SynBioBeta Speaker
Jennifer Dionne
Stanford University
Professor
Jennifer (Jen) Dionne is a Professor of Materials Science and, by courtesy, of Radiology at Stanford. She is also deputy director of Q-NEXT (a DOE-funded National Quantum Initiative), a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator, and co-founder of Pumpkinseed, a protein-sequencing company. Jen received her B.S. degrees in Physics and Systems Science and Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis, her Ph.D. in Applied Physics at Caltech, and her postdoctoral training in Chemistry at Berkeley. As a pioneer of nanophotonics, she is passionate about developing novel methods to detect and direct biochemical transformations, emphasizing critical challenges in global health and sustainability. Her lab has demonstrated how AI-enabled Raman spectroscopy can be used to identify pathogens and predict their antibiotic resistance; and to monitor drug susceptibility of melanoma. She also forged new ground in developing in vivo tools for mechanobiology. Finally, she has pioneered environmental transmission electron microscopy, providing atomic-scale insights that enable catalysts for sustainable chemical manufacturing. Her work has been recognized with the NSF Waterman Award, a NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Moore Inventor Fellowship, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and was featured on Oprah’s list of “50 Things that will make you say ‘Wow’!”.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
Confirmed Speakers
Sessions Featuring
Jennifer
This Year
•
-
Tools & Tech
Decoding the Dark Proteome: From Discovery Gap to Drug Pipeline
The proteome holds the answers to some of biology's most persistent questions — yet the vast majority of proteins remain functionally uncharacterized. This working session brings together leaders from pharma, biotech, and the emerging protein sequencing field to explore what it would actually take to close the gap. What are the real bottlenecks in moving from dark proteome discovery to actionable drug targets? What sequencing and annotation infrastructure needs to exist? And where are the first credible opportunities for pharma to engage? A candid, technical conversation for those already building toward this frontier.
Get a Ticket
•
-
Tools & Tech
Decoding the Dark Proteome: From Discovery Gap to Drug Pipeline
The proteome holds the answers to some of biology's most persistent questions — yet the vast majority of proteins remain functionally uncharacterized. This working session brings together leaders from pharma, biotech, and the emerging protein sequencing field to explore what it would actually take to close the gap. What are the real bottlenecks in moving from dark proteome discovery to actionable drug targets? What sequencing and annotation infrastructure needs to exist? And where are the first credible opportunities for pharma to engage? A candid, technical conversation for those already building toward this frontier.
Get a Ticket
•
-
Tools & Tech
Your Cells Are Talking, Are You Listening? Measuring Physiology at Industrial Scale
Standard bioreactors often lack the instrumentation required to rapidly monitor cell physiology, leaving critical gaps in our understanding of scale-up dynamics. This session presents active projects from the Schmidt Sciences’ Sensors for Biomanufacturing Program designed to address this challenge through novel sensing modalities. Spanning from near real-time intracellular measurements to non-invasive off-gas fingerprinting, the panel brings together technology developers and industrial bioprocess experts to discuss the translation of these tools from the lab to the plant floor. Together, we will critically evaluate the utility of high-dimensional metabolic data and explore the engineering requirements for integrating physics-based sensors and machine learning into existing biomanufacturing workflows.
Get a Ticket
•
-
Tools & Tech
Your Cells Are Talking, Are You Listening? Measuring Physiology at Industrial Scale
Standard bioreactors often lack the instrumentation required to rapidly monitor cell physiology, leaving critical gaps in our understanding of scale-up dynamics. This session presents active projects from the Schmidt Sciences’ Sensors for Biomanufacturing Program designed to address this challenge through novel sensing modalities. Spanning from near real-time intracellular measurements to non-invasive off-gas fingerprinting, the panel brings together technology developers and industrial bioprocess experts to discuss the translation of these tools from the lab to the plant floor. Together, we will critically evaluate the utility of high-dimensional metabolic data and explore the engineering requirements for integrating physics-based sensors and machine learning into existing biomanufacturing workflows.
Get a Ticket
•
-
AIxBIO
The Dark Proteome: Why Protein Sequencing Is Science's Next Frontier
Billions of proteins remain uncharacterized - invisible to current tools, unknown in function, and untapped in potential. This fireside chat explores why protein sequencing is poised to become the defining technology of the next decade in biology, what "protein dark matter" really means for drug discovery and synthetic biology, and how the field is building the infrastructure to illuminate what genomics left in the shadows.
Get a Ticket
Featuring
Sue Siegel
Align & Illumina
Board Director
Top 100 Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley. Health-tech rainmaker who built GE’s venture engine.
Leroy Hood
ISB
Co-founder and Professor
Jennifer Dionne
Stanford University
Professor
Susan Klaeger
Genentech
Principal Scientist
Michael Koeris
DARPA
Director, BTO
Protecting National Security with Biology
•
-
AIxBIO
The Dark Proteome: Why Protein Sequencing Is Science's Next Frontier
Billions of proteins remain uncharacterized - invisible to current tools, unknown in function, and untapped in potential. This fireside chat explores why protein sequencing is poised to become the defining technology of the next decade in biology, what "protein dark matter" really means for drug discovery and synthetic biology, and how the field is building the infrastructure to illuminate what genomics left in the shadows.
Get a Ticket
Featuring
Sue Siegel
Align & Illumina
Board Director
Top 100 Most Influential Women in Silicon Valley. Health-tech rainmaker who built GE’s venture engine.
Leroy Hood
ISB
Co-founder and Professor
Jennifer Dionne
Stanford University
Professor
Susan Klaeger
Genentech
Principal Scientist
Michael Koeris
DARPA
Director, BTO
Protecting National Security with Biology
Session lineup still growing
Get a Ticket
Featuring
Speaker Coming Soon
•
-
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?
Get a Ticket
Featuring
Speaker Coming Soon
