Bio Monthly (May 2025): BioAgents, Small Molecules, Bio x AI Hackathon Prize, DeSci Knowledge Graphs

Highlights from the past month of bio acceleration:

• The Bio x AI Hackathon crossed its midpoint, with $25K awarded in midpoint prizes, as part of the $125K total prize pool, to three teams, utilizing technologies from elizaOS, OriginTrail, and PrimeIntellect. The hackathon still offers $100K in remaining prizes. Submit a project in the Bio Discord by June 8, with winners being announced June 10 live at DeSci Berlin.
• Bio co-founder Paul Kohlhaas shared a high-level vision for integrating AI scientists into the Bio Protocol, giving BioDAOs, pharma companies, and the general public new ways to interact with scientific ideas and experiments.
• MycoDAO and SpineDAO crossed their funding thresholds and achieved successful public market debuts, with product development underway as well as incentivized data collection to generate decentralized knowledge graphs.
• The Bio Core Team's 1-Year Cliff for BIO tokens, originally set to unlock on May 28 2025, will stay locked with the unlock pushed back six months, until November 2025.
• Renowned MIT Professor Ed Boyden will join DeSci Berlin this month.

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🌐 Enter the Biosphere 🌐

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Agentic Science Hackathon Midpoint Prizes

We crossed the midpoint of the Bio x AI hackathon, and awarded $25,000 in midpoint prizes, as part of the $125,000 total prize pool, to three teams, utilizing technologies from elizaOS, OriginTrail, and PrimeIntellect.

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Midpoint prize awards go to:

• Rare Compute received $10,000 for their Protein design MCP server, an @elizaOS plugin, simplifying access to the Protein Data Bank. It allows AI agents to retrieve real-time protein structure data through a modular, token-efficient interface, supporting applications like protein design, function prediction, and generative chemistry, and addressing inefficiencies in BioML workflows that often rely on static or bulky data.
• SpineDAO was awarded $10,000 for Chronos, which mines historical medical texts to generate new hypotheses for spine surgery. Drawing inspiration from the rediscovery of artemisinin, Chronos organizes historical data into a semantic graph linked to modern medical frameworks, with added features like OCR and long-term document storage to preserve and produce actionable medical insights.
• ValleyDAO was awarded $5,000 for their Phlo project, an AI research translation platform, designed to translate scientific papers into practical wet-lab projects. Phlo connects research findings to reagents/protocols, and funding opportunities, supporting the entire process from technology evaluation to business model design and fundraising, with the goal of helping researchers turn basic science into scalable biotech ventures.

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The hackathon still offers $100,000 in remaining prizes, encouraging developers, scientists, and entrepreneurs to create decentralized scientific AI agents and agentic science prototypes. Submit an application in the Bio Discord by June 8.

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AI Scientists in the Bio Network

The role of Agentic Science in the Bio Network is expanding. Paul Kohlhaas recently discussed how AI scientists in the Bio Network can make the process of discovery and commercialization more efficient and community-driven.

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You can think of Bio as a decentralized layer for scientific funding and coordination powered by agentic AI.

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Global research communities gain access to a suite of decentralized tools to accelerate any field of biomedical research:

• Decentralized Knowledge Graphs: Communities of patients and researchers upload scientific data to decentralized knowledge graphs focused on a biomedical field or an individual research project (like longevity or rare diseases).
• BioAgents: AI agents equipped with onchain wallets use knowledge graphs to generate hypotheses, design and validate experiments and trigger funding, receiving payment when they perform well.
• Funding & Commercialization: Bio’s onchain funding and IP layer is natively integrated with BioAgents, allowing research communities to rapidly fund experiments, with CoreAgents handling IP claims, data storage, licensing and monetization.

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Meanwhile, Sean Brennan, head of Agentic Science at Bio, discussed key differences between BioAgents and Web2 agents, and equipping scientific agents with onchain wallets for rapid funding of experiments and rewarding performance.

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Our goal in the coming weeks and months is to release public infrastructure and applications that plug AI scientists into decentralized data, compute and crypto funding mechanisms.

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The first BioAgent launch is coming soon. Stay tuned 👀

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Core Team's 1-Year BIO Cliff Stays Locked

• Bio governance passed a proposal to delay the core team's 1-cliff unlock (originally set to unlock on May 28 2025) by 6 months and to start unlocking linearly on November 14, 2025.
• Postponing the team unlock aims to align unlocks with product milestones and keep the team and community focused on shipping, adoption and ecosystem growth.

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MYCO & SPINE Launches

• MycoDAO raised $468,000 in SOL to fund Field Labs and decentralized mycology research, focusing on fungal-based medicine, materials, and bioremediation. Join the MYCO Community.
• SpineDAO raised $827,000 in SOL to advance AI-powered spine care. They also launched LAMINA, an AI agent co-developed with Preprints, with plans to incentivize data collection to build a decentralized knowledge graph. Join the SPINE Community.

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Both projects are in the process of building decentralized knowledge graphs from community-sourced R&D data to support revenue-generating products and specialized AI agents.

🌐  Network Updates

• VitaDAO announced a call for projects for VitaLabs Season 2, inviting researchers to apply for funding to tackle high-risk longevity research over 4-month seasons -- Apply now. In addition, several VitaDAO-backed projects reported scientific updates, including VITA-FAST, VitaRNA, Rubedo Life Sciences, Repair Biotechnologies, and Cyclarity Therapeutics.
• Cerebrum DAO's SK-Channels project was approved by the community to develop a small molecule drug targeting SK channels to treat ataxia and related tremors. They also shared a progress report highlighting their decentralized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial for memory support, funding for 6 ventures, and partnerships with institutions like Harvard and Yale.
• Long COVID Labs Patient #1 case study showed an 80% reduction in brain fog, 50–70% improvement in sleep and inflammation, but worsened post-exertional malaise and POTS symptoms, returning to baseline by day 30. LCL discussed its plans to build an open-source patient registry aggregating anonymized data on symptoms, treatments, and biomarkers, with data contributors receiving COVID tokens in return. Learn more.
• Curetopia and Perlara are collaborating on a $580,000, 16–20 week project to screen drugs for 10 ARS gene mutations, having screened 96 drugs, identified 3 potential hits for secondary screening and validation, with potential NARS1 expansion. Learn more and watch their first livestream lab meeting.
• ValleyDAO secured $100K in funding from leading climate biotech VC,  JuniperVC to accelerate current projects and seed new SynBio projects. They also introduced their new AI co-pilot, ARI, enhancing research projects by aiding in idea transformation, with knowledge graph integration coming next. They also completed a 12-liter scale-up of their cocoa lipid fermentation, and their portfolio company BioHalo came out of stealth. Learn more.
• PsyDAO's BeeARD project created a Psychedelic Science Knowledge Graph to generate hypotheses and identify overlooked scientific connections. They also launched the beta of their gamified platform, GraphSurfer, an AI-driven gamified platform facilitating learning in psychedelics and biomedicine through play to learn. Their novel ethnobotanical, Kéné Wasté, is also gaining early traction with early users reporting enthusiastic reviews like LSD-like hallucinations.
• Nootropics DAO unveiled Nexus, an AI-powered research engine utilizing decentralized nootropics data to facilitate drug discovery & community-driven research through token incentives.
• Quantum Biology DAO used their hypomagnetic chamber to study E. coli, extracting 40 micrograms of RNA for sequencing to explore magnetic field effects on gene expression. They are also creating a sensor dashboard to broadcast real-time lab conditions and results.
• MicrobiomeDAO was announced as a new BioDAO, addressing the microbiome by leveraging prediction markets and decentralized data ownership, including initiatives like BiomeBanking. Learn more.
• Pump Science did the first "F1y Grand Prix" at the Solana DeSci fair, offering participants a chance to win 2 million GOSSY and 800K ART tokens, using fruit flies to test performance-enhancing compounds. They’re soon launching 17 new compounds, with airdrops of each new token for RIF and URO holders.
• HairDAO sectioned 1,680 hair follicle units and will investigate the effects of Olanzapine and Farnesol on them. They also launched their "Au Naturale," product on Anagen, a no-prescription hair regrowth product using natural ingredients to support scalp health and hair regrowth. The DAO also released a data packet, providing preclinical and in vivo observational studies on T3 and T4 thyroid hormones' impact on hair regrowth. Get exclusive access.
• AthenaDAO launched a Fertility Acceleration site to track and trade fertility research projects and published their "Data & Wearables Report," exploring solutions to the scarcity of quality data in women’s health by leveraging AI, & more. They are also hosting a Demo Day on June 25, featuring 7 projects in ReproTech, Menopause, and AI for Fertility, plus new clinical research programs. Apply to attend.
• CryoDAO is launching the American Biostasis Foundation to establish a leading cryopreservation facility for humans and pets.

💻‍ Dev Updates

• The bio/acc season 1, running from July 2024 to January 2025, distributed 33 million BIO tokens to VitaDAO, Cerebrum DAO, PsyDAO, and Quantum Biology DAO for achieving milestones like launching IP-Tokens and raising research funding. A new season of rewards is being designed aimed at incentivize scientific & community milestones on the network. Learn more.
• We're working on improvements to the Bio curation and fundraising models, incorporating DeSci Agent launches, IPTs and point systems into the launchpad. Expect new designs proposed in our governance forum for community discussion.

🧬 Bio Community Updates

• Paul Kohlhaas led a fireside chat at Solana Accelerate with tech transfer leaders at New York University & Newcastle University to discuss scientific research funding.
• The Solana DeScience Fair at Accelerate 2025 showcased Bio, VitaDAO, SpineDAO, Curetopia, Pump Science, Quantum Biology DAO, MycoDAO, and more. Watch segments of the talks.
• Renowned MIT Professor and Neuroscientist Ed Boyden will join DeSci Berlin on June 10. Sponsors & speakers also include leaders from Curetopia, Bio, Molecule, HairDAO, Gnosis, Protocol Labs, & more. Apply to attend.
• We introduced the Bio Community Leaderboard, tracking community members who create DeSci content and generate the most engagement on X for a chance to win a share of a monthly of $1,200 prize pool. Learn more.
• Bio's Podcast, DeSci Pilled, released new episodes with SpineDAO & PeptideDAO.

Keep up with everything Bio in our Telegram, Discord & Governance forum.