Ben Lamm on how fast gene-editing capacity is scaling

What happened in this episode?

In this short excerpt, guest Ben Lamm discusses what he describes as rapid scaling in his organisation’s gene-editing delivery capacity. He says that what used to be considered a notable milestone — “20 edits delivered” — is still something most of “bioarma and academia” would celebrate, but claims his team is now “consistently” delivering “300 plus” edits at “90 plus% efficiency”. Lamm adds that the 300+ figure was true “a year ago” and that they are currently “testing thousand” edited deliveries, characterising the progress as an “exponential growing curve” while repeatedly warning that it may not continue and that current tests may not succeed.

The conversation also touches on the technical and economic crossover point where “large cargo swaps” combined with DNA synthesis may become a better approach than other editing strategies. Lamm argues that some organisations working in that space lack a “business driver” to synthesise DNA beyond a certain scale, and says his team has started doing DNA synthesis internally. Diamandis summarises the implied trajectory as “trippling year-over-year base edits,” and Lamm says he thinks it is “highly likely” they will reach the 1,000-edit level, though he notes early indicators have “low efficiency” but that “it’s working.”

What are the key points?

• Lamm says his team moved from celebrating 20 edits delivered to delivering “300 plus” edits at “90 plus% efficiency”.
• He says the 300+ figure was true “a year ago” and that they are now testing edited deliveries at the 1,000-edit level.
• Both speakers caution that an exponential scaling curve may not continue, and that current tests may not succeed.
• Diamandis characterises the trend as “trippling year-over-year base edits”.
• Lamm says early indicators for the 1,000-edit level show low efficiency but that “it’s working”.
• Lamm argues there is a scale at which “large cargo swaps” plus DNA synthesis becomes the better approach.
• He says his organisation has started doing DNA synthesis internally due to a lack of business incentive for others at scale.

Who is speaking?

Named speakers identified in Egleze's source-linked moments from this episode.

• Ben Lamm

Which topics are covered?

How is this page sourced?

Programme

Peter Diamandis

Published

4 October 2026

Duration

1m

Original episode

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