In the late aughts, I finished my PhD in Genetics at Stanford Medical School and took a bioinformatics job at a (then) small personal genomics startup. Of course there was no profit in those days, but we could see the handwriting on the wall. The human genome was a pregnant goldmine begging for exploitation, and we obliged. It didn’t hurt, of course, that we were quietly back by a co-founder of a well-known search engine, freeing us from a conventional business model. Go fast, break things, and take your bite of the world.
No doubt you seen the recent ads for at-home genetic testing. Ancestry, ear wax, risk of cancer. Of course, this is powerful and interesting information, and it will make a real difference in health and appreciation of what makes us human and unique. But you know what? The real revolution has already happened and is dramatically unfolding in the shadows. The biotech and genetics advances that you see are something of a smoke screen: just interesting enough to pass as a reasonable technological payoff for the taxpayers investment in the human genome, but sufficiently subdued enough so as not to destabilize our way of life. I was there at the start and I helped to bury the radioactive truth.
Since then I’ve founded a company in the cancer immunology space, another genomics start-up and a CRISPR therapeutics company. Only one of them is a front for more…surreptitious…and profound ambitions. 😊
As I sit here in my 5th floor office on 4th street, overlooking the rusted-chic remains of America’s mid-century industrial economy, I wonder how our civilization will be viewed by those who replace us. Will they see the beauty? Will they even remember that they were once like us, perhaps once were
us, and take pity? I know that I could have changed the course of things and prolonged the status-quo. Should I feel guilty, or proud?
Over the coming weeks and months, I will tell you my story. I will change key details, and of course names, as most of those I mention I still deeply involved and vulnerable. I will provide context and reassurance, and when necessary, personal advice to help you plan for the coming changes.
Check back for updates. You’ll be thankful that you did.