This is really interesting news, but when I asked someone in the genetics space about this, they had an interesting take:
The hard part about what Ginkgo is doing is not the cell programming, it's how you write the program in the first place. Which is the same big problem the industry already has with GMO's and drug development. We don't actually understand genetics at the level where we can say "this sequence will accomplish that effect, no bugs", so even if you have the compiler, you're still just trying thousands upon thousands of mutations until it looks like it works. Basically the intro CS method of programming.
Ginkgo is not selling a platform, it's selling product development consulting services on their platform. Giving the platform for free is like giving out razors but selling the blades.
That could really work! But it's interesting how this announcement is spun to focus on the platform as opposed to the business model.
I'm curious what happened to the YC bio [1] track which was announced in 2018 with free lab space and a different investment deal. The details seem to have been scrubbed from the YC website. Did it get shut down? Seems like it was Sam's initiative and didn't survive his departure.
We kept the intent but changed the structure. After trying it both ways, we learned that it worked better when we didn't break bio out separately. So we're still super interested in funding bio companies (hence the Ginkgo partnership), but we don't have a different deal for them.
[+] [-] munchbunny|6 years ago|reply
The hard part about what Ginkgo is doing is not the cell programming, it's how you write the program in the first place. Which is the same big problem the industry already has with GMO's and drug development. We don't actually understand genetics at the level where we can say "this sequence will accomplish that effect, no bugs", so even if you have the compiler, you're still just trying thousands upon thousands of mutations until it looks like it works. Basically the intro CS method of programming.
Ginkgo is not selling a platform, it's selling product development consulting services on their platform. Giving the platform for free is like giving out razors but selling the blades.
That could really work! But it's interesting how this announcement is spun to focus on the platform as opposed to the business model.
[+] [-] petra|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ptah|6 years ago|reply
does this not ring alarm bells for anyone but me?
[+] [-] flipchart|6 years ago|reply
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/11/y-combinator-yc-bio-track-...
[+] [-] snowmaker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamestimmins|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowmaker|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2_listerine_pls|6 years ago|reply