SynBioBeta Speaker
Ricky Cassini
Michroma
CEO
Ricky Cassini is the CEO and founder of Michroma, a biotechnology company creating natural ingredients through precision fermentation. His work sits at the intersection of biotech, food innovation, and commercial scale-up, with a strong focus on building sustainable alternatives to synthetic ingredients.As an entrepreneur, Ricky has led Michroma from vision to execution by combining deep operational thinking with a sharp understanding of market needs, partnerships, and scale. His expertise spans biotech commercialization, go-to-market strategy, manufacturing scale-up, pricing, business development, and the role of breakthrough technologies in transforming the food and ingredient industries.Before founding Michroma, Ricky built experience in operations, logistics, and business strategy, and has also worked as a consultant and university professor. Across his career, he has been driven by one core idea: using innovation to create products that are both economically viable and meaningfully better for people and the planet.Ricky has been recognized as a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree in North America, an MIT Innovators Under 35 LATAM recipient, a Stanford LBAN alumnus, and a Young Founder of the Westerwelle Foundation.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
Confirmed Speakers
Sessions Featuring
Ricky
This Year
•
-
Planetary Health
Artificial Colours are Out, Bio is In: SynBio’s Opportunity–and Risk–in a Changing Food Landscape
Synthetic biology has long offererd vibrant pigments and functional ingredients with consistency, scalability, and improved sustainability. While many US policy shifts are creating headwinds for biotech innovation, the regulatory momentum around food colors and ingredients could open a significant opportunity for synbio adoption. This session examines the opportunities and risks ahead, highlighting how innovators can align with shifting rules, build trust, and bring bio-based ingredients from lab to label in a rapidly evolving food landscape.
Get a Ticket
Featuring
Erum Azeez Khan
Messaginglab
Partner
Birgit Cameron
Prism Bio, Inc.
CEO, Co-founder
Patagonia Provisions cofounder now fermenting sustainable, vivid natural colors.
Ricky Cassini
Michroma
CEO
Gregory Hocking
Mars Snacking
VP Global R&D New Innov. Territories
Reinventing snacking through sustainability and startup bets.
•
-
Planetary Health
Artificial Colours are Out, Bio is In: SynBio’s Opportunity–and Risk–in a Changing Food Landscape
Synthetic biology has long offererd vibrant pigments and functional ingredients with consistency, scalability, and improved sustainability. While many US policy shifts are creating headwinds for biotech innovation, the regulatory momentum around food colors and ingredients could open a significant opportunity for synbio adoption. This session examines the opportunities and risks ahead, highlighting how innovators can align with shifting rules, build trust, and bring bio-based ingredients from lab to label in a rapidly evolving food landscape.
Get a Ticket
Featuring
Erum Azeez Khan
Messaginglab
Partner
Birgit Cameron
Prism Bio, Inc.
CEO, Co-founder
Patagonia Provisions cofounder now fermenting sustainable, vivid natural colors.
Ricky Cassini
Michroma
CEO
Gregory Hocking
Mars Snacking
VP Global R&D New Innov. Territories
Reinventing snacking through sustainability and startup bets.
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
