Two recent scientific journal papers show what’s possible when CRISPR moves from cutting DNA tool to a full-fledged platform — expanding its toolkit for medicine across R&D, therapeutics, and diagnostics:
What do these two papers — both about techniques for getting rid of the need to cut the genome to edit it — make possible going forward, given the ongoing shift of biology becoming more like engineering? Where are we in the wave of the genome engineering “developer community” building on top of CRISPR with a constantly growing suite of programmable functionalities? a16z bio general partner Jorge Conde and bio deal team partner Andy Tran chat with Hanne Tidnam about these trends — and these two papers — in this short internal hallway-style conversation, part of our new a16z Journal Club series.
This podcast is also part of our new a16z bio newsletter, which you can sign up for at a16z.com/subscribe.
Jorge Conde is a general partner on the Bio + Health team at Andreessen Horowitz, focused on therapeutics, diagnostics, life sciences tools, and software.
Andy Tran is a Principle at Matrix Capital Management Company.
Hanne Winarsky is the Head of Writer Acquisition & Development at Substack.
The a16z Podcast discusses the most important ideas within technology with the people building it. Each episode aims to put listeners ahead of the curve, covering topics like AI, energy, genomics, space, and more.