Doug Friedman joins the podcast to talk about one of the toughest challenges in biotech—how to survive long enough to actually make an impact. As the head of BioMADE, he's on a mission to build a bioindustrial manufacturing ecosystem that doesn’t just rely on wishful thinking and a single grant check. He explains why most biotech startups get only "one shot on goal" (spoiler: they miss, they’re done) and how we can fix that. Think of it like debugging a bad DNA sequence—you need iteration, not instant perfection. Doug also discusses how government funding is shaping the future of biomanufacturing, why biology today is where semiconductors were in the ‘80s, and why scaling biology might just need its own version of Moore’s Law.

Grow Everything brings the bioeconomy to life. Hosts Karl Schmieder and Erum Azeez Khan share stories and interview the leaders and influencers changing the world by growing everything. Biology is the oldest technology. And it can be engineered. What are we growing?

Learn more at www.messaginglab.com/groweverything 

Chapters:

00:00:00 – Fail Fast or Fail Forever – Why biotech startups need more than one shot on goal

00:00:27 – AI Shake-Up – DeepSeek changes the game (and the stock market) overnight

00:01:01 – China vs. AI – What a hedge fund, government crackdowns, and new algorithms have in common

00:02:19 – Power Hungry AI – Why data centers might outgrow the energy grid before we’re ready

00:03:36 – DeepSeek’s Disruption – What it means for AI, efficiency, and the future of computing

00:04:13 – Innovation Under Pressure – How limitations create the best breakthroughs

00:05:46 – Mind Reading? – The wild world of telepathy research and what it means for biotech

00:07:45 – Quantum Strangeness – Exploring dimensions beyond what we can see

00:09:17 – Longevity Hacks – The Brian Johnson experiment: biohacking or billion-dollar placebo?

00:12:48 – Biomanufacturing is Booming – Why the future of production is biological

00:28:35 – PFAS Panic – 3M halts production, and microelectronics scrambles for solutions

00:30:53 – BioMADE’s Master Plan – How industry collaboration is making biomanufacturing real

00:36:56 – Government Meets Biotech – Bridging public and private sectors for impact

00:38:44 – The Bioeconomy is Here – What it means for industries beyond biotech

0:42:29 – Talk to Your Legislators – How to get policymakers to care about biotech

00:46:08 – The Hardest Part of Biomanufacturing – What innovators need to overcome

00:50:42 – Biomanufacturing’s Future – The biggest opportunities waiting to be unlocked

00:52:46 – Final Thoughts – Wrapping up lessons from the frontier of biotech

Links and Resources:

BioMADE

Homeworld Collective (Apply today!)

The Climate Biotech Podcast

DeepSeek Wipes $1 Trillion from Tech Share Prices

The Telepathy Tapes

Don't Die, The Man Who Wants to Live Forever

Rapamycin

General Probiotics

Antheia

Schmidt Sciences

Liberation Labs

Topics Covered: 

biomanufacturing, collaboration, public private partnerships, distributed biomanufacturing, longevity biotech, telepathy, tech 

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Email: groweverything@messaginglab.com

Music by: Nihilore

Production by: Amplafy Media