SynBioBeta Speaker
Christopher Pirie
Decycle Bio
CEO
Dr. Christopher Pirie is a biotechnology executive and serial entrepreneur. He is co-founder and CEO of Decycle Bio where they're commercializing de-novo-designed, cell-free reaction cascades for platform chemicals. He previously served as co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of HDT Bio, an RNA vaccines company, where he helped to secure and service >$100M in federal grants/contracts, commercial partnership agreements, and equity financing. Before that he was co-founder and CEO of Virvio, a biopharmaceutical company spun out of the Institute for Protein Design and focused on designer proteins for respiratory diseases like influenza. He also co-founded Manus Bio where he built and ran the enzyme engineering team while leading intellectual property development. Dr. Pirie coaches entrepreneurship workshops around the world with MIT Sloan Business School and has mentored early-stage startups through the Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship at UW. When he’s not working, he is a father of two, avid soccer player, and occasional sailor.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
Confirmed Speakers
Sessions Featuring
Christopher
This Year
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Planetary Health
Biology Without Cells: The Rise of Cell-Free Biomanufacturing
Cell-free systems are redefining what’s possible in bioproduction. By bypassing the complexity of living cells, innovators can run enzyme cascades, prototype metabolic pathways, and produce high-value molecules with unmatched speed, precision, and purity. This new class of systems—from freeze-dried reactions to continuous cell-free reactors—enables rapid iteration, on-demand production, and scalable biochemistry without the need for fermentation tanks or long development cycles.
Purchase Pass
Featuring
Kavya Sharman
Phase Capital
Managing Partner
Amy Locks
Anzen Industries
CEO
Enzyme-stabilization expert building cell-free modular “enzyme reactors.”
Ravit Netzer
Scala Biodesign
CEO & Co-founder
Christopher Pirie
Decycle Bio
CEO
De-novo, cell-free enzyme cascades converting waste into chemicals
Neeka Mashouf
Rubi Laboratories
CEO and Co-founder
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Planetary Health
Biology Without Cells: The Rise of Cell-Free Biomanufacturing
Cell-free systems are redefining what’s possible in bioproduction. By bypassing the complexity of living cells, innovators can run enzyme cascades, prototype metabolic pathways, and produce high-value molecules with unmatched speed, precision, and purity. This new class of systems—from freeze-dried reactions to continuous cell-free reactors—enables rapid iteration, on-demand production, and scalable biochemistry without the need for fermentation tanks or long development cycles.
Purchase Pass
Featuring
Kavya Sharman
Phase Capital
Managing Partner
Amy Locks
Anzen Industries
CEO
Enzyme-stabilization expert building cell-free modular “enzyme reactors.”
Ravit Netzer
Scala Biodesign
CEO & Co-founder
Christopher Pirie
Decycle Bio
CEO
De-novo, cell-free enzyme cascades converting waste into chemicals
Neeka Mashouf
Rubi Laboratories
CEO and Co-founder
Session lineup still growing
Purchase Pass
Featuring
Speaker Coming Soon
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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?
Purchase Pass
Featuring
Speaker Coming Soon
