SynBioBeta Speaker
David Ewing Duncan
Arc Fusion
CEO
David Ewing Duncan is an award-winning journalist, researcher, entrepreneur, and advisor in the fields of life science, technology, AI, politics, and culture—and a best-selling author of 12 books published in 21 languages. David writes for Wired, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, MIT Technology Review, Fortune, Scientific American, Atlantic, and many others. He is a former producer and correspondent for ABC Nightline and 20/20, and for NPR’s Morning Edition. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Arc Fusion, which holds unique events around the world on major life science topics for top leaders. He was the founding director of the Center for Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley, a Health Expert in Residence at IDEO, the Creative Director of Cure in New York City and. He is a consultant and advisor to select projects, nonprofits, investors, academic programs, and companies. David's latest book is Microlands: The Future of Life on Earth (and why it’s smaller than you think) (LittleBrownUK and Harvard U Press), about the microbiome of the Earth that connects all life. Other books include Talking to Robots: Tales from Our Human-Robot Futures (Dutton) and the bestsellers Experimental Man and Calendar. He has co-founded three companies. He has won the AAAS Magazine Story of the Year award has been nominated 3 times for a National Magazine Award.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
Confirmed Speakers
Sessions Featuring
David Ewing
This Year
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Tools & Tech
Genome as a Canvas: Composing Life at Scale
Reading, writing, and editing DNA were just the prelude. The next frontier is composition, designing complex genetic systems and large DNA architectures from first principles using AI-driven models and scalable synthesis technologies. As datasets grow and design tools mature, biology is shifting from incremental editing toward intentional genome-scale engineering. This new paradigm treats DNA not simply as a sequence to modify but as a programmable substrate where genes, regulatory elements, and entire genomic regions can be composed, tested, and iterated like engineered systems. Advances in generative design, large-scale DNA assembly, and precision integration technologies are enabling researchers to construct increasingly complex genetic structures with higher predictability and functional intent. From next-generation recombinases and genome restructuring platforms to AI-guided design workflows that bridge computation and physical DNA construction, the emerging toolkit is redefining how biological complexity is created. The session explores how compositional genome engineering could unlock new capabilities across therapeutics, industrial biology, and synthetic life design.
Purchase Pass
Featuring
David Ewing Duncan
Arc Fusion
CEO
Kaihang Wang
Caltech
Assistant Professor
Building synthetic genomes to create new life forms.
Samuel King
Stanford University
Bioengineering Phd Candidate
Genome language models designing new bacteriophages
Andrew Hessel
Human Genome Project-write
Chairman
Genome-writing pioneer, Singularity University visionary
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Tools & Tech
Genome as a Canvas: Composing Life at Scale
Reading, writing, and editing DNA were just the prelude. The next frontier is composition, designing complex genetic systems and large DNA architectures from first principles using AI-driven models and scalable synthesis technologies. As datasets grow and design tools mature, biology is shifting from incremental editing toward intentional genome-scale engineering. This new paradigm treats DNA not simply as a sequence to modify but as a programmable substrate where genes, regulatory elements, and entire genomic regions can be composed, tested, and iterated like engineered systems. Advances in generative design, large-scale DNA assembly, and precision integration technologies are enabling researchers to construct increasingly complex genetic structures with higher predictability and functional intent. From next-generation recombinases and genome restructuring platforms to AI-guided design workflows that bridge computation and physical DNA construction, the emerging toolkit is redefining how biological complexity is created. The session explores how compositional genome engineering could unlock new capabilities across therapeutics, industrial biology, and synthetic life design.
Purchase Pass
Featuring
David Ewing Duncan
Arc Fusion
CEO
Kaihang Wang
Caltech
Assistant Professor
Building synthetic genomes to create new life forms.
Samuel King
Stanford University
Bioengineering Phd Candidate
Genome language models designing new bacteriophages
Andrew Hessel
Human Genome Project-write
Chairman
Genome-writing pioneer, Singularity University visionary
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
