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Synthetic Biology Events & Industry Information
🌍 Global Synthetic Biology Conference
📅 May 4-7, 2026 in San Jose
Join us!

tinyurl.com/2uc677rn Built With Biology is the premier innovation network for biological engineers, innovators, entrepreneurs, and investors who share a passion for using biology to build a better, more sustainable planet. We provide our community members with personal and professional development support, as well as valuable opportunities for networking, partnership, collaboration, and education. Every year we host The Global Synthetic Biology Summit which showcases the cutting-edge developments in biology that are transforming how we fuel, heal, and feed the world. In addition, we stage a variety of other conferences, thought leader retreats, and local meet-ups throughout the year, in both the United States and around the world.

10/30/2026

Most synthetic biology starts with sugar. Michael Köpke built a platform that starts with steel mill exhaust.

He's named on more than 500 patents, and the microbes he engineered are running in commercial plants around the world.

Michael joined LanzaTech in 2009 and built its biology platform from the ground up: synthetic biology, automation and biofoundry, strain and protein engineering, and computational modeling. Today, as Chief Innovation Officer, he directs the company's innovation strategy and technology partnerships.

His view is simple. "The world has enough carbon above the ground to make the things we need."

In 2027 he joins us on the SynBioBeta stage.

What the platform has delivered:

- More than 500 metabolic pathways designed and over 100 molecules produced directly from gas, at bioreactor scales above 500,000 liters
- Led the work showing carbon-negative production of acetone and isopropanol by gas fermentation at industrial pilot scale, published in Nature Biotechnology
- Steelanol in Ghent, run by ArcelorMittal under LanzaTech's license, shipped its first barge of ethanol made from recycled steel mill carbon in 2024
- Shougang LanzaTech, the joint venture that runs gas fermentation at steel mills in China, listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June 2026
- A new multi-year collaboration with DTU's BRIGHT initiative to build a next-generation C1 biofoundry for turning CO2, CO, and methane into fuels, chemicals, and materials

Recognition along the way:

- The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award
- The ACS National Award for Team Innovation
- A spot on The Bioeconomy 500

His work reaches well beyond one company:

- PhD in biotechnology from Ulm University
- LanzaTech (2009-present), VP of Synthetic Biology, then Chief Innovation Officer since 2023
- Adjunct professor at Northwestern University
- Board member of the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC) and the International Metabolic Engineering Society
- Author of more than 50 peer-reviewed studies and community research roadmaps that bring academia, industry, government, and nonprofits to the same table

If you're working on carbon-to-product biology, gas fermentation, or biomanufacturing that has to compete at industrial scale, Michael is the person to find.

Come find him in San Jose, May 3-6th.

10/29/2026

Most investors talk about AI for biology. Edward Kliphuis co-leads a $200M fund that does nothing else.

His team at Sofinnova Partners has backed some of the most closely watched AI-bio companies in Europe, from protein design to foundation models for biology.

Sofinnova has been investing in life sciences for 50 years. In 2023 it launched its Digital Medicine strategy to back early-stage companies "at the intersection of biology, data and computation," and Edward and fellow partner Simon Turner closed Digital Medicine I at $200M, above target. Edward put the pace plainly at the close: "In just a few months since launching this strategy, we've executed five investments into transformative companies which are fusing state-of-the-art computational methods with advanced biological innovations."

In 2027 he joins us on the SynBioBeta stage.

What the Digital Medicine portfolio has been up to:

- Co-led the $40M Series A for Latent Labs, founded by Simon Kohl, former co-lead of protein design at Google DeepMind and a senior scientist on AlphaFold2
- Backed Bioptimus, the Paris team of ex-Google DeepMind and Owkin scientists building a foundation model for biology, now at $76M in total funding
- Led the €13.8M Series A for Kiro, which uses AI to help doctors and patients make sense of lab results, with Edward joining the board
- Co-led the $5M seed for BioCorteX, which simulates how microbes, the body, and drugs interact, with Edward joining the board
- Also backing Cure51, Excelsior Sciences, Betteromics, deepc, and L'école AI

His career has followed the money into medicine:

- M Ventures, the corporate VC arm of Merck KGaA, where he started as a biopharma analyst and later invested in digital medicine, including the developers of the first FDA-authorized video game therapy
- Kempen & Co, the European merchant bank, covering listed small- and mid-cap life sciences stocks
- Sofinnova Partners (2021-present), where he is now a Partner and co-leads the Digital Medicine strategy

He holds an MSc in Biopharmaceutical Sciences from Leiden University, with a focus on pharmacology.

And he likes a challenge. In 2012 he and his team drove an underpowered 1.2L Chevrolet Aveo from London to Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert, to raise money for SOS Children's Villages.

If you're building a company where biology meets data and computation, and you're looking for an early investor who has done this before, Edward is the person to find.

Come find him in San Jose, May 3-6th.

10/28/2026

When COVID-19 tore through the USS Theodore Roosevelt in 2020, Matthew Kasper led the team that figured out what happened.

Today he runs the science behind how the Department of War spots the next biological threat.

Matt is a retired Navy Commander and PhD microbiologist who has spent more than 20 years building biosurveillance systems in the places where outbreaks start. As Chief Scientist of the Department of War's Biosurveillance Program, he leads R&D against natural, deliberate, and weaponized biological threats, bringing AI and machine learning into genomic analysis and pushing next-generation tools like wastewater surveillance.

In 2027 he joins us at SynBioBeta on our biosurveillance panel in the Biosecurity and Biodefense track.

What he's built:

- Led the team behind the New England Journal of Medicine study of the USS Theodore Roosevelt outbreak, which found 1,271 sailors infected and nearly half never showed symptoms
- As Chief of the Global Emerging Infections Surveillance (GEIS) program, supported 22 partner labs in more than 70 countries, feeding biological intelligence to all six Geographic Combatant Commands
- Pushed GEIS toward pathogen-agnostic sequencing and sequence sharing across labs, making near-real-time detection and the discovery of new pathogens possible
- Hosted GEIS's first Next-Generation Sequencing Summit, bringing the network's sequencing and bioinformatics experts together in one room
- Authored more than 60 peer-reviewed publications

His career was built in the field, not just the lab:

- U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 6 in Lima, Peru, directing surveillance and research programs across Central and South America
- U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 in Jakarta, Indonesia, leading programs across Indonesia, Cambodia, and Malaysia
- Oversight of Navy research labs in Egypt, Ghana, Singapore, Cambodia, and Peru
- Outbreak investigations from enteric disease in El Salvador to Zika in Cambodia, plus hands-on BSL-3 work and service as a select agent Biosurety Officer
- GEIS, then Chief Scientist of the Department of War's Biosurveillance Program

He knows how a signal in a lab becomes a decision in the field. Now he wants to know how AI and synthetic biology can make that early warning faster and the response stronger.

If you're building diagnostics, sequencing, AI for biology, or anything that could help catch the next outbreak sooner, Matt is the person to find.

Come find him in San Jose, May 3-6th.

10/26/2026

Amyris is running four fermentation lines in Brazil and supplying Givaudan, dsm-firmenich, and Croda.

And the man who built its strain engineering platform, Sunil Chandran, is back as CTO.

Few companies taught synthetic biology more than Amyris. It was one of the field's first big bets on turning sugar into specialty molecules, and today it is focused on what it does best: making ingredients and licensing its platform to partners, out of its sugarcane-fed fermentation plant in Barra Bonita, Brazil.

That's where Sunil comes in. He spent 17 years at Amyris, rising from scientist to Chief Science Officer and Head of R&D, and was the primary architect of its Automated Strain Engineering platform, the engine behind the ingredients it brought to market. He rejoined as CTO in September 2025 to lead R&D and process development.

"There is a hunger for new chemistry and ingredients, and not many companies can fill the gap," he says. "Amyris is the leader in filling that gap."

In 2027 he joins us on the SynBioBeta stage.

What Amyris has been up to:

- Brought a fourth production line online at its Barra Bonita plant in March 2026, making molecules like squalene, farnesene, bisabolol, and patchouli
- Took full ownership of the RealSweet joint venture for Reb M sweetener after buying out Ingredion's stake in 2025
- Signed a $12.3M Department of Defense agreement in 2024 for pharmaceutical compounds
- Shifting to a "Bio-facturing-as-a-Service" model that opens its platform to partners

His career runs through the companies that made fermentation a business:

- Kosan Biosciences, where he studied how polyketide synthases could make new drug candidates
- Amyris (17 years), where he built the strain engineering platform and led research programs that commercialized fermentation-derived ingredients
- Impossible Foods (2023-2025), where he was Chief Science Officer, leading R&D, process development, and innovation for the plant-based meat company
- Amyris (2025-present), back as Chief Technology Officer

He holds a PhD in chemistry from Michigan State University and did his postdoc at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His view of what's next is simple. "There's so much untapped potential in biological chemistry, it's really astounding," he says. "Our job at Amyris is to unlock it, responsibly, sustainably, and at scale."

If you're making molecules with biology and need a partner who has scaled it before, Sunil is the person to find.

Come find him in San Jose, May 3-6th.

10/23/2026

Necrotic enteritis is a $6 billion problem for the chicken industry.

It starts with a microbe that belongs there. Clostridium perfringens lives in every healthy chicken's gut. But when a bird gets stressed, from a feed change or a vaccination, it turns into a gut-punching parasite. It starts making two toxins that break open the gut lining and pull nutrients out for itself.

On Sept 29, BiomEdit got USDA approval for the first engineered microbe that engrafts in the gut and secretes an antibody to stop it. Not by killing C. perfringens, and not with an antibiotic. By neutralizing the toxins and stopping its mechanism of action in its tracks.

That mechanism is where the $6 billion comes from, and it hits farmers three ways:

- Feed conversion. Most birds don't die. They just absorb less of what they eat and need about 11% more feed per pound of meat. Feed is 65 to 75% of the cost of raising a broiler, so this hits the bottom line directly.
- Weight. Birds with the subclinical form run about 12% lighter at market.
- Mortality. In the worst cases, the birds die.

So does it work? In a challenge study with Southern Poultry Research Group, mortality fell from 13.1% to 6.6%, a 48.7% reduction. Treated birds also converted feed better and gained more weight. Same 42 days, same feed bill, more chicken.

The product is already in more than 35 million broilers across three major US producers. That data comes in around January 2027.

It's also proof of concept. You can deliver a microbe, have it engraft, and have it make a therapeutic right where the disease is.

This is just the first of many potential applications for BiomEdit's microbe engineering platform for drug delivery. Next up are rumen strains that cut methane, gut enzymes that break down inflammatory factors, and dogs with IBD, where an antibody made inside the gut can stay out of the rest of the body.

Our correspondent Aaron Blotnick spoke with Aaron Schacht earlier this month to learn about what BiomEdit is building and where they see this technology going. Schacht's take:

"We have an N of 1. If you think back to the first antibody that was ever made, this might be the same moment for this modality."

Aaron Blotnick has the full story on our website, link in the comments.

https://www.synbiobeta.com/read/usda-greenlights-the-first-engineered-microbe-that-makes-antibodies-in-the-gut

10/17/2026

Novo Nordisk has been building out its internal AI tools for decades, and was early to the LLM wave three years ago.

Now Peter Clark is back at SynBioBeta 2027 to talk about what comes next: using AI to design Novo's next wave of medicines.

Novo is at a turning point. Under new CEO Mike Doustdar, the company behind Ozempic and Wegovy plans to launch more than five multi-blockbusters by 2030 and push beyond obesity and diabetes. Doustdar wants Novo to become "the world's most AI-driven healthcare company," and has brought in AI partners across R&D, from OpenAI to Anthropic.

That puts Peter's team at the center of the plan. As VP of Computational Drug Design, he leads Novo's in silico drug hunters across small molecules, peptides, and biologics, from Boston to Copenhagen, including digital design work on the incretin and amylin peptides behind its obesity franchise.

What he's been up to:

- Helped lead Novo's contributions to OpenFold3, the open-source foundation model for predicting the 3D structures of proteins, nucleic acids, and small molecules
- Chaired the 2026 AI in Drug Discovery conference in London
- Building out his team with open roles in molecular AI, cheminformatics, peptide modeling, and biologics design

Last year he was one of our busiest speakers:

- On the main stage, "The Programmable Protein Era: How AI Rewrites the Rules of Biomolecules," with Cradle, Procter & Gamble, IFF, and GEN
- In the breakout "Beyond Static Predictions: AI for Protein Dynamics and Multi-Cell Models," with Boltz, Achira, UCSF, and Amplify Partners

His career runs from the clinic to the computer:

- Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (2013-2017), bioinformatics across genetic diagnostics and immunogenetics
- Penn Medicine (2017-2019), director of bioinformatics
- Janssen (2019-2023), head of data science for Janssen Biotherapeutics, then head of computational sciences and engineering for therapeutics discovery
- Novo Nordisk (2023-present), leading computational drug design

If you're building AI for molecular design, or want to know what big pharma actually needs from it, Peter is the person to find.

Come find him in San Jose, May 3-6th.

10/15/2026

Every good story needs a twist. 🧬 Twist Bioscience is back as a sponsor of the SynBioBeta 2027 Tools & Platforms track, May 3–6 in San Jose.

Founders: this is the team that will deliver the DNA to fuel your next breakthrough. Watch Emily Leproust's Main Stage fireside chat on how Twist became a "10-year overnight success," then come meet Twist in May.

🎥 Watch the fireside chat → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqicoqEW8Aw&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=promo-twist&utm_content=text-link

🎟️ Get tickets → https://www.syntheticbiologysummit.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=promo-twist-ticket&utm_content=text-link #2027-ticket-section

10/15/2026

In 2010, Joseph McAuliffe stood up at the American Chemical Society and showed how engineered bacteria could turn sugar into the raw material for Goodyear tires.

Today he chairs the committee writing the standards for industrial biotech and synthetic biology.

Joe has spent more than 25 years doing the unglamorous work that makes biomanufacturing real: the analytical chemistry, the enzymes, the process, and the proof. He has published 63 papers cited more than 2,800 times, and his name is on a stack of patents for making isoprene from renewable feedstocks.

In 2027 he joins us at SynBioBeta to moderate our Chemicals & Materials breakout, "New to Nature: Beyond Drop-In Replacement in Chemicals and Materials."

Few people are better placed to run that conversation. He spent years building one of the most ambitious drop-in programs in the field, and has watched what it actually takes to get a biobased molecule from a fermenter into a product.

His work at a glance:

- Presented the Genencor and Goodyear BioIsoprene program at the 239th ACS National Meeting, a fermentation process that recovers isoprene, the monomer behind synthetic rubber, straight from the gas phase
- Co-authored the 2010 technology update on that gas-phase bioprocess and is named on the patent family behind it
- Chairs ASTM International Committee E62 on Industrial Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology, which develops the standards for biobased products, microbe-based products, and carbon intensity
- Co-authored "Industrial use of immobilized enzymes" in Chemical Society Reviews, one of the field's standard references on enzyme immobilization

His career runs through the companies that built industrial biotech:

- University of Alberta and Sanford Burnham Prebys, where he trained in carbohydrate and organic chemistry
- Genencor, the Palo Alto enzyme company that pioneered industrial fermentation, where he worked as a staff scientist on BioIsoprene
- DuPont, which acquired Genencor in 2011, where he led the bioanalytical department
- IFF, which merged with DuPont's Nutrition & Biosciences business in 2021, where he was a Technical Fellow and Senior Principal Scientist in analytical chemistry
- McAuliffe Consulting Services, his Sunnyvale firm, where he now advises investors and companies across industrial biotech and synthetic biology

Back in 2010 he put the goal simply: "We want to make biochemicals from renewable materials, partially as a hedge against rising crude oil prices and much more so because this approach moves us to a more sustainable future."

This year he wants to push past that first chapter. Drop-in replacements taught the field how hard it is to compete on price with petroleum. The next question is which molecules only biology can make, and what it takes to bring them to market.

If you're building in chemicals or materials, or investing in companies that are, Joe is the person to find.

Come find him in San Jose, May 3-6th.

You can learn more and buy your early bird tickets while they are still available at:
https://www.syntheticbiologysummit.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=promo-speaker-promo-joseph-mcauliffe&utm_content=text-link

10/15/2026

Sensible Biotechnologies has secured a $47 million financing package to scale its cell-based platform for designing and manufacturing mRNA therapeutics.

The total includes a Series A led by Oxford Science Enterprises and up to $20 million in non-dilutive funding from the Government of Slovakia and the European Union. Sensible plans to expand its VECTOR platform, AI-enabled sequence optimization, automated high-throughput screening and clinical-grade manufacturing capacity.

The company’s core technical bet is to manufacture naturally modified mRNA inside engineered eukaryotic cells rather than relying exclusively on conventional in vitro transcription. As mRNA therapeutics expand beyond vaccines, the financing is aimed at both the molecule-design layer and the manufacturing infrastructure required to make those programs scalable.

https://dealroom.co/news/159939-sensible-bio-lands-47m-to-scale-mrna-manufacturing/

Want to stay ahead in biotech? Subscribe to our newsletter for more 🧬 https://www.syntheticbiologysummit.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=digest-08.21.26&utm_content=text-link

10/14/2026

Big Idea Ventures is accepting applications for its food-innovation accelerator and direct-investment pathways.

The program targets startups working across food technology, agriculture and sustainable materials, with Big Idea Ventures offering capital, mentorship and access to its investor and corporate network. The firm has built a portfolio spanning alternative proteins, ingredients, agtech and adjacent food-system technologies.

The application page is evergreen rather than a newly dated funding announcement, so the relevant takeaway is the opportunity itself: founders can apply for accelerator participation or direct investment through Big Idea Ventures’ Global Food Innovation Fund.

https://bigideaventures.com/apply-now/

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