Sapien Capital, @SeiNetwork's DeSci investment arm, just recruited a Biopharma veteran to advise Sei’s $65M Open Science Fund. Here’s everything you need to know in 5 minutes about the movement: As you all know, Sei is gradually gaining traction with narratives like RWA, DeFi, GameFi, stables, and more. It’s the product of focused execution toward one goal, MAKING MARKETS MOVE FASTER. The growth is clear: • #1 EVM chain by MAW, over Base and BNB • 1M+ DAW and ATH in daily transactions • 100K+ daily gaming transactions • $1.53B DEX volume in July (ATH) But they can’t keep dwelling on past glory. New frontiers are needed. One of them is DeSci, which is still undervalued, but with the potential to make @SeiNetwork the infra rails for the future of scientific collaboration in longevity, biotech, and other frontier research domains. To achieve this ambitious goal, there’s a need for a great recruit, which is where Dr Michael Baran comes in. Dr Michael Baran, Partner at Pfizer Ventures, is joining as a strategic advisor to shape the investment strategy for the $65M Open Science Fund and guide Sei’s DeSci vertical. His remit is to turn proof-of-concept projects in decentralized funding, community-led data ownership, and tokenized research participation into sustainable ventures that can solve real bottlenecks in drug development and translational science. In case you don’t know, Pfizer Ventures has already engaged with DeSci through VitaDAO, so this is not a random leap. It is part of a longer strategic interest in decentralized science models. Decentralized Science has promised to free science from centralized funding bodies and glacial publication cycles, but much of the movement is still stuck in proof-of-concept mode. As put it, Baran’s arrival “is a signal that the grown-ups have arrived.” He brings a track record from biopharma investment and R\&D, bridging the gap between crypto-native ideals and the operational realities of drug development, especially in longevity where timelines are measured in decades and budgets in billions. The lofty goal here is flipping Eroom’s Law, making drug discovery faster rather than slower. Without infrastructure for large-scale coordination, transparent funding, and interoperable data, that goal risks being just another slogan. But guess what? Nothing is impossible, so @SeiNetwork's architecture, paired with Sapien Capital’s focus on longevity, makes this an experiment worth watching closely. It may even mark the start of DeSci 2.0, where theory meets execution. Eleanor Davies, Sapien Capital’s Global DeSci Lead, said: “Michael has an unmatched perspective that will contribute to the scalability and institutional adoption of DeSci. We’re here to build beyond the bubble, and realize the full potential that crypto has in the sciences.” She added, “His experience in the industry, and as a DeSci advocate from day one, makes him the ideal partner for success in the DeSci V2 on Sei. We’re still early, and there’s a lot of potential. We’re thrilled to welcome him into the fold as we make Sei the go-to destination for DeSci and frontier technologies.” Longevity research faces what Davies calls “a Gordian knot of inefficiencies” from capital formation and talent coordination to clinical trial data access and consistent quality management. “It can take decades to bring therapeutics to patients, and we don’t have time for this.” The Open Science Fund aims to reduce barriers in underfunded fields like longevity, giving under-resourced but highly capable entrepreneurs access to funding, a high-caliber ecosystem, and faster progress. Sei’s infrastructure enables fast finality for milestone funding, parallel processing for massive aging datasets, and permissionless coordination so a computational biologist in one country can work with a clinician in another at internet speed, not institutional pace. Baran summed it up simply: “Science moves at the speed of collaboration, but our infrastructure hasn’t caught up. Sei represents the first blockchain capable of supporting the computational demands and coordination requirements that research actually needs. There’s a huge opportunity to expedite the sciences that simply wasn’t feasible before.” So there you have it, if you're still fading Sei, it's better you stop because... DeSci is about to move faster on SEI. ($/acc)