I Don’t Have a Lab. I Have Questions.

How a curious mind built a small engine for big biological ideas

I don’t own a lab coat. My pipette technique would make a postdoc flinch. But I grew up on the early web, where curiosity, a text editor, and a stubborn idea could bend reality. That instinct never left. If the right tool can move a boulder in software, maybe the right tool can nudge a boulder in biology — without touching a test tube.

So I built a prototype.

Not to run wet-lab experiments from the couch (that would be reckless), but to think like a scientist before you ever meet a centrifuge. A place to sketch, compare, and argue with your own ideas. Part storyteller, part librarian, part devil’s-advocate.

If we do this right, we widen the front door of discovery — and keep the back door, misuse, bolted shut.

The day biology started reading like code

I was reading about antimicrobial peptides. In textbooks, they’re amino-acid strings. In my head, they looked like compact programs: short sequences, distinct motifs, clear inputs and outputs. That mental shift changed everything. What if non-experts could explore concepts in protein design the way beginners try small scripts — safely, humbly?