Joe Betts-LaCroix | |
|---|---|
 Joe Betts-LaCroix in 2011 | |
| Born | February 26, 1962 |
| Alma mater | Harvard College |
| Occupation | CEO of Retro Biosciences |
| Website | evocator.org |
Jonathan "Joe" Betts-LaCroix (born Jonathan Betts February 26, 1962) is an American scientist and entrepreneur known for his discoveries in biophysics and for creating the world's smallest personal computer. He is working to optimize medical research priorities in the U.S.
Joe Betts-LaCroix was born and raised in Oregon. He graduated from the school with "D average", and "spent the next six years living in a shared house with 'musicians, artists and weirdos'". He did some "electronics, hardware and software work for local businesses" at this time. When his girlfriend went to Harvard, he decided to follow, and after getting "straight A's" at a local college, he then transferred to Harvard, where he studied environmental geoscience. [1]
Beginning in earth sciences at Harvard, Betts-LaCroix contributed to the field of long-term regulation of oxygen on Earth over multi-100 Million-year timespans, quantifying the effect of the burial efficiency of organic carbon as a feedback mechanism. [2]
At MIT, he designed and built an autonomous, robotic system that enables research into ocean circulation patterns and climate change, by operating untended for up to one year at sea on battery power and collecting hyper-pure water samples at predetermined intervals. [3]
In work at Caltech, Betts-LaCroix moved into biophysics, publishing a paper in Science that has been cited by more than 700 subsequent scientific works. [4] In this work, he, along with David Beratan and José Onuchic,proved for the first time that electron-transfer rates in proteins are determined by the electron orbital interactions in the protein structure. [5]
In 2000, Betts-LaCroix cofounded OQO, a computer hardware and software OEM credited by the Guinness World Records as having created the world's smallest Windows PC. [6] This created a new category of mobile computing devices between PDAs and laptops, which were initially dubbed the "Ultra Personal Computer", and which subsequently became known as the "Netbook". The device won many awards for its innovation, aesthetics and functionality. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
After OQO, Betts-Lacroix was active in Silicon Valley as a lecturer and mentor for CEOs of start up companies. [12]
Betts-LaCroix has participated in the Quantified Self movement since the beginning, [13] and has given numerous presentations on aspects of self experimentation and tracking, including experiments in the 28-Hour day. [14]
In 2010, he joined startup Halcyon Molecular to lead its automation efforts. [15] Halcyon, funded by, among others, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, attempted to sequence human DNA using electron microscopes. The underlying goal of Halcyon's work was to make meaningful progress in understanding human biology in order to improve medicine. [15]
Following the theme of improving medicine, Betts-LaCroix founded the Health Extension Foundation in 2012. [16] The efforts of the people working in Health Extension are motivated by recognizing that
In 2013, Betts-LaCroix cofounded Vium, which has raised $33M to accelerate the development of new medical therapies by automating in-vivo research. [18] [19] Vium launched publicly in 2016, [20] and was later acquired by Recursion in 2020. [21]
Betts-LaCroix is also a biotech angel investor in such companies as StemCentrx, Recursion Pharma [22] and Spring Discovery, [23] as well as a part-time contributor at Y Combinator. [24]
In 2020, Betts-LaCroix cofounded Retro Biosciences, which emerged out of stealth with $180 million in funding from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman [25] to focus on extending healthy human lifespans. [26] Retro works on autophagy, the rejuvenation of blood plasma and on partial cell reprogramming. [1]
Structural biology, as defined by the Journal of Structural Biology, deals with structural analysis of living material at every level of organization.
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001 and again from 2014 to 2023. He served as the mayor of New York City for three terms from 2002 to 2013 and was a candidate for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president of the United States. In 2024, Bloomberg received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Joe Biden. He has served as chair of the Defense Innovation Board, an independent advisory board that provides recommendations on artificial intelligence, software, data and digital modernization to the United States Department of Defense, since June 2022.
The enzyme cytochrome c oxidase or Complex IV is a large transmembrane protein complex found in bacteria, archaea, and the mitochondria of eukaryotes.
Combinatory logic is a notation to eliminate the need for quantified variables in mathematical logic. It was introduced by Moses Schönfinkel and Haskell Curry, and has more recently been used in computer science as a theoretical model of computation and also as a basis for the design of functional programming languages. It is based on combinators, which were introduced by Schönfinkel in 1920 with the idea of providing an analogous way to build up functions—and to remove any mention of variables—particularly in predicate logic. A combinator is a higher-order function that uses only function application and earlier defined combinators to define a result from its arguments.
In combinatory logic for computer science, a fixed-point combinator, is a higher-order function that returns some fixed point of its argument function, if one exists.
Metalloprotein is a generic term for a protein that contains a metal ion cofactor. A large proportion of all proteins are part of this category. For instance, at least 1000 human proteins contain zinc-binding protein domains although there may be up to 3000 human zinc metalloproteins.
Nitric oxide is a colorless gas with the formula NO. It is one of the principal oxides of nitrogen. Nitric oxide is a free radical: it has an unpaired electron, which is sometimes denoted by a dot in its chemical formula. Nitric oxide is also a heteronuclear diatomic molecule, a class of molecules whose study spawned early modern theories of chemical bonding.
An air ioniser is a device that uses high voltage to ionise air molecules. Negative ions, or anions, are particles with one or more extra electrons, conferring a net negative charge to the particle. Cations are positive ions missing one or more electrons, resulting in a net positive charge. Some commercial air purifiers are designed to generate negative ions. Another type of air ioniser is the electrostatic discharge (ESD) ioniser used to neutralise static charge.
Peter Agre is an American physician, Nobel Laureate, and molecular biologist, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. In 2003, Agre and Roderick MacKinnon shared the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for "discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes." Agre was recognized for his discovery of aquaporin water channels. Aquaporins are water-channel proteins that move water molecules through the cell membrane. In 2009, Agre was elected president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and became active in science diplomacy.
In chemistry, a non-covalent interaction differs from a covalent bond in that it does not involve the sharing of electrons, but rather involves more dispersed variations of electromagnetic interactions between molecules or within a molecule. The chemical energy released in the formation of non-covalent interactions is typically on the order of 1–5 kcal/mol. Non-covalent interactions can be classified into different categories, such as electrostatic, π-effects, van der Waals forces, and hydrophobic effects.
A photosynthetic reaction center is a complex of several proteins, biological pigments, and other co-factors that together execute the primary energy conversion reactions of photosynthesis. Molecular excitations, either originating directly from sunlight or transferred as excitation energy via light-harvesting antenna systems, give rise to electron transfer reactions along the path of a series of protein-bound co-factors. These co-factors are light-absorbing molecules (also named chromophores or pigments) such as chlorophyll and pheophytin, as well as quinones. The energy of the photon is used to excite an electron of a pigment. The free energy created is then used, via a chain of nearby electron acceptors, for a transfer of hydrogen atoms (as protons and electrons) from H2O or hydrogen sulfide towards carbon dioxide, eventually producing glucose. These electron transfer steps ultimately result in the conversion of the energy of photons to chemical energy.
Harry Barkus Gray is the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry at California Institute of Technology.
Bacterial nanowires are electrically conductive appendages produced by a number of bacteria most notably from the Geobacter and Shewanella genera. Conductive nanowires have also been confirmed in the oxygenic cyanobacterium Synechocystis PCC6803 and a thermophilic, methanogenic coculture consisting of Pelotomaculum thermopropionicum and Methanothermobacter thermoautotrophicus. From physiological and functional perspectives, bacterial nanowires are diverse. The precise role microbial nanowires play in their biological systems has not been fully realized, but several proposed functions exist. Outside of a naturally occurring environment, bacterial nanowires have shown potential to be useful in several fields, notably the bioenergy and bioremediation industries.
Dilan Jayawardane is a Sri Lankan engineer who co-founded Scoopler based in the United States.
Peter Leslie Dutton FRS is a British biochemist, and Eldridge Reeves Johnson Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a 2013 recipient of the John Scott Award for his work on electron transfer, studying the organization of electrons in cells and the mechanisms by which they convert light or oxygen into energy for the cell.
Calico Life Sciences LLC is an American biotechnology company with a focus on the biology of aging, attempting to devise interventions that may enable people to lead longer and healthier lives. It is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc.
Michael Seibel is a partner at Y Combinator and co-founder of two startups – Justin.tv/Twitch and Socialcam. He first joined Y Combinator in 2013, advising hundreds of startups, and has been active in promoting diversity efforts among startup founders.
David N. Beratan is an American chemist and physicist, the R.J. Reynolds Professor of Chemistry at Duke University. He has secondary appointments in the departments of Physics and Biochemistry. He is the director of the Center for Synthesizing Quantum Coherence, a NSF Phase I Center for Chemical Innovation.
Bisantrene is an anthracenyl bishydrazone with anthracycline-like antineoplastic activity and an antimetabolite. Bisantrene intercalates with and disrupts the configuration of DNA, resulting in DNA single-strand breaks, DNA-protein crosslinking, and inhibition of DNA replication. This agent is similar to doxorubicin in chemotherapeutic activity, but unlike anthracyclines like doxorubicin, it exhibits little cardiotoxicity.
Jory Bell is an American executive who is a general partner at Playground Global, a venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California. He joined the firm in 2015 as vice president and has been involved in investments in deep tech areas such as advanced manufacturing, aerospace, genomics, and synthetic/computational biology.