# Patrick Hsu Bioengineer and co-founder of the **[[Arc Institute]]**, a research organization in Palo Alto that aims to redesign how scientific research is funded and conducted. Hsu's academic work is in RNA biology and CRISPR gene-editing technology; his institutional work is in **metascience** — the study of how to make scientific institutions more productive. ## Background Hsu trained at the **Broad Institute** (MIT/Harvard) and the **Salk Institute**, working on CRISPR-Cas systems and RNA-targeting tools. He was part of the generation of young biologists who entered the field during the CRISPR revolution and saw both its promise and the institutional dysfunction of academic science (slow funding cycles, publish-or-perish incentives, bureaucratic overhead). He joined the faculty at **UC Berkeley** and co-founded the Arc Institute in 2021 with **[[Silvana Konermann]]** and **Hani Goodarzi**, funded by an initial $650M+ commitment from [[Patrick Collison]] (Stripe), the Pineapple Fund, and other tech-aligned philanthropists. ## The Arc Institute model Arc's core argument is that the NIH grant system — which funds most U.S. biomedical research — is structurally broken: too slow, too risk-averse, too focused on incremental publishable results, and too hostile to the kind of long-horizon, high-risk research that produces breakthroughs. Arc's alternative: - **Core investigators** receive long-term, unrestricted funding (no grant applications, no annual renewals) - **Technology centers** provide shared infrastructure (sequencing, computation, automation) - **No IP licensing overhead** — Arc publishes openly and doesn't patent discoveries - **Industry-competitive compensation** — salaries designed to prevent brain drain to tech ## KB significance Hsu appears in the KB through the **[[Progress Studies]]** network — the cluster of institutions and individuals (Collison, [[Tyler Cowen]], [[Emergent Ventures]], [[Fast Grants]], [[Audacious Project]]) arguing that scientific and technological progress has slowed due to institutional dysfunction and that the solution is new institutional designs. Arc is the most ambitious laboratory for this thesis. The progress studies connection makes Hsu adjacent to — but not directly part of — the techno-libertarian political network. The overlap is in personnel and funding (Collison money, Silicon Valley networks) rather than explicit political alignment. Hsu's work is primarily scientific, but the institutional critique it embodies (government funding is slow and bureaucratic; private/philanthropic alternatives are faster and better) resonates with the deregulatory and anti-government themes that run through the KB. ## See Also - [[Arc Institute]] — the research organization he co-founded - [[Progress Studies]] — the metascience movement - [[Fast Grants]] — the COVID-era rapid funding experiment (adjacent) - [[Patrick Collison]] — primary funder and intellectual ally - [[Tyler Cowen]] — Emergent Ventures and progress studies co-architect