Today, I entered a consulting agreement with a very early-stage life sciences startup called Amide Technologies. The company has developed a protein printer (depicted above) that can synthesize arbitrary proteins with lengths of up to 250 amino acids. Proteins are large, complex molecules that play many critical roles in the body. They do most of the work in cells and are required for the structure, function, and regulation of the body’s tissues and organs. Proteins are made up of hundreds or thousands of smaller units called amino acids, which are attached to one another in long chains. The sequence of amino acids determines each protein’s unique 3-dimensional structure and its specific function. These are literally the building blocks of life. Sticking to my goal of remaining semi-retired, I have limited my consulting time to 40 hours per month. I will be leading the engineering team with the goal of accelerating the speed of the printer by 100 times. It is a daunting challenge, but I already have thoughts on a new machine architecture that will make this possible. I will continue to work with my existing clients but will not be taking on any new ones for the foreseeable future.