Michael Levin

Yeah.

So just to take one step back, one of the things that a lot of people get stuck on is they say, well...

know engineering requires new uh dna circuits or it requires new nanomaterials you know what the thing is we are now moving from old school engineering which use passive materials right the things that you know wood metal things like this that basically the only thing you could depend on is that they were going to keep their shape that's it they don't do anything else you it's on you as an engineer to make them do everything they're going to do and then there were active materials and now computation materials this is a whole new era these are agential materials

This is your, you're now collaborating with your substrate because your material has an agenda.

These cells have, you know, billions of years of evolution.

They have goals.

They have preferences.

They're not just going to sit where you put them.

That is exactly right.

That is exactly right.

It's funny, we're on the same page here because in a paper, this is currently just been accepted in Nature Bioengineering.

One of the figures I have is building a tower out of Legos versus dogs, right?

So think about the difference, right?

If you build out of Legos, you have full control over where it's going to go.

But if somebody knocks it over, it's game over.

With the dogs, you cannot just come and stack them.

They're not going to stay that way.

But the good news is that if you train them, then somebody knocks it over, they'll get right back up.

So it's all right.

So as an engineer, what you really want to know is what can I depend on this thing to do?