#849: Dr. Michael Levin — Reprogramming Bioelectricity, Updating "Software" for Anti-Aging, Treating Cancer Without Drugs, Cognition of Cells, and Much More

Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. My guest today has been years in the making. I'm so excited to have this conversation and share it with you. His name is Dr. Michael Levin. He is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University and director of the Allen Discovery Center. We cover so much ground in this conversation, and I think. A few years from now, even currently, depending on the scientists you speak with, but a lot of folks are gonna look back and say, Wow. Michael Levin got it right. He and his lab, the people working in the lab, did such important research that redefined how we think about

biology, how we think about cancer. How we think about the ability to reprogram the human body. Using bioelectricity and it goes well beyond DNA. That's part of the story, but it's not the full story, and we get into a lot of it. His background is in computer science and biology.

And he has been developing a framework for recognizing and communicating with unconventional cognitive systems. And we'll describe and define what all of this means. Applied to the collective intelligence of cell groups undergoing morphogenesis, these ideas have allowed the Levin Lab to develop new applications and birth defects. organ regeneration and cancer suppression. His lab also produces synthetic life forms, for instance xenobots and anthrobots that serve as exploration platforms for understanding the source of patterns of form and behavior in a wide range of natural, artificial, and hybrid embodied minds. Okay, what does that all mean? We'll get into it, don't worry, we define everything. You can find his blog at thoughtforms.life. Highly encourage you to check it out. And then the lab website is dr drmichaelevin.org. And on X, he is Dr. Michael Levin. And just one quick disclosure, I did invest in a startup based on some of Michael's research in twenty twenty three. I've been interested in his work for longer than that, but we don't even really get into discussing The startups.

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