ValleyDAO Growth Update Jan 2023
Learn about our flagship project with Imperial College London, what we're planning for the token launch of $GROW, and opportunities in the ValleyDAO community.
Welcome to the first edition of ValleyDAO Growth Updates! In this newsletter, we’ll be talking about how our flagship academic research project with Imperial College London aims to reduce the environmental impacts from palm oil cultivation, and some key highlights from the Valley.
Research Project Highlight
We’re proud to announce our flagship academic research project with Imperial College London, a global leader in synthetic biology. The project will focus on creating sustainable manufacturing of alternatives fats and oils to palm oil. Palm oil is one of the most widely consumed oils in the world, found in nearly 50% of packaged products, but its production has devastating environmental consequences. Consumers and food manufacturing companies are constantly looking for affordable alternatives to this hard-to-replace ingredient.
The project will explore the use of oleaginous (oil-producing) yeast to produce the oil in a lab through fermentation, instead of having to grow the tree and harvest the fruit. This technology has huge potential to preserve the natural habitat and biodiversity of rainforests and cut emissions which stem from transporting the palm oil to other countries. Producing the oil through microbial fermentation requires only water, electricity, bioreactors and a carbon source and can be done in any location around the world because it doesn’t depend on weather conditions. More details about the project can be found here.
Spearheading the project is Dr. Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro, group leader at Imperial College with over 15 years of experience working with oleaginous yeast. With the resulting intellectual property, ValleyDAO and Rodrigo aims to commercialize this technology by spinning out a startup or sub-licensing it to industry stakeholders in fats and oils manufacturing. We’re actively looking for startup and industry development partners that would like to collaborate with us on this project. If you’re interested, contact us through our webpage.
Upskilling With The ValleyDAO Community
Attention all computational biology enthusiasts! Our community member Arshy, ML Engineer at Algovera AI and contributor at ValleyDAO, will be leading the computational systems biology course that explores the application of deep learning in the life sciences. Weekly group meetings will be held on Tuesdays at 3 PM CET. Full course schedule and content can be found here. We highly recommend this course to those wanting to upskill themselves in computational biology, and what’s more fun than learning together with fellow DAO members and friends? To access the study group chat, head to our Discord and look for the #computational-bio channel and introduce yourself, one of our community members will be in touch.
DAO Governance
Governance in a DAO refers to the decision-making processes and rules by which the organization operates and manages itself. It typically involves voting by token holders to determine the direction and priorities of the organization, allocate funds, and make changes to its protocols or rules. The governance of a DAO is decentralized, meaning decisions are made by the collective actions of its token holders, rather than by a centralized authority.
As such, we’re starting to construct our first governance frameworks that’ll be used to make important decisions in ValleyDAO after our token auction. If you’re interested in participating in the discussions around how we architect these policies and procedures then join the governance channel in our Discord for open discussions and a weekly meeting every Friday at 7:30pm CET.
Community Spotlight
If you don’t know, now you know… meet Lucabrando (“Brando”). This month we want to feature a recent addition to the ValleyDAO community; someone who in only two months has exceeded all expectations. With zero background in Biotechnology/SynBio, Brando has consistently pushed himself outside of his comfort zone and is already proving to be a great addition to the team. Supporting the DAO in dealflow, communications and – more recently – fundraising, Brando is a great example of why we prioritize passion and determination above academic credentials!
Look out for him in the discord and if you haven’t had a chance to chat with him yet, drop him a message. He’ll be more than happy to share his experiences with you and help you find your place in the ValleyDAO community
“I wanted a place where I could learn, give back, and meet like-minded people driven by the same purpose. I found it all – just even better than I had imagined.”
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
International Day of Women and Girls in Science – Sat 11th February
We’re dedicating this month to our amazing women in science.Whilst the official celebration takes place on Saturday the 11th February, we’ll be championing the cause all year round. Redesigning science doesn’t just mean innovation, it also requires cultural change and we’re committed to supporting and empowering women to tear down the barriers and become leaders in the scientific community. If you, or someone in your network identifies as a woman in Synthetic Biology, we’d love for them to get in touch so we can support their careers: people@valleydao.bio
Events to Look Out For
WiSB Women’s Hour - Valley DAO Tickets, Wed 22 Feb 2023 at 16:00 | Eventbrite
“Decentralise Everything - Systems Thinking for Systems Science” - Decentralised science is taking the world by storm, but what's all the fuss about? What if we told you that you could redesign the way we do science? Morgan Richards from ValleyDAO will discuss the principles of decentralisation, why we should challenge the systems that we've become all too accustomed to and how we can apply these strategies to accelerate synthetic biology research.
Stories in SynBio
Chatterboxes: Researchers develop new model that shows how bacteria communicate
“In new research published by Biophysical Reports, researchers from Florida State University and Cleveland State University lay out a mathematical model that explains how bacteria communicate within a larger ecosystem. By understanding how this process works, researchers can predict what actions might elicit certain environmental responses from a bacterial community.”
This Company Is Using Generative AI To Design New Antibodies
You’ve seen it used for images like DALL-E, you’ve seen it with text like ChatGPT. Did you know you can use Generative AI to design proteins, too? Absci announced this week that they are using their AI-powered platform to design de novo antibody-based therapeutics.”
Novel Yeast-Assembly Technique Yields Living Materials
“Overall, the ability to functionalize individual cells with genetic engineering and precisely assemble them into structured materials with microfluidics and optical tweezers provides a rich platform for new classes of advanced materials,” Sun says. “This is unprecedented and transforming.
We hope to catch you in the next one!
-The ValleyDAO Community
Phew!
You had me at how oleaginous (oil-producing) yeast can produce palm oil through fermentation. 🤯 Glad to learn about this application of SynBio and that ValleyDAO is spearheading it. 👏🏼👏🏼