Startup Maps 100M Species to Unlock New Medicines

Imagine if studying the DNA of 100 million species could help cure cancer or develop new medicines faster than ever before. That's exactly what British biotech company Basecamp Research is attempting with its newly launched "Trillion Gene Atlas."

The ambitious project aims to expand our knowledge of genetic diversity 100-fold by collecting genomic data from more than 100 million species across thousands of sites worldwide. Basecamp is comparing this initiative to the Human Genome Project, which took 13 years and cost $3 billion to complete.

The company's journey began in 2019 when cofounders Glen Gowers and Oliver Vince led an expedition to the Arctic to discover new species and genes. Two-thirds of the samples they brought back to a makeshift lab in Iceland had never been recorded before.

That discovery convinced them to build what they call an "internet of biology" for AI models to learn from. The goal is capturing 4.4 billion years of evolution and mapping the entire tree of life.

Basecamp trains AI models called Eden on its growing biological dataset to identify patterns across genes and ecosystems that humans might miss. These insights could speed up discoveries in drug development and disease treatment.

But the company is doing something most AI companies aren't: paying for its training data. Since 2023, Basecamp has paid royalties to 60 organizations across 21 countries based on the use of genetic information from their regions.

The company built systems to tag and track where each data sample comes from and measure how much it contributes to their AI outputs. This allows payments to be distributed fairly to the communities providing the data.

Why This Inspires

This approach addresses one of the biggest criticisms facing the AI industry today. Major AI companies have faced dozens of lawsuits over using copyrighted content without permission or payment to train models like ChatGPT.

Basecamp's model suggests people care deeply about how their data gets used. While many object to their work being scraped to generate endless content, they're far more willing to contribute when the goal is advancing medicine or curing disease.

The company sends explorers to remote locations like Cameroon, Costa Rica, the Arctic ice caps, and even Point Nemo, the most isolated spot in the ocean. Their commitment to fair compensation helps ensure these communities benefit from scientific discoveries their biodiversity makes possible.

The project, developed with partners including Anthropic, Ultima Genomics, PacBio, and Nvidia, represents a moonshot for science. Curing cancer and developing new medicines requires data, and when communities are treated as partners rather than resources, everyone wins.