SynBioBeta Speaker
Blair Willette
KdT Ventures
Investor
Blair Willette, PhD, is an investor at KdT Ventures, where she focuses on early-stage investments at the intersection of biology, chemistry, and deep tech. KdT partners with founders building transformative companies across therapeutics, materials, energy, and industrials, with a focus on science-first platforms capable of scaling into meaningful commercial outcomes.Blair brings a rigorous scientific lens to investing, with a PhD in Pharmacology from Duke University, where she focused on G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) signaling and built tools to interrogate the spatial and temporal dynamics of cellular signaling. She applies this training to deeply evaluate the molecular foundations of new technologies and assess their potential to translate into differentiated processes or products.At KdT, Blair works closely with founders from company formation through early clinical development or commercialization, performing technical diligence and supporting strategy, positioning, and fundraising. Her investment interests span next-generation therapeutics as well as non-healthcare applications of biology and chemistry, including bio-based materials, industrial platforms, and climate technologies.She is particularly passionate about helping scientific founders translate complex innovations into scalable businesses and compelling narratives for investors.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
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Blair
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Human Health
From Cells to Patients: Solving the Scale Mismatch in Virtual Biology
Drug discovery often measures biology at the cell level while interventions work at the tissue, organ, or whole-patient scale. This mismatch can make accurate cell-level predictions irrelevant in the clinic. This session dives into strategies to bridge that gap: multiscale modeling that nests single-cell dynamics within organ-level simulations, spatial transcriptomics that preserve context, and surrogate models that translate cell-level outputs into clinical biomarkers. Speakers will ask: how do we ensure virtual biology reflects not just what cells do in isolation, but how biology behaves in the real complexity of patients?
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