The First Biotech DAO Accelerator launches with bio.xyz
In our September Newsletter, we promised to share with you the timeline, celebrations, and aspirations of our journey towards decentralizing science - welcome back!
Launching bio.xyz - a biotech DAO and DeSci Launchpad
Molecule officially launched bio.xyz on the 18th of September 2022. bio.xyz is a biotech DAO and DeSci Launchpad that will fund and support future builders in decentralized science and biotech through shared governance rights. With it, we are communally writing the Biotech DAO Playbook and starting to share BioDAO knowledge and resources. We aim to funnel the brightest and most committed biotech and web3 builders into DeSci.
With bio.xyz, Molecule’s goal is to enable biotech DAOs to take full advantage of web3 and decentralized IP frameworks like the IP-NFT, enabling them to fund, govern and develop IP emerging from universities, laboratories, and biotech companies across the globe. Ultimately, playing to our own architectured future of decentralized science, the IP-NFT.
bio.xyz is an experimental program and is run in segments of 18 weeks. Each segment consists of a cohort of BioDAOs. Throughout these 18 weeks, Molecule provides these BioDAOs with hands-on support. The program is organized into 3 foundational milestones, culminating in the public launch of a series of new biotech DAOs. Within the 18-week period, Molecule will provide the cohorts with grant funding, access to whitelabel frameworks and resources, mentorship, networking opportunities, and much more.
In the first cohort of BioDAOs, we have welcomed four important players and eagerly look forward to achieving their bio.xyz milestones together. They are;
AthenaDAO - a decentralized collective to fund women’s reproductive health research & drug discovery
PsyDAO - a DAO revolutionizing R&D & ownership of psychedelics IP using web3
HairDAO - a decentralized asset manager funding early-stage research and companies focused on better understanding and treating hair loss
ValleyDAO - an open community collectively financing & enabling access to synthetic biology technologies to protect the future of our planet
If you’re interested in learning more about bio.xyz, you can read the full announcement here or check out the website here.
Gitcoin Round 15!
Molecule sponsored and helped put together the DeSci & Open Science quadratic donation round on Gitcoin.
Earlier this month, Gitcoin held its 15th Grants Round. This time, there was a new category - DeSci. The DeSci category raised $567,000 and had 2,309 donors crowdfunding over 82 public-good DeSci projects. The DeSci matching pool also received generous support from Vitalik Buterin, Protocol Labs, Stefan George, The Ethereum Foundation, SCRF (Smart Contract Research Forum), Orange DAO, GreenPillCN, AlchemixFi, and Springer Nature. A huge thank you to these donors for supporting builders who are accelerating humanity’s progress and make open knowledge and research a standard.
Molecule’s 5th IP-NFT at the SRF Research Center
In September, our IP-NFT framework facilitated critical preclinical work under the ApoptoSENS project in Dr. Sharma’s lab at the SRF Research Center. Dr. Sharma’s work aims to harness the immune system to mitigate the deleterious effects of dysfunctional cells that accumulate with age. The characteristics of this IP-NFT and Dr. Sharma’s research has been brilliantly captured in the artwork below by @danielyse_ as she highlighted CAR-NK cells' ability to accurately target senescent cells. You can view the project page on Molecule’s Discovery Marketplace here. To see Dr. Sharma’s presentation about this ApoptoSENS, you can rewatch the transfer ceremony here.
DeSci Boston and Berlin Blockchain Week - in case you missed us!
DeSci conferences are picking up steam! Following a successful DeSci.Berlin conference in May this year, on the 18th of September, Boston played host to the next big DeSci event. Boston is well-known to be the center of the US biotech industry, making it the perfect city for this event! We used this opportunity to officially announce the launch of bio.xyz and the DAOs selected for the first cohort! Watch the replay of DeSci Boston here. We also discussed some of the highlights of DeSci Boston in our Twitter Spaces here. Looking ahead, we’re excited to be part of more upcoming DeSci events like DeSci London, DeSci New York and DeSci Seattle!
Back in Berlin, it was the week of the Ethereum Merge so the energy at Berlin Blockchain Week was amazing. Molecule sponsored DappConn and EthBerlin and we had the chance to be on a couple of panels and give a few talks. Recordings coming soon!
At the EthBerlin hackathon, our dev team explored how fractionalized IP-NFTs could be made a reality and they helped to make significant progress towards truly decentralized drug development.
Molecule is Hiring!
Over the past ~3 years, we have grown the team from 3 to 19 core team members and we are still growing! We are currently hiring for the following positions, and more to come:
Head of Engineering
Head of Marketing
Head of Finance and Operations
Product Designer
Product Manager
Operations Coordinator
To learn more about these positions, visit our careers page here. Should you wish to apply, discuss any of the positions or refer someone, please feel free to reach out to Ezanne at ezanne@molecule.to or on Discord at Ezanne#0386. For any successful referral, we’re offering a 2 ETH bounty!
P.S. If you join Molecule in time, we’d love to have you join our company off-site in Portugal at the end of October!
Other internal initiatives: the Contributor’s Program & The DeSci Podcast
Molecule’s Contributor’s Program is live and we have paid out our first successfully completed bounties! If you’re interested in becoming a contributor, visit our onboarding page to learn more, fill out this form and join our Discord.
Keep your eye on The DeSci Podcast as we have a few exciting episodes releasing this month.
In Episode 3, we had our very own Paul & Vincent on the show to dive even deeper into bio.xyz and talking about everything from the valley of death, how Molecule came into being, longevity, synthetic biology, hair loss and even glow-in-the-dark plants replacing street lights! (releasing October 6th). Teaser clip below!👇
Without giving away too much, in Episode 4, we learned about Tech Trees and in Episode 5 we talked to the person who coined an important term in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery that is widely used in the industry today. Can you guess who it is?!
To get notified when these episodes are released, subscribe using your favorite podcast app, all of which can be found here.
VitaDAO news
In the past few weeks, Healthspan Capital, SpaceshipDAO, and BeakerDAO applied to VitaDAO's Institutional Genesis Raise proposing to contribute capital and participate in governance of VitaDAO using $VITA tokens. You can view all of these proposals here.
Previous submissions:
Pfizer Ventures with $500k
L1 Digital with $500k
ShineCapital with $1m
Upcoming Events
Events we are attending this month - join us!
Schelling Point - Bogotá (10 Oct)
Devcon - Bogotá (11 - 14 Oct)
VitaDAO’s Crypto meets Longevity Symposium - Online (20 Oct)
Molecule Community Call - Twitter Spaces (18 Oct)
Thanks for Reading!
If you enjoyed this read, subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated about our workings and collaborations within the DeSci space. Please reach out to us with any questions or ideas, visit our website, or join our Discord to interact directly with our team. We’re really looking forward to joining forces with our community to create a world where patients are able to directly fund the researchers who are developing the next therapeutic breakthrough that these patients need and building an open, inclusive, and collaborative ecosystem.
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