Today’s bioeconomy requires more than incremental improvements—it demands a fundamental shift in how bioprocesses are developed and scaled. This spotlight talk presents a real-world case study in which an AI-enabled continuous fermentation platform transformed a traditional process for a high-demand product. By integrating machine learning and continuous process optimization, the team achieved a threefold increase in productivity, cut unit costs by 50%, and developed a fully optimized process in just 100 days. This rapid approach enabled the partner to move from proof-of-concept to pilot scale within 10 months, meeting ambitious commercial goals with unprecedented speed and efficiency. The session will explore how combining AI and continuous fermentation creates nimble, scalable, and data-driven workflows—offering a blueprint for the next generation of biomanufacturing.

Precision fermentation is one of the most significant technical breakthroughs for commercializing synthetic biology. Now experienced CDMOs are leveraging this technology along with advanced strain development and amino acid, nucleotide, and other feed and food ingredients production to scale diverse products across the biotech value chain. This talk will reveal the latest CDMO partner for the synbio industry. Leveraging over 70 years of experience and 11 production cites globally, this session will explore new scale-up capabilities, business cases, and how to bring innovative products to market.

The latest generation of biologics are becoming increasingly difficult and costly to produce using conventional mammalian systems. These rely on constitutive “always on” expression of the target gene, which can overwhelm cellular machinery, limiting protein yield and driving up production costs —especially for complex or toxic proteins. These obstacles can be overcome using molecular optogenetics, a technology that employs genetically encoded, light-sensitive proteins to precisely control gene expression. By decoupling growth from production, cells can first reach high density before switching to efficient protein expression. Coupling this with closed-loop control enables the ability to dynamically tune protein expression to maximize titer, improving manufacturability. This session will discuss how the development of optogenetically-enabled cell lines and bioprocessing can be used to accelerate the production of next-generation biologics.

Scaling commercial biomanufacturing is a complex dance of science, strategy, and infrastructure. As demand for bioproducts surges, industry leaders are grappling with significant challenges in growing their operations and capacity without compromising quality, efficiency—and most importantly—cost. Now, key innovations are enabling large-scale enterprises to adopt biomanufacutring practices without compromise. This talk will address the unmet needs of the biomanufacturing sector through the use of drop-in replacement ingredients for everyday items and demonstrate actionable biostrategies for innovation at commercial scale.

The bioeconomy cannot succeed without the feedstocks that fuel all our fermentors. From agricultural side-streams to algae to carbon pollution, synbio companies need to ensure they utilize renewable feedstocks instead of purpose-grown inputs that take essential land and, at scale, may drive deforestation. How can we address this critical issue as a community? What role do other innovations such as AI, sensors, and continuous fermentation play in accelerating sustainable scaling and what changes do we need to make today for the bioeconomy of tomorrow?

This innovative approach leverages nucleic acid development from Telesis Bio and protein production from the Illinois Biological Foundry for Advanced Biomanufacturing. These thought leaders will discuss the streamlined and enhanced efficiency of producing complex biological molecules when integrating their advanced technologies, transforming the landscape of synthetic biology.