Writer. Reader. Learner. Occasional thinker. Writing for Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Not good at responding on Twitter
Boston, MA
Joined April 2011
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Zach Winn retweeted
Pretty incredible that one bill a) creates 100,000 jobs, b) reduces Americans' monthly bills, and c) reduces greenhouse gas emissions
Zach Winn retweeted
This should be a national security level concern
Great article in @statnews by @damiangarde today covering schism in the biotech industry over the rise of Chinese biotech industry - notably no one will go on record but me😛
The US can easily stop the Chinese biotech industry whenever it chooses as the US consumer is responsible for 70% (!!!) of the drug industry profits. Thus the US gets to set the rules.
It is a mistake to outsource this industry -- very simply: the technology of genetic engineering is a matter of national security and democracies should lead it. We would not feel good if the US wasn't leading AI today and trust me we will feel even worse if we are behind in genetic engineering in the future as the tech improves.
If you talk to people privately in biotech they will say it's a Prisoner's dilemma where they wish the rules would change. If the rules stay as they are then to stay competitive venture capitalists need to move their $ to China and pharma companies need to buy their drug assets from Chinese startups instead of from startups in Kendall Square or South San Francisco (the current US hubs for drug discovery).
To fix this we should take two approaches:
(1) Offensive - make US biotech industry more competitive!
* Reform phase 1 clinical trails in US to be as fast as China and Australia -- this is in progress now at @US_FDA . @DrSynbio congressional testimony on this was very helpful. (link below).
* Replace manual laboratories with autonomous robotic laboratories via programs like NSF Cloud Labs program and @SenToddYoung 's Cloud Lab Bill so US scientists can compete with lower-cost scientific labor in China. Yes, @ginkgo is the leader in making this tech. Efforts from @WHOSTP44. @dariogila, @mkratsios47, @sriramk with the WH Genesis Mission are a big help here.
* Fix our approach to biotech patents -- it is very easy for Chinese startups to fast-follow US companies that have scientific breakthroughs by easily working around patents, @john_evans3 has led in thinking here.
(2) Defensive - slow the rise of the biotechnology industry in China
* USG should add biotechnology to the COINS Act list of strategic technologies alongside AI, Quantum, Semiconductors, and Drones to prevent US investment from speeding Chinese development.
* Other tools can be used in the future to easily penalize drug assets that originate from startups in China -- can do via regulatory pathway or via Medicare reimbursement.
Genetic engineering is the most important technology to the future of humanity. Democracies should not give up on it! Let's fight for it!
Zach Winn retweeted
"There is now unambiguous, solid economic evidence, not just abstract economic theory, that rent control would make the affordability problems facing [Massachusetts] worse, not better."
- Jon Gruber, Chairman of the Economics Department at MIT
Zach Winn retweeted
49% reduction in cancer risk with mRNA cancer vaccine
(In August, RFK Jr announced $500M in cuts to mRNA vaccine research)
wsj.com/health/pharma/modern…
Zach Winn retweeted
Because of the power density advantages of ammonia over renewables and batteries, Amogy is targeting power needing industries like maritime shipping, power generation, construction, and mining. news.mit.edu/2025/unlocking-…
Zach Winn retweeted
The US continues to lose manufacturing jobs—payrolls are down 94k over the last year, & another 6k jobs were lost in September
Transportation (especially auto manufacturing) and electronics/electrical manufacturing are the biggest losers, but almost no subsectors are doing well
Zach Winn retweeted
“This is a pragmatic solution that’s not trying to reshape the world as we dream of it. It’s looking at the problem at hand today and fixing it,” Cameron Halliday says. news.mit.edu/2025/mantel-dev…
Zach Winn retweeted
Today the U.S. needs another technological breakthrough to secure domestic supplies of metals like lithium, cobalt, copper, and rare earth elements, which are needed for everything from batteries to jet engines and electric motors. Nth Cycle thinks it has a solution. news.mit.edu/2025/nth-cycle-…
Zach Winn retweeted
The anti-solar talking points from @SecretaryWright continue to be absurd.
He says he'd make a bet that solar never reaches 10% of global energy within the next 50 years.
But it's already at 3% and growing by 1% every two years.
Would love to take that bet, it's easy money.
Incredible exchange between @SecretaryWright and @Jason about solar and @elonmusk.
What do you think?
—
“So Elon has it completely wrong?”
“He has a wildly exaggerated view of where solar and batteries will go. I’ll make a bet that solar never gets to 10% of global energy.”
Zach Winn retweeted
China has clearly noted the fact that WW2 didn't end until the combined bombing offensive focused on and destroyed the Axis powers' oil supplies. The war was unwinnable for Germany and Japan from mid 1942 on the basis of industrial production, but both had sufficient raw materials stockpiled to maintain production of weapons until about 1947. But in 1944, their oil supply was finally strangled and their war effort collapsed within months.
China is currently far ahead on industrial production and maximizing the rate of the on-shoring of their energy production.
Today, anyone could shut down the Straits of Malacca. By 2030, China will no longer depend on it. With enough solar power, they can internalize mass production of energy, oil, silicon, metals, and everything else they could possibly need.
The US easily has the financial power to buy all the production of Chinese solar factories and deploy them in the US, to ensure our children have near infinite free energy. But we've decided to privilege the aesthetic value of 200 million acres of featureless lifeless uninhabitable desert over ensuring that American values ensure freedom for humanity in the eternal future light cone.
What's the plan here? Just hand the next millennium to China on a silver platter?
Zach Winn retweeted
Scientists at the University of Florida have created a breakthrough mRNA cancer vaccine that erased deadly brain tumors in early human trials without chemo or radiation. Tested on four glioblastoma patients, the vaccine reprogrammed their immune systems within 48 hours to attack the tumor. Built from each patient’s own tumor cells and delivered via lipid nanoparticles, it showed success similar to earlier tests in mice and dogs. It is now moving into Phase 1 pediatric trials.
Zach Winn retweeted
Foundation Alloy creates high-performance metals using a novel process that doesn’t rely on melting raw materials. The MIT alumni behind the company say its alloys can be made twice as strong as traditional metals with 10 times faster product development. news.mit.edu/2025/new-platfo…
Zach Winn retweeted
Our co-founders @CameronLMcCord and @jrshoch met their first week at @MIT. After raising a $75M Series B led by @sequoia, they returned to share their story.
Since MIT, Cameron and Jason have lived at the intersection of defense, hardware, and software – at the @USNavy, @PalantirTech, @anduriltech, and beyond.
That's why they started Nominal with @brycestrauss, to "pull software’s greatest innovations into the physical world."
Thank you to @ZachinBoston and MIT for capturing the journey.
Read more here:
news.mit.edu/2025/nominal-ac…
Zach Winn retweeted
Co-founded by an MIT alumna, the Advanced Silicon Group has developed a handheld system that measures protein concentrations in just minutes. The tool could make drug development and manufacturing much faster and less costly. news.mit.edu/2025/startup-bi…
Zach Winn retweeted
"Academic research groups and startups are essential drivers of scientific progress. But some projects, like the Hubble Space Telescope or the Human Genome Project, are too big for any one academic lab or loose consortium. They’re also not immediately profitable enough for industry to take on.
That’s the gap researchers at MIT were trying to fill when they created the concept of focused research organizations, or FROs."
- @ZachinBoston, for @MIT News, on the story of Convergent Research and our FROs
feat. @eboyden3, @AdamMarblestone, @Andrew_C_Payne, @SGRodriques, @tkalil2050, @AGamick, as well as @medialab, @scientistsorg, and of course some of the 10 Convergent-supported FROs themselves: @E11BIO, @CultivariumFRO, @_CWorthy, and @leanprover.
news.mit.edu/2025/former-mit…
The @theallinpod celebrated Trump's "staple a green card to every degree" pledge more than any other statement over the last eight months.
When he starts doing the exact opposite, they simply don't acknowledge it. @chamath @Jason
Most dissapointed in @friedberg
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