Tools, Tech & Platforms
Where Programmable Biology Gets Built
The future of biology is programmable—enabled by powerful tools, advanced through innovations in sequencing, synthesis, editing, and automation, and built on platforms that accelerate discovery and scale.
Biology is programmable—but only if the right tools, technologies, and platforms exist to make it engineerable. The Tools, Tech & Platforms track at SynBioBeta 2026 is the global stage for the builders who make this possible: from sequencing and synthesis to automation and AI-driven discovery.
This is where the foundational layers of biology are designed, scaled, and connected. From DNA sequencing and editing to cloud labs, software platforms, and self-driving labs, the technologies showcased here are accelerating research, compressing timelines, and lowering barriers to innovation.
Why Tools, Tech & Platforms Matters
Biology needs better infrastructure. Programmable biology depends on accurate sequencing, scalable synthesis, and precise editing.
Translation requires integration. Without interoperable platforms—software, automation, and data systems—discovery stalls before reaching impact.
Future labs are here. Instrumentation, cloud labs, and self-driving systems are redefining what scientists can achieve.
Who you'll meet
The Tools, Tech & Platforms community brings together the ecosystem building the backbone of programmable biology:
Sequencing and synthesis providers delivering scale, speed, and accuracy.
Genome editing innovators pushing the limits of precision and control.
Software builders creating BioCAD, ELNs, marketplaces, and AI-driven research assistants.
Lab-of-the-future pioneers in automation, instrumentation, and cloud labs.
Investors and industry leaders seeking the next breakthroughs in enabling technologies.
What to expect
Not just demos —this is where the future infrastructure of biology takes shape.
Insights into how new tools are transforming discovery, design, and scale-up.
Partnerships that connect toolmakers with pharma, startups, and researchers.
A community building the interoperable platforms that make biology truly engineerable.
The future of biology is programmable—built on the tools, technologies, and platforms that form the foundation of the entire bioeconomy.
Confirmed Speakers
Drafted Sessions
1
Biology’s genetic code has long been bound by 64 codons encoding just 20 amino acids. By rewriting and compressing this code, researchers are freeing up biological “real estate” to introduce entirely new building blocks — from beta amino acids to depsipeptides and macrocycles. These reprogrammed cells are not only resistant to viruses but capable of synthesizing polymers never before seen in nature. This session explores how expanding life’s alphabet is transforming biology into a programmable platform, with implications for novel medicines, sustainable materials, and entirely new classes of biomolecules.
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2
Reading, writing, and editing DNA were just the prelude. The new frontier is composition—designing entire genomes like symphonies, guided by AI models trained on millions of sequences. In this new paradigm, biology becomes a writable medium where genes, circuits, and chromosomes are arranged with intention rather than discovered by chance. From AI-optimized CRISPR systems and compact editors like TIGR to CRISPR SWAPnDROP and Bridge Recombinases capable of megabase-scale rewrites in human cells, a new toolkit is emerging that treats the genome not as a fragile molecule but as an editable architecture. These molecular instruments bypass the cell’s own repair machinery, offering a level of precision and predictability that brings genome design closer to true composition—a craft as deliberate and creative as writing code or composing music.
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3
Even after decades of sequencing, most of life’s molecular data remains uncharted. More than half of all genes have no known function, most metabolites defy annotation, and countless proteins sit in databases as hypothetical ghosts. This is biology’s dark matter — the vast, unmapped space between what we can measure and what we understand. Now, advances in AI-driven function prediction, single-cell and spatial omics, and large-scale data integration are turning this darkness into opportunity. From novel enzymes and pathways to hidden metabolic networks, researchers are racing to illuminate the unseen layers of life — unlocking a new era of biological discovery, where the next breakthrough might already be hiding in the data.
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4
Instrumentation remains one of the greatest bottlenecks in bioinnovation. For decades, meaningful progress required billion-dollar facilities and industrial-scale reactors. Today, that paradigm is shifting. Emerging tools — from smart shake flasks and modular bioreactors to microfluidic systems, desktop DNA printers, and next-generation sequencing devices — are flipping the economics of scale. By enabling rapid, high-resolution reads of biology and closing the loop between DNA sequencing, design, and experimentation, these platforms are accelerating discovery while dramatically reducing the cost of design–build–test cycles. This session explores how the democratization of lab tools is reshaping innovation — and asks: could we one day see personal devices that let anyone tinker with biology?
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5
For decades, DNA synthesis has been the limiting reagent in synthetic biology — reliable for short sequences, but increasingly error-prone and costly as designs scale past 10kb. That ceiling is now cracking. New enzymatic synthesis platforms, error-correction chemistries, and assembly pipelines are extending what’s possible, opening the door to rapid construction of full pathways, microbial genomes, and even mammalian chromosomes. This session will explore how innovators are breaking past the 10kb barrier, what technical and economic breakthroughs are needed next, and how longer, cheaper, and faster synthesis could fundamentally change how we design biology at scale.
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6
Cells are often described as bags of chemistry—but they are better understood as finely tuned physical systems. Within each one, DNA is packed into nanoscopic volumes, enzymes race at turnover rates rivaling jet engines, and molecular collisions happen billions of times per second. This session explores the cell as a physical object—its limits of size, speed, and efficiency. How fast can information move from genome to protein? How does diffusion constrain cell size and shape? How do energy flows through metabolism define what life can and cannot do? By examining the physics that underpins biology, this session challenges us to see cells not as mysterious black boxes, but as programmable systems operating under universal rules. This perspective may hold the key to engineering biology with the same rigor as physics and computer science.
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