Arc Institute is an independent nonprofit biomedical research organization based in Palo Alto, California. It was co-founded by Stanford University biochemistry professor Silvana Konermann, UC Berkeley bioengineering professor Patrick Hsu, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison, with Konermann as its inaugural executive director. The institute provides its scientists with multi-year funding for the study of complex diseases. It operates in partnership with three major San Francisco Bay Area research universities—Stanford, UC Berkeley, and UCSF.
History
Arc Institute was founded in 2021 to provide scientists with unconstrained research opportunities without the need for external grant applications. This followed a collaboration between Konermann, Hsu, and Collison on Fast Grants during the COVID-19 pandemic. A survey of that program’s participants indicated they would change their research plans if they had access to flexible funding.
It was launched with an initial endowment of $650 million. Its funding philosophy was inspired by those of programs like the Broad Institute, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. Founding donors include Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin, Stripe co-founders Patrick Collison and John Collison, angel investor Ron Conway, Color Genomics co-founder Elad Gil, Cue co-founder Daniel Gross, Facebook and Asana co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, Open Philanthropy chair Cari Tuna, General Catalyst CEO Hemant Taneja, and Jane Street Capital executives. Silvana Konermann is the Executive Director, and Patrick Hsu leads the development of research teams focused on technology related to biological research. Both Konermann and Hsu head research labs in addition to their other roles in the institute.
The institute maintains eight laboratories at its facility in Stanford Research Park and funds projects at partner universities. Carolyn Bertozzi and Aviv Regev serve on its scientific advisory board, and Nat Friedman, Reid Hoffman, and Meta Chief Financial Officer Susan Li serve on its board of directors. Dave Burke, former Vice President of Engineering for Google’s Android division, was named Chief Technology Officer in 2024.
Funding structure
The institute's three main funding categories are core investigators, innovation investigators, and Ignite Awards. It also has a mentorship program.
Arc core investigators work within the institute itself, and are given a budget to support a lab of up to 20 people and full funding for eight years of laboratory operations. The institute also hosts technology development centers and experimental laboratories to research complex diseases.
Arc innovation investigators are granted $1 million over five years, while Ignite Awards grant researchers from the three partner universities $100,000 for one year.
Research
The institute brings researchers from varied backgrounds under one roof in an effort to facilitate collaboration between biologists doing experimental research and researchers creating new technology.
In 2024 Patrick Hsu and collaborators developed a new method of genetic engineering called "bridge RNA" that simplifies the process of gene modification with increased precision to minimize disease risk. The research was described in two papers published in Nature in 2024.
That same year Hsu and Brian Hie trained an AI model on long sequences of the information encoded within DNA. Called "Evo", this model uses deep learning architecture to model and predict DNA sequences at a single-nucleotide resolution and design biological systems such as CRISPR-Cas complexes and transposable elements. This research was published in Science in 2024. Evo was also highlighted by The New York Times for a "Good Tech Award" in 2024.
In January 2025, Arc Institute announced a partnership with Nvidia to integrate biology and machine learning.
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