In 2015, I started Nanome Inc. I wanted to shatter the interfacial bottleneck, or mouse and keyboard legacy, and create better tools for nanoengineering design via virtual reality. Breakthrough insights and advancements are frequently impeded by anachronistic interfaces; structural biologists still use command line to manipulate 3D data. These software norms are baffling to me. Wiggling a mouse is not an intuitive way to understand protein structures.

Toying with an early alpha of Nanome software, circa 2015.

I graduated from the University of California, San Diego and the world’s first Department of Nanoengineering’s inaugural class. For four years, I researched experimental Materials Science in a lab, peering down into our reality through Electron Microscopes, Atomic Force Microscopes and other analysis equipment. I wanted to share the beauty and experience of the nanoscopic, and in 2014, when I saw the Oculus Rift, I knew what I needed to build. In the two years since incorporating Nanome, we’ve fostered partnerships with industry leaders, including big pharma clients and renowned research institutions. We’ve also released lite versions of our powerful tools onto the consumer VR market. Thousands of Steam and Oculus users can now experience the atomic world and model with mathematical precision.

Enter Bitcoin

One night during my Sophomore year in college, I found myself looking at the Task Manager of my desktop, wondering what the hell was hogging 90%+ of my CPU power. Turned out that every time I visited a certain site, a script was hijacking my computer to mine Bitcoin. That night I went down the blockchain rabbithole. I’ve since invested in a variety of coins, including Ethereum.

Introducing Matryx

Today, I’m enthused to bring together VR and Blockchain technology to create Matryx, the world’s first decentralized platform for scientific collaboration.

Dexter’s Lab.

Crowdsourced Science

Innovation is often siloed into specialized fields to which only a select few individuals may contribute. This model has achieved some progress but is unintuitive; collaboration and teamwork are human nature. When mathematician Grigori Perelman confronted a challenging problem known as the Poincaré Conjecture, he looked to the literature of his peers, namely Richard Hamilton, to build off of, eventually creating a concrete proof. There also happened to be a million dollar Millennium Prize attached to the Poincaré Conjecture. Naturally, Perelman wanted to split the prize. He would not have found his solution without Hamilton’s work. His request to split the bounty was denied, so Perelman refused it altogether. Not everyone will have as much impact as Perelman, but we can all contribute to STEM in some way given access to the right resources, information, and incentives.

Open Access

Knowledge is power. Those who hold the keys to knowledge shape societies. Today, many collections of scientific knowledge hide behind paywalls or can only be accessed by University professionals. Much of this content is funded by tax paying citizens from whom access to said content is restricted. Centralized sources also have vulnerability problems; critical failures in these databases place the preservation of our collective knowledge at risk. Decentralization of this information is key to mitigating centralized power sinks and maintaining a robust and vibrant scientific community. Blockchain technology is the gateway to an Open Access society and the technologies of tomorrow.

The Matryx Platform

Last year Nanome launched two products on virtual reality stores; Calcflow, the so-called “Ti-84 meets burning man,” and Nano-one, the first VR molecular modeling tool. With Matryx, we will cultivate an ecosystem around these interfaces so that users can not only create, but share and exchange chemical and mathematical assets. The interface and platform layers are complementary. We’ve architected a bounty system implementing a mix of collaborative and competitive non-zero sum mechanics to spur innovation and set a high bar for production quality:

Collabotition

Not all bounties need to be as high stakes as the Poincaré Conjecture’s million dollar prize. If I instead wanted to 3D model a spaceship, I could put out a bounty for users to submit their best designs. The first stage of the bounty would be highly competitive; only a subset of all submissions would make it to the next round. The next stage would consist of users remixing the best design(s) from the prior round to create an even better spaceship. This stage would be collaborative; each remixer would be on the same ‘team’ as the previous designer. These batches would repeat until the best design was found. Every contributor in the submission chain shares the bounty. While it’s unlikely Grigori Perelman will start using Calcflow to submit spaceship designs to Matryx, I believe he’ll be a fan of our split-bounty philosophy.

Initially, these bounties will focus on 3D modeling but will later incentivize molecular design. We envision crowdsourced precision medicine creating new drugs to fight the world’s toughest diseases and extend human life. The Matryx platform will accommodate all fields of science and mathematics including nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and automation.

Interfacing with Matryx

Mockup of the Matryx Markeplace

Our initial goal is to integrate Matryx with pure mathematical expressions, like those that users create in Calcflow. However, contributions by non-VR users will be feasible via a web interface. Calcflow for Oculus, Vive, and GearVR will provide a premium viewing and interactive experience, while the web interface will democratize access to Matryx for all Citizen Scientists. Next, we’ll integrate Nano-one with Matryx so users can contribute chemical designs and crowdsource drug development. Beyond Calcflow and Nano-one we will generalize the Matryx platform to accommodate mathematical expressions, algorithms, atomic structures, and many combinations thereof.

Network Effects

As skilled virtual scientists and experts join the Matryx platform, its value to global STEM multiplies. An open access, scientifically grounded society isn’t just ideal, it’s inevitable.

Get Involved

The Matryx website and whitepaper are available today. Join our community via Slack, Telegram, and Twitter and check out our code commits on GitHub. In addition, we’ll post weekly updates and more to our blog. In accordance with our philosophy at Nanome, we welcome your feedback, review, criticism and excitement.

further reading: How to Kill the Reclusive Genius by Adam Simon