Original Author: Paul Kohlhaas, Founder of BIO Protocol

Translation: Zen, PANews

Bitcoin, as the first decentralized digital currency system, has achieved permissionless value exchange; Ethereum has enabled anyone to deploy their own programs through the introduction of smart contracts, achieving permissionless code execution.

Many people invest in cryptocurrencies to maintain their autonomy and to prevent the slow and quiet erosion of their freedoms. A similar movement is forming in the fields of science and medicine, as the freedom to innovate, self-experiment, and disseminate science has been eroded by a broken biomedical research and development system.

The Current System is Unfavorable for Disease Cures

In 2018, Goldman Sachs released a report titled "The Genomic Revolution," questioning whether curing patients is a sustainable business model. Goldman Sachs cited Gilead Sciences as an example; the company generated $12.5 billion in revenue in 2015 due to its effective hepatitis C treatment, but as more patients were cured, sales plummeted to $4 billion in the following years.

Chronic disease treatments, such as pain management with opioids, can ensure recurring revenue but often lead to patient dependency on drugs rather than addressing the root problem. Their addictive nature has also resulted in widespread drug abuse and dependency. Opioid-related deaths, particularly those caused by prescription opioids, have become a significant public health issue in the United States.

Scientists Focus on Fundraising Rather than Research

Imagine a scenario where software developers spend most of their time fundraising instead of writing code.

Most Scientific Talent is Underutilized

Due to a lack of fundamental infrastructure to upgrade science and technology, we are unable to achieve solarpunk—a highly harmonious society between humans and nature, filled with sustainability, abundant resources, and innovative ideals.

These dilemmas have led to a scientific development process filled with various resistances and problems, rather than the "scientific fantasy" world we aspire to. So, what if we could build a decentralized and self-organizing scientific world? A self-sovereign scientific system driven by open data and liquid markets, with disease cures as its core goal.

Molecule DAO and BIO Protocol

Molecule is a protocol that brings scientific intellectual property (IP) on-chain; BIO is an engine that provides launch and acceleration for on-chain scientific communities (BioDAOs), composed of scientists, patients, and investors. BioDAOs focus on specific scientific fields or diseases, developing research, drugs, products, and other on-chain intellectual property. For example, VitaDAO has funded several projects related to longevity science and research, including the VITA-FAST project developed by the Vikorolchuk lab at Newcastle University.

The BIO Protocol team has built the first batch of BioDAOs across multiple scientific fields. According to Dune data, when Paul Kohlhaas spoke last week, the total market cap of BioDAOs was less than $100 million, but by November 18, it had exceeded $230 million.

BIO aims to assist scientists, patients, and biotechnology founders in establishing on-chain scientific communities, including tokenomics design, community building, funding, and liquidity support. BIO token holders can vote to incorporate DAOs into the network, similar to a community-owned accelerator that helps the best teams stand out and launch their communities on-chain. The upcoming projects on the BIO Launchpad include:

• Curetopia: Targeting the $1 trillion rare disease market, its team includes Y Combinator alumni, Harvard PhD, and rare disease entrepreneur Eric Perlstein, who has pushed a drug to Phase III clinical trials with just $5 million in funding, whereas this typically costs over $100 million.
• Long COVID Labs: Accelerating cure solutions for over 100 million long COVID patients worldwide, led by former Stanford neuroscientist Rohan Dixit.
• Quantum Biology DAO: Building quantum microscopes to observe quantum biological phenomena, led by MIT PhD Clarice D. Aiello, one of the world's leading quantum biology scientists.

To promote the development of the protocol, BIO recently held a Genesis event, inviting users to deposit supported DeSci tokens in exchange for BIO tokens. The Genesis event raised $33 million for the BIO treasury, and as the price of DeSci tokens has risen, the treasury funds have now exceeded $53 million. Additionally, BIO has received investment from Binance Labs.

The Role of IP-NFTs

The BIO protocol plays a core role in the BioDAO network, where each BioDAO is developing drugs and therapies related to specific diseases or treatments, and these research outcomes exist in the form of tokenized scientific intellectual property (IP). Typically, each stage of drug development has historically been kept confidential from the public, while BioDAOs aim to leverage blockchain technology to make this process more open and transparent.

IP-NFTs are the foundation supporting this new model, allowing anyone to put intellectual property on-chain, making it programmable, tradable, liquid, and rich in data. Essentially, IP-NFTs are containers for intellectual property. Once the IP is fully validated, it can be split into IPT (IP tokens) and used as governance tokens, enabling individuals to participate as active stakeholders in the scientific process.

For example, Vita-RNA, supported by VitaDAO, focuses on developing new mRNA gene therapies, led by biotechnology experts Michael Torres and Anthony Schwartz. The Vita-RNA project received $300,000 in initial funding, but its VITARNA token's market cap has already grown to over $27 million. When one of Vita-RNA's main drug candidates showed in vitro (laboratory) activity, its price began to rise on Uniswap.

Future Outlook for BIO

The BIO Protocol is inspired by the bio/acc movement, which aims to accelerate the development of biology and disrupt many traditional perceptions of healthcare. Biotechnology is a new matrix of life itself. We must fundamentally reshape outdated scientific institutions and processes, accelerate all biologically related research, and build a global, participatory scientific network.

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