Semiconductor circuits were once laid out manually, with scalpels and stencils being the primary tools to pattern silicon with photolithography.
The future will be
genetically engineered
Engineered biology will be the most important technology of the 21st century. We empower the genetic designers who are building the future.

Computer-aided design has transformed our world
Every engineering discipline has been revolutionized by computer-aided design in the past 50 years.
We’re building the first CAD platform for biology
By applying abstraction, standardization, characterization, and modeling to biology, we aim to transition genetic engineering into a fully-fledged engineering discipline.
Our story so far
As genetic designers, we started Asimov to build the tools we always wanted.


01
Roots in the Voigt and Densmore labs
Our company's story begins in the labs of our co-founders, Chris Voigt (MIT) and Doug Densmore (Boston University). Over the course of a multi-year collaboration, Chris and Doug worked to build the foundations of genetic logic circuit design to program living cells. Alec Nielsen, Asimov's co-founder and CEO, joined the Voigt lab as a PhD student during this time.

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02
Cello for genetic circuit design
In 2016, Chris, Doug, Alec, and collaborators at NIST released Cello, a platform for automated genetic circuit design. Cello was made possible through extensively-engineered modular genetic logic gates, standardized host cells, and software for algorithmic design and simulation.

03
Asimov founded to tackle genetic design
In 2017, Chris, Doug, Alec, and Raja Srinivas founded Asimov, receiving early backing from Andreessen Horowitz and DARPA. Our approach stems from the same philosophy used for Cello – integrate state-of-the-art synthetic biology in the lab with computational tools.
Ours is a culture of recombination
Recombination
Mission first
Continuous learning
Thoughtful communication
Evolution
Meet our people

Alex Aguilar

Kwasi Amoako

Julie Andriolo

Laura Avram

Kami Boers

Rachel Bozadjian

Jenny Breselow

Adam Carcella

Arturo Casini

Michelle Chang

HaeWon Chung

Carlos Coelho

Joe Collins

Jorge Conde

Lucas Corley

Martín Cárcamo

Max Dalla Porta

Nick De La Torre

Douglas Densmore

Manali Desai

Kate Dray

Brendan Eder

Omar El-Gouch

Amanda Embree

Nick Emery

Scott Estes

Alina Ferdman

Jamie Freeman

Xiaoran Fu

Jeremy Gam

Imroz Ghangas

Luis Gonzalez

Akash Gopaluni

Ben Gordon
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Zach Gottlieb

Julie Hachey

Traci Haddock

Ed Hall

Emily Hickman

Ian Hill

Brianna Jayanthi

Will Johnson

Aida Kalantari

Rachel Kelemen

Szilvia Kiriakov

Ravi Kommajoysula

Thibault Laurent

Kevin LeShane

David Lei

Michael Leonard

Paulena Lieske

Alissa Likavec

Niko McCarty

Paul McCracken

Jeff McMahan

Anaïs Moisy
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Alec Nielsen

Casey O'Connor

Lei Pan

Dan Phelps

Fred Polgardy

Katelin Pratt

Anna Prendeville

Gabriel Radzki

Jessica Rock

Felicity Rudge

Dylan Samperi

Vinicius Schettino

Adrian Serna

Gaelle Severe

Kevin Smith

Samuel Smith

Raja Srinivas

Christopher Stach

Rose Stewart

Mark Stockdale

Georgian Tutuianu

Becca Van Nederynen

Christopher Voigt

Steve Von Stetina

Kai Wang

Dan Weaver

Layton Wedgeworth

Bronson Weston

Matt Wong

Lila Wroblewska
