In part 1, replace the word “research” with “manufacturing”; it led me to an interesting comparison on the how the supply chain pressures of today are illuminating vulnerabilities that are leading to onshoring and co-location of management and labor. If making ventilators is deemed to be in the national interest, we could see how bio manufacturing and various forms of research could be deemed strategic and restricted to domestic locations. This doesn’t invalidate the point about moving lab space and automating repetitive activities to lower cost, less dense geos. Totally agreed that makes a lot of sense.
As you wrote so compellingly about research in space and at the poles, it led me to reflect on how and where we allocated R&D efforts. R&D can quickly become bloat and strategic inefficiency. How do novel environments like space and the poles start to make sense for corporate R&D? I think there’s more the government could do here. I know Varda recently won some $XXM grant from the US government for space experiences with bio. What else could do Western biomedical research institutions be doing to advance bold models of research? Just a thought.
I think there’s something here with autonomous labs. I just can’t figure out if it’s “faster horse” or truly “motor vehicle”.
Thanks Vishnu! Really appreciate this super thoughtful feedback!
Agreed on the politics making the near-term location domestic :) The piece was more futuristic and definitely didn't caveat the the geopolitics of everything presently.
Re: the poles - it's the lack of energy needed to store samples. So much of our spend is real estate and energy and reducing both of those might eventually be an interesting economic opportunity.
I think the future will be a mix of centralized miniature labs and decentralized large labs and storage that (potentially) works with the environmental conditions.
As always, inspiring writing! Some comments:
In part 1, replace the word “research” with “manufacturing”; it led me to an interesting comparison on the how the supply chain pressures of today are illuminating vulnerabilities that are leading to onshoring and co-location of management and labor. If making ventilators is deemed to be in the national interest, we could see how bio manufacturing and various forms of research could be deemed strategic and restricted to domestic locations. This doesn’t invalidate the point about moving lab space and automating repetitive activities to lower cost, less dense geos. Totally agreed that makes a lot of sense.
As you wrote so compellingly about research in space and at the poles, it led me to reflect on how and where we allocated R&D efforts. R&D can quickly become bloat and strategic inefficiency. How do novel environments like space and the poles start to make sense for corporate R&D? I think there’s more the government could do here. I know Varda recently won some $XXM grant from the US government for space experiences with bio. What else could do Western biomedical research institutions be doing to advance bold models of research? Just a thought.
I think there’s something here with autonomous labs. I just can’t figure out if it’s “faster horse” or truly “motor vehicle”.
Thanks Vishnu! Really appreciate this super thoughtful feedback!
Agreed on the politics making the near-term location domestic :) The piece was more futuristic and definitely didn't caveat the the geopolitics of everything presently.
Re: the poles - it's the lack of energy needed to store samples. So much of our spend is real estate and energy and reducing both of those might eventually be an interesting economic opportunity.
Re: space - initially it's the biomanufacturing of goods you can't synth in environments with gravity (e.g. retinas) and think these high utility/cost cases will continue to be the main economic reason. However, there may be a biz case for low gravity environments in the near term. Re: drug discovery, if screens in space are found to be more predictively valid - I think the R&D incentive will be to push for as much discovery in space as possible given the high $$ to drug. (More about the financial incentives here - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41573-022-00552-x.epdf?sharing_token=UAd7xkgoc3sGOe1KIkhqh9RgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0NCj65ouIhd_KrJ7CxCFmbJ2TFq0lOfa404SWvMspmI5HUyItjPqmmnyWXClFZb-miSYwYal_WrrGSIEXhlXlOsdbeagcaR77R65JnT5n-db_cugkiD4npkm_W7d_Bvdqk%3D).
I think the future will be a mix of centralized miniature labs and decentralized large labs and storage that (potentially) works with the environmental conditions.
Happy to chat more about this anytime!