About Niko

My name is Niko McCarty. I live in Cambridge, MA.

Contact: niko@asimov.com

I’m a founding editor at Asimov Press, a publishing venture focused on biotechnology. I’m also the co-founder of Ideas Matter, a writing fellowship for scientists, and a Curriculum Specialist at MIT, where I’m working to develop an undergraduate curriculum in genetic engineering.

Darwin, and after Darwin (1901-1906). George John Romanes.

Science

I was a biological engineer and synthetic biologist for seven years. I’ve studied the links between diabetes and heart failure, have invented tools to make dozens of genetic edits in living cells simultaneously, and have quantified the binding energies between proteins and a cell’s DNA.

I’ve worked in research laboratories at Caltech (with Rob Phillips), Imperial College London (with Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro and Tom Ellis), and the University of Iowa (with E. Dale Abel).

My peer-reviewed research has appeared in Nature CommunicationseLifeJCI Insight, and other journals. A full list of my work can be found online (Google Scholar).

Doing

I’m a founding editor at Asimov Press, a digital magazine that features writing about progress in biology. We publish narrative, data-driven pieces that clarify biotechnology and its applications, untangle convoluted ideas, and contextualize new ones. Our goal is to publish essays and books that will be read and revisited long after they were written.

I’m also a Learning & Curriculum Specialist at MIT, where I’m studying how genetic engineering is currently taught, and how it can be improved, with Christopher Voigt. The long-term goal is to build a flourishing bioeconomy, wherein young people can learn all the skills they need to design and manipulate DNA — and living organisms — to produce medicines, food, and advanced materials without obtaining a PhD.

Previously, I was Head of Media at New Science, a 501c3 nonprofit that made grants to highly talented scientists with the aim of accelerating basic science. I’ve also worked as a data journalist at Spectrum in New York and as a journalism intern at Retraction Watch, where I broke several stories that were later covered by the Financial Times and WIRED

I recently co-led a $10,000 writing contest, called Homeworld Ideas, together with Homeworld Collective, a 501c3 nonprofit building the climate biotechnology community. I’m a judge for the Homebrew Biology Club, another $10,000 contest for open-source biology research.

My published work has appeared in Scientific AmericanThe CounterRetraction WatchForbesSpectrum, and elsewhere.

Learning

New York University | MA in Science Journalism
California Institute of Technology | MS in Bioengineering (dropped out of PhD)
Imperial College London | MRes in Systems and Synthetic Biology
University of Iowa | BS in Biochemistry

Awards

Forbes 30 Under 30 (2024)

Fulbright Scholar (Imperial College, 2017-2018)

Goldwater Scholar (2016)