SynBioBeta Speaker
Kit McDonnell
Superorganism
Head of Ecosystem
Kit McDonnell is a leading strategist and ecosystem builder within the bioeconomy, working at the intersection of biodiversity and technology. Trained as a systems and molecular biologist, her work is informed by environmental anthropology and explores how human culture shapes—and is shaped by—the natural world.As Head of Ecosystem at Superorganism Ventures, the first venture firm purpose built for biodiversity, Kit leads platform strategy and stakeholder engagement across the growing nature tech landscape. She has held key roles at high-growth companies including LanzaTech and Ginkgo Bioworks, where she helped integrate emerging biotechnologies into legacy industries. Kit has also advised and built high-impact partnerships with global corporations, luxury brands, NGOs, and Fortune 500 companies. In 2020, she was named to the World Economic Forum’s COVID-19 Health and Healthcare Industry Action Group for the mid- and long-term pandemic response.A sought-after advisor, speaker, and thought leader, Kit is known for making technology more accessible and culturally resonant—using unexpected intersections to drive change. She also collaborates with artists, designers, and scientists to explore potential sustainable futures. Outside of work, Kit and her standard poodle Hubert steward Spring House Farm, a 250-acre living laboratory in the Driftless Area.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
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Kit
This Year
Session lineup still growing
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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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