The New Biology features long-form discussions with historians, technologists, and scientists working on the biggest ideas in biotechnology, from magnet-controlled medicines to virtual cells.
Creating “a post-pandemic world” — Jacob Glanville
Centivax is developing universal flu vaccines designed to protect against all strains of influenza—past, present, and future. In this interview, we speak with Jacob Glanville, the company’s co-founder and CEO.
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Produced and edited by Chris Gates, crgstudio.co
00:49 Why flu vaccines need constant updating
03:07 How influenza infects a cell
06:39 Why our immune system doesn’t generate broadly-neutralizing antibodies
16:07 Mutations and animals
23:42 What is vaccine efficacy?
28:55 Designing a universal flu vaccine
37:40 The idea behind Centivax
44:16 Clinical trials
57:33 The business case for eradication
1:03:26 How to eradicate the flu
1:07:26 Could we make broad vaccines for the common cold?
1:09:07 Building a universal snake antivenom
1:23:09 Antivenom cocktails
8 Oct 2026
How to Design Flowers — Nick Desnoyer
Nick Desnoyer, a plant biologist in Norwich, England, is designing and creating flowers that don’t exist anywhere in nature. In this interview, he reveals his next project: Paintunia, a petunia that acts as a living canvas. These petunias have an inducible gene; when you lightly touch a bud (before it opens) with a clear molecule, called dexamethasone, that molecules seeps into cells, switches on the gene, and causes them to make a pigment. The result is a paintable flower, where molecules are literally used to control which colors show up in which places. For a prior project, Nick turned Arabidopsis, a small (and quite ugly) plant widely used in research, into little pink “micro-roses.”
We filmed this episode surrounded by flowers, with Nick walking me through how each one gets its shape and pigmentation. He explained how he combines breeding and genetic engineering to make flowers, and how he searches scientific papers for mutations to figure out which plant crosses to make next. His ultimate dream is to build a botanical garden filled with weird and wonderful flowers that exist nowhere else. Thanks to Plasmidsaurus for sponsoring this episode.
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Timestamps:
1:28 Paintunia
7:46 Tools for flower design
18:47 Petunia patterns
33:16 Engineering new traits
40:38 Turning Arabidopsis into pink micro-roses
54:26 Getting genes into plants
1:06:02 Mutant botanical gardens
1:14:24 Beauty is sufficient
1:20:30 Flower design studio
22 Sept 2026
How to Terraform Mars – Erika DeBenedictis
Erika DeBenedictis, co-founder and CEO of Pioneer Labs, discusses engineering microbes to terraform Mars, offering insights into creating a habitable planet.
17 Sept 2026
SpudCell will replicate continuously by 2030 | Kate Adamala
Synthetic biologist Kate Adamala discusses her groundbreaking SpudCell and the quest for continuous replication in this interview.
4 Aug 2026
Biotech for Chickens — Robert Yaman
Host [Host Name] interviews Robert Yaman, CEO of Innovate Animal Ag, about leveraging biotechnology to enhance chicken welfare through efficiency and innovative solutions like in-ovo sexing and electron-beam vaccines.
21 Jul 2026
Engineered Microbes Seen from the Sky — Yonatan Chemla on Hyperspectral Biology
Host Alex Blumberg interviews MIT postdoctoral fellow Yonatan Chemla about hyperspectral biology, revealing how engineered microbes can be detected from the sky to map environmental conditions and identify resources.
12 Jun 2026
The Bitter Lesson for Biology — Adam Green on Virtual Cells and Scaling Laws
Markov Biosciences founder Adam Green explains the "bitter lesson" for biology, arguing compute and loss functions, not data, unlock virtual cell potential in this interview.
29 May 2026
Magnet-Controlled Medicines — Andrew York & Maria Ingaramo
Andrew York and Maria Ingaramo explain how their magnetogenetics technology enables precise control of medicines within the body, potentially reducing side effects.
8 May 2026
Mark Budde - How to speed up wet-lab biology
CEO Mark Budde and host Niko McCarty discuss how to automate and scale wet-lab biology, sharing insights from Plasmidsaurus's rapid sequencing success.
Who has been a guest on The New Biology
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Erika DeBenedictis
Kate Adamala
Robert Yaman
Yonatan Chemla
Adam Green
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