From a robotic lab in a garage to a kinder world.

Ryan Bethencourt, Biohacker, Investor and Entrepreneur.

10 min readNov 18, 2015

Foreword: I have been particularly excited about interviewing Ryan Bethencourt because of the research he is encouraging, facilitating and conducting. Animal friendly meats, eggs and dairy as well as realistic and cheap animal friendly alternatives to medical items are the way forward from an ethical perspective as well as for our health and our environment.

I know very little when it comes to science, which means my questions, I hope, will allow readers from all walks of life to understand and appreciate what this is all about. I have researched and put together a number of hand picked articles on the matter, which you will find by clicking on the many hyperlinks throughout the interview. So, whilst I understand that we don’t often check out these underlined words, I cannot recommend enough you do so this time around if the topic is of interest to you.

Co-Founder of IndieBio, Berkeley Biolabs, Counter Culture labs and LAblaunch. Ryan is a biotech entrepreneur and investor working to accelerate innovations in biotechnology and medicine through collaborative Research and Development, biohacking and open innovation. He has had extensive experience with clinical development from Investigational New Drug through to Food and Drug Administration approval, biotech fundraising and biotech business development and is a passionate vegan, using science and capitalism to disrupt industrial and inhumane use of animals in factory farming to accelerate a post animal bioeconomy.

The Animalist — Hi Ryan, could you please help me introduce yourself. Between your qualifications, your professional experience and your activism, I’m not sure where to start!

Ryan Bethencourt — I’d describe myself as someone who sees the potential and power of low cost biotech, using biology as technology to solve some of humanity’s most intractable problems. I’m a firm believer that humanity can create a better future through technology. Not just for us, but also all the other sentient beings that share our planet with us.

I was involved in 2008/2009 with what we now call biohacking — at the time, we called it community science. During the great recession, biotech companies were going bankrupt, closing doors and myself and a few friends of mine start buying used lab equipment for pennies on the dollar. One of my friends, John Schloendorn, ended up building a robotic lab in his garage and that ended up sparking the biohacker revolution, starting with Biocurious, Genspace, LA biohackers and I went on to co-found Counter Culture Labs, Berkeley Biolabs and more. In the last seven years I’ve helped co-found more biospaces than anyone else I know in the hope of helping more people get access to low cost bio tools. I helped Hampton Creek (back then called beyond eggs) hire their first scientist and I was excited to see one of my friends, Marc Juul and fellow biohackers realize a dream of his, to make real vegan cheese in yeast in collaboration with Counter Culture labs and Biocurious.

I’m a scientist/maker first but also a dedicated vegan (for the last seven years). My aim through my work is not just to accelerate and democratize access to the use of biology to solve some of humanity’s most pressing problems, for food, water, biomaterials and health, but also to accelerate the post animal bioeconomy, finding another more humane and environmentally sustainable way of making the products people want but without the use of other sentient beings (animals).

The Animalist — What is biohacking and why should it interest us?

Ryan Bethencourt — Biohacking has many meanings but usually when I or other scientists/makers use the term, it’s in reference to the use of low cost biotech hardware to make and re-imagine new products with the use of biology as technology. It could be anything from open source insulin to brewed egg whites or animal free milk.

The reason it should interest us is that low cost tools for genetic engineering, that are now available for everyone, with products like Synbiota, Arcturus Biocloud and Amino labs, allow anyone, even children as young as five years old, to explore and understand the source code of life itself and how to reprogram it. I imagine a day, some time in the not too distant future when children and teenagers will be able to create their own genetically engineered machines, cure the diseases of the old and find new ways to build and extend the capabilities of humanity, moving from programming software to program the material world, through biology.

The Animalist — When it comes to GMO or biotechnology, opponents usually declare that we can’t be sure of the long term consequences, that something terrible could be unleashed. Popular fiction such as Fantasia, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice comes to mind. What would you say about this?

Ryan Bethencourt — I think people often fear change and things they don’t understand. There’s a term which I’ve found really helpful in explaining a fallacy that many (including myself) often have to new technologies: the naturalistic fallacy. Anything that is “natural” is good but anything that isn’t is bad. On the face of things, that make sense, until of course we think past just our own life times: nothing humanity does is natural, from our use of fire (arguably one of our first tools), through to use of animals to hunt or living in artificially constructed caves, wearing clothing, which doesn’t naturally grow on our bodies. Or altering and breeding plants to make them more nourishing for humans, while making those same plants fully dependent on us for continued survival — farming itself is unnatural, it’s just a few ten’s of thousands of years old. GMOs are just the latest tool. I often find that people who are against the use of GMOs in their corn or soy, are the same people who will enjoy their cheese (in which 95% have GMO rennet) and wine (fermented, i.e. altered grapes) without blinking.

I often find that when you dig deeply enough, anti plant GMO activists can never give you a clear answer about how much data and study is enough. 10 years? 20 years, 30 years, 50 years? No, that’s never enough, more study is needed. It seems to come down to the same issue, a fear of the unknown, nothing is 100% safe or 100% knowable but the data we’ve accumulated over two decades of the use of GMO’s makes it really clear that the approved GMO crops are as safe as any organic alternative. Conspiracy theories aside, the science (just like climate change) is pretty clear and in support of safety consensus. One of the people I’ve been most disappointed in has been Nassim Taleb, the author of the Black Swan. He’s become a poster boy for this ‘unknowable’ long term consequences issue and whenever scientists have tried to engage in thoughtful discussion, he either insults them or blocks them. I enjoyed his first book but not his most recent bullying tactics backed by nothing more than opinion.

GMOs are just a technology and in the US alone, 3 million + diabetics owe their lives daily to GMO insulin, so do many people whose lives are saved daily by engineered biotherapeutics. This is something that’s often conveniently left out by those that try to demonize the use of GMOs in society.

The sad part of the demonizing of GMOs is that it has happened by some groups that I had a lot of respect for, including Greenpeace, which I’ve personally supported with donations… but most recently I became aware of their anti-GMO activism focus, fighting the growth of GMO crops in developing countries and yet doing relatively little for the animal related causes I thought I was supporting (including saving the whales, I’ve since started backing Sea Sheperd, which I think now more accurately reflects my views). I’m also a supporter of PETA, Mercy For Animals, The Humane Society as I think their focus is clearly on protecting animals vs particular political agendas which aren’t supported by scientific fact but increasingly seem like a form of environmental scaremongering, sadly!

The Animalist — How long have you been veg and why did you stop eating sentient animals?

Ryan Bethencourt — I’ve been veg for a long time, probably about 15 years, starting first with pigs, as I remember seeing my first animal being slaughtered in front of me when I was ten, my biological father took me to get some fresh pork for his birthday. I saw the farmer pull the pig out of its pen, take it screaming to a butcher’s table and plunge a large knife into its head. I watched the pig shake, looked into its eyes as it died, fear and pain clearly visible and that was the last day I ate pork. It took me a few years before I fully made the connection growing up in urban inner city Miami but I eventually stopped eating hamburgers and chicken too. About 7 years ago, I went fully vegan when new friends of mine in LA explained to me how milk and egg production was just as violent as meat production and they were right. Once my eyes were open, I couldn’t turn back. Earthlings the movie was also pivotal in that. Today, I never spend a dollar of my own money supporting the factory farming industry and I’m really proud that my convictions match my actions and I think through biotech, we can remove billions of animals from factory farms, not in life times but in years.

The Animalist — What piece of advice would you give somebody who has decided to take part in reducing animal suffering?

Ryan Bethencourt — I think the important thing is to be kind and patient with yourself, it takes time for many people to walk the journey of reducing animal suffering, we can all do something. I think that expecting perfection from anyone is too much and I view those trying to reduce any form of animal suffering from a compassionate lens. I grew up eating hamburgers, that was food to me and it took me a long time to understand the impact it was having on other sentient beings. I think educating yourself on animal free options is a good start, the 30 day vegan challenge is a great way, another way is to reach out to a friend or family member that’s already started the veg journey and ask for their advice and help. The important part is to start and commit to starting, not to commit to perfection. We’re all still on a path of understanding our impact on all beings.

The Animalist — What do you think about the potential of growing gelatine in microbes for vegan-friendly gelatine foods?

Ryan Bethencourt — I’m incredibly excited by this, I think the power in engineering microbes to produce vegan friendly gelatine would be a huge improvement upon what we currently do, using skin and bones to make gelatine. I’d love to one day, in the not too distant future, have a vegan gummy bear again and know that no being has had to suffer for it!

The Animalist — What products are you specifically working on?

Ryan Bethencourt — In regards to food, we’re working across the board on finding ways to replace milk (Muufri), eggs (Clara Foods), gelatine (Gelzen), seafood (New Wave), meat (Memphis Meats) and a lot more groups that we support working to replace chicken breast, hamburgers and leather and a lot more. We’re also incredibly thankful for non-profit groups like New Harvest, Mercy For Animals, PETA, The Humane Society and the New Omnivore who’ve all supported many of the scientists and entrepreneurs hard at work to make this vision a reality.

The Animalist — What do you foresee as the main marketing challenges?

Ryan Bethencourt — I think the main marketing challenge will be explaining to people that these engineered replacements are identical to the animal based products they already eat and enjoy (not some weird new thing) but without the need to hurt another sentient being.

Biotechnology makes incredible things possible but the challenge, especially in the general public’s understanding of science, is in communicating this clearly, openly, not hiding how these products are made for fear of a public backlash. I believe in people and their ability to logically assess information once it has been clearly communicated.

The Animalist — What are your bets regarding lab meat: when will it hit the shelves at an affordable price?

Ryan Bethencourt — My feeling from the science side is we’ll be able to get to a product that can be produced cost effectively within 3–5 years but the only thing I’m unsure of his how quickly regulators will be able to move to approve these products for the market, my guess is they’ll be a little conservative. So my bet is that the political will lag scientific capability to deliver.