Astera Institute

The mission gets the spotlight, but operations keep the lights on. We're excited to announce the launch of the Nonprofit Operations Playbook, developed by Impact Ops. This resource addresses a critical gap we've observed in the nonprofit ecosystem – while there are abundant sources of information on mission development, programming design, and fundraising, the practical, back-office operations that keep an organization running often remain a mystery to founders. Read more and access the playbook here: https://lnkd.in/dkF59fvi

At Astera, we’re seeding an ecosystem of mission-driven, open-first tools, people, organizations, and products to ensure that the abundance unlocked by rapid technological progress is shared broadly. One of the principles we’ve adopted in service of this mission is radical transparency – we’re committed to doing all we can to make it easy for others to follow, reuse, and improve on whatever we do, even in cases where the results of our work aren’t compelling. In our newest piece on Human Readable, we describe a workshop on scaling synthetic biology that we co-hosted with Metaculus back in June, titled “Scale is All You Need.” The workshop brought together professional forecasters with entrepreneurs, investors, and experts in synthetic biology in an attempt to work both backwards from shared objectives and forwards to forecast the anticipated effect of potential interventions. Lessons from our collaborative forecasting experiment: start with specific objectives, identify bottlenecks, propose interventions, then forecast impacts. Our post shares what worked, what didn't, and how you can improve on our method. https://lnkd.in/eZe7E8z7

For the past 200 years, the primary tool for sharing science has been the journal article: two columns of text, static figures, and predictable structure from background to methods to conclusions. But anyone who has worked in science knows that the practice of science doesn’t adhere to this structure. Rigid formatting and content requirements slow down the process of getting science out of the lab, and worse, stop many valuable resources from being shared at all. Ultimately, restricting the types and forms in which science is shared inhibits its progress and its societal impact. Other publications are possible. In this post on Human Readable, our Open Science Program Director Jessica Polka dives deep into the options available today for publishing beyond papers: https://lnkd.in/e9nMAgiF

Thanks to all who have responded, and if not - today's the day!

Astera resident Rachel Dutton is featured today on Human Readable: “Rachel has spent her career blazing new trails for how we understand and work with microbes. When tools and model systems for studying complex microbial communities weren’t available, she built them. And when organizations and incentive systems weren’t the right fit for doing this work, she built the right teams in the right environment to do it. That’s what has led her to Astera. The residency gives her the flexibility, resources, and community to approach the challenges of the field from a unique perspective. Rather than confine her research to the box of what can be funded by academic grants or a venture-backed startup, the residency allows her to shape from first principles the kind of organization that would best fit her goal: making the health benefits of fermented foods more accessible to all. “Where are we going? Where are the gaps?” Rachel said. “And where are the opportunities to actually build something useful—not just uncovering new science, but to increase the impact of the science in different ways.”” Read more: https://lnkd.in/e7wy9PDr

Great opportunity for local researchers to get a behind the scenes look and participate in the development of open science tools with our fellows:

Predictive AI models of microbial function are increasingly critical for new research and development in basic and applied science. Beyond protein structure data, high quality training data on biological function remains a bottleneck limiting progress in applications of AI in biology. We want to fill this gap. Astera’s Data group is launching a new project to generate and publish rich microbial datasets, both across application domains and across the tree of life. We aim to create public datasets from next-generation sequencing, multi-omics, and high-dimensional phenotyping to enable modellers and researchers seeking to understand microbes through machine learning. To make this data relevant and usable for the research community, we are launching this effort with a request for information from researchers who want to use this kind of data to support building machine learning models. What species of bacteria, archaea, or protists would be most valuable and informative for you, the users of these datasets? What types, specifications, and requirements do your models have for training data??What metadata is required or beneficial? Would you be willing to join a User Group in advance of data generation? Your submissions will help guide our dedicated investment, select initial targets, and guide long-term prioritization. The first species and data types we generate will be chosen based on the requirements we gather from modelers via this RFI. Learn more on our website and submit your comments by February 24th. https://lnkd.in/euB6R8Ya

Hey! Nothing like posting a talk during a holiday week, but - if you're curious what we are getting into in data at Astera Institute you might take a peek. This is from earlier this autumn at the first annual Progress Conference.

The next deadline for our Open Science Fellowship is fast approaching! https://lnkd.in/eM8CYF22 We are looking for creative, high-agency entrepreneurs seeking to foster more?interactive information exchange in the life sciences. Selected Fellows will be employed full-time by Astera and, in addition to a salary, will receive up to $350,000 in support of their projects. Our goal is to enable experimentation with Open Science technologies and processes to create transformative change in research collaboration. Current fellows include: — Dion Whitehead, Metapages https://app.metapage.io/ — Filipp Kramer, Alchemy — James Douglas Boyd, SciSci — Nokome Bentley, Stencila https://stencila.io/ — Ronen Tamari, Sensemaking Networks https://sense-nets.xyz/ — Saif Haobsh, Fylo https://www.fylo.io/ Applications are due December 31, 2024! Apply here: https://lnkd.in/dApjRbDE

What separates a collection of atoms from something alive? That’s the question that drives Erika Alden DeBenedictis, from her undergrad years studying operating systems that transform hunks of metal into machines that think, to her current work on terraforming Mars. Astera’s residency program bets big on people and projects that don’t fit within existing institutions. As a resident, Erika is also bringing to life new kinds of organizations to drive change in science. During her residency, she founded Pioneer Labs, a nonprofit with a marsshot mission to transform microbes to be able to live on Mars. Head over to Human Readable to read a conversation between Christina Agapakis and Erika about what drives her work, the role that agency, emotion, and collaboration play in science, and new models for innovation in bioengineering. https://lnkd.in/etkMTDdV