4 ms·

Calico Labs Publications

21 points by apsec112 7y ago

j7ake 7y ago
Does anyone have an estimate of the difference between research output from calico versus institutions in academia? It would be interesting to see where they rank.
- cottonseed 7y ago
  Here's the first ranking Google turned up: the nature biomedical sciences index: https://www.natureindex.com/supplements/nature-index-2019-biomedical-sciences/index https://www.natureindex.com/supplements/nature-index-2019-bi... Harvard, the top biomedical institution, gets a score of 2,312.65. Alphabet (Calico isn't broken out), the #18th corporate institution, gets a 13.98, basically below all the major pharma companies. It wouldn't make the list of top 200 institutions overall. I didn't look closely at methodology, but it looks like it's counting publications in nature journals but doesn't weight for impact, which would surely up weight more prestigious institutions. That said, Alphabet/Calico/Verily's primary goal isn't necessarily to publish. disclosure: I work at The Broad Institute (#66 institution, ha)
  - pen2l 7y ago
    When it says Harvard, I assume it includes the entire Harvard network, including BI, MGH, BWH, etc. in which the case it's not that impressive. I'm pretty sure any lab at the Broad is way more efficient than the average lab in the Harvard network. And Calico is not playing games to get published, like the typical lab in academia does.
- mjfl 7y ago
  They have the same output as maybe a mid-size lab with maybe 15 postdocs and 15 grad students or something like that.
jszymborski 7y ago
I thought Verily was the shell under which Google did it's Life Science research... I wonder why the need for another.
- hobofan 7y ago
  Calico is focused on longevity (reduction of aging effects) research, while Verily is more general purpose life science research.
dannykwells 7y ago
To be honest, this looks...low. 5 papers in 2019? They've been around for 5 years, with 100s of scientists and dozens of labs? I wonder if they're keeping the best learnings back. That said, a few of these look pretty interesting: "Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5783610/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5783610/ "A lysosomal switch triggers proteostasis renewal in the immortal C. elegans germ lineage" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5936623/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5936623/ "How a mutation that slows aging can also disproportionately extend end-of-life decrepitude" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5526670/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5526670/
- jfim 7y ago
  The page does mention they're selected papers, not necessarily all of them. A quick Google scholar search for calicolabs shows other papers than the ones listed on that page.

21 points by apsec112 7y ago

Does anyone have an estimate of the difference between research output from calico versus institutions in academia? It would be interesting to see where they rank.

cottonseed 7y ago
Here's the first ranking Google turned up: the nature biomedical sciences index: https://www.natureindex.com/supplements/nature-index-2019-biomedical-sciences/index https://www.natureindex.com/supplements/nature-index-2019-bi... Harvard, the top biomedical institution, gets a score of 2,312.65. Alphabet (Calico isn't broken out), the #18th corporate institution, gets a 13.98, basically below all the major pharma companies. It wouldn't make the list of top 200 institutions overall. I didn't look closely at methodology, but it looks like it's counting publications in nature journals but doesn't weight for impact, which would surely up weight more prestigious institutions. That said, Alphabet/Calico/Verily's primary goal isn't necessarily to publish. disclosure: I work at The Broad Institute (#66 institution, ha)
- pen2l 7y ago
  When it says Harvard, I assume it includes the entire Harvard network, including BI, MGH, BWH, etc. in which the case it's not that impressive. I'm pretty sure any lab at the Broad is way more efficient than the average lab in the Harvard network. And Calico is not playing games to get published, like the typical lab in academia does.
mjfl 7y ago
They have the same output as maybe a mid-size lab with maybe 15 postdocs and 15 grad students or something like that.

jszymborski 7y ago

I thought Verily was the shell under which Google did it's Life Science research... I wonder why the need for another.

hobofan 7y ago
Calico is focused on longevity (reduction of aging effects) research, while Verily is more general purpose life science research.

dannykwells 7y ago

To be honest, this looks...low. 5 papers in 2019? They've been around for 5 years, with 100s of scientists and dozens of labs? I wonder if they're keeping the best learnings back. That said, a few of these look pretty interesting: "Naked mole-rat mortality rates defy Gompertzian laws by not increasing with age" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5783610/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5783610/ "A lysosomal switch triggers proteostasis renewal in the immortal C. elegans germ lineage" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5936623/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5936623/ "How a mutation that slows aging can also disproportionately extend end-of-life decrepitude" https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5526670/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5526670/

jfim 7y ago
The page does mention they're selected papers, not necessarily all of them. A quick Google scholar search for calicolabs shows other papers than the ones listed on that page.