjuvants. Partners in adjuvant discovery and development since 2021, Ginkgo, which is building the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity, and SaponiQx, developing a visionary adjuvant development platform, will use a combination of high-throughput empirical and artificial intelligence/machine learning approaches, including Generative Molecular Design (GMD), to develop superior novel saponin-based adjuvants. -BOSTON and LEXINGTON, Mass., Feb. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ --

They are going to research and develop variants of naturally occurring compounds known as Saponins.

This is an important concept because the current method for obtaining saponins is to extract the compound from tree bark. The process is not environmentally friendly.

Back in 2021 "Vaccines are one of the most powerful tools we have to fight pandemics, but ensuring widespread access to efficacious vaccines continues to be a major challenge worldwide," says Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks. "We're proud that our platform is being used by companies across the vaccine supply chain to develop and manufacture the materials necessary for life-saving vaccines."

Currently SaponiQx has one adjuvant available for supply (QS-21) and two in the R&D phase (QS-7 and QS-X. They have zero job openings. They have been working with Ginkgo since 2021.

The problem with Cargo Cult Scientists, according to Gemeni, "their work lacks the underlying foundation of scientific rigor and ultimately fails to produce meaningful results or contribute to genuine scientific understanding."

The collaboration touted in the recent press release by Ginkgo and SaponiQX has actually been ongoing since 2021. Where are the fruits of this labor? Meaningful results or advanced scientific understanding?

Instead we have a word salad. Who is now involved in making SaponinQX successful?

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency's (DTRA) Joint Science and Technology Office (JSTO) for the Chemical and Biological Defense (CBD) Program... through the Medical CBRN [Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear] Defense Consortium (MCDC) requirement 22-05, "Adjuvant Activity to Vaccines Prototype," ...Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc. (NYSE: DNA) and SaponiQx, Inc.

The Cargo? A 5-year contract totaling up to $31 million.

Dying of Cancer

My mom died in 2023 from ovarian cancer. She was diagnosed in 2022, underwent surgery to remove a large tumor, underwent chemotherapy and died in July of 2023. There were no experimental drug trials offered as alternative therapies. There was no semblance of medical science advances. No antibodies against a specific protein on a cancer cell. No attempts to stop cancer cells from growing by targeting angiogenesis. No oncolytic viruses were injected into her body to take out cancer cells. No RNA anti-sense drugs, no RNA interference, no DNA gene therapy, no new anything. Just surgery, chemotherapy, death. 

And it was not a very good existence. My mom became weak to the point we were ready to put her into a nursing facility. She lost her appetite often and simply had to force herself to eat something for energy. In the end we found her lying on the couch unable to get up. We called 911. She went to the hospital. The nurse told us that our mom would be released later that day. Nope, was our response. Two days later my mom passed away at the age of 77.

I suppose this is how we go. At 77 you are in danger of succumbing to a number of things. Our cells have kept us going for over 28,000 days. We wake up with renewed energy. We go to bed with the energy spent. We wake up recharged. Along the way we may do bad things regarding diet and exercise. We may breath in air pollution. We may challenge our systems with drugs, alcohol, and/or tobacco. When we feel something is wrong we go to the doctor and they diagnose the symptoms. 

As each day comes and goes we are one day closer to the end. As we approach the age of 77 we are getting close. We don't know how long we have but that is for the best. A positive attitude can go a long way. 

Sleep is biochemistry inside the brain. Our bodies need to sleep so our cells can be replenished. There is a cleansing process that occurs during stage 4 sleep. There is a pleasant dream phase called REM. If we drink too much the biochemistry shuts down the day in a sudden sleep. We call that passing out. We awake before the normal amount of sleep feeling poisoned. Food can also affect the sleep process. Too much Western society fast food or processed food will also cause trouble. A day of eating mostly vegetables and natural food with a fair amount of exercise that ends at the same hour (no drugs/alcohol/cigarettes) will lead to a pleasant nights sleep with an awakening with restored energy. 

In the end my mom was not pleased with how she slept. She awoke with little energy. She made her way to the recliner where she would spend the day. Good Morning America was followed by Gunsmoke, Leave It to Beaver, Happy Days, The View... The last show made her an angry old person. The old time shows made her happy as if in a state of REM sleep. No mental challenges. The future was filled with chemotherapy and ultimately death. I don't mean to be depressing but for her it had become real. She did not have the energy to fight back. 

So that is all. Cancer is wrapped up in the complexity of our DNA. It makes itself known when we can no longer stop the force it has on the overall system. We have little to show for our research. Just money spent and careers of the successful scientists. 


Tuesday, January 09, 2024

Ginkgo Announces New Advisory Board!

 January 8, 2024

Today we’re thrilled to announce the formation of our new Biopharma Advisory Board!

This council of experts from across the biopharmaceutical industry will provide critical insight into the development of Ginkgo’s core platform service offerings across target discovery, drug discovery, optimization, and manufacturing. The group, which will conduct regular meetings at Ginkgo and with its partners, includes (in alphabetical order) —

    How many of these CEO's have signed deals with Ginkgo Bioworks to provide Ginkgo with revenue rather than Ginkgo providing the CEO's with income? 

“We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits.”

– George Merck

I would like to focus on one of the members of the new committee. Previously I have talked about one of the new members of Ginkgos Advisory Board.

  • John Maraganore, PhD, served as the founding Chief Executive Officer and a Director of Alnylam from 2002 to 2021. Under his leadership, Alnylam helped lead the interventional RNA revolution by launching the first RNAi therapeutic medicine, ONPATTRO®, in 2018, followed by four more RNAi therapeutics through mid-2022. Dr. Maraganore was the chair of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) from 2017 to 2019 and is an active mentor to leaders across the biotechnology industry. John is the principal of JMM Innovation, and also serves as a Venture Partner for Arch Ventures and Atlas Ventures, an executive partner for RTW Investments, a senior advisor for Blackstone Life Sciences, and as an advisor for M28.

A quick search of ONPATTRO: 

Wikipedia

Onpattro is a medication used for the treatment of polyneuropathy in peop[le with hereditary transthyretin-mediated amyloidosis, a fatal rare disease that is estimated to affect 50,000 people worldwide.

The per-patient cost is between US $451,430 and $677,145, depending on the number of vials needed. As of 2020, there were 1050 people globally receiving parisian, generating $65.5M in net revenues. 

The FDA

Alnylams Pharmaceuticals push for parisian to be expanded to a much larger pool of patients...

In a briefing document released ahead of the Sept. 13 meeting of the FDA's Cardiovascular and Renal Drugs Advisory Committee, the agency called into question the efficacy of the drug in treating that pool of patients.

Remember, medicine is for the people, not the profits. 

Patisiran was already approved by the FDA in 2018 for the treatment of hereditary ATTR amyloidosis polyneuropathy, which made it the first-ever RNA interference therapeutic approved by the regulator.

Nevertheless, vutrisan - sold under the brand name Amvuttra - still represents the company's most lucrative product. In its second-quarter 2023 financial update, net revenues for the drug were $132 million, versus $91 million for Onpattro. In the fourth quarter Onprattro sales were down to $79M.

For the full-year 2023 net product revenues of $1.24B were reported. The revenues come from sales of its four marketed products Onpattro, Amvuttra, Givlaari and Oxlumo.

Onpattro: $355M

Ambuttra: $558M

4060 patients worldwide were receiving commercial Onpattro and Amvuttra as of year-end 2023.

Givlaari: $219M

Oxlumo: $110M

650 patients were receiving Givlaari as of year-end 2023

430 patients were receiving Oxlumo as of year-end 2023

So roughly 5140 patients are generating $1.24B. 

Yahoo Finance

In October 2023, Alnylam experienced a massive setback after the FDA issued a Complete Response Letter (CRL) in response to the company's supplemental new drug application (sNDA) for the label expansion of Onpattro to treat the cardiomyopathy of transtheyretin-mediated (ATTR) amyloidosis. 

However, following this development, the company shifted its focus to the phase III HELIOS-B label-expanding study of Amvuttra in the treatment of cardiomyopathy of ATTR amyloidosis. 

CCS

John Maraganore has long struggled to get dubious RNAi drug products on the market. From the perspective of the market, he has succeeded. But then again, so did the Covid vaccine. Safety and efficacy can be dealt with best under emergency conditions. John Maraganore has succeeded. He is a hard working man. Long listed here as a Cargo Cult Scientist he has created over $25B in market capitalization. 

Alas, only 5,140 patients are receiving treatment. Those patients are already very sick people. They get results only a professional statistician working in the Cargo Cults can detect. We have to wonder what it is like for the patients receiving the RNAi drug product. Do they feel a difference? Are they less sick?

In the Cargo Cults the natives still look to the skies. They believe what they are doing will one day provide results. Ginkgo Bioworks has said that John Maraganore has produced results and he will now advise them on how they too can see the massive returns on their investments. Although the expertise of John Maraganore was in RNAi drugs, he seems to have now moved on to biotechnology capital. He is an investment strategist. He advises on money. Ginkgo does not do RNAi drugs. Nonetheless, they have found an ally. A man who knows that medicine can make great profits even if the people don't need them. 

Book List

 1.  Betyrayers of the Truth - William Broad and Nicholas Wade

The lures of careerism and big money, the pressures of huge research factories, the repeated failure of supposedly fail-safe mechanisms of scientific inquiry to detect and correct fraud - Betrayers of the Truth is about how science really works and why scientists are tempted to cheat. 

2.  On Bullshit - Harry G Frankfurt

Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."

3.  Innumeracy - John Allen Paulos

Mathematical Illiteracy and It's Consequences. Innumeracy - the mathematical counterpart of illiteracy- is a disease that has ravaged our technological society.

4.  A Drunkards Walk - Leonard Mlodinow

How Randomness Rules Our Lives. 

5. Predictably Irrational - Dan Ariely

Challenging assumptions about making decisions based on rational thought. No amount of education can reliably prevent us from making mistakes. We can be, because of our biases, the easiest person for us to fool. 


A healthy dose of skepticism is necessary when looking at information. Be it the modern day media to science to technology, we all must have the ability to separate the truth from everything else. Our bias is our biggest enemy. We will prefer certain truths over others. 

Saturday, January 06, 2024

Wax On Wax Off

It is assumed, in science, that a true genius comes along once and a while. All of the people in between are just stewards of the collective knowledge given to us by the geniuses. They teach the new generation about the work. As Richard Feynman pointed out in Cargo Cult Science. "That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school—we never explicitly say what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation." In the process of learning the thing that was discovered long ago we hope to learn how to think as well. 

What is "what this is"? It is not the fruits of the labor that matter most in science. It is the scientific method that we learn, teach and practice (as scientists) that matters. The journals Cell, Science and Nature all insist that the fruits of the labor defines the level of genius of the scientist. They do not seem to value the labor of thought, experimental design, execution and proper conclusions as much. This leads to the individual scientists focusing on their narrative more than their methodology. 

The Cargo Cult Scientist believes that the method is what matters. The scientific politician focuses on the fruit. Think of it like Ginkgo Bioworks laboratory produced meat. Technologists can produce meat-like substances. They cannot produce the biologically produced meat that evolved over billions of years. Would you prefer cutting into a steak or scooping up the pooding produced by a biotech company?

Think of that disgusting meat the same as the miracle molecules we put into peoples bodies. We find individual proteins the are part of a complex system. We manufacture them because that is within the complicated paradigm of our understanding. Then we take the final product and use it in our simple understanding.

Indeed Ginkgo Bioworks seeks to replace your companies research team. BIOLOGY BY DESIGN! I suppose, unlike nature, Ginkgo will design biology to do what you want it to do. The problem is in the understanding of the scientific method. We don't design biology. We seek to understand it. 

As always, we return to the problem of Simple-Complicated-Complex. Ginkgo Bioworks programs cells to "make everything from food to materials to therapeutics". Programming a cell is complicated. So the biotech or biopharma company hires Ginkgo rather than hiring a research staff. They get the cell line they want. They have the product that comes from a bio-engineered cell. Now what? 

I ran into this problem at every biotech company. One example was producing a library of peptides that could be screened to find that one magical peptide that would deliver RNA to specific cell targets. RNA interference won two scientists the Nobel Prize in 2006. It was all the rage in knocking out gene products in biotechnology. But it didn't work in most situations. Why? It was assumed that the laboratory staff were doing something wrong. When this square peg couldn't be hammered through the round hole people began looking for a peptide or protein to deliver the RNA to the cell target. The narrative was in place. The project failed. We were all let go. The project was turned over to a prestigious professor at a European University. He too produced nothing to support the narrative. The narrative was simply changed. The science was working! Occasional reports were put out via company press releases that the scientist was making progress.

The project was most likely doomed from the start. Yet if, in an alternative universe, we had been allowed to fail we could have learned. Had we been given years of exhaustive research we may have made some valuable discoveries in our failures. We would have advanced our knowledge in the process/methodology. Instead we all went on to the next attempt to maintain employment in biotechnology. Most of us failed to do so. 

The future of Ginkgo Bioworks is no different. They are pursuing the idea that understanding complicated biotechnologies will lead to the kind of discoveries that make science work. There is a disconnect there. Like Mr. Myagi in the Karate Kid taught, wax on, wax off. Why? It was a Hollywood creation based in dubious reality but the concept is real. In science, the method is the thing. Learn how to conduct research and the results will teach you new things. Unfortunately, in business, there is not enough time to wax on and wax off until the time comes to apply the knowledge. People in offices who mostly attend meetings need data. They need charts and claims of near future riches. Ginkgo promises you they can help. In time you will end up with a few fish but no understanding of how to fish. 

Saturday, December 02, 2023

When You Have to Succeed

 Ginkgo Bioworks will help you succeed. They have a stake in your success. So much so that you will have to pay them in perpetuity if you get a drug approved. Not so much if you hire a staff of scientists to be your R&D.

I was somewhat to surprised to see a drug that came from a biotechnology company I worked for, being advertised during a streaming sports event. I did not know what they named the drug but I could tell they were selling the narrative my former employers had developed from day one. I looked it up and there it was. The one and only drug ever approved from an employer of mine in my 13 years in biotechnology.

The technology was standard stuff. Make an antibody against a target protein. Sort through the B-cells and make a list. Test the antibodies on the list, pick one, viola.

After our first project failed to get past a milestone with a big pharma partner we were in trouble. We had to move on to the next drug in the pipeline fast. We revived an abandoned project... long story short... I saw the drug on a commercial while watching UFC fights.

What happened to the guy who cloned the antibodies and sorted through them? He has been out of the business for many years. I haven't talked to him but I see from LinkedIn a curious lack of progress in his career. 

What would the difference have been had Ginkgo Bioworks done the work of finding the antibody that became the drug? Firstly there would be a considerable ongoing cost. My co-worker has long since cost anyone in biopharma a dime. Secondly, Ginkgo would have had to learn a new skill. The system of cloning and manufacturing came from a specialized yeast system. So specialized was this system, it had not been done before. The standard CHO cell system was, in the narrative of the company, subpar. They had a better system. Yeast! They had the same expression and yield results. The truth was that they expressed about 1/10th the antibodies of the standard CHO cell system and the yeast extract needed created a nightmare for downstream process development. 

The problems that came with using yeast cells were not insurmountable. They had to be handled however by far superior minds at contract manufacturing organizations (CMO's). The antibody selection was simple. The laboratory work was complicated. The manufacturing issues became simple to complicated thanks to the experience of the CMO options. 

Ginkgo Bioworks did not exist at the time my former employer could have considered them as a partner. We went with a company that had many decades of experience developing manufacturing methods that resulted in drugs that could be sold. 

Ginkgo is attempting to be your laboratory professionals. Sit in your cubicle/office and make decisions based on your needs for success. Like Donald Trump, who worked as a biotech CEO in developing the Covid vaccine, you lay out the plan. Vaccine, now, go! But the people who work in the labs have to actually produce something. It could be Ginkgo or it could be the people you hire and dress in white lab coats. Either way, you tell them your narrative and they provide you with the data you need or they go away. Even when they have succeeded, they go away. 

The difference with Ginkgo Bioworks? You have to keep paying them as long as the drug makes money. My ex co-worker and all of the people who developed the drug advertised on the UFC stream... gone. 


Saturday, October 21, 2023

Ginkgo Bioworks

 

Ginkgo Bioworks, Biology by Design

We begin with the very first statement on the Ginkgo Bioworks website. THEY design biology. Something goes wrong in a biological system? They, like auto mechanics, fix what went wrong. 

Once again, The Cynefin method of thinking leads us to the fundamental flaw. 

Simple, Complicated and Complex.

Biology is complex. Biotechnology is complicated. Some laboratory techniques are kind of simple.

Biology is the most advanced manufacturing technology on the planet. We program cells to make everything from food to materials to therapeutics.

There it is. Biology is not a manufacturing technology. It is a branch of science. We must return to our basic understanding of how we perceive the world. 

Science is a system of knowledge. It is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena. It entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.


Science can be divided into different branches. The physical sciences study the inorganic world and comprise the fields of astronomy, physics, chemistry, and the Earth sciences. The biological sciences such as biology and medicine study the organic world of life and its processes. Social sciences like anthropology and economics study the social and cultural aspects of human behavior.


Science is a system of knowledge. We have to apply our version of The Scientific Method in order to advance our knowledge. We used to think the Four Humors regulated our health. We have changed our minds on that one. We have added more and more understanding to the point where we know what we are made of and to a small degree, how it happens. DNA codes for chains of amino acids that form proteins. The proteins do the work.


What then makes Ginkgo Bioworks different among the herd of biotechnologies? They offer a variety of services and technologies. Each is there to help the customer speed through their research without the need to establish their own laboratories. Let's look at one offering.


Whether you’re looking to discover and synthesize a novel functional protein, optimize your protein production, or enhance processes to scale up your protein manufacturing, Ginkgo’s best-in-class capabilities empower your protein R&D.


Is Ginkgo a manufacturing organization? Do they have decades of experience successfully developing and executing upstream and downstream manufacturing processes? 

No matter what you want to do, Ginkgo claims they can do it all. Fermentation, strain optimization, scale up your manufacturing processes... they got you covered.

How does this compare to the CCS concept of The Empowered Laboratory? Ginkgo will help you develop the shape of your molecules. They will help you make them and manufacture them. The Empowered Laboratory work force will challenge your assumptions. They will test your theory. They will employ unbiased observations and systematic experimentation.

To be fair and honest, Ginkgo is real. It exists and has put its money where its mouth is. They make their claims and they invite you to use their services. On the downside, they are in business to make money. They do not care if your drug stands a chance. They are taking your money to do what you want done. While your success is their success, they have also taken the low road of shielding themselves from the standard biotechnology pitfalls of research. Some things just don't pan out. Ginkgo will take that journey with you but it is you who ultimately stands alone at the end of the wrong path. Ginkgo simply cashes your checks and goes back to their business.

George F. Merck famously said: "We try to remember that medicine is for the patient. We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been."

I don't make the claim that Ginkgo Bioworks doesn't care about the medicine or the patient. I will admit that they are indeed about the technology. They are certainly better at many aspects of biotechnology than most new companies. A new company, or a new group within an established company, has to develop. Ginkgo will put you ahead of the curve in getting started. Ginkgo is there to help you advance your technology, not your science. 

If you think of science as the unbiased observations and systematic experimentation employed in the pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws... Ginkgo Bioworks is not concerned. Science would be up to the customer of Ginkgo. Once you, the customer, has got your science right the profits will come. Ginkgo will assist you in maximizing your profits by helping you design the physical biological products you seek. 

What is missing? Science. We do not design biology, we study biology. With our current understanding we can attempt to make interventions that disrupt the path our biology has put us on. If we have cancer, we can attempt to stop the cells from dividing out of control. If we have protein imbalances that cause disease, we can make antibodies to fight excessive protein concentrations. But what we are fighting is not well understood. By employing the scientific method, we can get to a greater understanding. We can see how our behaviors involving diet and exercise effect our health. 

As the pharmaceutical industry strays further and further away from science and focuses more and more on single protein interventions (biopharmaceuticals) we can expect little value to come from them. 

So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas—he's the controller—and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.




Sunday, June 04, 2023

Is Ginkgo Bioworks a Cargo Cult Biotech?

Biology By Design. Biology is the most advanced technology platform on the planet. We program cells to make everything from food to materials to therapeutics.  - Ginkgo Bioworks


The CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks, Jason Kelly, has a very clever introduction to biotechnology. He presents a slide with a picture of an Apple computer, an iPhone, a camera, and a metal watch on a gray desk decorated with a potted plant back lit with a lamp. "What's the most complicated device on this table?" he asks. His answer is the plant. He is incorrect. 

Here at the Cargo Cult Scientist, we have covered this logical error.

The Cynefin method of thinking describes simple, complicated and complex systems. The process of creating a slide presentation is simple. The iPhone is complicated. The plant is complex. 

The technology products are complicated. The plant is not a complicated device. It is a complex living organism. 

In this article from MIT Technology Review by Anthony Regelado, the author points out a an inconvenient truth. "Given Kelly’s spiel, it is surprising that 13 years after it was founded, Ginkgo can’t name a single significant product that is manufactured and sold using its organisms."

It is the Cargo Cult looking to the skies for that magical cargo. It has not yet arrived.

The ceremonial practices of the biotech cargo cults are studied here at the CCS. We must look at the science and then back at the ceremonies of the biotech executives. There are plenty of real science and technology concepts employed at Ginkgo. As is true with all bullshit, the truth is a valuable tool. The difference between real science and cargo cult science however is in how the truth is employed. Is the truth employed in generating new scientific avenues and technologies? Is the truth used to convince people of things that aren't so? 

In my next post I will tackle just one claim from Ginkgo Bioworks. I will pick it randomly and discuss the issues from the perspective of the empowered laboratory workforce. I am not Bill Gates or Cathy Wood sitting in an office receiving a sales pitch. I am a guy who knows how to do the work.