Godfather of Synthetic Bio on De-Aging, De-Extinction, & Weaponized Mirror Life — George Church

275 snips

Jun 26, 2025

George Church, a pioneer in synthetic biology and a professor at Harvard and MIT, dives into groundbreaking topics like de-aging and de-extinction. He discusses the incredible advancements in gene therapy and the potential to extend human lifespan. The conversation takes a darker turn as Church warns about the ethical risks of synthetic biology, including weaponized mirror life. He also highlights the synergy between AI, material science, and synthetic biology, envisioning a future where biobots could revolutionize production technologies.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Aging Escape Velocity by 2050

George Church predicts escape velocity for aging could be reached by 2050, extending lifespan continuously annually.
Progress hinges on exponential biotech advances and therapies reversing broad aging phenotypes.

INSIGHT

Minimal Edits for Phenotype Shifts

De-extinction recreates functional organisms via minimal gene edits, not exact copies.
This illustrates key genes driving phenotypes, demonstrating few changes can shift species traits significantly.

ADVICE

Find Traits via GWAS and Factors

Use GWAS and synthetic biology in small, fast-replicating animals to identify key genes for traits.
Test minimal combinations of transcription factors to engineer nearly every cell type efficiently.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

George Church is the godfather of modern synthetic biology and has been involved with basically every major biotech breakthrough in the last few decades.

Professor Church thinks that these improvements (e.g., orders of magnitude decrease in sequencing & synthesis costs, precise gene editing tools like CRISPR, AlphaFold-type AIs, & the ability to conduct massively parallel multiplex experiments) have put us on the verge of some massive payoffs: de-aging, de-extinction, biobots that combine the best of human and natural engineering, and (unfortunately) weaponized mirror life.

Watch on YouTube; listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Sponsors

* WorkOS Radar ensures your product is ready for AI agents. Radar is an anti-fraud solution that categorizes different types of automated traffic, blocking harmful bots while allowing helpful agents. Future-proof your roadmap today at workos.com/radar.

* Scale is building the infrastructure for smarter, safer AI. In addition to their Data Foundry, they recently released Scale Evaluation, a tool that diagnoses model limitations. Learn how Scale can help you push the frontier at scale.com/dwarkesh.

* Gemini 2.5 Pro was invaluable during our prep for this episode: it perfectly explained complex biology and helped us understand the most important papers. Gemini’s recently improved structure and style also made using it surprisingly enjoyable. Start building with it today at https://aistudio.google.com

To sponsor a future episode, visit dwarkesh.com/advertise.

Timestamps

(0:00:00) – Aging solved by 2050

(0:07:37) – Finding the master switch for any trait

(0:19:50) – Weaponized mirror life

(0:30:40) – Why hasn’t sequencing/synthesis led to biotech revolution?

(0:50:26) – Impact of AGI on biology research progress

(1:00:35) – Biobots that use the best of biological and human engineering

(1:05:09) – Odds of life in universe

(1:09:57) – Is DNA the ultimate data storage?

(1:13:55) – Curing rare diseases with genetic counseling

(1:22:23) – NIH & NSF budget cuts

(1:25:26) – How one lab spawned 100 biotech companies

Get full access to Dwarkesh Podcast at www.dwarkesh.com/subscribe