SynBioBeta Speaker
Michael Clear
Schmidt Sciences
Program Scientist
Michael Clear is a Program Scientist at Schmidt Sciences, where he supports the Biosciences Center’s mission to advance our understanding of biology and facilitate the transition of biological innovations into the real world for public benefit.Prior to joining Schmidt Sciences, Michael was a postdoctoral researcher in bioinformatics at Brookhaven National Laboratory, investigating how environmental factors and microbial interactions influence bioenergy crops. During his tenure as a NASA Space Grant Graduate Fellow, he utilized synthetic lichens to study microbial symbioses through dual-transcriptomics. His interest in complex microbial systems and bioproduction was sparked at Algenol, an algal biofuel company, where he managed bioreactors and modeled the microbial ecology of production systems.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
Confirmed Speakers
Sessions Featuring
Michael
This Year
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Tools & Tech
Diamonds, Lasers, and AI: Next-Gen Tools for Bioprocess Monitoring
Current bioprocess monitoring is limited to basic environmental proxies like pH and dissolved oxygen. Schmidt Sciences is changing this paradigm by adapting advanced physics for biology. This talk introduces three cutting-edge sensing platforms currently in development: fluorescent nanodiamonds, single-cell Raman spectroscopy, and non-invasive optical frequency combs. Join us to learn how these high-dimensional data streams are being integrated with machine learning to predict campaign outcomes and revolutionize how we monitor cell health at scale.
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Tools & Tech
Diamonds, Lasers, and AI: Next-Gen Tools for Bioprocess Monitoring
Current bioprocess monitoring is limited to basic environmental proxies like pH and dissolved oxygen. Schmidt Sciences is changing this paradigm by adapting advanced physics for biology. This talk introduces three cutting-edge sensing platforms currently in development: fluorescent nanodiamonds, single-cell Raman spectroscopy, and non-invasive optical frequency combs. Join us to learn how these high-dimensional data streams are being integrated with machine learning to predict campaign outcomes and revolutionize how we monitor cell health at scale.
Get a Ticket
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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
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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.
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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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