Your team doesn’t know what AI can do in biology right now. That’s a problem.
120+ sessions across AI, biopharma, biomanufacturing, food, chemicals, materials, and tools. SynBioBeta 2026. May 4-7, San Jose.

Founders on Stage
Why People Keep Coming Back
"An extraordinarily important conference, the only conference where I feel I learn a lot. SynBioBeta is my tribe!"
"An extraordinarily important conference, the only conference where I feel I learn a lot. SynBioBeta is my tribe!"

Martine Rothblatt
Founder & CEO, United Therapeutics

"There's no other conference that cuts across disciplines like SynBioBeta does, where you see public company CEOs interacting with early stage entrepreneurs and scientists."
"There's no other conference that cuts across disciplines like SynBioBeta does, where you see public company CEOs interacting with early stage entrepreneurs and scientists."

Ola Wlodek
CEO

"There is boundless creativity, ingenuity, and brilliance on display every year."
"There is boundless creativity, ingenuity, and brilliance on display every year."

Alexander Morgan
Partner, Khosla Ventures

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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 therapies must ultimately work across tissues, organs, and whole patients. This scale mismatch means that even highly accurate cellular predictions can fail to translate in the clinic. This session explores strategies to bridge that gap. How do we connect single-cell dynamics to organ-level physiology and patient outcomes? How do we preserve biological context while scaling models? And how do we ensure that virtual biology does not stop at simulation, but informs real therapeutic decisions? Speakers will discuss multiscale modeling that links molecular and cellular systems to higher-order biology; spatial and high-dimensional phenotypic data that retain context; and integrated computational–experimental loops that translate cellular signals into clinically meaningful biomarkers. Together, we ask: how do we ensure virtual biology reflects not just what cells do in isolation, but how biology behaves in the full complexity of patients?
Register Now
Featuring

Marc Tessier-Lavigne
Xaira
Chairman & CEO
Neuroscience pioneer and former Stanford president building AI biotech.

Kim Branson
GlaxoSmithKline
SVP, Global Head
Drug-discovery AI architect turning data into medicines.

David Hallett
Recursion
CSO
Veteran “drug hunter” leading Recursion’s industrialized, AI-driven discovery.

Ron Alfa
NOETIK Inc.
Co-Founder & CEO
Physician-scientist and Recursion veteran building AI cancer therapeutics.
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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 therapies must ultimately work across tissues, organs, and whole patients. This scale mismatch means that even highly accurate cellular predictions can fail to translate in the clinic. This session explores strategies to bridge that gap. How do we connect single-cell dynamics to organ-level physiology and patient outcomes? How do we preserve biological context while scaling models? And how do we ensure that virtual biology does not stop at simulation, but informs real therapeutic decisions? Speakers will discuss multiscale modeling that links molecular and cellular systems to higher-order biology; spatial and high-dimensional phenotypic data that retain context; and integrated computational–experimental loops that translate cellular signals into clinically meaningful biomarkers. Together, we ask: how do we ensure virtual biology reflects not just what cells do in isolation, but how biology behaves in the full complexity of patients?
Register Now
Featuring

Marc Tessier-Lavigne
Xaira
Chairman & CEO
Neuroscience pioneer and former Stanford president building AI biotech.

Kim Branson
GlaxoSmithKline
SVP, Global Head
Drug-discovery AI architect turning data into medicines.

David Hallett
Recursion
CSO
Veteran “drug hunter” leading Recursion’s industrialized, AI-driven discovery.

Ron Alfa
NOETIK Inc.
Co-Founder & CEO
Physician-scientist and Recursion veteran building AI cancer therapeutics.
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AIxBIO
Programmable Molecules: AI and the Rise of Context-Aware Therapeutics
For the first time, AI is enabling us to imagine medicines that “think” - turning on only inside diseased cells or under specific physiological conditions. Neural networks trained on RNA, protein, and cellular data are unlocking a new generation of programmable therapies with unprecedented precision, from cancer drugs that remain inert until encountering tumor signals to RNA medicines capable of adapting to dynamic biological environments. But designing intelligent molecules is only part of the challenge. As AI expands the space of possible therapeutics, the field must also confront a critical question: how do we reliably build, test, and manufacture increasingly complex biological designs? This session explores the emerging continuum from AI-designed molecules to manufacturable programmable therapeutics, examining how advances in sequence design, synthesis, delivery, and validation are translating computational insight into real-world medicines. The future of medicine isn’t static molecules - it’s intelligent, adaptive therapeutics engineered across the full stack, from algorithm to clinic.
Register Now
Featuring

Georgia Lu
Magnet Ventures
Founder & Mng Partner
AI-biotech investor blending M&A instincts with founder coaching.

Ashoka Madduri
Sanofi
Head, Scientific Strategy
AI-for-mRNA strategist shaping Sanofi’s genetic-medicine bets.

Simon Kohl
Latent Labs
Founder & CEO

Jacob Becraft
Strand
CEO & Co-founder
MIT “mRNA programming language” inventor building programmable RNA medicines. Former Ron Weiss lab, interned with Bob langer
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AIxBIO
Programmable Molecules: AI and the Rise of Context-Aware Therapeutics
For the first time, AI is enabling us to imagine medicines that “think” - turning on only inside diseased cells or under specific physiological conditions. Neural networks trained on RNA, protein, and cellular data are unlocking a new generation of programmable therapies with unprecedented precision, from cancer drugs that remain inert until encountering tumor signals to RNA medicines capable of adapting to dynamic biological environments. But designing intelligent molecules is only part of the challenge. As AI expands the space of possible therapeutics, the field must also confront a critical question: how do we reliably build, test, and manufacture increasingly complex biological designs? This session explores the emerging continuum from AI-designed molecules to manufacturable programmable therapeutics, examining how advances in sequence design, synthesis, delivery, and validation are translating computational insight into real-world medicines. The future of medicine isn’t static molecules - it’s intelligent, adaptive therapeutics engineered across the full stack, from algorithm to clinic.
Register Now
Featuring

Georgia Lu
Magnet Ventures
Founder & Mng Partner
AI-biotech investor blending M&A instincts with founder coaching.

Ashoka Madduri
Sanofi
Head, Scientific Strategy
AI-for-mRNA strategist shaping Sanofi’s genetic-medicine bets.

Simon Kohl
Latent Labs
Founder & CEO

Jacob Becraft
Strand
CEO & Co-founder
MIT “mRNA programming language” inventor building programmable RNA medicines. Former Ron Weiss lab, interned with Bob langer
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AIxBIO
Beyond Static Predictions — AI for Protein Dynamics and Multi-Cell Models
The next frontier of biology isn’t in predicting a single static protein structure, but in capturing how proteins move, fold, and interact across time and environments. This session explores how AI can illuminate protein conformations and dynamics, and extend those insights into virtual multi-cellular or tissue models. Experts will discuss the challenge of integrating heterogeneous datasets and instruments, and how breakthroughs in dynamic modeling could reshape drug design, disease understanding, and biomanufacturing. Can we build models that reflect the living, breathing complexity of biology—not just snapshots, but motion?
Register Now
Featuring

Elliot Hershberg
Amplify Partners
Partner, Author
Driving the Century of Biology

Gabriele Corso
Boltz
CEO
Built DiffDock and the Boltz open-source models reshaping drug discovery.

Peter Clark
Novo Nordisk
VP, CDD
Computational drug-design leader, shipped candidates from CAR-T to peptides.

John Chodera
Achira Labs
Co-founder & CEO
Open-science simulation pioneer behind Folding@home’s COVID Moonshot.

Tanja Kortemme
UCSF
Vice Dean of Research
De novo protein-design pioneer; NIH Pioneer Award winner.
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AIxBIO
Beyond Static Predictions — AI for Protein Dynamics and Multi-Cell Models
The next frontier of biology isn’t in predicting a single static protein structure, but in capturing how proteins move, fold, and interact across time and environments. This session explores how AI can illuminate protein conformations and dynamics, and extend those insights into virtual multi-cellular or tissue models. Experts will discuss the challenge of integrating heterogeneous datasets and instruments, and how breakthroughs in dynamic modeling could reshape drug design, disease understanding, and biomanufacturing. Can we build models that reflect the living, breathing complexity of biology—not just snapshots, but motion?
Register Now
Featuring

Elliot Hershberg
Amplify Partners
Partner, Author
Driving the Century of Biology

Gabriele Corso
Boltz
CEO
Built DiffDock and the Boltz open-source models reshaping drug discovery.

Peter Clark
Novo Nordisk
VP, CDD
Computational drug-design leader, shipped candidates from CAR-T to peptides.

John Chodera
Achira Labs
Co-founder & CEO
Open-science simulation pioneer behind Folding@home’s COVID Moonshot.

Tanja Kortemme
UCSF
Vice Dean of Research
De novo protein-design pioneer; NIH Pioneer Award winner.
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Biomanufacturing
Full Stack Bio: How Can Biotech Collaborate to Achieve Scale with Competitive COGS
Scaling bio-based products requires integrated technical collaboration across strain engineering, fermentation, downstream processing, and analytics. Full-stack approaches—where startups, CDMOs, and platform technology providers align early on—can optimize yield, reduce variability, and lower cost of goods (COGS) at commercial scale. This session explores case studies of cross-company collaboration, from co-development of microbial strains and bioreactor designs to shared process analytics and predictive modeling. Hear how teams are breaking down technical silos to accelerate scale-up, improve reproducibility, and create competitive, sustainable manufacturing solutions that bring synthetic biology products from the lab to the market efficiently.
Register Now
Featuring

Jamie Bacher
Huxley Project
Principal
Ag-biotech veteran guiding tech to market.

Colby Adolph
Evonik
Sales Director
Fermentation scale-up connector: turning prototypes into manufacturable reality

Ling Li
ADM
Dir. Market Dev., Prec. Ferm.
Precision fermentation dealmaker bridging startups, scale, and brands

Eric Lee
Primient
Director, B&D - Fermentation
1
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Biomanufacturing
Full Stack Bio: How Can Biotech Collaborate to Achieve Scale with Competitive COGS
Scaling bio-based products requires integrated technical collaboration across strain engineering, fermentation, downstream processing, and analytics. Full-stack approaches—where startups, CDMOs, and platform technology providers align early on—can optimize yield, reduce variability, and lower cost of goods (COGS) at commercial scale. This session explores case studies of cross-company collaboration, from co-development of microbial strains and bioreactor designs to shared process analytics and predictive modeling. Hear how teams are breaking down technical silos to accelerate scale-up, improve reproducibility, and create competitive, sustainable manufacturing solutions that bring synthetic biology products from the lab to the market efficiently.
Register Now
Featuring

Jamie Bacher
Huxley Project
Principal
Ag-biotech veteran guiding tech to market.

Colby Adolph
Evonik
Sales Director
Fermentation scale-up connector: turning prototypes into manufacturable reality

Ling Li
ADM
Dir. Market Dev., Prec. Ferm.
Precision fermentation dealmaker bridging startups, scale, and brands

Eric Lee
Primient
Director, B&D - Fermentation
2
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Biomanufacturing
Mind the Gap: Survival Guides for the Valleys of Death in Biomanufacturing
Industrial biotech faces repeated “valleys of death” between laboratory success and commercial manufacturing, driven by a combination of technological uncertainty, scale-dependent constraints, and (mis)alignment between engineering reality and investment expectations. Promising technologies often fail not because the science is wrong, but because scale-up trajectories are built on insufficient data, optimistic assumptions, and decision-making based on the 1st product specifications from the lab that do not translate to industrial conditions. This panel returns to fundamentals, drawing on real-world experience from piloting, process engineering, and early industrialization to examine where and why scale-up breaks down. Experts will discuss how important the scale-up journey is to align technology performance with investor expectations, support sound business cases, and turn the industrial biotech toolbox into a more robust, scalable, and profitable manufacturing platform.
Register Now
2
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Biomanufacturing
Mind the Gap: Survival Guides for the Valleys of Death in Biomanufacturing
Industrial biotech faces repeated “valleys of death” between laboratory success and commercial manufacturing, driven by a combination of technological uncertainty, scale-dependent constraints, and (mis)alignment between engineering reality and investment expectations. Promising technologies often fail not because the science is wrong, but because scale-up trajectories are built on insufficient data, optimistic assumptions, and decision-making based on the 1st product specifications from the lab that do not translate to industrial conditions. This panel returns to fundamentals, drawing on real-world experience from piloting, process engineering, and early industrialization to examine where and why scale-up breaks down. Experts will discuss how important the scale-up journey is to align technology performance with investor expectations, support sound business cases, and turn the industrial biotech toolbox into a more robust, scalable, and profitable manufacturing platform.
Register Now
1
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Biomanufacturing
Mind the Gap: Survival Guides for the Valleys of Death in Biomanufacturing
Industrial biotech faces repeated “valleys of death” between laboratory success and commercial manufacturing, driven by a combination of technological uncertainty, scale-dependent constraints, and (mis)alignment between engineering reality and investment expectations. Promising technologies often fail not because the science is wrong, but because scale-up trajectories are built on insufficient data, optimistic assumptions, and decision-making based on the 1st product specifications from the lab that do not translate to industrial conditions. This panel returns to fundamentals, drawing on real-world experience from piloting, process engineering, and early industrialization to examine where and why scale-up breaks down. Experts will discuss how important the scale-up journey is to align technology performance with investor expectations, support sound business cases, and turn the industrial biotech toolbox into a more robust, scalable, and profitable manufacturing platform.
Register Now
1
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Biomanufacturing
Mind the Gap: Survival Guides for the Valleys of Death in Biomanufacturing
Industrial biotech faces repeated “valleys of death” between laboratory success and commercial manufacturing, driven by a combination of technological uncertainty, scale-dependent constraints, and (mis)alignment between engineering reality and investment expectations. Promising technologies often fail not because the science is wrong, but because scale-up trajectories are built on insufficient data, optimistic assumptions, and decision-making based on the 1st product specifications from the lab that do not translate to industrial conditions. This panel returns to fundamentals, drawing on real-world experience from piloting, process engineering, and early industrialization to examine where and why scale-up breaks down. Experts will discuss how important the scale-up journey is to align technology performance with investor expectations, support sound business cases, and turn the industrial biotech toolbox into a more robust, scalable, and profitable manufacturing platform.
Register Now
2
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Tools & Tech
From AI protein design to real-world commercial impact: powering the next wave of everyday products
For more than a century, everyday products - from detergents and shampoos to textiles and packaging - have relied on petrochemicals and harsh industrial processes. Today, AI-driven protein design is opening a radically different path: creating custom enzymes and biomolecules that outperform traditional chemistry while reducing environmental impact. This session explores how advances in computational protein design and machine learning enable the rational creation of enzymes tailored for home care, personal care, and next-generation materials—moving beyond incremental discovery to purpose-built performance under real industrial conditions. Critically, this highlights how AI-driven design is being translated into commercially deployed products at scale with partners and customers.
Register Now
2
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Tools & Tech
From AI protein design to real-world commercial impact: powering the next wave of everyday products
For more than a century, everyday products - from detergents and shampoos to textiles and packaging - have relied on petrochemicals and harsh industrial processes. Today, AI-driven protein design is opening a radically different path: creating custom enzymes and biomolecules that outperform traditional chemistry while reducing environmental impact. This session explores how advances in computational protein design and machine learning enable the rational creation of enzymes tailored for home care, personal care, and next-generation materials—moving beyond incremental discovery to purpose-built performance under real industrial conditions. Critically, this highlights how AI-driven design is being translated into commercially deployed products at scale with partners and customers.
Register Now
3
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AIxBIO
Data Factories: Building the Infrastructure for AI-Ready Biology
Biology is entering an AI-driven era, but most experimental infrastructure still produces data designed for individual experiments, not for learning at scale. As a result, much of today’s data is useful in the moment but poorly suited for training robust, long-lived models. This session will explore what biological data matters most today, what data needs to be generated now to support future models, and how leading teams are closing that gap. Panelists will discuss how automation, metadata discipline, and standardized testing pipelines can turn artisanal lab workflows into continuous experiment-to-learning systems. The focus will be on infrastructure and experimental design, highlighting practical bottlenecks, emerging best practices, and what becomes possible when biology produces abundant, high-quality, model-ready data by default.
Register Now
Featuring

Ori Zakin
BioRaptor
CEO
Building bioprocess R&D operating systems from noisy data.

Michael Koeris
DARPA
Director, BTO
Protecting National Security with Biology

Chase Olle
Robot on Rails
Founder & CEO
MIT-trained lab-robotics founder automating bench experiments at scale.

Michelle Chen
Form Bio
Pres, CEO & Board Mem.

Barry Bunin
CDD
Founder & CEO
Invented CDD Vault, data-sharing platform for drug discovery.
3
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AIxBIO
Data Factories: Building the Infrastructure for AI-Ready Biology
Biology is entering an AI-driven era, but most experimental infrastructure still produces data designed for individual experiments, not for learning at scale. As a result, much of today’s data is useful in the moment but poorly suited for training robust, long-lived models. This session will explore what biological data matters most today, what data needs to be generated now to support future models, and how leading teams are closing that gap. Panelists will discuss how automation, metadata discipline, and standardized testing pipelines can turn artisanal lab workflows into continuous experiment-to-learning systems. The focus will be on infrastructure and experimental design, highlighting practical bottlenecks, emerging best practices, and what becomes possible when biology produces abundant, high-quality, model-ready data by default.
Register Now
Featuring

Ori Zakin
BioRaptor
CEO
Building bioprocess R&D operating systems from noisy data.

Michael Koeris
DARPA
Director, BTO
Protecting National Security with Biology

Chase Olle
Robot on Rails
Founder & CEO
MIT-trained lab-robotics founder automating bench experiments at scale.

Michelle Chen
Form Bio
Pres, CEO & Board Mem.

Barry Bunin
CDD
Founder & CEO
Invented CDD Vault, data-sharing platform for drug discovery.
Why Your Team, Not Just You
• Your head of R&D comes back understanding the AI landscape
• Your BD lead comes back with warm introductions and closed deals
• Your strategy team comes back knowing which startups are two years ahead of your internal roadmap






















































