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How To Write The Future
The How to Write The Future Podcast offers fiction writing tips for science fiction and fantasy authors who want to create optimistic stories because when we vision what is possible, we help make it so. By science fiction and fantasy author and fiction writing coach, Beth Barany.
How To Write The Future
171. What is Biocomputing? Interview with Ewelina Kurtys
“This is a new field, in which we are trying to use living neurons to process information, and we want to use them as processors, to process information as today we do with computers.” - Ewelina Kurtys
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Explore the potential of biocomputing in this How To Write the Future podcast episode, as host Beth Barany talks to scientist-turned-strategist, Ewelina Kurtys, where Ewelina shares how living neurons could revolutionize AI with energy-efficient processing in “What is Biocomputing? Interview with Ewelina Kurtys.”
ABOUT EWELINA KURTYS
Scientist-turned-entrepreneur with a PhD in neuroscience (+20 peer-reviewed papers). After academia, I transitioned into business development and technology commercialization, advising tech companies on sales, partnerships, and market strategy.
I founded Ekai Ltd to support innovation and scale in science-driven companies. My work spans advisory roles, go-to-market planning, and translating complex R&D into real-world impact. I also speak publicly on innovation, neuroscience, and the intersection of science and entrepreneurship.
Originally trained in biology and biomedical science, I expanded into engineering through client projects, gaining experience in signal processing and Python.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/finalspark/posts/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ewelinakurtys/
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- SHOW CO-PRODUCTION + NOTES by Kerry-Ann McDade
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c. 2025 BETH BARANY
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Hi everyone. Welcome to, or welcome back to How to Write the Future Podcast. I'm your host, Beth Barany. I am an award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer who is super excited to write in both genres and both of my series feature strong women heroines going out into the world, being bold, being adventurous, and I started this podcast because I really. Want to focus on the fact that with story we can reimagine what we want as humanity. And I vote for positive optimistic futures'cause what we envision we can help make it so. And I believe writers have a strong gift as well as responsibility to help make that happen. Occasionally I interview subject matter experts and I have one of them with us. Today who I will bring in just a moment. So I just wanna say Welcome, welcome Evelina. So happy to have you here with us. That's so great. We're gonna talk about Biocomputing in a moment, is that right?
EWELINA KURTYS:Yes, correct.
BETH BARANY:Yes, it's such an interesting topic. I've been hearing about it for about the last nine years since I've been writing my science fiction mysteries, my Janey McCallister mystery series, and really fascinated by this topic. So if you could take a moment and introduce yourself, and then we will dive into the questions.
EWELINA KURTYS:Hello. my name is Ewelina Kurtys. I'm a strategic advisor at Final Spark, one of the three startups in the world, which try to build computers from living
BETH BARANY:neurons. That's amazing. That is amazing. So why don't we just start off with: What is bio computing?
EWELINA KURTYS:So Biocomputing is actually a new field. So the terminology is not yet fully established. I prefer to use Biocomputing, but you can also use other terms like wet ware computing or organoid intelligence. So this is a new field, in which we are trying to use iving neurons to process information and we want to use them as processors, to process information as today we do with computers.
BETH BARANY:So why is this technology important? And maybe also if you could say a little bit about why you were attracted to this field.
EWELINA KURTYS:So at first I will say why it's important because we can see today that artificial intelligence can have a scalability problem, because AI is using increasing in amount of energy. Actually, the amount of energy which is used is increasing exponentially. So today is still manageable, but we can expect that in the future it can become a problem. So we try to solve this problem by using living neurons for computations because they are 1 million times more energy efficient than digital computers. So that's, that's the reason why it's important and why we believe that it's a future for AI. And why I work on this, the reason is because I'm neuroscientist. I have done research in brain imaging. I was always fascinated with brain. And after I left academia, I started work in industry. I started to discover new areas and I discovered artificial intelligence. I realized how important it is, how many crazy things you can do. I become fascinated. I trained myself in the field and I was working a lot in the commercial applications of artificial intelligence and now I work on step farther, you could say, on the future of artificial intelligence, which is biocomputing. So this is how we see future of AI in around 10 years when we can do, we can run artificial and intelligence algorithm on the living neurons.
BETH BARANY:That just blows me away. I remember hearing years ago about using crystals or quartz or diamonds and, and organic material for computing. So is that just my science fiction brain putting things together that maybe haven't been put together or is that also like a part of, of biocomputing?
EWELINA KURTYS:Well, it's not part of Biocomputing, but it's part of bigger field, which is called"unconventional computing". And there are actually many ideas. Also, quantum computing is one of the type. So unconventional computing is everything different than digital, what we have today. So there are actually many ideas and people try to make computation with fungi, with bacteria, with DNA. So there are many, many ideas on how to do computations in different way, and we belong to that field.
BETH BARANY:So the, the broader field of, what did you call it?
EWELINA KURTYS:unconventional computing.
BETH BARANY:Unconventional computing. Okay.
EWELINA KURTYS:And then there are many, many different fields inside, including biocomputing on living neurons.
BETH BARANY:Okay. And so can you paint a picture for me? Are you there working with petri dishes or like what, at what scale are the, is the organic matter? And maybe today, what is it that you can have it do? I have heard about, fungus, and, and what it can do. Um, but I'm wondering, yeah. What does that look like in, in, in your field specifically or what you're working on specifically?
EWELINA KURTYS:So, at the moment it's everything is very small. We work on the 3D structures of living neurons, which we call neurospheres. So they're such a round block of cells, 10,000 cells each. We put them on the electrodes. So at the moment is very, everything is small. It's a small scale, and we try to discover the basic algorithm on how to program neurons.
BETH BARANY:Okay. And, and when you say small, can you give me a comparison? Is it like a small, as a coin, smaller than that? Do you have to use a microscope?
EWELINA KURTYS:Smaller. Definitely, so it's actually like half millimeter diameter is one neurosphere, which we put on the electrodes. And actually, if you want to see this visually, you can go on our website, finalspark.com. We have section live. And there is a camera view from our laboratory on how it looks.
BETH BARANY:And so looking into the future, you mentioned 10 years from now AI will be run on bio computers. is that hard, like a hard prediction? Or is that a wish? Is it somewhere in between?
EWELINA KURTYS:No, it's our estimation. We have been made some specific plans for our research. We are talking currently to investors. We are seeking 50 million Swiss francs of investment. And we think that with this investment we can accelerate our research. With investor, we plan to solve the problem of learning in vitro. So how to teach neurons, some basic algorithm in the next two, three years. After around three years for advanced algorithm to match the performance of digital computers, and then around three years for scaling. So we want to make huge structures, even a hundred meters long of neurons, which will be so-called bio server. It will be remotely available computational power the same way as today cloud computing. So we assume it will take us 10 years to arrive to this.
BETH BARANY:And you said that one of the advantages over the energy usages of the computers running AI systems is some kind of energy efficiency with Biocomputing. How can that be the case? Is it because everything is so much faster or it uses less energy to power the same kind of computations? And again, is this more of a guess or is this like based on actual experiments that you're doing in the lab?
EWELINA KURTYS:Well, we cannot really measure this, this yet, but there are some publications which compare human brain to digital computer. And they estimate that human brain is around million time times more energy efficient. And we know also that to stimulate human brain, we would need small nuclear plant. And we can run on one banana for all day. From this are these calculations about energy efficiency and of course, in our bio computing at this stage we can store one bit of information. So this is a little bit early to measure real efficiency of Biocomputer.
BETH BARANY:Can you explain to me again what you were just saying about a nuclear power plant? Are you saying it would take one nuclear power plant to make our brains go? Tell me.
EWELINA KURTYS:No, no, no. To simulate, to simulate what happens in our brain with digital technologies.
BETH BARANY:Ah, okay. Because the human brain is so much more energy efficient than any computer.
EWELINA KURTYS:Yes. And actually there are a lot of considerations about this. I also wrote recently a blog article about this, which is on my LinkedIn, comparing different aspects. So we know that brain is actually processing information, encoding information, totally different way comparing to digital. So brain is encoding information in time and space, so it matters when exactly and where in your brain neurons are active. So this is totally different type of encoding than zero- ones in computers. Also, in brain you have a lot of recurrent connections, which are, a little bit more difficult in digital, not so common. And also, you have a lot of filtering information. So we can treat in hierarchical way information. So not everything has the same importance like in the computer, although there are some solutions for that. But, more or less in the computer, every information is the same importance. We can filter, we can focus on most important things and let's say ignore less important ones. Also, we can, for example, when we analyze images with our brain, we can only for example, we can detect. So we can spend energy only when we detect the differences in our field of view, while computer would analyze all the pixels, for example. So these are just, there are many, many examples on how brain is more efficient also because, memory and computation happens in the same, place in. in the brain. So that also increases the efficiency because you don't have to spend energy on, on the changing the location of the information, like in, usual digital computers. So there are many ways, how you can explain this energy efficiency of the brain.
BETH BARANY:That's fascinating. I'm very fascinated by the idea that the brain is actually making choices, about our reality before we're consciously aware. That pattern recognition is solely based on our previous experience. And if we want to have new experiences and new understandings, we actually have to input new things that we have never seen before. So our brain can make new patterns. So that essentially our brain is a predicting machine and all coming down to being super energy efficient. One brain scientist talks about it being: our brain, it wants to keep us alive. Therefore, it wants to save as much energy as possible. Therefore, it is making constant predictions about every single word I'm gonna say next. Everything I might even understand in terms of coding emotion, what it means when someone makes a certain facial gesture-- all of it. It's all based on this predictive model happening way below our conscious awareness. So is Biocomputing somehow looking at that is, oh, how do we take advantage of that? I know it is early days yet, but that's something that I'm fascinated about. So I was wondering how does that apply, if at all, to the field of Biocomputing?
EWELINA KURTYS:Well, I think for now it's a little bit difficult to compare because we are at the stage of one bit of information. So let's see what the future will bring and then we will see with experiments.
BETH BARANY:Absolutely. So, I know this is a brief interview today and, and it is such a vast topic. So where can people find out more about this work, of biocomputing?
EWELINA KURTYS:Our website is a good resource. We have also some articles. We have a lot of information, final spark.com. We also have Discord account. We build a community there. There are a lot of technical discussions also. So I recommend this. Also on our website, you can find the link to Discord. Also we have LinkedIn page and, X page. So we try to communicate our work widely. And we also talk a lot to podcasters and journalists because we would like that this new field of biocomputing is more recognized in the society.
BETH BARANY:That's really wonderful. And as I, I told to you before I even started recording, I have a nephew who wants to go into the field of biotech and for all the young people who may be listening to this, what recommendations do you have about where to put their attention in terms of, of their education? I know my, my nephew is doing his biology and chemistry as well as computer sciences. So yeah. any recommendations for the younger generation who are curious about this unconventional computing and specifically biocomputing?
EWELINA KURTYS:So I always recommend people to follow what they're interested in because the future is unpredictable and we cannot really know what will be the jobs and what will be the market in 10 years or 20. So I think the surest bet is to follow what you're interested in. And then you can always change and you can learn something new, some new skills if there will be necessary. But if you do what you like, it's much easier also to learn new stuff and to keep going. It's much more pleasant. So I really recommend to follow the interest. And, if someone is specifically interested in biocomputing, they are recommended to check our paper in Frontiers. And it's a blend of biology and engineering. So there is also such a trend, maybe in education. And also you can see this in research and in private companies there are more and more projects which combine biology and engineering, and I think it's quite hot now. However, still I really recommend to do what someone is interested and enjoy because the trends can always change. So we don't know, but there is a lot, currently a lot of interesting projects on combining biology engineering, so people who understand biology but can also code, code and maybe build some hardware. So that's interesting mix.
BETH BARANY:I really love that advice. I wish someone had handed me more engineering skillsets when I was younger. I had the mindset of a builder, but I didn't have the skillset. And I mean now I am a builder of, of media and podcasts and film and books and courses, et cetera. So, I want to say, let me put myself here in the spotlight. Ewelina Kurtys, thank you so much for being a guest on How To Write The Future. I think your insights and input will be so fascinating to both writers and non-writers and anyone who cares about the future. So thank you. Thank you so much for being with us today.
EWELINA KURTYS:Thank you too.
BETH BARANY:Everyone. Write long and prosper.