Years of working on AI + programmable biology left me convinced: capabilities are racing ahead, and so are risks. Valthos started because we need better defenses. I joined at formation last year as the first hire, and grateful to be tackling this alongside a world-class team.

for the past few years, pushing the frontier of generative biology has been my driving goal. this summer as part of the team @valthostech, i realized that as these capabilities advance, it’s more important than ever to deploy and operationalize them to safeguard humanity against

I don’t post much on X but this is an absolute must-read from Valthos - a brilliant team tackling one of the biggest risks of AI to humanity Congratulations on the funding - much work to do

i’ve been deeply obsessed with the question of how to make humans less fragile. several months ago i decided to leave Stanford to research and deploy the biological machine learning methods that can get us closer. can finally share that i’ve been on the founding team

Announcing Lux latest investment and creation.... BIODEFENSE Valthos —co-founded by Lux's Tess van Stekelenburg Tess Van Stekelenburg + led by brilliant ex Palantir Kathleen McMahon

I'm thrilled to be an investor in Valthos: Kathleen McMahon and Tess van Stekelenburg have built out a wonderful team of operators and researchers tackling some of the most technically and societally important problems in Bio x AI. They are growing the team, please reach out!

One of the greatest opportunities in AI safety and security is the chance to help support the creation of new industry verticals that help maximize the benefits and minimize the risks. The technology is moving fast. One of the best ways to keep up is with more technology, more

Building capacity for biodefense is critical; this is the kind of thing that makes me proud to be at OpenAI.

Could not be more excited to work with Jason Kwon and the OpenAI team on this mission—they've been leaders in identifying the risks and driving forward the tech we need for the next era of biodefense

Technology enabling push-button biology will cure disease and aging. But it also enables dual-use risks that cannot be ignored. Tess van Stekelenburg is relentless, intelligent, and bold. Glad she is building our biological defense axis to make sure that we flourish from this technology.

Super excited for OpenAI to supporting growth of AI safety ecosystem -- in this case bio-defense.

Really great and important initiative - i criticize OAI when I believe they are straying from their mission but this is an example of an area where they are head and shoulders above many of their peers and we need far more programs like this

Totally agree. Excited to see more biodefense / biosecurity companies. Congrats Valthos on the launch!

I’ll be on TBPN at 4:05 ET / 1:05 PT to chat about Valthos and what we’re building for American biodefense! 🇺🇸🇺🇸

Excited that such a great team is working on this. Addressing an ever-expanding attack surface will be a critical to building a secure AI-enabled bioeconomy. If this interests you, definitely reach out to the Valthos team — there’s no time like the present!

One of our greatest risks is AI-enabled biological threats. As models advances, it’s becoming easier to design a weapon than a cure. Proud to back Valthos — Kathleen McMahon, Tess van Stekelenburg, and team advancing America’s speed and ability to design precision therapeutics 🧬⚛️ 🚀

Spent three years looking for a team in Biodefense to invest in. But never found one. So we built it ourselves. Valthos builds next-generation biodefense. As AI and biotech rapidly advance, we're approaching near-universal access to tools with the potential to cure humanity or

LFG - biology is the threat model I'm most worried that our world is vulnerable to in the near term - super excited for Tess and co to tilt the offence/defence scales back