SynBioBeta Speaker
Adrian Woolfson
Genyro
President & CEO
Adrian Woolfson is the co-founder of Genyro, a California-based biotechnology company specialising in AI-augmented synthetic genome design and construction. Born in London, he studied medicine at Balliol College, Oxford, molecular genetics at Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, and was formerly the Charles and Katherine Darwin Research Fellow at Darwin College, Cambridge, where he worked with Nobel Prize Winer César Milstein in the Division of Protein and Nucleic Acid Chemistry at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Life Without Genes: The History and Future of Genomes, An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Genetics, and On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence. He has authored over 160 scientific papers, book chapters, reviews, and patents, contributed to multiple publications including the Washington Post, Nature, The Spectator, The Literary Review, Prospect Magazine, The Times Literary Supplement, London Review of Books, and Financial Times, and is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and Science magazine. He currently lives in San Francisco.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
Confirmed Speakers
Sessions Featuring
Adrian
This Year
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Tools & Tech
Turning Biology into a Predictive and Programmable Engineering Material
The convergence of AI-driven biological design with the ability to write DNA of arbitrary complexity—rapidly, accurately, and at low cost—is redefining DNA as a programmable engineering material and positioning biology as a new layer of infrastructure. By tightly coupling design and actuation, a new paradigm is emerging: closed-loop systems where AI models generate sequences, DNA synthesis brings them into reality, and functional outcomes continuously refine future designs. Early applications are already taking shape, from personalized RNA neoantigen cancer vaccines to models capable of predicting function directly from synthetic sequences. But the implications extend far beyond medicine. As these capabilities scale, they open the door to reprogramming crop genomes, engineering resilient biological systems, and even storing digital information in DNA. Biology is shifting from a discipline of discovery to one of design—where the fundamental unit of life becomes an engineerable, predictable substrate for innovation.
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Tools & Tech
Turning Biology into a Predictive and Programmable Engineering Material
The convergence of AI-driven biological design with the ability to write DNA of arbitrary complexity—rapidly, accurately, and at low cost—is redefining DNA as a programmable engineering material and positioning biology as a new layer of infrastructure. By tightly coupling design and actuation, a new paradigm is emerging: closed-loop systems where AI models generate sequences, DNA synthesis brings them into reality, and functional outcomes continuously refine future designs. Early applications are already taking shape, from personalized RNA neoantigen cancer vaccines to models capable of predicting function directly from synthetic sequences. But the implications extend far beyond medicine. As these capabilities scale, they open the door to reprogramming crop genomes, engineering resilient biological systems, and even storing digital information in DNA. Biology is shifting from a discipline of discovery to one of design—where the fundamental unit of life becomes an engineerable, predictable substrate for innovation.
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General
"Book Signing" On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence
Join us during the Wednesday Exhibit Hall Cocktail Reception for a special book signing with Adrian Woolfson.. Adrian will be signing copies of his book On the Future of Species, which explores how advances in synthetic biology and genome engineering could reshape the diversity of life on Earth. Stop by to meet Adrian, discuss the profound possibilities and responsibilities of engineering biology, and pick up a signed copy while connecting with fellow members of the SynBioBeta community.
Get a Ticket
•
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General
"Book Signing" On the Future of Species: Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence
Join us during the Wednesday Exhibit Hall Cocktail Reception for a special book signing with Adrian Woolfson.. Adrian will be signing copies of his book On the Future of Species, which explores how advances in synthetic biology and genome engineering could reshape the diversity of life on Earth. Stop by to meet Adrian, discuss the profound possibilities and responsibilities of engineering biology, and pick up a signed copy while connecting with fellow members of the SynBioBeta community.
Get a Ticket
Session lineup still growing
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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?
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Speaker Coming Soon
