Agential Biology Institute (ABI) is a nonprofit research organization bringing together leading scientists, theorists, and engineers from across disciplines to investigate a bold question: Are living systems fundamentally creative agents rather than passive molecular machines?

Founded by Dr. Richard Watson, Charlie Munford, and Dr. Joana Xavier, ABI develops and rigorously tests concepts like biological agency, basal cognition, and multi-scale intelligence throughout the tree of life — asking whether these capacities are drivers of evolutionary change rather than merely products of it.

Through our Agential Topics study group, conference series, and a coordinated empirical research program spanning computational modeling, robotics, developmental biology, evolutionary genetics, and prebiotic chemistry, we work to build a scientifically credible alternative to gene-centric biology.‍ ‍

ABI exists to focus and resource efforts to make agency legible enough to study, precise enough to test, and useful enough to build with.

Our team collaborates with world-class partners at institutions including Tufts University, the University of Vermont, Tel Aviv University, and the University of Oxford, guided by a Scientific Advisory Board that includes Denis Noble, Michael Levin, and Stuart Kauffman.

As in any nascent field, high-level conjectures differ. ABI aims to focus the streams of scientific inquiry – not to create consensus, but to build the coordination layer that frontier science requires. We are committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity — preregistering studies, publishing openly, and reporting results regardless of outcome. Through guided but independent research projects and periodic conferences, ABI will provide the infrastructure for the rapid development of this nascent field. 

We believe that the puzzle of agency is a laboratory problem, not a metaphorical or theoretical problem, and that what is needed is coordination, strategy, communication, and resources. This is the moment where the field can tip.

Understanding agency would revolutionize the science of regeneration, adaptive bioengineering, controllable morphogenesis, biological computing, non-genetic therapeutics, and artificial intelligence, and is poised to transform our understanding of what it means to be alive.