2Epic Quest Bio™ is a role-playing game that serves as the management system of the real-life biotech startup Molecular Reality Corporation.
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4We're on an epic quest to free mankind from disease.
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6All sentient beings subject to disease are welcome to play.
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8I'll explain here what Molecular Reality Corporation is building, how it could eradicate disease, why we're managing the project in the form of a game, and how to play. Then you'll see the enrollment form, and you'll be able to start playing right away.
11Right now, in 2025, if you think you've got COVID, you shove a cotton swab up your nose, mix it with some special liquids, and wait for a line to appear on a strip of paper. That's it. That's the pinnacle of at-home molecular detection. It lets you look at exactly one kind of thing, one time only, and can't tell you about anything else.
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13For cancer, there are many molecules to look for, but nothing you can easily buy or easily use to look for them.
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15In 2025, if you might have cancer, you endure a gauntlet of doctor's appointments and tests performed by technicians using large, expensive instruments. You might also take blood tests that, despite much hype, more often than not fail to detect early stages. It's very expensive, and at best gives you slightly less uncertainty about the future.
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17As for aging (the main contributor to cancer and the biggest cause of biological suffering, by far) everybody has a death sentence, and you can't count on a pardon from future biotech. (We haven't been to the moon in five decades. Progress is not inevitable!)
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19Right now, if you want to suffer less from aging, you might order blood tests and change your diet. Avid life extensionists might go above and beyond, starving for the faint hope offered by caloric restriction. With some wealth, you might pursue obsessive luxury regimens, but nothing you can do beyond a healthy diet, good sleep, and regular exercise is very likely to make a difference.
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21What all these problems have in common is the need to "see" things too small to see with your own eyes—the constituents of molecular reality.
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23For covid, it's the little spiky monsters that killed seven million people in the last half decade.
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25For cancer, it's many different things, some of them well-known and very strongly predictive, some of them still obscure, and many still to be discovered. Many of them exist in urine which is nicer than having to get poked with a needle, but over-the-counter tests are still at least a few years away, and will only warn of a few specific cancers.
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27For aging, the problem isn't warning; in 2025, there's no advanced molecular assay that beats the bathroom mirror. The problem is the hopelessness of intervention by known means, rooted in how little biomolecular complexity we grasp. And when we do, someday soon, hopefully, get real rejuvenation medicine, it will be highly personalized, so you'll still need to "see" lots of molecules.
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29We should be "seeing" molecular reality, from everyone and everywhere, right at home. Every day, we flush the secrets of human biology, the keys to predicting and treating diseases, down billions of toilet drains.
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31But what if that wasn't the case, and cheap, robust, powerful devices in toilet drains could get all that information, and you could see it all yourself?
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33What if those devices could replace any and all liquid lab tests you might ever need, so cancer and infectious disease would never catch you by surprise?
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35And what if, when enough of us use such devices every day, all clinical trials become fully personalized, and we let the whole world of biomedical researchers study the data?
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37If I'm right about what that would mean for all of us, no amount of money, effort, time, attention, and struggle is too much to achieve it. It seems to me an essential part of human destiny, like getting to the stars, but even deeper than that.
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39We would rapidly find ourselves in a world in which infectious agents have a very hard time spreading between people. But when something does get into you that you don't want in you, you'll see that you've caught it before you even feel symptoms, and when you do that early enough, your odds of surviving go way up and how long you'll feel sick goes way down. If that's all we were trying to do here, it would be one of the most important things we've ever done as a species. But, it's just the beginning.
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41Not long after that, cancer would go from being an Emperor of Maladies to a manageable inconvenience. Extremely early detection would be the norm.
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43And a few years beyond that, we would have a world in which biological aging, and all the suffering that comes with it, becomes optional.
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45The devices themselves won't cure people—people will cure people. But the people will have access to more and better data they've ever dreamed of having.
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47And, with the equivalent of an advanced biomedical laboratory, in your toilet, YOU just might be the scientist who saves you, especially if you've built up the background that you'll gain from playing this game with us in the coming years.
50Our technical mission is to build "utility-scale solid-state universal high-throughput single-molecule sensing". You could also call it "a billion biomedical labs" (functionally equivalent!) or Universal Molecular Streaming™ (for the marketing team! Better suggestions welcome). Let's break this down:
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52Utility-scale: Like electricity or running water, this will be a seamless part of daily life. By 2040, observing molecular reality could be as effortless as turning on a faucet. Every bathroom could host a portal to another universe. People will look back in horror at our era—where almost all of us are blind to the nanoscale, suffering the consequences of that blindness.
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54Solid-state: Devices won't require special binding molecules to detect targets (a dead-end approach for robust, cheap, universal tech).
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56High-throughput single-molecule sensing: Current lab tests need millions of identical molecules to "see" anything. We'll detect and count molecules one at a time (single-molecule) and enough of them in a short period of time (high-throughput) to get statistically valid information.
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58Universal: Detect virtually any water-soluble molecule, even unknown ones. With analytically universal sensors (nearly synonymous with solid-state), you'd never fear mirror-life, engineered pandemics, or biochemically alien microbes on Mars.
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60We'll drill into the "how" of all of this in a moment. But, first:
63When I describe this vision, there are a handful of predictable immediate objections.
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65"You sound like Theranos!"
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67You may have a case of Theranos Derangement Syndrome. Don't worry, just take 15 milligrams of Epic Quest Bio™ for a complete recovery.
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69Theranos was trying to develop blood tests that worked on single drops of blood; aside from whether their path was feasible, this is certainly in the realm of the possible. Trying was not the crime. Tens of thousands of honest people, in labs, startups, and corporations all over the world, work toward similar goals. More people should know this!
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71"I already heard about such-and-such company selling Smart Toilets that do this!"
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73No, you didn't, but you might have thought that's what you heard about. What you actually heard about was any of various products and prototypes that use well-established technologies to measure things like body weight, hydration levels, pH, blood oxygenation, heart rate, and a small number of known biomarkers for certain infections or diseases. That's cool, and complements what we're doing, but our goals are radically more ambitious.
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75"If we just installed more air filters and UV-C lights we'd have a huge impact on cancer and infectious diseases without some big epic quest for new technology!"
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77100% agree. Clean filtered air with UV lamps to kill viruses would save millions of lives every year. So would banning ultraprocessed foods, getting more people to take statins, and killing all mosquitos. These are not technological challenges, they're human psychology challenges. Even basic sanity is an epic quest!
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79I want all that to happen, but I don't know how to do it with the status quo. I'm pretty sure I know how to develop technologies that do an end-run around human self-subversion.
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81I say: do good, in the way that calls to you. We're all on Team Basic Sanity.
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83"This is a waste of time, superintelligent AI will cure all diseases and is the only thing worth working on!"
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85An ocean of talented humans with ungodly resources are betting their lives on that, but short of genie-level magic emerging from AI systems, I don't see how they'll cure all diseases without what we're building.
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87The scenarios where I'm wrong are apocalyptically unpredictable anyway, and outcomes range from paradise to hell. There are people trying to do something about all that, and I wish them luck.
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89Full-speed ahead with human-led biotech!
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91"There is no technology that can do what you're saying!"
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93Agreed! There is no technology yet that can measure, identify, characterize, discover, and count any type of molecule in a compact, affordable, durable, easy-to-use device one can install in a toilet. There are no sci-fi level "portals to molecular reality".
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95But there *is* a clear (but epic!) path to such a technology, based on decades of work and tens of thousands of research papers, and even our own early proofs-of-concept at Molecular Reality Corporation. We already have mountains of evidence that Universal Molecular Streaming™ can be built, but even so it will still take several years and thousands of caring creative nerds to actually build it. That's the whole enchilada! Or, rather...
98In 1948, Wallace Coulter saw a problem. Nuclear war seemed imminent, and if bombs dropped, doctors would need to quickly assess radiation damage in thousands of survivors. The test involved counting blood cells, which meant technicians squinting through microscopes, clicking mechanical counters one cell at a time. In a crisis, people would die waiting.
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100So Coulter did one of the most random-sounding but legendary things in the history of medical test development: he poked a hole in the cellophane wrapper from a pack of cigarettes.
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102Coulter's big invention: Run electricity through salt water between two electrodes. Block the path with something that doesn't conduct electricity (like cellophane). No current flows. But poke a tiny hole in the barrier, and current flows again. Now suction some blood cells through that hole. Each cell that passes blocks the current for a moment, creating a blip you can count.
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104In his Chicago basement lab, Coulter built this concept, using an oscilloscope, a battery, saltwater, his own blood, and that cellophane, into what would become the world's most commonly used medical test.
107As decades passed, researchers figured out how to use holes thousands of times smaller, holes the size of single proteins and even smaller.
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109If you're not 15 years into hiding under a rock to avoid popular science articles, you've heard about one of these types of holes, protein-based nanopores, that form from natural proteins. The star of the show was alpha-hemolysin, a toxin that bacteria use to punch holes in red blood cells. Turns out, if you stick one of these protein pores in an artificial membrane and thread DNA through it, you can read the genetic sequence as it passes. Oxford Nanopore Technologies turned this trick into a multi-billion dollar business, making DNA sequencers the size of USB sticks.
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111But protein-based nanopores are not going to get us to Universal Molecular Streaming™. They're fragile. They don't last for more than a few days. They need very specific conditions. They can only detect certain types of molecules. They're like having a key that only opens one lock, when what we need is a skeleton key for the entire molecular universe.
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113Solid-state pores range in size from the macroscopic ruby tubes NASA used to measure moon dust down to sub-nanometer pores through which single-stranded DNA can just barely squeeze. They can last indefinitely under the right conditions, can be fabricated and regenerated in some cases using only electricity, and can even be mechanically adjusted in size and shape in real-time (we pioneered a form of that at Molecular Reality Corporation).
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115In the past few decades, heroic scientists have done heroic things with nanopores. If you've ever been in the trenches in such a lab, you know why I say "heroic"—this research requires heroic persistence, and patience.
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117Nanopore scientists have figured out how to trap a single molecule and send it back and forth through the same pore hundreds of times. Each pass gives a slightly different signal, and averaging them together creates measurements so precise they can detect differences smaller than a hydrogen atom.
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119Proteins are flamboyant. They're not just different sizes; they tumble, spin, stretch, and fold into different shapes. Nanopore scientists have found ways to track such gymnastics, along with measuring size, shape, electrical charge, which way they're facing, and how fast they're spinning. You can even catch proteins folding, the still-mysterious process whereby floppy strings of amino acids somehow assemble into functional shapes.
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121Some researchers have flipped the whole measurement scheme sideways, measuring current across the pore walls instead of through the hole. This opens up entirely new ways to read molecular information.
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123The thinnest nanopores are made from graphene, a sheet of carbon just one atom thick. Other nanopores use tiny gold structures that concentrate light into the sensing zone, amplifying faint signals. Some are decorated with DNA origami structures that work like molecular bouncers, only letting certain guests through the door.
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125Each breakthrough brings us closer to devices that can identify any molecule, but it's going to take Epic Quest Bio™ to reach the finish line.
128There's a common metaphor that's really strange if you think about: describing really complex things as "rocket science". You could probably give an intuitive understanding of rockets to a caveman with pantomime and stick drawings in the sand. Pointy tube, fire comes out bottom, whoosh.
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130Pore-based sensing sounds simple too, but as the pores and the analytes get smaller it gets more and more unpredictable and counterintuitive.
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132There is no way out of having to do a huge number of experiments and have a huge number of people thinking about them. Our plan to solve nanopore sensing will achieve the needed scale, based on this very simple truth: a nanopore R&D lab can fit in your hand.
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134That's what the MR1 Molecular Streaming Device is, basically. If you want one of the first, we'll put your order in the queue. You can also play Epic Quest Bio™ and help us reach our goal of being able to give the first thousand of them away.
137Before we get into the game itself, you should know who's behind all this, and get a chance to see some cool stuff that may draw you further in.
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139I've used "we" here to refer to the early contributors to our mission, and aspirationally, to the thousands of geeks and gamers and dreamers and visionaries I hope we recruit to play our game.
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141But who am I? Call me "Kemmishtree." It's partly my actual name, and partly a silly pun a lab partner gave me years ago. You may ask: where did I go to school?... what are my credentials?... who have I worked with and where?... You can easily find all that out, but it's not what matters.
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143Name-dropping makes Kemmishtree sad. Never mind the impressive people I've worked with, the august institutions, the cloud capp'd towers. Nevermind affiliations, credentials, all the meretricious social proof signalling that buzzes like a Harrison Bergeron implant when people like me flex with all such blah-blah-blah. Let me SHOW you some of the things I (and/or We) have either done or helped do.
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145If some of the nano/techno eye candy you'll glimpse doesn't fill you with wonderment, you probably won't have *fun* playing Epic Quest Bio™. But if you see the kind of stuff, and you just have to know more, you're in the right place.
150Not long after I realized that an army of Player Scientists™ was a better way to build analytically-universal compact molecular sensing at home (Universal Molecular Streaming™!), I realized that even the entire coordination structure needed was better served by a game than by a standard-issue VC-backed biotech startup.
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152I realized that *everything* we need to do as a startup can and should be gamified, and so I started designing Epic Quest Bio™.
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154I was partly inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons campaigns I played as a child to realize that all the roles that one can play in a biotech startup can be thought of as "character classes", just like those in D&D.
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156The enrollment form will ask you to choose two character classes, one as a "major" and one as a "minor".
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158Pick your character classes based on a mixture of two things: what you're actually best at in real life, and what you want to learn about and get better at.
162What would you have guessed the fighter/warrior type class would do in a startup roleplaying game? Obviously, getting that almighty dollar! In the red-in-tooth-and-claw world of biotech startup fundraising, you must eat rejection for breakfast and ask for seconds. Where others see "we'll be cheering from the sidelines," you see "not brave enough to join us yet." Born ready for elevator-pitched battles, you make sure the guild does not run out of gold mid-quest.
164You code, you hack, you do whatever it takes to bend the bytes of digital reality to your envisioned outcome. So much to do: help finish the tile-world MMORPG that thousands of future Epic Quest Bio™ players will navigate, work on the advanced machine learning algorithms we'll feed millions of nanopore experiments into, manage exabytes of raw signal data over three years of collective experimentation, upgrade the onboard software in the MR1 Molecular Streaming Device, or help complete development of Maxine's Quest (the platform that gamifies data collection on the MR1). Your powers will unite two planes of reality.
166You handle the cursed scrolls (contracts), ward off the demons (lawsuits), destroy trolls with the light of truth (open-source patents), and ensure we don't accidentally violate the ancient taboos (federal regulations). You keep us alive so we can keep others alive. You're part therapist, part lawyer, part accountant, part miracle worker. Every epic quest needs its healers, and Clerics heal organizational wounds before they fester.
168You love beautiful machines and making them. Give you a problem and access to a machine shop, and you'll figure it out. In this quest, you'll make the widgets and boxes and actuators that provide portals to molecular reality. You're the party's blacksmith but your forge runs on 3d printer resin and G-code.
170You love games and understand their power. You transform grinding data collection into thrilling adventures, turn tedious calibration into boss battles, and make your fellow Player Scientists™ feel like heroes saving the world (because they are). Without you, we're just another boring biotech company. With you, we'll eventually be the world's first biotech company that millions of people will feel like they're a part of.
172There's an obscure rhetorical term called "anthimeria". One example is when you use a noun as if it's a verb. When Matt Damon's character in The Martian says "I'm gonna have to science the shit out of this", that's anthimeria. The character class name "Sciencer" anthimeriates "science" full circle, from noun to verb and back to noun. In Epic Quest Bio™, Sciencers science. All kinds of relevant hard science: molecular and cellular biology and genetics, nanopore science, physics, materials science, chemistry, bioinformatics, zoology, botany, virology, microbiology, astrobiology. If you have professional expertise and/or a passionate interest in any of these, definitely choose "Sciencer" as your major class. Everyone who plays Epic Quest Bio™ is a Player Scientist™, and everyone will science, but Sciencers will science the most sciencely.
174You command the logic of lightning trapped in arcane patterns by the spellbooks of Faraday, Maxwell, Nyquist, Shannon, Keithley, Widlar, Carver Mead, Neher & Sakmann, and Horowitz & Hill. You're an electrical wizard who can measure currents so small that individual electrons feel personally observed.
176You practice the ancient human magic of making other humans pay attention. You translate our nerd-speak into normal human, making people care about femtoamps and flow cells. Maybe you make music. Maybe you make memes. Maybe you do interpretive TikTok dances about nanopores (please keep them PG-rated). You're equal parts educator, propagandist, and showman. Without you, we're just weirdos with weird futuristic devices in our hands. With you, we might actually inspire the masses to join our quest instead of throwing rocks.
179Right now, Epic Quest Bio™ runs like D&D in someone's basement—emails, chat groups, maybe some video calls. I'm your GM, at least until we grow too big for that.
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181You earn XP (eXperience Points) for completing missions. Design a better nanopore? XP. Write code that works? XP. Convince someone to join our quest? XP. Run experiments that generate good data? Mad XP.
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183Important: XP is NOT crypto. It's NOT worth money. It's a score that tracks your contributions to the mission. If we succeed in our quest—and that's a big if—we plan to convert XP into actual advisory stock in Molecular Reality Corporation. Think of it as formalized karma. Traditional advisory stock vests automatically over time even if the advisor does nothing after signing. Our system rewards actual contribution, not just showing up.
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185This is all legal and above board—US corporate law lets companies grant advisory stock for contributions to the mission. Your XP score keeps track of those contributions. No guarantees, no get-rich-quick schemes, just a fair way to recognize everyone who helps us cure all diseases.