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AI + Synthetic Biology: The Most Transformative Technology in Human History | Ben Lamm (Colossal)

This episode was filmed at the 2026 Abundance360 Summit.

This interview explores the groundbreaking work of Colossal in synthetic biology, de-extinction, and AI integration. Colossal CEO Ben Lamm explains how the company is revolutionizing biodiversity preservation, tackling plastic pollution, and creating living products with immense potential.

Get access to metatrends 10+ years before anyone else — https://qr.diamandis.com/metatrends.

Ben Lamm is Co-founder and CEO of Colossal Biosciences

Peter H. Diamandis, MD, is the Founder of XPRIZE, Singularity University, ZeroG, and A360.

Chapters:

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A ‘blob’ in a tank is helping scientists tease out the secrets of turbulence

In a tank on the bottom floor of a University of Chicago research laboratory, scientists summon “The Blob” into existence by firing water jets to create an artfully choreographed series of rings.

First created three years ago in the laboratory of UChicago Prof. William Irvine, in collaboration with graduate student Takumi Matsuzawa, The Blob is one of the only ways that researchers can study the strange properties of turbulence —the chaotic swirling of fluids such as air and water—in its purest form: stationary in a lab and isolated from boundaries.

Turbulence is a bit of a paradox. It governs everything from the movements of ocean currents and hurricane clouds to the swirling of cream in your coffee and blood in your veins. But as widespread as it is, turbulence has been fiendishly difficult for scientists to understand, compared with most other everyday physics phenomena.

This nasal spray rewinds the aging brain, restoring memory and reversing inflammation in preclinical models

Picture this: your brain is a high-performance engine. Over decades, it doesn’t just wear down, it also starts to run hot. Tiny “fires” of inflammation smolder deep within the brain’s memory center, creating a persistent brain fog that makes it harder to think, form new memories or even adapt to new environments, all the while increasing the risk to disorders like Alzheimer’s disease.

Scientists call this slow burn “neuroinflammaging,” and for decades it was thought to be the inevitable price of growing older. Until now.

A landmark study by researchers at Texas A&M University Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine suggests the inflammatory tide responsible for brain aging and brain fog might actually be reversible. And the solution doesn’t involve brain surgery, but a simple nasal spray.

Perovskite Nanocrystals, Quantum Dots, and Two-Dimensional Structures: Synthesis, Optoelectronics, Quantum Technologies, and Biomedical Imaging

💬Editorial: Decade-long follow-up highlights that patients with surgically treated ChronicSubduralHematoma have persistent excess mortality and long-term cognitive and functional impairment, even when overall quality of life appears preserved.

In the setting of aging populations and rising antithrombotic use, chronic subdural hematomas (cSDH) are increasingly common in high-income countries. While discussed in the medical literature for centuries,1 clinical research on cSDH in the modern era initially focused on surgical approaches and the risk of short-term mortality and recurrence.2-4 In this setting, cSDH was perceived to be a relatively benign disease; however, recent work has challenged this reputation. Patients with cSDH have persistently elevated long-term mortality when compared with controls,5 and those who survive are often left with functional and cognitive impairment.6 Unfortunately, most prior studies of long-term outcomes were small or had limited data on premorbid health, and none had data on functional status or quality of life.

In this issue of JAMA Neurol ogy, Petutschnigg et al7 expand on this work by examining mortality, function, and quality of life 10 years after surgical management of cSDH. To achieve this, they used patients who had previously been enrolled in a cSDH clinical trial from 2012 through 2016, which was conducted at a single center in Switzerland and examined the use of routine follow-up computed tomography scans in surgically managed patients with cSDH. The study authors obtained all-cause mortality for all 359 participants through 2023 using a nationwide data source. Each patient was then matched by age, sex, and birth month to controls from the Swiss population. Then, they obtained health-related quality of life by administering a validated survey to consenting participants, getting a response in 147 of 202 survivors at a mean of 10.55 years from the cSDH. Results from these participants were compared with normative values for a European population, using standardized age and sex strata.

The authors7 found a significantly higher mortality rate among patients with cSDH when compared with controls, with the absolute risk difference widening from 6% at 1 year to 18% at 10 years. Among those who survived, both men and women showed significant impairment in cognitive and role functioning (ie, how much their daily work/hobbies are impaired) when compared with normative controls. In addition, men (but not women) showed significant additional impairment in physical functioning and social functioning when compared with normative controls. Importantly, perceived quality of life was not reduced in either men or women. Discordance between functional impairments and perceived quality of life has been observed in other types of brain injury, a phenomenon termed the disability paradox,8 and should similarly caution against therapeutic nihilism when it comes to patients with cSDH.

Scientists Grow Electronics Inside the Brains of Living Mice

Yet most implants require extensive surgery and risk damaging the brain’s delicate tissue. The new technology would avoid these downsides by building electrodes directly at the target.

“Our work points to a future where doctors could ‘grow’ soft, wire-free electronic interfaces inside the brain using the patient’s own blood, then gently dial brain activity up or down from outside the head using harmless near-infrared light,” study author Krishna Jayant said in a press release.

The brain produces every one of our sensations, movements, emotions, and decisions. Scientists have long sought to decode and manipulate its activity with a range of hardware.

Slice and dice

MIT researchers characterize SNIPE, which stands for surface-associated nuclease inhibiting phage entry, which directly protects bacteria from phage, the viruses that infect them, by chopping up invading viral DNA as it enters the bacteria.

Targeting KRAS G12C Mutation in Colorectal Cancer, A Review: New Arrows in the Quiver

Kirsten rat sarcoma virus oncogene homolog (KRAS) is the most frequently mutated oncogene in human cancer. In colorectal cancer (CRC), KRAS mutations are present in more than 50% of cases, and the KRAS glycine-to-cysteine mutation at codon 12 (KRAS G12C) occurs in up to 4% of patients. This mutation is associated with short responses to standard chemotherapy and worse overall survival compared to non-G12C mutations. In recent years, several KRAS G12C inhibitors have demonstrated clinical activity, although all patients eventually progressed. The identification of negative feedback through the EGFR receptor has led to the development of KRAS inhibitors plus an anti-EGFR combination, thus boosting antitumor activity. Currently, several KRAS G12C inhibitors are under development, and results from phase I and phase II clinical trials are promising.

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