Kalil's Corner
Tom Kalil — Chief Innovation Officer for Schmidt Futures — offers reflections to advance a range of science and technology priorities through policy and philanthropy. Tom’s career has focused on advancing science, technology, and innovation policy through government, philanthropy, and the private sector. He served in both President Obama and Clinton’s Administrations leading science and technology policy portfolios.
An interview with Martin Borch Jensen,
Co-founder of Gordian Biotechnology
Tom caught up with Martin Borch Jensen, the Chief Science Officer of the biotech company Gordian Biotechnology. Gordian is a therapeutics company focused on the diseases of aging. Recently, he designed and launched a $26 million competition called Longevity Impetus Grants. This program has already funded 98 grants to help scientists address what they consider to be the most important problems in aging biology (also known as geroscience).
2022 Bioautomation Challenge: Investing in Automating Protein Engineering
Schmidt Futures is supporting an initiative — the 2022 Bioautomation Challenge — to accelerate the adoption of automation by leading researchers in protein engineering. The Federation of American Scientists will act as the fiscal sponsor for this challenge.
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This initiative was designed by Erika DeBenedictis, who will also serve as the program director. Erika holds a PhD in biological engineering from MIT, and has also worked in biochemist David Baker’s lab on machine learning for protein design ​​at the University of Washington in Seattle.
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Recently, Tom caught up with Erika to understand why she’s excited about the opportunity to automate protein engineering.
About Tom
Tom Kalil is Chief Innovation Officer at Schmidt Futures. In this role, Tom leads initiatives to harness technology for societal challenges, improve science policy, and identify and pursue 21st century moonshots.
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Prior to Schmidt Futures, Tom served in the White House for two Presidents (Obama and Clinton), helping to design and launch national science and technology initiatives in areas such as nanotechnology, the BRAIN initiative, data science, materials by design, robotics, commercial space, high-speed networks, access to capital for startups, high-skill immigration, STEM education, learning technology, startup ecosystems, and the federal use of incentive prizes.
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From 2001 to 2008, Kalil was Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology at UC Berkeley. He launched a program called Big Ideas@Berkeley, which provide grants to student-led teams committed to solving important problems at home and abroad. In 2007 and 2008, Kalil was the Chair of the Global Health Working Group for the Clinton Global Initiative, where he developed new public and private sector initiatives in areas such as maternal and child health, under-nutrition, and vaccines.
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Prior to joining the Clinton White House, Tom was a trade specialist at the Washington offices of Dewey Ballantine, where he represented the Semiconductor Industry Association on U.S.-Japan trade issues and technology policy. He also served as the principal staffer to Gordon Moore in his capacity as Chair of the SIA Technology Committee.
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Tom received a B.A. in political science and international economics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and completed graduate work at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.