Fortunately, several of the gaps in the predictions of these powerful new methods correspond almost exactly to the areas where cryo-EM can provide useful information. Cryo-EM methods based on ‘single-particle’ imaging enable the determination of 3D structures of macromolecular assemblies that are frozen by rapid vitrification in cryogens such as liquid ethane. The rapid freezing process allows the preservation of protein structures under near-native conditions. […] Visualizing multiple conformational and functional states that are populated in the samples by 3D classification is a unique strength of the cryo-EM toolbox.

A type of non-profit start-up could be a better way to support projects that enable research. These would have full-time scientists, engineers and executives, and total funding of about US$20 million to $100 million that would last around 5 years — longer than most grants or venture-capital funding rounds allow. And they would be set up to pursue predefined milestones, such as improving the resolution of a measurement system by tenfold, or gathering a pre-specified amount of data. We call them focused research organizations (FROs).

“Sight, as an extension of our human senses, is technologically capturable and replayable,” he says. “Sound, same thing. I can record a sound. And then you can play that back.” Taking it one step further, he mentions the app Shazam. “I’m in a coffee shop or a restaurant or a hotel, and I like a song, and I press Shazam and I hold it up, and the sound of that song goes into my little pocket computer, and decodes the waveform and tells me exactly what song that is by the artist.”

So why, he wonders, can’t people do that with smells? “Sound is just a waveform that’s traveling through the ether — I can’t even see it, and I have a piece of technology that can capture, invisibly, sound, and play it back,” he says. “A smell is just a volatile organic compound. When you have a candle, or you have chocolate, or you have food, or you have wine, or you have a shampoo, or the smell of your grandparents, or a home, there’s a distinct smell.”

And what happens then is just with any company, whether it’s electronics or automobiles, you have components, modules, and final assembly. Right? Most people think like, “Oh, Tesla, they have a factory in China. Its final assembly.” No, actually it’s components, modules, final assembly. And in every one of those levels, the companies that are the most innovative are helping to teach the suppliers how to run their supply chains, and they always teach multiple suppliers. And so what happens is that the suppliers become competitors against each other.

And so I can just tell you, I’ve had multiple meetings with CEOs of suppliers of Apple, and they would say, “Why are we pushed to such slow margins?” And I’m like, “Well, you’re paying for it because you want access to the expertise and that’s what everybody wants.” Here’s my favorite statistic about Apple in China. So Apple controls about 35% of the smartphone market share in the world, but they take about 95% of the profit.

And why does that happen? It happens because they’re able to leverage their expertise to push suppliers to do what they want them to do. And then those suppliers go make their money from Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, everybody.