Scientists
This guide is for the early-stage biotech researcher or scientist-founder moving science toward a company, often because the work is unconventional or too early for a clean venture or grant fit.
Creating a Lab
Setting one up takes an email address, with no wallet or prior crypto experience needed, and the first Lab is free to create. A researcher begins with an image, a title, and a short description, then fills the Lab with files, datasets, and collaborators over time. Because there is no financial barrier to entry, a Lab can begin accumulating a verifiable track record from the moment it exists.
Two Ways to Work
Everything inside a Lab is available through Molecule's interface, where a researcher signs in by email, uploads files, invites collaborators, and manages funding without touching any code.
For a workflow that already runs on scripts or AI agents, the same Lab is reachable through an API key, and files, updates, and project activity move through the same underlying data whichever pathway is used. An agent-native researcher can pull work into their own tools and push new findings back, keeping the Lab's public record current throughout.
Both pathways carry the same security and access rules, so working through the API never changes who can see what.
Storing and Sharing Research
Files are encrypted before they reach Molecule's servers, and only named people can open them, giving a researcher the ease of a cloud drive with security a drive does not provide. Access is set per file, so raw data can be shared publicly to build credibility while premium datasets and sensitive pre-publication results stay gated until the researcher chooses to release them. The Lab carries a public reporting surface alongside the confidential workspace, and the owner decides what stays private and what becomes visible. Collaborators join as a contributor or viewer.
Building a Record Worth Showing
Files and the meaningful actions around them are timestamped and presented as a clean, credible history, so where a cloud drive only stores files, a Lab turns ongoing work into a record a funder can rely on. That record carries direct commercial weight. A funder can perform due diligence by inspecting how much data a Lab has generated and how its funding was deployed, seeing at a glance the progress the work has made, which replaces the opaque and fragmented diligence process common in early-stage biotech with something auditable. Labs that show consistent progress and responsible treasury management build the kind of track record that attracts more funding and better collaborators, creating a flywheel effect.
Raising Funds
Alongside conventional routes like venture capital and grants, a researcher can run a token sale directly from the Lab to fund the science. Funds raised flow into the Lab's treasury under the researcher's control, and the community that forms becomes the base that Coin-to-Company later has the option to convert into real ownership.
MIRA, a Living Assessment
MIRA, the Lab's built-in research assistant, gives a continuously updating read on the project. It analyses the non-confidential data in the Lab, surfaces concrete suggestions for strengthening the work, and rates the project against the Technology Readiness Level scale adapted from NASA. That TRL rating also appears on the public project page for funders and updates automatically as new information enters the Lab, so it never goes stale. MIRA does not read confidential files, and it does not conduct research or make decisions on the researcher's behalf.
From Funding to a Company
Once a funding community has formed around a project's token, Coin-to-Company gives token holders a documented, legally grounded route to equity in the company behind the science, moving through locking, verification, application, and, if approved, holding both token and equity. Equity issued this way qualifies for United States tax advantages, and long-term shareholders may exclude a portion of capital gains under established rules for qualifying small business stock.
What Changes for the Researcher
Rather than waiting on a grant cycle or a venture fit that may not exist, a researcher creates up a Lab in minutes, then works through the interface or the API depending on how the research already runs. Work can be stored securely and shared selectively from the first day, and a token sale opens funding. MIRA keeps a living read on how the project is maturing, and if a funding community forms around the work, Coin-to-Company can carry it all the way to a real company.
Refer to DeSci codes for more Legal and governance templates.
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