# Decoding Nature: How AI is Learning to Program Biology

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**Date:** March 16, 2026 · 10:30 PM  
**Location:** JW Marriott / Salon FGH  
**Format:** Panel  
**Track:** Health track  
**Reviews:** 0

## Speakers

- **Ilya Finkelstein** — Professor Of Molecular Biosciences
- **Sharon Goldman** — Ai Reporter
- **Alicia Frame** — Principal Product Manager - Microsoft Foundry
- **Glen Gowers** — Co-founder and CEO

AI mastered Go, then human language—now it can write DNA. Glen Gowers, CEO of Basecamp Research, explains how his team trained AI on the world’s largest evolutionary dataset, spanning 1 million new species, to design a "beyond-CRISPR" tool for precise gene insertion—a long-standing challenge in genetic medicine. Microsoft’s Alicia Frame unpacks the AI advances enabling this scale, while UT Austin biophysicist Ilya Finkelstein explains the rigor required to turn AI-designed biology into safe, effective medicine.

## Transcript

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