Moments in TIME: Fellows Shaping the Future of Aging - Rikard Saqe
Rikard Saqe’s work exemplifies the power of interdisciplinary science. Currently focused on accelerating the development of cultivated fish as a sustainable alternative to traditional agriculture, Rikard is building fundamental biological tools and knowledge with broad implications for biotechnology and aging biology. His experience as a Data Scientist Intern at BioAge Labs, an aging biotech company, reflects his long-standing passion for applying computational and experimental approaches to tackle aging-related challenges. As a TIME Fellow, Rikard has found inspiration and actionable insights from a global community of researchers, reinforcing his vision to apply innovative solutions to some of the biggest questions in science.
“The TIME fellowship brings together ambitious peers that not only are dealing with the same problems as you, not only have diverse backgrounds and focus that will give you inspiration for your own pursuits, but that are kind, supportive, and will motivate you to raise your own standards for how much you can sustainably accomplish. ”
Courtney: Hi Rikard! Thanks for taking the time to chat. Your current research is really unique—can you tell us a bit about what you’re working on?
Rikard: My research is focused on accelerating the development of alternative proteins that seek to provide cost and taste parity with existing products, but without all of the negative externalities present in our current agricultural system (climate change, zoonotic disease, water/land use, biodiversity loss, etc). In particular, I am focused on developing the fundamental biological knowledge & tools needed to optimize cell line development for cultivated/lab-grown fish.
Courtney: That’s such a fascinating area of research. While it’s not directly aging-related, how do you see it connecting to your long-term goals in aging biology?
Rikard: Cultivated meat is an incredibly nascent and interdisciplinary field, with many relevant cross-considerations to the field of aging biology. Given the scale and reduction in cost required for cultivated meat to be viable and competitive with existing products, it provides a stronger pressure than other fields to innovate on many fundamental barriers within biotechnology that can then be taken to further drive progress in the field of aging biology. Cultivated meat will require wholesale innovations in many key fields from everything including how we do biomanufacturing, stem cell biology, and tissue engineering, to the re-evaluation of problems we may take for granted in many contexts, such as cell-culture media optimization.
Agriculture centers stakeholders in a way that other areas of biotechnology may not, requiring a more proactive and intimate understanding of how innovation affects everything from consumer preferences and trust, to market incumbents, to farming and indigenous communities, to regulators and geopolitical considerations. This level of intentionality is something I hope to more explicitly bring into my considerations within the field of aging biology.
Courtney: It’s so interesting to think about how those parallels could inform future work. What milestones have you reached in your current research that you’re especially proud of?
Rikard: Thus far, we have secured 700k+ CAD in grants to fund our research for the next 2 years, from field-leading organizations such as the Good Food Institute. I am a co-author on a recently published paper “Artificial intelligence and machine learning applications for cultured meat”, which is the first paper to comprehensively overview how machine learning can accelerate cultured meat development, in collaboration with New Harvest and the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute, and supported by Schmidt Futures. I will be presenting a poster on this work at ISCCM later this month. Furthermore, our research was highlighted at a recent stakeholder meeting organized by the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), where we helped inform policy makers on food safety considerations for cell-based foods.
Courtney: That’s incredible—what a range of accomplishments! It sounds like you’re building skills that could have a big impact in aging biology. What are you gaining from your current work that will prepare you for the challenges of aging biology research?
Rikard: Being able to execute on a research project end-to-end, going from conceptualization to hopefully end stage execution, and having autonomy along every step of that process, especially in a field as new and cross-disciplinary as cultivated meat, has been enormously beneficial in building tangible skills relevant to aging biology.
Having had a more computational background prior to this research, and especially in now focusing on understudied organisms and processes, many of the workflows taken for granted when working in a better studied field or organism are not present, enabling me to develop a deep understanding of the fundamentals of key biological techniques and processes. Focusing on something like fish myogenesis, where the relevant underlying biology such as the relevant regulatory markers are poorly understood, and where the use of basic molecular biology tools such as the validation of those markers have not yet been robustly defined, invites a questioning of research assumptions in a way that would not be possible in other fields. The machine learning paper I contributed to, which required a first-principles attempt to scope out all of the ways the technology could be used in this emerging field, would not be as possible in a different area where much of this work has already been done. In addition, fish exhibit certain biologically interesting traits that might make them currently undervalued organisms for studying aging biology, including their above average regenerative capacity, proclivity towards spontaneous immortalization and (de)differentiation, and ability to exhibit tissue self organization. Killifish, one of the organisms we are using in our research, is an emerging model organism for aging.
I am developing skills and knowledge relevant to using standard molecular biology, multi-omic, and bioinformatic tools, understanding relevant topics such as stem cell biology and myogenesis, leveraging emerging technologies such as genetic engineering and machine learning to aid in this work, and doing this in a context of significant autonomy and scientific ambiguity- all of which will help significantly in pursuing aging biology research.
Courtney: That’s such a meaningful motivation. Why should someone who, like you, might not be directly involved in aging research right now, apply for the TIME Fellowship? How has it helped you in your journey?
Rikard: A significant portion of the research success I have observed in others, and any success I have had, has come from porting over mental models from different fields into my area of focus. Taking an interdisciplinary approach to the field you are interested in invites a lot of creativity, and in many cases, low hanging fruit, but still potentially high impact, research directions you can tackle. Being involved with a community of exceptional researchers tackling different problems and fields invites you to think about how your experience can help solve problems your peers are dealing with, and how you can take learnings from their work to accelerate yours!
Further than that- many of the problems you face as someone early in your career interfacing with science are much of the same, be it something as macro as long term career plans via industry/graduate school applications, or as micro as daily time management. The TIME fellowship brings together ambitious peers that not only are dealing with the same problems as you, not only have diverse backgrounds and focus that will give you inspiration for your own pursuits, but that are kind, supportive, and will motivate you to raise your own standards for how much you can sustainably accomplish.
I saw all of those things not just in the abstract, but directly from my experience in the TIME Fellowship. I made friends from all over the world, got directly actionable knowledge on how to improve my research while developing broader context across fields, felt more confident about my future trajectory, and raised my bar for what I felt I could accomplish. I strongly recommend anyone interested in working within science, no matter their field, and no matter their mode of engagement, to apply for the TIME Fellowship if they are considering pursuing work related to aging biology.
