What's Vulpine Labs? Interview with CEO

Hi, thanks, Leon.

Vulpine Labs is the name of the B corporation (Public Benefit) we founded to protect and nurture our open source projects to develop a gene editing system that will do no less than cause an evolution revolution.

First, it is important to recognise that while gene editing technologies of today appear to be in their infancy and have limited applications, the means to develop far more sophisticated tools for the purpose are all basically present. Science does not stand still, and engineering can often bridge us to things previously assumed to be impossible.

We took a look at our situation in 2008, that is, the situation of the health of humanity, of transgender people, space travellers, explorers, people affected by climate change, transhumanists, furries, therians and otherkin, including those who consider themselves transspecies. How could we be of most help?

Technologies that already exist have clear shortfalls.
* Hypnosis is fooling yourself. It doesn't actually change your biophysical reality in every sense, because in this world we live in, no matter what you have trained your mind to think, your body is still roughly the same.
* Surgery is messy and risky. Although some surgeons can do a great job, there is still a need to cut into the body and expose it to risk and a lengthy, often painful healing process. So that wouldn't be of much use.
* Prostheses don't change the underlying body.
* Implants as we know them today, may add some functionality or alter the shape, but they typically only last for a certain period before they become worn out or chemically problematic. They may also disrupt certain tissues in deleterious ways.
* Neuroprostheses (cyborg implants as we know them from sci-fi) are technology applied directly to the body with surgery. So they are still messy.
* Drugs are like throwing wrenches into a machine to see whether you can hit the right nut and turn it. There's a strong chance you will also hit other things, and the potential that doing so may cause damage. You then have to repeatedly take them to maintain the desired effect... which also maintains the potential side effects... and the profits of large corporations with some of the least scrupulous marketing in the world.
* Gene therapies as they currently stand, do modify the genes in a limited subset of your cells - but with the risk of those being replaced by cells with the original genome over time, possible autoimmune rejection, and still some extensive complex work being done with expensive reagents in an expensive lab to modify cells outside the body and then put them back in.

And when we looked at gene editing vectors at the time, they were unable to carry much genetic code into cells either, and the zinc finger nucleases and TALENS systems were limited in their scope. CRISPR, which in 2012 made a stride in the right direction, still has serious problems of accuracy and how much genetic information can be edited at once.

Nonetheless, molecules are like Lego bricks, in that for how simple they are, there are a ridiculously large number of ways they can be arranged. Many scientists find this irritating when it comes to determining exactly which way this or that sequence functions to produce a specific protein and how that protein folds and does its job. I have been told multiple times that the sheer combinatorial mathematics make this a really daunting problem. However, I view this as a problem mainly caused by insufficient interdisciplinary thinking and willingness to get down to first principles for tool development; we could be using pre-existing tools as inspiration but not as the pace-setters or limit-definers for the best we can hope to do. When you design tools for all the lessons we can actually now learn across the whole gamut of studies, sciences and approaches, from quantum physics, computing and biology to nutrition and the microbiome, and from AI and cybersecurity to virology and immunology, each of the modular components and areas of expertise can balance out the difficulties of the others.

Vulpine Labs is not just a company aiming to develop some sort of amazing future-tech, we're developing what should already be possible in terms of raw data and materials, and we are aiming to intercept the expected computing capacity of home gaming PCs at the time we release v.1.0 for most aspects of the computing. It's telling of how much the advent of Big Data and various technological advancements over the last few decades have overwhelmed many people we have spoken to, that they find our ideas incredulously hard to imagine. But personal incredulity is a fallacy.

Our plan is to develop a system wherein you input a sample of your DNA, the system can read the DNA and produce from the code therein, a model of your entire body which is accurate to what your DNA encodes. You'll then be able to adjust that model based on any zoom level, from the genes to the jeans, and see what is necessary genetically to make an arbitrary change occur and unfold safely, and what the results are of arbitrary changes to the genes.
Then, it's time to package it all together into a custom-designed gene editing vector for your body, optimised to ensure the fastest-yet-safest means of introducing the changes to your body. You'll be able to test and tweak the vector and its processes, using viral and nanotechnological structures to make the perfect vehicle for your changes. Following which, if all is well with it, you can export this vector and the changes within it to a device which will assemble the real thing with actual biomolecules - in particular, ones it finds in your own cell samples where possible. This reduces and maybe eliminates the need for expensive supplies of reagents. The vector will be designed to go to all cells in the body, and adjust their DNA so they all match. No replacing modified cells with unmodified, and no mistaking modified self for non-self cells in the immune system's checks.

The resultant system and processes should be modular (we will offer individual modules stand-alone to researchers and institutions along with contracts to work with us to support and/or train them, and improve our systems for their needs), and capable of solving myriad problems. These could range from cancer susceptibility to autoimmune disorders, and from adaptation to space travel, to redesigning our bodies for self-customisation purposes, be that to eliminate dysphoria or just to be different.

Our software will be called the GUESS Unified Editing Suite and SDK, which is essentially an IDE for DNA, and is named the GUESS because there may be some situations in which there is yet insufficient data for it to rely on fully, and so it will have to take its best guess - especially in the early days. Our hardware will be called the Geneticiser. Together, they will do for gene editing what the RepRap did for 3D printing and what the Personal Computer and the internet did for information sharing and processing.

Together, we will accelerate evolution beyond natural selection, and outpace viral outbreaks with genetically encoded vaccines that anyone with the Geneticiser can 'print'. Vaccine distribution at the speed of the internet. We will make our device and software fully open source and available in as many places as possible.

The Evolution Revolution will be Geneticised.

Thank you for the presentation of the project. Sounds absolutely amazing.

My first question would be:

Without going into too much technical details (I understand some of the tech would be protected by patents), how could one interact with genetic material? I imagine some fine-tuned laser could break some molecular bonds, and perhaps re-write DNA that way, but even then wouldn't this effect be limited to the surface of the body, since light has trouble penetrating deeper?

While we are very much still working out the minutiae of how it will work, we have great confidence that the way forward is to create our gene editing vectors in a sample of cells removed form the body first, using low powered, hollow lasers overlapped in a specific manner, and then to put our completed gene editing vector into the body, programmed to rapidly spread to all the body's cells before activating.

As for patents, what we have done is established our prior art and used a defensive publication to 'open patent' this all from the start. You can see it here. laberation.pubpub.org/pub/geneticiser

Okay so if I understand correctly the modification can spread from Cell A (which was operated upon) to Cell B without the need to directly operate on Cell B?

You wouldn't so much be operating on one cell, as constructing a virus-like carrier of specified genetic changes, which only works with the intended recipient. Like a virus, it would replicate itself and apply itself to many different cells. The trick to it is to code the software tools to be good enough to use them to successfully figure out how to design such a virus-like gene editing vector to work with all the cell types in the intended recipient's body, and to not trigger immune responses.

The only cells we would work with 'directly' would be the samples taken from the body of the individual in order to:
A. Have a sample of the recipient's DNA to read
B. Have a sample of cells from the recipient's body to construct the first of their new vector in, so that it:
- 1. Does not have unusual conditions around it compared to when it reaches its target - this is important for improving compatibility
- 2. Has all the ingredients needed without having to add externally supplied reagents (which can be expensive).

This approach will likely require a lot of work and refinement, but I still feel confident in it being possible.

Makes sense to me, I also think this is something that can be realistically achieved. Those challenges you mention may be considerable but they are relatively few, and are bound to get resolved using ingenuity. In nature we are already witnessing the basis of this mechanism, albeit in nature it is "blind" and it's giving random results.

I'd like to move on to the aspect of capability. Surely there will be an upper limit to the possible modifications. I'll take an example: say I wanted to maximize oxygenation and have a breathing system similar to that of birds (they get oxygen both ways, through intake of air but also through outtake of air). Surely this wouldn't be possible without specific modifications to other organs. The increased oxygenation rate might also cause side-effects on blood cells given that ours is different from bird's. How would such a challenge be met? Would it represent like an upper limit to the capability of the technology?

Another variation: say someone would like to improve flexibility of his/her neck, possibly extend the number of vertebrae to achieve this. Surely it would be impossible to call for the creation of a new cervical vertebra between those already present, and this also represents an upper limit to what is still considered "possible"?

On the other hand, surely a few things are already easily modifiable and represent, on the contrary, a reassuring minimum of things that are already nearly-guaranteed to be successful (I'm thinking hair color, epidermal structure, nail hardness, visual photoreceptors, etc)?

Any specifics of challenges of the biology of the body and what can be done with the genome are questions to use the GUESS systems and science in general to answer. They won't be something we should try to answer definitively right now before we have the tools to work out those changes and methods of applying them with. HOWEVER, the sooner we have such tools and the longer we use them for, the more we can optimise the potential complexities and change-densities of the gene editing vectors we design and the processes and change sets they carry.

Furthermore, anything you call 'impossible' to do, most likely you will sooner or later be proven wrong. As Arthur C Clarke has said, "If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."

And yes, some things will be easier to do, but let's not make any complacency about it either. We are well aware there are many things in our tools to get right, to ensure that we don't trip over what 'should be simple'.

Those are good points.

Now some people might have concerns about the philosophical ramifications of this technology. Some might be (or become) under the impression that this tool could (or would) be imposed. I know this technology will be made available only to those that voluntarily request it; however history teaches us that in the past many have attempted to impose bodily changes onto others without the latter's consent (I'm thinking about experiments carried out by the Axis in WW2 and which led to the Nuremberg trials), which is a worthwhile topic given the body is the most fundamental private property of any living being. Also if more people request those changes voluntarily, this could increase speciation rate, which would have implications in fertility and therefore family-making, so I would think the patient would need to understand the complete ramifications before the procedure would be carried out. Please expand on the considerations given to these potential concerns and topics.

There will always be the potential for any technology to be misused. Just take a look at the terrible things people can do with fire, for example, or the wheel. But I don't think many are arguing we should never have learned to use flames to scare off predators, cook, keep warm and forge metals just because of the risks of arson, industrial pollution, the internal combustion engine and wildfires. Nor are many arguing that we should never have invented the wheel just because of traffic accidents, strip mining and mechanised warfare.

I am under no illusions about the great potential for misuse of the technologies I am developing. I know some people will do terrible things with it. But if we allow the spectre of that to hang over our heads as we decide our ways forward, we'll never make any progress towards all the great and wonderful things that can and will be done with it. In life, societal outcomes are partly determined by the expectations that we set, the examples we set of how to think about them. If we live in fear of our own creations, they will only be used by those we should fear. But if we recognise not only that there is potential for good to happen, but that this potential far outweighs the negative possibilities, the future outcomes will be, to some degree, proportionate to that. Of course this only works when there is indeed a potential positive use - but I would argue that solving genetic diseases, bringing about morphological freedom and the ability to adapt intelligent life to other environments than those we live in now, are such a revolutionary change that has such value to everybody, that fears of misuse even extended to the worst of society still do not even slightly quench my hope. And perhaps nor should they yours.

You are correct that the body is the fundamental property or domain of the living being(s)* whose body it is. Speciation is, I would argue, a very good thing to do with a hitherto relatively homogeneous intelligent species population of 8 billion. Don't let success masquerade as invincibility. If all 8 billion people are the same and all living on the one planet they are adapted to, what happens when that planet's conditions are suddenly out of whack? Climate change may be something they can just about find a way to cope with, albeit with a loss, but what about something more immediate? Say, an asteroid or a major supervolcanic event? In such occasions, you need diverse options for Terran intelligent life to survive, both in terms of locations where we live (not putting all our eggs in one basket), and in terms of species that go in different directions of adaptation. I would say that family-making plans are not something you will need to worry about your exact species so much with anyway if you have the gene editing tech to modify yourselves to be more compatible with each other, or even to do some IVF. There are also plenty of orphans to adopt and give their own say on who they want to be.

It's important to remember that access to GUESS and Geneticiser tech shouldn't be a one-time-only thing. Once it's here and sufficiently advanced, it's something you should be able to use as often as you need. And so should your kids be able to use it as they get older. Like the internet didn't just vanish after bulletin boards and email.

That's because we're not just developing this as some proprietary flash in the pan. It's all open source, so even if Vulpine Labs was to vanish, the tech and the ability to use it will not. That's also why we are not kidding ourselves by claiming we could regulate the tech against every bad actor, any more than an ISP can stop every nasty use of the internet. But we can say that we will diligently do what we actually and reasonably can do to make sure that our contributions, from the tech's initial development to its continued support, training and improvement, are of the best quality possible, thanks to our experience as first movers on it.

*Plural systems obviously share them but that's beside the point

It's true that tools are neutral, it's how people use them that will determine what kind of world we live in.

I saw the news you posted on the other platform (feel free to share here), so I'd like to wrap up with a final question: please share a few of your company's milestones and progress for interested readers that land on this interview and that'd like to contribute to an active project.

Alright, so first one must appreciate that we did not underestimate the magnitude of work required here for the actual technical development itself of the tools. What we underestimated slightly perhaps was the difficulty of persuading people with money to part with it for our cause, and to join with us based on more than just a fleeting enthusiasm, but actually to make it their passion. That's been a really tough challenge and it has shaped what timescales we've actually taken so far. So too have the frauds, liars and those who have joined us only to evaporate at the first sign of actual work to get stuck into. The amount of time we have sunk into that... that's something we were not taught how to deal with at school or college or university.

So it's in that context that progress has been slow. What seemed obvious to me, did not to a whole lot of investors. We went through an absurd number of rewrites of our business plan, only to be told investors don't even want to see a business plan document any more because who has the time for those, only to be told they do want to see basically everything that goes into one anyway. You can't do right for doing wrong as an entrepreneur. What I do ask of them all who are reading this is to be patient and to state what's bothering you and how we can fix it without losing our purpose, so we can learn and improve for you. Thankfully, lately some have actually been doing that.

In terms of milestones...

We've gotten through most stages of the initial designing of the framework of the system, and we flesh it out more whenever we can. The design process has been somewhat organic, as it has taken so long that new technologies which we expected to eventually happen, are now available and so we've been adjusting here and there to fit how they actually work. We have something approaching half of the INITIATOR SET module coded - a module of the GUESS software system, this module is for processing the variables in translation from mRNA to protein. We started with this one because it's actually got more scientific value by itself in terms of filling gaps in bioinformatics, than some of the rest of the system has, but it's also quite doable with our approach to software systems design.

We have all our servers set up and running - we've had those since 2016 and we keep them up to date. Our IT has gone from strength to strength and has really shown the resilience of some of the early choices we made. We stick to open source wherever reasonably possible, to be true to our purpose. Our CIO recently solved a server problem that had eluded many attempts to fix it, and so got our collaborative document editing up and running without need for Google.

What's coming next is to really increase our funding so we can afford to pay people and upgrade our equipment. We want to get our developers on the task full time, and we want to hire many more of them. We also want to get the whole GUESS, not just half of one module out of 27, to version 1.0 completion. This will take a few years maybe, depending on how many issues we encounter.

We also want to establish a lab and buy equipment suited to the tasks required for the prototyping of the Geneticiser.

Most of all, we want to emphasise that in 15 years of efforts so far, What has held us back has not been scientific limitations, but rather financial limitations and limitations of people's imagination or comprehension of the feasibility of our work. These can be overcome. These are not hard and fast barriers. But we do need to be able to pay our team properly so that we can fully document our designs and systems and properly explain them. What we have so far in our documentation is far from complete. It's mostly works in progress. It's a lot to ask people to fund a work in progress, but that doesn't stop a whole bunch of projects from successfully doing so out there.

Right now, we're running a WeFunder campaign. wefunder.com/vulpine.labs.inc is the main link, and we also need you to read this link too for legal reasons according to WeFunder. help.wefunder.com/testing-the-waters-legal-disclosure

With the right backing, this will help us get this whole thing moving at the pace it deserves. Frankly, the importance of this project is beyond money and it ought to have governments and companies falling over each other to fund it and provide other resources if they all actually understood it fully, but I'm guessing the fact that that hasn't happened means they have some combination of not thinking the same way I do and not really knowing much about it or its implications. Hopefully, this thread and places where I re-use the text from it with mild edits elsewhere, might help a bit with the underlying societal awareness of us and what we are about, and maybe somewhat dispel some of the weird myths that a few have tried to share about us. Perhaps the least plausible of which, and one of the most recent, is that I'm somehow rich. If I was, I wouldn't be doing a WeFunder campaign and also running a Patreon donation page ( patreon.com/vulpinedesigns ) to keep us afloat in the meantime because WeFunder takes a while to build up.

I hope my candour here is understood how it is honestly intended. As experience has taught me many times, one can never take the correct reading of one's intent online for granted. So I apologise pre-emptively if my language hasn't quite carried the perfect tone you'd hope to see. To paraphrase the doctor from Star Trek, I'm a genetic editing systems engineer, not a social expert.

To you all, I invite you to ask questions. To get you started, here are some I have answered before.

"Can I be a guinea pig for your system?"
No. If you want to speed its progress up, we need help developing it or there will be no system to test on anyone or anything.

"Can you do this, that or the other very specific medical or cosmetic thing to someone's body with this system though?"
Maybe? That's something we would know far better once it's built.

"Surely only the rich will be able to afford to use this?"
The system is open source and we are doing what we can to keep the costs not only as low as possible, but the system designed to not require some of the most expensive things usually required in genetic science, by working smarter rather than more expensively. That means some things can now be handled by software, and some things don't need reagents when you do more clever work with your lasers and mathematics. Our money will be made from our support contracts, co-development with clients to create bespoke extensions, hosting the online (cloud) version, and training, among other services.

"Won't you just take the money and run?"
If I was going to do that, I wouldn't have stayed in touch with our earliest investors to keep them appraised of our progress. If I was going to do that, I wouldn't have made this project so complicated. There are far simpler and more efficient ways to get money from people.

"Why is the project so complicated? Can't you just simplify it down to something much more similar to existing tools and methods?"
That's like asking NASA why they couldn't start the moonshot project off by just making a boat or a balloon, and indefinitely put off the development of Apollo while they tweak the perfect new boat or balloon or boat-launched balloon. That's not how you get to the Moon.

Finally, our website is vulpine-labs.com
Our Mastodon is @vulpinelabs@furry.engineer
Our LinkedIn is linkedin.com/company/vulpine-labs-inc/

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And you can ask me in DMs for Signal, Telegram, Discord, Mattermost, Matrix, VRChat, Steam, Second Life, Open Simulator, DeviantArt, FurAffinity, Google Talk, Project Z, Mighty Networks, Zoom, Skype, IRC, emails, phone calls, letters and/or establishing a carrier pigeon route. I really hope nobody takes me up on that last one because I have no way to adequately care for or return a carrier pigeon.

Lol

Alright, thank you for your time and for granting us this small interview. I wish you success in this awesome project!