Seemay Chou
@seemaychou.bsky.social
Scientist. Co-founder/CEO @ Arcadia Science. Board @ Astera and The Navigation Fund. Texan in CA.
will give it a read, added to my list for the weekend!
November 19, 2025 at 10:46 PM
will give it a read, added to my list for the weekend!
We’ve been heads down @ArcadiaScience for a bit but the @arenabioworks news this week caused me to dump thoughts. hard things are hard; don’t be such a fucking hater. Reflections on parallels w our own institutional experiment here seemay.substack.com/p/big-experi...
Big experiments are only big if they can fail
Some reflections on Arena Bioworks' unexpected wind down as a fellow institutional experimentalist
seemay.substack.com
November 6, 2025 at 4:20 PM
We’ve been heads down @ArcadiaScience for a bit but the @arenabioworks news this week caused me to dump thoughts. hard things are hard; don’t be such a fucking hater. Reflections on parallels w our own institutional experiment here seemay.substack.com/p/big-experi...
this is most of all true for the actual trainees. protecting them can inadvertently block them from opportunities they want. don't be that guy
October 21, 2025 at 3:52 PM
this is most of all true for the actual trainees. protecting them can inadvertently block them from opportunities they want. don't be that guy
overall, way fewer people are arguing against our policy as change seems inevitable now
October 21, 2025 at 3:52 PM
overall, way fewer people are arguing against our policy as change seems inevitable now
A few quick bullets: protecting trainees from career risk is a common argument
October 21, 2025 at 3:52 PM
A few quick bullets: protecting trainees from career risk is a common argument
I spend a lot of time talking to potential grantees about our open science policy. Some field notes here:
open.substack.com/pub/seemay/p...
open.substack.com/pub/seemay/p...
Why careerism can be bad for science training
Some field notes from scholarly publishing discussions with scientists
open.substack.com
October 21, 2025 at 3:52 PM
I spend a lot of time talking to potential grantees about our open science policy. Some field notes here:
open.substack.com/pub/seemay/p...
open.substack.com/pub/seemay/p...
Reposted by Seemay Chou
Want to get involved, share your ideas, or just stay in the loop with email updates? Let us know here: forms.gle/37pK2smABwbg...
Diffuse Project Interest Form
Interested in the Diffuse Project? Please provide your information to help us shape community engagement and potentially direct you to the right project member.
forms.gle
August 14, 2025 at 7:01 PM
Want to get involved, share your ideas, or just stay in the loop with email updates? Let us know here: forms.gle/37pK2smABwbg...
A note in here for other science philanthropists… we have a chance rn to help scientists rethink systems, technical & operational. They’re game to take useful risks, let’s help them. Coming soon: more open science research, experimenting outside journals… seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...
August 13, 2025 at 4:04 PM
A note in here for other science philanthropists… we have a chance rn to help scientists rethink systems, technical & operational. They’re game to take useful risks, let’s help them. Coming soon: more open science research, experimenting outside journals… seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...
It will certainly be important to include more modalities (and scientists) beyond X-ray, which we hope to do in the future! Lots of fun work to be done to ensure interoperability in that way
August 12, 2025 at 7:25 PM
It will certainly be important to include more modalities (and scientists) beyond X-ray, which we hope to do in the future! Lots of fun work to be done to ensure interoperability in that way
Haha I love that, thanks for actually clicking the link 😂
August 12, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Haha I love that, thanks for actually clicking the link 😂
Reposted by Seemay Chou
We are thrilled to be part of Project Diffuse, building infrastructure for the dynamic future of structural biology.
We are helping to lead the modeling and encoding efforts of this project, including designing infrastructure that allows AI to learn from the full complexity of experimental data.
We are helping to lead the modeling and encoding efforts of this project, including designing infrastructure that allows AI to learn from the full complexity of experimental data.
What’s the next PDB? Maybe it’s …the PDB.
We just launched @diffuseproject.bsky.social a structural biology initiative exploring protein motion & rethinking how we generate and use experimental data. Quick 🧵👇
www.diffuse.science
We just launched @diffuseproject.bsky.social a structural biology initiative exploring protein motion & rethinking how we generate and use experimental data. Quick 🧵👇
www.diffuse.science
The Diffuse Project
The Diffuse Project
www.diffuse.science
August 12, 2025 at 5:20 PM
We are thrilled to be part of Project Diffuse, building infrastructure for the dynamic future of structural biology.
We are helping to lead the modeling and encoding efforts of this project, including designing infrastructure that allows AI to learn from the full complexity of experimental data.
We are helping to lead the modeling and encoding efforts of this project, including designing infrastructure that allows AI to learn from the full complexity of experimental data.
Oops fixed! Also here seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...
From systems operators to systems architects
Going up a level from data generation to think about the data systems we design and embed
seemay.substack.com
August 12, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Oops fixed! Also here seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...
More on our reflections here seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...
From systems operators to systems architects
Going up a level from data generation to think about the data systems we design and embed
seemay.substack.com
August 12, 2025 at 5:47 PM
More on our reflections here seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...
Reposted by Seemay Chou
Announcing the Diffuse Project! We're unlocking protein dynamics through diffuse X-ray scattering - the overlooked signal that could revolutionize how we understand protein motion. seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...
From systems operators to systems architects
Going up a level from data generation to think about the data systems we design and embed
seemay.substack.com
August 12, 2025 at 4:21 PM
Announcing the Diffuse Project! We're unlocking protein dynamics through diffuse X-ray scattering - the overlooked signal that could revolutionize how we understand protein motion. seemay.substack.com/p/from-syste...
Doing this will require co-iterating across an entire data system, not just refining one part. And we're experimenting with how to share all of this (our real-time thinking, pivots, tools, data) openly and quickly all outside of traditional journals
August 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Doing this will require co-iterating across an entire data system, not just refining one part. And we're experimenting with how to share all of this (our real-time thinking, pivots, tools, data) openly and quickly all outside of traditional journals
Tldr, we're focusing on diffuse scattering, which is the messier background signal in X-ray diffraction images. These data are often tossed because they're complex, but this complexity is where so much of the interesting biology sits
August 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Tldr, we're focusing on diffuse scattering, which is the messier background signal in X-ray diffraction images. These data are often tossed because they're complex, but this complexity is where so much of the interesting biology sits
Our take: more of the same data won't get us there. We're bringing together top experts across almost every node of the X-ray pipeline to generate the right kind of data to model ensembles of different protein conformations. Think: pictures to movies
August 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Our take: more of the same data won't get us there. We're bringing together top experts across almost every node of the X-ray pipeline to generate the right kind of data to model ensembles of different protein conformations. Think: pictures to movies
We're dreaming about the next frontier in structural biology: protein motion. Understanding how proteins move will be the next big unlock for predicting function
August 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
We're dreaming about the next frontier in structural biology: protein motion. Understanding how proteins move will be the next big unlock for predicting function
What’s the next PDB? Maybe it’s …the PDB.
We just launched @diffuseproject.bsky.social a structural biology initiative exploring protein motion & rethinking how we generate and use experimental data. Quick 🧵👇
www.diffuse.science
We just launched @diffuseproject.bsky.social a structural biology initiative exploring protein motion & rethinking how we generate and use experimental data. Quick 🧵👇
www.diffuse.science
The Diffuse Project
The Diffuse Project
www.diffuse.science
August 12, 2025 at 4:16 PM
What’s the next PDB? Maybe it’s …the PDB.
We just launched @diffuseproject.bsky.social a structural biology initiative exploring protein motion & rethinking how we generate and use experimental data. Quick 🧵👇
www.diffuse.science
We just launched @diffuseproject.bsky.social a structural biology initiative exploring protein motion & rethinking how we generate and use experimental data. Quick 🧵👇
www.diffuse.science
Most importantly, first in our new series of organismal spotlight shorts (open source illustrations coming soon!). Sea squirts! www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E9T...
Meet Ciona intestinalis
YouTube video by Arcadia Science
www.youtube.com
August 5, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Most importantly, first in our new series of organismal spotlight shorts (open source illustrations coming soon!). Sea squirts! www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E9T...
Wrote up a post summarizing some of our big picture lessons on bottlenecks, such as difficulties in finding tacit "folklore" knowledge in organismal systems arcadiascience.substack.com/p/zoogle-sug...
Zoogle Suggested We Try a Sea Squirt, So We Did
It’s true that no model is perfect, but how can we find ones that are less wrong? We’re excited to announce two research partnerships investigating predicted matches between diseases and research orga...
arcadiascience.substack.com
August 5, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Wrote up a post summarizing some of our big picture lessons on bottlenecks, such as difficulties in finding tacit "folklore" knowledge in organismal systems arcadiascience.substack.com/p/zoogle-sug...
Hoped others would jump on it, but wasn't super straightforward so we ran with some predictions ourselves. Ultimately collaborating with sea squirt and choano experts to scope some pilots (biggest filter was finding people willing to publish openly/rapidly but we prevailed!)
August 5, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Hoped others would jump on it, but wasn't super straightforward so we ran with some predictions ourselves. Ultimately collaborating with sea squirt and choano experts to scope some pilots (biggest filter was finding people willing to publish openly/rapidly but we prevailed!)
We recently released the Zoogle dataset, which uses our workflows and publicly avail data to quantify how well different organisms model specific human genes/diseases. zoogle.arcadiascience.com/about
Zoogle | Arcadia Organism Selection Portal
Search for the best predicted organismal models for human genes.
zoogle.arcadiascience.com
August 5, 2025 at 6:56 PM
We recently released the Zoogle dataset, which uses our workflows and publicly avail data to quantify how well different organisms model specific human genes/diseases. zoogle.arcadiascience.com/about
After many yrs building internally @arcadiascience.com we're now able to partner more with others on cool organisms. You won't hurt my feelings if you don't read my post, but don't miss out on our first organismal spotlight animation featuring sea squirts -- just skip to the bottom! 🧵
August 5, 2025 at 6:56 PM
After many yrs building internally @arcadiascience.com we're now able to partner more with others on cool organisms. You won't hurt my feelings if you don't read my post, but don't miss out on our first organismal spotlight animation featuring sea squirts -- just skip to the bottom! 🧵