Crisper pioneer Feng Zhong just published a paper in which he found the protein by using alpha fold this AI program that solves protein folding issues. He took that and he found a particular protein that he can send around in it's sort of like a syringe. It will go to any cell and a human or other in any animal that has a nucleus is and it will inject what you wanted to inject into the cell. And it seems to do so with great accuracy and without any sort of off target issues that CRISPR has struggled with, that has the potential for all sorts of treatments and preventatives. I think we'll see a real assault on other infectious diseases and a real
Last month, longtime New Yorker staff writer Michael Specter released a brand new audiobook with our friends at Pushkin. It’s called “Higher Animals: Vaccines, Synthetic Biology, and the Future of Life,” and it’s an inspiring account of the emerging field of synthetic biology — a field where scientists combine chemistry, engineering, and computer science to develop new drugs and therapies for treating diseases of all sorts.
This month, Steven Johnson, a frequent guest on this show and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, is publishing a brand new audiobook of his own. It’s called “Immortality: A User’s Guide,” and it was produced by ... us! (You can get a copy here.) The premise is this: we might well be on the cusp of a revolution in the science of aging and we are not prepared for the consequences.
You can see the overlaps, right?
So we decided to get Steven and Michael on the horn to talk about breakthrough technologies, radical life extension, and the future of our species.