Manifesto

The convergence of laboratory automation, high-throughput assays, and machine learning is moving the medium of biological discovery to silicon.

Bench top experimentation will be the machine code of the biological programmer, simple instructions that are executed by robotics just as bytes are fed through a compiler.

However, if the goal of creating arbitrary synthetic life is to be realized, we need to upgrade our tooling. We will need robust software that operates at the abstraction level of the organism. We will need a programming language that speaks fluently with DNA, RNA, and amino acids as native primitives.

We have attempted to adapt the tooling of classical computing towards the biological domain without teaching the computer about biology. We wonder why we haven't cured cancer or reproduced Jurassic Park, meanwhile our DNA sits in computer memory as static bytecode. These bits are completely unaware of their own evolutionary lineage and involvement in the rich networks of biochemistry that characterize living systems. Without such context, this reduction is wasteful.

Databases of sequences should be exploding with exploratory computation — mining networks of open access biological data for patterns — and they should do so autonomously and continuously. No spare CPU clock cycle should be allowed to go idle.

The Internet has become a kitchen sink for the residual yet valuable data exhaust of the academic machine. We need to be continuously mining this space for insight and knowledge that can be encoded into therapeutics and new biological building blocks.

The world was first eaten by the transistor, then by the Internet, then by software. We are now on the cusp of a new marriage of such predecessors. We will use software to connect and orchestrate transistors through the Internet to engineer biology.

The goal of The Latch Project is to build and disseminate the data infrastructure of the biocomputing revolution.

Team

“The team behind LatchBio is young, ambitious and very supportive — they listen and are willing to evolve with the customers and adapt to the needs. This flexibility is very valuable in these dynamic times when so many new tools become available every day.”
-Molecular Partners

Investors

  • George Church
    George Church

    Founding Core Faculty & Lead, Synthetic Biology Wyss Institute at Harvard University. Professor, Harvard Medical School and MIT

  • Jeff Dean
    Jeff Dean

    SVP, Google Research and Health, and Google Senior Fellow

  • Laura Deming
    Laura Deming

    Managing Partner, Longevity Fund

  • Hemant Taneja
    Hemant Taneja

    Managing Partner of General Catalyst

  • Brandon White
    Brandon White

    Head of Product at Spring, Founding PM at Freenome, Early ML Engineer at Uber

  • Brian Naughton, Ph.D.
    Brian Naughton, Ph.D.

    Co-Founder and Head of Data at Hexagon Bio, Prev. Founding Scientist at 23andMe

  • Alec Nielsen, Ph.D.
    Alec Nielsen, Ph.D.

    Asimov co-founder and CEO

With Support From

Coatue Logo50 Years LogoLux CapitalGeneral Catalyst LogoHaystack Logo

Careers

Growth at LatchBio

We’re on a mission to build the best team in the world. We appreciate excellence, and we know you do too; it’s a moving target, so we show up to work everyday with a drive for growth; that’s the charm of the LatchBio workforce.

Explore Our Teams
Engineering at Latch

It’s no easy feat to be on the small team of engineers who build Latch from scratch. When you engineer at LatchBio, you will work on difficult problems in software spanning web development, systems programming, database administration, algorithmic programming, cloud infrastructure, etc.

Engineers are given enormous responsibility and creative freedom over the design and implementation of features built. Career fulfillment at Latch is maximal: the code we ship will often touch thousands of scientists the same day it's released. Engineers get to experience this process end-to-end; we work directly with these end users to fix issues and aggressively improve our tools.

We are an intellectually curious team that enjoy learning about software, math and science. We host regular reading groups covering topics from category theory to immunology. There is no ceiling to what you’re able to achieve or work on at LatchBio.

Benefits

You perform your best when you feel your best. We’re building a high-performance team and don’t hold back on benefits that make people feel healthy, be fulfilled, and do the best work of their lives

  • Unlimited PTO policy
  • 100%-subsidized premium on Cigna’s platinum health plan, and 75%-subsidized coverage for dependents.
  • Dental and vision insurance
  • 401(k) plan options
  • Ambitious equity incentives
  • Fully-subsidized office parking
  • Signing bonus and competitive compensation
  • 12+ meals provided weekly
  • Annual technology stipend
  • Company-sponsored professional development
  • O-1 visa sponsorship
  • Team-wide science reading groups
Are you ready to work hard and accelerate your career?

We want to hear from you. Find a role that fulfills your ambitions and come build with us.

Explore Open Roles