Virtual Mitochondrial Models and the Case for Engineering Humans: Mariëlle van Kooten

Welcome back to Business Trip by PsyMed Ventures, a podcast exploring the future of mental health & wellness! 🍄

Greg and Matias interview Mariëlle van Kooten on the latest episode of Business Trip. Marielle is CEO and co-founder of Powerhouse Biology, a company engineering mitochondrial function to treat disease in the brain and muscle. Her team builds virtual mitochondria models to predict therapeutic effects before testing in the body, a synthetic biology approach at the intersection of AI, engineering, and cell biology. Before founding Powerhouse Biology, Marielle trained as a scientist but made the deliberate shift toward engineering, betting that building things beats waiting for complete answers.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why mitochondria might be the most tractable place to start engineering human biology

• The difference between building a virtual mitochondria model and the industry-wide race to build a virtual cell

• Why a protein fix for one disease could work across totally unrelated tissues

• Science vs. engineering: why she leave academia to stop chasing certainty

• The case for human enhancement: longevity, resilience, and ethics

• Mitochondrial engineering and humans surviving on Mars

Listen to the episode here, on Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts.

Once you’ve finished the episode, we’d love to hear your thoughts! Tweet us at @psymedventures or email us at hi@psymed.ventures to share your views.

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