Evolution 2.0 Prize: Unprecedented $10 Million Offered To Replicate Cellular Evolution

An incentive prize ten times the size of the Nobel – believed to be the largest single award ever in basic science – is being offered to the person or team solving the largest mystery in history: how genetic code inside cells got there, and how cells intentionally self-organize, communicate, then purposely adapt. 

The new international competition is intended to speed breakthroughs around the still unknown process of cell communication that organizers predict can turn off cancer, allow robots to think for themselves and even create new plant life to combat climate change. 

The Evolution 2.0 Prize is designed by Chicago engineer-turned-marketer-turned-business consultant Perry Marshall and his A-list team of partners. They include top genetic experts from Harvard and Oxford, plus a diverse group of investors from private banking, healthcare and biotechnology, software, real estate, publishing and more. 

"A germ resisting antibiotics does more programming in 12 minutes than a team of Google engineers can do in 12 days," said Marshall. "One blade of grass is 10,000 years ahead of any computer. If a single firm in Silicon Valley held a fraction of the secrets of this natural code inside a single cell, they'd set the NASDAQ on fire. Organisms self-edit and reprogram in real time in a way that dwarfs anything manmade. If we crack this, it will literally change the course of aging, disease, A.I. and humanity."

Scientific advisors/judges include:

• Denis Noble (Oxford and Royal Society biologist; first in the world to model the human heart on computer): "The biggest questions in science today are about how life got going and the origin of the genetic code. How do living things 'know' how to evolve? What do cells know that we don't? Is the genetic code the result of chance as some claim for 100 years – or is science pointing us to currently unknown processes? The answers will be as profound as Einstein's E=mc2."
   
• George Church (Harvard geneticist; on TIME 100's Most Influential): "Origin of life is the hardest question in science. It's mind-boggling you can have such complex structures that make copies of themselves. But it's very hard to do that with machines we've built. We are engineers but we're rather poor ones compared to the pseudo engineering that is biological evolution."

Marshall formed his newest company, Natural Code, to develop and apply core principles of nature giving rise to information, consciousness and intelligence. The full $10 million will only be awarded to a patentable coding system that self-evolves. The competition closely relates to the recent discovery awarded the 2019 Nobel in Medicine, which found a "switch" by which cells re-write their own DNA as oxygen levels change. Precisely how cells attained such intentionality – and how they continue to react to new situations and modify their own code – still eludes researchers. 

The Evolution 2.0 Prize builds on the movement of supersized science incentives such as the X Prizes, Breakthrough Awards and recent Earth Shot announced by Prince William. More information is here. 

"If there is a winning entry, it will transform innovation for the next 50-100 years," offered Gary Klopfenstein, former U.S. Director of Berenberg Bank. "This is not just an interesting initiative for a small sector of the scientific community but should be watched by the public in general. As an investor I couldn't be more thrilled to support the Evolution 2.0 Prize. We get to be a part of a world-changing discovery, a great business opportunity and have a front row seat to history."

Other Evolution 2.0 Prize investors include:

• Chad Meisinger (whose media firm was purchased by Google for over $1 billion): "This prize impacts everyone because it will inform cancer, longevity, CRISPR gene editing, stem cell application, automation, even climate. It is the bridge between biology and information technology. Man-made A.I. is literally a million years behind natural intelligence and we want to help researchers figure out the natural code of intelligence inside cells."
• William Hammond (serial entrepreneur): "A project that promises to help uncover the forces that create and propel life will reap unheard of benefits in technology, disease treatment and prevention and even clean up our world. Even if this venture falls short and the question of how cells got code defies an answer, like the 'Space Race,' the spinoff technologies will be amazing."
• Dennis Sanche (Canadian health/biotech executive): "Computer programs require software engineers to write their code. Cells on the other hand are able to mutate and generate new code, a truly incredible feat. The question is how….and why?"

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