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As we get ready to kick off day two of the Built With Biology global conference, it bears repeating how sincerely thankful we are for your support as readers, partners, and participants in this movement toward using biology to make the planet a better place ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

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Hi ,

We hope this finds you well.

As we get ready to kick off day two of the Built With Biology global conference, it bears repeating how thankful we are for your support as readers, partners, and participants in the movement toward using biology to make the planet a better place.

Keynote presentations and engaging breakout sessions aside, the groundswell of excitement we feel here in Oakland over simply getting back together after 2.5 years apart is palpable, as we see people hugging, laughing, and even crying (!!) simply because they sense the world is about to change… and change for the good. For a quick synopsis of some of what we’re seeing here in Oakland, please see below.

Rest assured, there’s more to come, as we get to experience another two days of networking, partnership building, and storytelling. If for some reason you’re not able to join, please consider following us on Twitter or LinkedIn as we’ll be sharing exciting details on the people and companies all working to use biology to better feed, fuel, and heal the world.

Again, thank you: for reading, for sharing, and for supporting Built With Biology!

Larry

Larry Upton

Editor in Chief

larry.upton@builtwithbiology.com

Conference Highlights - Day 1

  • Ginkgo Bioworks announced a partnership with FREDsense to develop water quality biosensors, and launched a new animal health company with Elanco. At the conference, they talked about why you should use Ginkgo’s platform to stop building genes and start building products.
  • Leaps by Bayer hosted a discussion on the bioengineered food movement and the benefits and tradeoffs of synbio agriculture.
  • Twist Bioscience explored why the future is written in DNA and the opportunities for data storage for the next millenia.
  • Berkeley Lights discussed their partnership with R2DIO and UC Berkeley to accelerate the development of a sustainable bioeconomy by emulating successful Benchmarking initiatives other industries have used to improve their competitiveness.

Built With Biology Insights

Creative Contexts

Building with biology means knowing your science inside and out. Technical details don’t always "fit" and can bog down an otherwise exciting narrative. In Star Wars, Han Solo doesn’t hand Obi Wan and Luke a resume; he brags that the Millenium Falcon "made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs." You don’t need to know what the Kessel Run is, why he was running it, or even what a parsec is (convenient, given the context). What matters is that the ship is fast, the pilot is confident, and someone is about to take a chance on that being enough to solve their problem.

We might not be stumbling into alien cantinas or evading interstellar crime lords, but building with biology has scientists asking cells and the molecules that operate them: "Can you solve my problem?"  One example is terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT), an enzyme identified by companies building with biology to solve long strand DNA synthesis (DNA Synthesis Goes Green). Unlike most enzymes that synthesize DNA, TdT doesn't need a template. That makes it an incredibly useful tool for building out unique sequences of DNA one nucleotide at a time - exactly what we want to do when we synthesize a DNA sequence for scientists and start-ups.

Convenient for Skywalker that Han Solo was sitting in that cantina, convenient for us that life has already constructed the tool we need to solve the problem of long strand DNA synthesis. The dedicated fan isn’t satisfied with coincidence, though, and here is where the technical details shine. They are world-building, providing context for the how and the why. Han’s smuggling, his friendship and rivalry with Lando Calrissian, his mercenary philosophy and his status as wanted man all combine to put him in that cantina, at that moment, eager to get off world however he can.

The enzyme’s back story is just as complex. TdT plays a role in creating the one billion different antibodies that our immune system deploys to protect us from infectious agents.  An accessory to an intricate complex of proteins that strips back the protective double helix to reveal and rearrange single stranded DNA, TdT amplifies the variability of these genetic sequences, inserting a handful of nucleotides to increase the probability that you’ll have the defenses you need to fight off an infection (SOURCE).

TdT is a protein that crafts single stranded DNA to enhance your immune system, and now we are learning how to use it to craft single stranded DNA for any and every purpose we can imagine. The protein isn’t perfect - it grabs a handful of nucleotides instead of just one, and it has a tendency to prefer Gs & Cs. But then again, Han Solo wasn’t perfect either. Lifted into a new context though, the heartless mercenary becomes a rogue with a heart of gold.

Technical details form the world in which our problems and solutions take shape, but they can’t carry a story in and of themselves. Building with biology requires clever, creative problem solving. We provide new contexts that make the story exciting. Learn how to capture the excitement and satisfaction of finding the right solution to real problems with Built with Biology.

Ansa Biotechnologies closes oversubscribed $68 million Series A financing to power the next era of DNA-enabled industries

Ansa’s next-generation enzymatic DNA synthesis technology will dramatically accelerate innovation across every industry enabled by synthetic DNA from biologic drugs to biomanufacturing, and DNA-based data storage.

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Elanco and Ginkgo Bioworks launch BiomEdit, a new animal health company leveraging microbiome technology

BiomEdit intends to discover and develop animal health products that leverage microbiome science to improve animal health, animal protein production, and livestock disease monitoring.

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Pairwise launches ‘Conscious Foods’ brand to bring gene-edited leafy greens to market

The company’s first product sold under its new brand will be its gene-edited version of Brassica juncea, more commonly known as mustard greens.

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UCL selects Synthace to help make digital, cloud-based lab work a reality

UCL researchers will be leveraging Synthace’s pioneering no-code automation R&D platform to automate routine tasks and design workflows while working from any location as well as utilizing rarely used equipment without the need for custom code.

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MORE TO EXPLORE

Codexis and Molecular Assemblies announce results of first collaboration on a proprietary high performing DNA polymerase to supercharge fully enzymatic DNA synthesis

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Ernest Simon, vice president of flavors and fragrances at Conagen, talks about precision fermentation as key in delivering sustainable ingredients

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Twist Bioscience signs antibody discovery collaboration with MediSix Therapeutics to develop T-cell therapies

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Fay Lin chats with Frank Tate to discuss the power of storytelling in biotech networking and the Built with Biology conference

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FREDsense and Ginkgo Bioworks announce partnership to develop water quality biosensors

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Cemvita Factory partners with Fluor to scale sustainable bio-solutions to extract critical minerals

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Sampling Human raises $2 million to support the development of engineered cells for single cell analysis

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