xanderpicoAlex Pico

EXPERIMENTAL SCIENCE / SOFTWARE / AI

Materials, molecules, minds.
Building what comes next.

I’m Alex Pico, an experimental scientist and software builder. My background spans materials science, neuroscience, protein structure and function, bioinformatics, and collaborative disease research. Today I’m exploring what AI makes possible across these fields.

See what I’m exploring
BUILT ON A BACKGROUND INMaterials scienceNeuroscienceProtein structure & functionBioinformatics & softwareDisease research

CURRENT DIRECTIONS

What I’m exploring.

Research, writing, and useful software.
Different forms. A shared curiosity.

FEATURED PROJECT · IN DEVELOPMENT

AI-native biology,
beyond the announcements.

A series in development on the people and companies rebuilding biological discovery around AI, informed by hands-on experience in protein structure, electrophysiology, and bioinformatics. What are they betting on? How do their approaches differ? What changes as the work meets reality?

Read the project outline

Begin with biotech: compare founders’ and researchers’ accounts across companies and over time. Use full interviews and primary research to distinguish stated ambitions, demonstrated results, and open questions.

Organize future pieces by company, scientific approach, and shared question. Expand into materials and energy only when the biotech format proves useful.

No issues are published here yet. The series is in development. It is research and commentary, not investment advice or a company recommendation.

EXPLORATION

Tools for understanding

Research systems, visual explanations, and small pieces of software that help turn scattered information into something useful.

FUTURE DIRECTION

Beyond biology

Returning to questions in materials and energy with a background in fabricating and characterizing high-temperature superconductors—and a new interest in what AI can add to experimental discovery.

QUESTIONS TO FOLLOW

Not just what’s new.
What’s different?

Questions guiding the research and the tools I build.

BACKGROUND

At the bench.
At the keyboard.
Across disciplines.

My work connects experimental science with computation: making and measuring materials, studying the neural systems behind attention, understanding how protein structures enable function, and building tools to make biological data useful. Collaborative disease studies connect that work to questions in cancer, infection, neurodegeneration, and cardiovascular and kidney disease.

I bring that combination of hands-on experimentation and systems-level thinking to new questions in AI, biology, materials, and energy.

Read the annotated publication selection →

MATERIALS SCIENCE

Making and measuring materials

Fabrication and characterization of high-temperature superconductors, including X-ray diffraction to investigate material structure.

Related materials publication →

NEUROSCIENCE

Attention in living systems

Experimental work on attention systems: microelectrode injections and recordings in vivo, frequency-domain analysis of neuronal firing, and histochemistry.

Related neuroscience publication →

PROTEIN STRUCTURE & FUNCTION

Connecting structure to behavior

Protein purification, X-ray crystallography, and patch-clamp electrophysiology, alongside multiple sequence alignment and homology-based structure modeling.

Related structural biology publications →

BIOINFORMATICS & SOFTWARE

From data to useful tools

Pathway and network biology, data integration, scientific visualization, and open-source software. My previous work includes co-founding WikiPathways, leadership in Cytoscape and network biology, and directing bioinformatics at Gladstone Institutes.

Selected bioinformatics & software publications →

DISEASE RESEARCH

Different diseases.
Connected questions.

Collaborative research across molecular mechanisms, genetics, immune responses, and data-driven analysis.

My coauthored work spans disease areas that are often studied separately, bringing experimental and computational perspectives to shared questions about how biological systems go wrong.

  • Brain cancer: molecular classification and genetic variation in glioma.
  • Infectious disease: HIV persistence and the inflammatory mechanisms of COVID-19.
  • Cardiovascular and kidney disease: circulating proteins, biological pathways, and heart failure risk.
  • Neurodegeneration: behavior, neuroinflammation, and Alzheimer’s disease models.
Selected disease research publications →