SynBioBeta Speaker
Weston Kightlinger
Ridge Bio
CEO
Weston Kightlinger is a strategic advisor at Sutter Hill Ventures and CEO of Ridge Biotechnologies, a company that is pioneering enzyme and targeted drug design to enable the next generation of precision medicines. Based in Palo Alto, Ridge Bio uses proprietary machine learning models informed by massive datasets generated in-house from cell-free experimentation to equip drug developers with modular systems that improve stability, manufacturability, and therapeutic indices while developing new classes of therapeutics to address difficult targets. Ridge Bio’s current products enable precise enzymatic conjugation (NativeLink enzymes), tissue and tumor microenvironment-specific conditional activation (ProTrigger linkers), and enzyme-based therapeutics (Catalytic Medicines). Key application areas include Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADCs), Antibody Oligonucleotide Conjugates (AOCs), targeted gene therapies, and targeted lipid nanoparticles (tLNPs) across several therapeutic indications. Weston completed his PhD and postdoc in Chemical and Biological Engineering working with Mike Jewett (now professor of bioengineering at Stanford) focusing on cell-free enabled characterization and engineering of synthetic enzymatic glycosylation systems. Weston went on to become co-founder and CTO of SwiftScale Biologics (successfully acquired by Resilience, Inc), where he commercialized cell-free protein synthesis for rapid development and manufacturing of therapeutics and vaccines. Weston led the Resilience-Oakland site for 3 years, launching multiple technology offerings including clinical-scale cell-free protein synthesis and a machine-learning guided antibody optimization platform before coming to Sutter Hill Ventures to help build out their biotechnology portfolio as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence. Weston launched Ridge Bio in 2025 with a round led by Sutter Hill Ventures, one of the oldest VC firms in the US where Weston continues to advise on investments and incubations.
SynBioBeta 2026 Tickets are Live
Confirmed Speakers
Sessions Featuring
Weston
This Year
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AIxBIO
Rewriting Enzyme Performance: Next-Gen Platforms for AI-Driven Protein Screening
AI is rapidly transforming how therapeutic enzymes and protein drug candidates are discovered, engineered, and validated. Generative models can now propose millions of novel variants optimized for specificity, stability, and target engagement. But the true bottleneck is no longer design, it is screening at scale. As model-generated libraries expand exponentially, the need for faster, more predictive experimental systems has become critical to translate computational insights into clinically relevant performance. This session explores the emerging generation of integrated platforms that combine AI-guided design, high-throughput functional screening, automation, and advanced analytics to accelerate therapeutic protein discovery. From self-driving labs and multiplexed cellular assays to adaptive screening strategies that prioritize pharmacologically meaningful readouts over simple activity metrics, speakers will examine how next-gen infrastructure is reshaping enzyme optimization for drug development.
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AIxBIO
Rewriting Enzyme Performance: Next-Gen Platforms for AI-Driven Protein Screening
AI is rapidly transforming how therapeutic enzymes and protein drug candidates are discovered, engineered, and validated. Generative models can now propose millions of novel variants optimized for specificity, stability, and target engagement. But the true bottleneck is no longer design, it is screening at scale. As model-generated libraries expand exponentially, the need for faster, more predictive experimental systems has become critical to translate computational insights into clinically relevant performance. This session explores the emerging generation of integrated platforms that combine AI-guided design, high-throughput functional screening, automation, and advanced analytics to accelerate therapeutic protein discovery. From self-driving labs and multiplexed cellular assays to adaptive screening strategies that prioritize pharmacologically meaningful readouts over simple activity metrics, speakers will examine how next-gen infrastructure is reshaping enzyme optimization for drug development.
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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
