meet @Prof_oak IRL ...!
see below :-)
Surprise 1: Anthropic acquired a one-person biotech
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Surprise 2: that person is me
Surprise 3: I’m here to tell you all about it
Yes, this is what you think it is; after 6 yrs of increasingly loose anonymity: the Professor Oak reveal post
…and yes, it has gotten so boring around here that I’m literally doxxing myself to spice up the timeline
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Ok, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Cody Tranbarger. I mostly tweet, but occasionally find time to dabble in drug dev & starting/building biotechs. My past lives span the VC, crossover, startup continuum; Prof Oak has been my way of keeping a digital foot in those worlds, despite having my physical feet planted elsewhere.
The past 18 mo, ‘elsewhere’ was Mithril Medicine, a co. I founded to develop bsAbs for LAMA2-CMD & other ECM-related genetic diseases.
Mithril was born out of hands-on building with @MikeNGladstone, @JasonPaulRhodes, @LifeSciVC, & team @atlasventure. Somehow, I made enough half-decent calls along the way (even a broken clock is right twice a day, eh?) to convince them Mithril/I warranted a small seed. While I can hardly rationalize such an outrageously cavalier bet, I’m grateful for it, & I'd partner with Atlas again in a heartbeat.
In typical AV fashion, Mithril’s primordial form was virtual, decentralized, & ultra-lean. This stage tends to be short-lived, but for Mithril, it worked surprisingly well, for surprisingly long, thanks in part to the rapid maturation of the AI tools I used liberally.
Eventually, Mithril became a bit of an experiment itself - to find the upper bound of how far it could scale as a single operator + a bunch of Claude (+ a stellar bench of part-time consultants).
In parallel, I started spending time with @nc_frey, @an1lam, & @CoefficientBio team; and promptly experienced, for the 1st time, AI at the frontier. Soon thereafter, Mithril stopped looking like an experiment, & started looking like a preview of an entirely new operating model.
From that spark came “Pipeline-in-a-Person.” The idea immediately resonated when we shared it here back in April; and it was central to the shared vision that led to Anthropic’s acquisition of Mithril, & my joining the team.
Why join Anthropic? Three reasons.
(1) For Mithril, the programs continue, with more resources & infrastructure behind them, and as much Claude as I can put to work.
(2) For me, the chance to start several more programs, & find out how many one person can actually run in parallel - an almost unprecedented luxury for a curious drug hunter.
(3) For our mission, a path to institutionalize & scale this new way of working, then put it in the hands of all of biopharma, all over the world - which, candidly, I find the most energizing.
Will AI x Bio cure diseases? Unequivocally yes, imo… but not by the route that gets the most airtime. Rather than timeline acceleration & compression, I see orchestration & parallelization as today's low-hanging fruit.
Most drug hunters see a handful of go/no-go calls in a career, & spend entirely too much of the rest trading emails (my inbox can attest).
Give them the bandwidth to run several programs at once, and the time to focus on scientific judgment, and I’m willing to bet they’ll make better calls. And at scale, better calls translate to more drugs, higher hit rates, broader patient impact, & likely, a disease or 10 or 100 cured. I couldn't be more excited to build toward that future @AnthropicAI.
Finally, a heartfelt thank you to BioTwitter/X. The end of anonymity is bittersweet, but if anyone’s earned a proper introduction, you all have.
It’s difficult to overstate how much this app has done for me: a decade of education, plenty of friends, many job opportunities, several mentors, a few investors, even a co-founder (fmr). It was the generosity of this community that inspired me to start posting 6 years ago, after just as many years lurking. I hope I’ve been able to pay it forward, in my own small way.
But, to be clear, Prof Oak isn’t going anywhere. Same beat, same themes, and now, a front-row seat to drug development at the frontier. Stay tuned for dispatches from the trenches; and remember...
Gotta Cure 'Em All
I'm a keen supporter of @ABCbirds keep it up!
Home Tweet Home.
🌎
It’s World Habitat Day, a day to recognize the places that make life possible. For birds, habitat isn’t simply where they live — it’s where they find food, shelter, nesting sites, and places to rest and refuel along their journeys:
abcbirds.info/3W2IoJq
LPAR1 inhibition is likely best if localized, not systemic. cf. TGFb, LPAR's partner in pathology...
$BMY trial revisions shake confidence in new class of fibrosis drugs. $CTNM finance.yahoo.com/healthcare…
quote from Ozark season 1
"some rooms are smarter than others"
(sez Marty)
I'll just go ahead and agree here ...
@netflix
Act Local, Think Global. The Truro Conservation Trust is focused on land protection in the face of the relentless development pressure facing the outer Cape. truroconservationtrust.org/
Looking forward to the Mass Audubon Broad Hill Sanctuary event this weekend. Their strategy of directly protecting critical habitats is a key part of environmental action. You can help @ massaudubon.org/
saw a Crested Caracara today in Wellfleet MA, a massively misplaced bird. Last one I saw was in Northern Mexico, where they belong #birder
very cool...
pic from wikipedia
Hey New England if you heat your home with oil best buy a contract asap --> 70% average increase in $/gallon vs last heating season
ps. if you heat with gas, well, good luck
Paul D. Rennert retweeted
Thrilled to present at #MSS2026 in Slovenia 🇸🇮 on how #GeneEditing Therapeutics address Unmet Medical Needs.
It’s been an inspiring event covering the cutting edge of Gene Therapeis, #CGT, #Vaccines, Delivery, and Biomanufacturing.
🤖 Made with AI
Amazing recent advances in the design of multi-specific engager proteins from @AletaBio and many other exciting labs and companies will be presented at World Bispecific this week ---> #Costimulation #CARTcells #Boston #Seaport bispecific.com/
Paul D. Rennert retweeted
BREAKING: Trump has a Stage 5 nuclear meltdown after he got exposed for lying about visiting Ground Zero on 9/11 — forcing him to finally admit the truth for once!
This is the guiltiest that this lunatic has ever sounded...
"The Failing New York Magazine wrote a story that I wasn’t down at the World Trade Center after the Tragedy of September 11th, because nobody saw me there," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Well, I don’t think I would be the first thing on anyone’s mind but, I was there, obviously not on the same day as the collapse, but shortly thereafter, with a large group of Construction Workers."
His admission that he wasn't there on the "same day as the collapse" flies in the face of his assertions and implications that he was. Just yesterday, at an event to commemorate the victims no less, he stated that he went to the site "right" after the attack happened and then had to be carried to safety by "big strong" firemen because another building looked ready to collapse.
New York Magazine covered the lie in an article entitled "Trump Tells Weird Lie About Where He Was on 9/11" in which they bluntly fact-checked him.
"I discussed it today during my Remarks on the Ellipse, in Washington, D.C., for Tunnel to Towers. Everything I said was exactly accurate and, to prove the point, I am attaching clips of me there with numerous of my people, including my then Head of Security, Matthew Calamari, who has confirmed that very sad trip to Lower Manhattan, many times, to many different Journalists, but it’s a story that just won’t die," Trump continued.
Of course, nobody has denied that Trump visited the ruins of the World Trade Center a few days after the attack, once the worst of the danger had passed. There are indeed photos of him doing so. But that's not what he claimed. He said that he was down there “right after this happened" and is now backtracking because it was such a blatant lie.
"The Fake News doesn’t want to listen, even when they know their story is false. That’s why their approval ratings are at an All Time LOW, but mine are VERY HIGH!" Trump continued. "On another September 11th front, Maggot Hagerman continues to say that I did not go to the New York World Trade Center event, but the Pentagon instead, because they wouldn’t let me speak in New York. Maggot knows that this is a lie! I have been to the New York solemn ceremony numerous times, and nobody speaks. It is a stated fact that, 'Politicians and public officials are not permitted to deliver speeches or remarks at the official September 11 anniversary remembrance ceremony at the World Trade Center site in New York.'"
Again, Trump is lying. Maggie Haberman is a respected, credible journalist whereas the President is a pathological liar. She reported, after speaking to reliable sources, that Trump refused to attend the event in question because he wouldn't be allowed to give a speech. We have no reason to doubt her and every reason to believe that Trump is lying in a desperate scramble for damage control. Just because he can quote the National September 11 Memorial & Museum's rules doesn't mean that he didn't try to violate them.
"Certainly I would not want to violate that, even if I could," Trump wrote. "I speak enough, and it just so happens that the strong request was made for me to be at the Pentagon instead, with VP Vance handling our Administration’s representation in New York. Hagerman, unattractive both inside and out, fully knows that her story is made up. She knows less about me than the average reporter 'on the beat.' I haven’t spoken to her in a long time, and certainly there was no 'fact checking' for her story — There never is! Let her reveal her sources, because they don’t exist."
The irony of Trump attacking anyone's looks was apparently lost on the President. Just take a look at literally any photograph of him. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
"Again, speeches are not made at the New York event and, even if they were, I never asked to speak," Trump continued. "Fake News is getting worse and worse in the U.S.A. It’s very important to comment so that people understand what liars and scoundrels these so-called 'journalists' are. They’re angry, and sick, over the fact that I won the Presidential Election three times! I hereby demand a retraction from Maggot, and also, for whoever wrote the fake story for New York Magazine. Again, check out the clips of me at the World Trade Center site. I was there as soon as the Law allowed. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP"
Clearly, these damaging reports have struck a nerve with a man who realizes that he can scarcely afford more scandals given his anemic approval ratings. He's fixated on these stories because they're true and they reveal him to be a cruel, ugly man who views nothing as sacred.
For their part, The New York Times is standing by Haberman's reporting—
“We won’t be issuing a retraction. This is another all too common example of the president lashing out at coverage he doesn’t like and belittling journalists who report the facts," the newspaper told the Independent. “Readers can follow our coverage of the president’s 9/11 plans here, and the evolving – and often disputed – account of his actions on September 11 here.”
Please ❤️ and share if you refuse to let Trump wriggle off the hook for this lie!
Paul D. Rennert retweeted
Great discussion with one of the leading voices in Washington on biotech. FDA, China, NIH - all the key topics discussed here.👇
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐈𝐬𝐬𝐮𝐞𝐬: @RepAuchincloss discusses the economic impact of biotech, global competition, and efforts he is taking to solidify funding, modernize regulation, and keep the United States on top. With @MassBio CEO @KendalleOC.
Full video: biotechtv.com/post/congressm…
awesome work! @BioAleta we asked why antibody-driven costimulation so often fails - CD28, CD2, 4-1BB etc - and we found the answer within the immune synapse. We've built the solutions into our T cell engagers and CAR T engagers...
New work by @PaulosLab with Dr. @AyanaTRuffin at the helm! B cells inspire the generation of potent CD8 T cell therapy via CD2 signaling. Nifty. Practical. Impactful.


























