35. Reimagining Drug Discovery and Diagnostics w/ Jim Collins

In this episode of EBRC In Translation, Talia Jacobson and Will Grubbe interview Jim Collins of MIT, a pioneer of synthetic biology. He reflects on his path from human biomechanics and early gene circuit design to AI-driven antibiotic discovery. Collins discusses how deep learning is enabling new antibiotics despite market challenges, what makes research translation succeed, and the growing role of computation in biology. He also recounts developing RNA diagnostics and early CRISPR-based plat...