The Genome Supermarket

An idea for a library that maps genomes to emerging biological properties, to place humanity at the wheel of evolution/life.

Photo by Akin on Unsplash

This year I have come to the conclusion that the molecule is the new bit, because now we can read and edit the code of life, thanks to advances in genome sequencing and editing. This means we now have a platform to co-create with nature. Over the coming decades, we have a shot at eliminating illness and restoring and preserving the health of our planet, if only we can gather the appropriate data. We also need to make sure we pay attention to all the ethical concerns involved.

map(genome=>biological emergence)

The raw material for this revolution will be biological information. We need to acquire a corpus of data rich and extense enough to understand what biological properties emerge from what genomes, in order to be able to transform this information into value along the biochain. This could be attained by simply mapping genomes to the resulting biological emergence and then applying the relevant data science techniques. The implications of such a mapping at its fullest expression would be vast and world changing. It would enable us to take the steering wheel of evolution- terrifying and inspiring at the same time.

Incentives

Blockchain technologies allow us to create the adequate incentives to build such a library:

1. Supply side users receive a native token for every datapoint (genome=>biological emergence) they submit. Alexandria would be a nice name for the token.
2. Demand side users buy data points and pay using the native token. This drives up the price of the token and further incentivizes supply side users.
3. Supply side users are incentivized to submit real information, because they get paid in the native token, which loses its value if supply side users are not benign.
4. Founders reserve the right to a certain number of tokens which, if all goes well, could be sold at a higher price in the future.

The above is a typical blockchain enabled incentive scheme.

Why would anyone buy datapoints?

I recommend you read McKinsey´s report “The Bio Revolution: Innovations transforming economies, societies, and our lives”. In summary, around 60% of inputs for the economy could be synthesized using novel technologies, but ofcourse, in order to do so we need to understand what code to use in order to create what we want. At a high level, consider that the world we live in is biological. So basically, if we need to fix anything, we need the (genome=>biological emergence) map to even get started.