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Patrick Boyle

@patrickboyle.bsky.social

I was a Synthetic Biologist before it was cool, now working on something new. Previously CSO at Ginkgo Bioworks. @p_maverick_b on the old site

1,646 Followers  |  637 Following  |  116 Posts  |  Joined: 03.07.2023  |  2.2264

Latest posts by patrickboyle.bsky.social on Bluesky

This wasn’t an easy decision for me - I’m both excited and confident in the direction that Ginkgo is headed. While I won’t be part of Ginkgo moving forward, I will continue to be Ginkgo’s biggest supporter and a proud alum. As for me personally, I’m looking forward to taking a quick break to recharge before I start building the next thing. This is a pivotal time for the scientific community, and I don’t plan to stay on the sidelines. If you’re interested in chatting about the future of designing biology, I’m looking forward to catching up!

This wasn’t an easy decision for me - I’m both excited and confident in the direction that Ginkgo is headed. While I won’t be part of Ginkgo moving forward, I will continue to be Ginkgo’s biggest supporter and a proud alum. As for me personally, I’m looking forward to taking a quick break to recharge before I start building the next thing. This is a pivotal time for the scientific community, and I don’t plan to stay on the sidelines. If you’re interested in chatting about the future of designing biology, I’m looking forward to catching up!

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23.06.2025 14:28 — 👍 5    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Last week I wrapped up at Ginkgo after 13 amazing years. It was, without a doubt, the best postdoc I could have asked for. I knew there was something special about Ginkgo’s founding team when I joined back in 2012, and I’m forever grateful that Jason, Reshma, Barry, Austin, and Tom took a chance on me back then. It’s been an incredible honor to be part of growing Ginkgo, going from a tiny pre-seed company, to seeing our work in fermentation tanks, field trials, and clinical trials. If you’ve been here, you’ll know that some of the most talented, creative people in the Boston area and beyond have made it a special place.

Last week I wrapped up at Ginkgo after 13 amazing years. It was, without a doubt, the best postdoc I could have asked for. I knew there was something special about Ginkgo’s founding team when I joined back in 2012, and I’m forever grateful that Jason, Reshma, Barry, Austin, and Tom took a chance on me back then. It’s been an incredible honor to be part of growing Ginkgo, going from a tiny pre-seed company, to seeing our work in fermentation tanks, field trials, and clinical trials. If you’ve been here, you’ll know that some of the most talented, creative people in the Boston area and beyond have made it a special place.

💚 Some personal news… 💚

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23.06.2025 14:28 — 👍 11    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

evolution really went off with brassica oleracea

13.04.2025 21:21 — 👍 451    🔁 28    💬 16    📌 2
Inglorious bastards three fingers meme

Inglorious bastards three fingers meme

“Komagataella phaffii”

31.03.2025 12:46 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Few papers perfectly intersect my interests better than this paper on advanced baseball bat designs via genetic algorithms from the Centre for Advanced Wood Processing mdpi-res.com/d_attachment...

29.03.2025 19:25 — 👍 2    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
Text excerpt: In 2004, Blue Heron Biotechnology (http://www.blueheronbio.com/), a leading gene synthesis company, organized the Big DNA Contest. They offered to synthesize, free of charge, the most interesting genetic construct longer than 40 kb that people would send them. One of the stated goals of this initiative was to encourage scientists to consider the potential impact of large synthetic DNA fragments on their research strategies. The company did not receive a single submission even though the estimated value of the grand prize exceeded US$250 000.

Text excerpt: In 2004, Blue Heron Biotechnology (http://www.blueheronbio.com/), a leading gene synthesis company, organized the Big DNA Contest. They offered to synthesize, free of charge, the most interesting genetic construct longer than 40 kb that people would send them. One of the stated goals of this initiative was to encourage scientists to consider the potential impact of large synthetic DNA fragments on their research strategies. The company did not receive a single submission even though the estimated value of the grand prize exceeded US$250 000.

I think about this a lot

25.03.2025 13:36 — 👍 7    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Props to the guy playing a clearly AI-generated TikTok on loop in a public bathroom, will file that in my “dystopian vignettes” folder

20.03.2025 19:18 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
The Age of AI in the Life Sciences: Benefits and Biosecurity Considerations Read online, download a free PDF, or order a copy in print.

A new report I worked on for NAS on AI and biosecurity is out today - we looked at risks posed by SOTA AI and opportunities to use AI to improve biosecurity. It builds on a report we wrote back in 2018, which feels like a million years ago in AIxBio!

nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/28868

14.03.2025 16:23 — 👍 3    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 0
Preview
Robust Soldier Crab Ball Gate Soldier crabs Mictyris guinotae exhibit pronounced swarming behaviour. The swarms of the crabs tolerant of perturbations. In computer models and laboratory experiments we demonstrate that swarms of so...

Today, everything's computer, but tomorrow, everything's crabputer arxiv.org/abs/1204.1749

13.03.2025 18:53 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I’m doing my part bsky.app/profile/patr...

12.03.2025 17:12 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I'll be with the Ginkgo team at Nvidia GTC next week! Sign up here to for a demo: automation.ginkgo.bio/nvidia-gtc-2...

10.03.2025 21:12 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yeah, I think the custom feed stuff also fragments the userbase - would be nice to have one main algorithmic feed (in addition to the non-algo following feed) so that all users are in one place. I was hoping "Discover" would be that feed but it needs a little bit more juice

10.03.2025 18:04 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

Oh weird I had no idea

10.03.2025 17:41 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Yeah same - just give us a little bit of an algo, as a treat

10.03.2025 16:54 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

Engage with my post, I'm starting to lose consciousness

10.03.2025 16:52 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Since twitter is down I'll mention that I'd spend more time here if engagement was higher (with real people not the bot slop X has). Feels like tuning the algo to boost replies a bit more would be useful - my feed is mostly people shouting facts into the void

10.03.2025 16:50 — 👍 22    🔁 4    💬 6    📌 0

Support for the Ribosome Panspermia Hypothesis grows unabated

26.02.2025 15:07 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
It's that AI-generated figure of a rat with giant balls. You know the one

It's that AI-generated figure of a rat with giant balls. You know the one

It's been just over a year, and either no new papers have been published with AI-generated rat balls, or the newer models are just that good at generating anatomically correct rat balls

17.02.2025 18:30 — 👍 7    🔁 1    💬 1    📌 0
Post image

It’s been a tough few weeks. My 10yo daughter was diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive cancer called interdigitating dendritic cell sarcoma (IDCS). I’m reaching out to identify clinicians/patients who have encountered pediatric IDCS or other (non-LCH) dendritic or histiocytic sarcomas cases.

08.02.2025 21:21 — 👍 1017    🔁 863    💬 82    📌 32
Preview
We're Hosting Our 6th Annual Ferment as a Boston-based Conference Series | Ginkgo Bioworks Headquartered in Boston, Ginkgo Bioworks uses the most advanced technology on the planet—biology—to grow better products. Our cell programming platform enables the growth of biotechnology across diver...

We're excited to announce our 2025 Ferment Series, an evolution of our flagship annual conference dedicated to advancing our mission of making biology easier to engineer! We can't wait to see you in Boston

Read more: www.ginkgo.bio/resources/bl...
Sign up for updates: www.ginkgo.bio/ferment-2025...

06.02.2025 13:17 — 👍 4    🔁 1    💬 0    📌 1

I’m gonna be straight with you, the only animal I know of is the raccoon. Final answer

29.01.2025 01:33 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Closeup of an airplane seat with USB-A and Ethernet on the back

Closeup of an airplane seat with USB-A and Ethernet on the back

It must be hard for designers to keep up with rapid tech changes for long-lasting stuff like airplane seats, but I wish I could’ve been a fly on the wall for the meeting where they locked in the seatback Ethernet jack

24.01.2025 14:07 — 👍 4    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Chief Miles O’Brien

Chief Miles O’Brien

Was this him

18.01.2025 21:08 — 👍 7    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Me in 2005: it would be fun to connect with my fellow students on the facebook

Me in 2025: the new meta is getting your message out via tradwife accounts on xiaohongshu before either government sees it

15.01.2025 20:16 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Have to respec from PvP to PvE over here

15.01.2025 16:58 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0
 Meme of Hillary Clinton visiting an East Harlem apartment

Meme of Hillary Clinton visiting an East Harlem apartment

My feed here is way more academic than on twitter, so as an industry scientist I feel like this all the time

15.01.2025 15:50 — 👍 18    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Just an update that no one new has been added. Thinking about trimming it down, tbh

11.01.2025 16:08 — 👍 3    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0
Two long egg logs, with sliced cross sections

Two long egg logs, with sliced cross sections

Long egg would be an ideal chassis for new yolk chromatypes

10.01.2025 23:16 — 👍 10    🔁 0    💬 2    📌 0

Here it is... it is exclusive, it is arbitrary, and membership will be determined solely by me. You should be upset if you are included, and also upset if you are not included

go.bsky.app/JZc9HXe

08.01.2025 21:30 — 👍 13    🔁 3    💬 3    📌 3

Might as well choose your particular anachronistic affect, like how the New Yorker still uses umlauts

08.01.2025 21:11 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

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