Share
We’ve spent the past week looking back over some of the more exciting people and companies we met in Oakland ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

View in Browser »

Hi ,

We hope this finds you well.

Having wrapped up our Built With Biology 2022 conference (April 12-14), we’ve spent the past week looking back over some of the more exciting people and companies we met in Oakland and are excited to welcome them into the SynBio community. Five in particular stand out in our minds:

Loliware - introduced a new category of bio-materials made from regenerative, carbon-capturing ocean-farmed seaweed. Think drinking straws which naturally decompose and don’t require harmful chemicals, land, fertilizer, or water to produce.

Helaina - produces nature equivalent breast-make components that build human immune systems.

Kingdom Supercultures - design microbial strains which enable food and beverage manufacturers to create new plant-based yogurts and cheese.

Mogu Bio - leverage mycelium to develop fabrics and materials for home decor companies.

Dab Bio - accelerate fermentation processes for everyday bioproducts in a more efficient, cost-effective manner than traditional fossil-based counterparts.

Granted, these five companies are but a small subset of the innovative, cutting-edge firms we met at the conference. If you too are working on exciting new products or services being Built With Biology, please reach out to us at editorial@synbiobeta.com to share! As always, thank you for reading!

Larry

Larry Upton

Editor in Chief

larry.upton@builtwithbiology.com

Built With Biology Insights

Beautiful Work

One year, my four year old neighbor came to my door the day before Halloween dressed as a fireman-cowboy-dinosaur. He was very excited, both about figuring out his dream job and about trick-or-treating. While our first jobs are not always this exciting (I, at least, have never been offered money to be a dinosaur), science has the potential to be. Some of the kids that spent hours collecting rocks and staring at leaves and catching lizards grew up to be scientists who make a living exploring what they love.

Scientists have a reputation for being objective - well deserved when it comes to the way we conduct experiments and how we evaluate information. Objectivity is a practice, and thoughtfully applied, it can be incredibly powerful. There’s more to being a scientist, and to science, than objectivity, however. All of the wonders of being human are present too.

Bringing passion, joy, enthusiasm and awe to your work doesn’t just make the work fun, it is measurably good for scientists and science. The headline of Brian Owen’s article in Nature last month says it all: "Beauty and wonder of science boosts researchers’ well-being." As researcher Brandon Vaidyanathan notes "this beauty stuff is really important"

The aspects of their work that researchers recognize as beautiful changes from field to field, but in general, they share an appreciation for elements of simplicity, elegance, hidden order, and symmetry. Scientific insight appears to mirror the same experience as musical harmony - a synthesis that leaves us with a genuine feeling of awe and appreciation.

For researchers invested in their work as a type of art, that sense of beauty can be a north-star guiding their work. When the futurist and architect Buckminster Fuller shared his process he said "When working on a problem, I never think about beauty; I think only of how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know that it is wrong."

Buckminster Fuller has been described as trying to build the future in his present time. That description could be applied to our own work as we build with biology. We bring together living systems in pursuit of new, harmonious, and elegant ways of making and building. The beauty we see in this way of working is something we can share with one another and the world, bringing us that much closer to the future we want to see.

Spotlight on: Latch Bio

Imagine if every graphics design company built its own version of Photoshop in-house? What a waste of resources! Biology is facing the same challenge. Today, every company builds its own system to store and manage petabytes of data generated by their experiments. Meet Latch Bio, an infrastructure company uniting wet-lab experiments with dry lab data processing, storage, and analyses. The no-code platform enables scientists to get their results quickly and takes away the headaches of build-it-yourself data management. Learn more about Latch Bio’s goal of streamlining data so scientists can focus on solving the world’s biggest problems with biology!

Spotlight on: Codex DNA

Synthetic biology solutions have tremendous potential. But they won’t have the desired impact if they take too long to reach those who need them most. Meet Codex DNA, a pioneering synbio company creating easy-to-use technology for automatically assembling genetic constructs and synthesizing RNA and proteins. Codex DNA incorporates DNA synthesis, gene assembly, mRNA and protein expression into a single system, the BioXp platform. Instead of running between different machines or waiting for a month of shipping time, scientists can run the entire system in the lab overnight. Imagine how much faster drugs could reach patients when we can run experiments any day, every day, not every month. Learn more about Codex DNA’s goals to accelerate the bioeconomy launching in 2023!

Ginkgo Bioworks to expand platform capabilities in agricultural biologicals and launch flagship partnership with Bayer

"Bayer, Ginkgo, and Joyn share a common vision, which is to enable biological products to be a critical part of the solution to the world's greatest agricultural and environmental challenges," said Jason Kelly, CEO and cofounder of Ginkgo Bioworks.

Keep Reading »

UPSIDE Foods bites into $400M round to serve cultivated meat later this year

The Berkeley-based company, making cultivated meat, poultry and seafood, took in $400 million in Series C funding, touting it as "the largest round in the industry to date."

Keep Reading »

Biotech firm announces results from first US trial of genetically modified mosquitoes

Oxitec reports that its insects behaved as planned — but a larger trial is needed to learn whether they can reduce wild mosquito populations.

Keep Reading »

Octant sets sail for new era of drug discovery with $80M funding, Bristol Myers partnership

The money will fuel the expansion of Octant’s next-generation drug discovery platform, centered on developing programmable biology and chemistry to build precision medicines for complex diseases.

Keep Reading »

Outrageously fast strain improvement

Download the application note to learn how Inscripta’s Onyx® Digital Genome Engineering Platform can be used for rapid strain engineering to improve heterologous protein production.

Keep Reading »

TeselaGen Biotechnology launches open, cloud-based community edition for designing DNA

The free, cloud-based software gives access to previously unavailable tools for designing DNA constructs.

Keep Reading »

MORE TO EXPLORE

Evonetix appoints Paul Beastall as Chair of Board of Directors

Keep Reading »

LOLIWARE introduces first-of-its-kind seaweed pellet technology to replace plastics

Keep Reading »

Become a science product manager: Apply now for this program dedicated to science and engineering PhDs who are curious about roles outside of academia

Keep Reading »

The promise of progress: The role of synthetic biology in the future

Keep Reading »

How engineered microbes could cut aviation emissions

Keep Reading »

Unicorn Bio is building the hardware to scale cultivated meat from lab to table

Keep Reading »

Squaring a circle: To what extent are traditional circuit analogies impeding synthetic biology?

Keep Reading »

University of Washington researchers design and build custom machines from proteins

Keep Reading »

The scientist who co-created CRISPR isn’t ruling out engineered babies someday

Keep Reading »

Edison releases global biopesticides market report – Feeding the World: Biological Products for Sustainable Crop Protection

Keep Reading »

We've Got More »

WHO'S HIRING?

    Scientist, Inscripta, Pleasanton, CA

    Plant Synthetic Biology Lead Scientist, Neoplants, Paris, France

    Director/Senior Director, Mammalian Cell Biology, Inscripta, Boulder, CO

    Opportunities at Cemvita Factory

    Staff Scientist/ Senior Scientist, Inscripta, Pleasanton, CA

    Staff Systems Engineer/ Senior Staff Systems Engineer, Inscripta, Pleasanton, CA or Boulder, CO

    Senior Customer Service Representative Inscripta San Diego, CA

    Access The Job Board »

    Like our Digest? Please feel free to share with friends, family, and co-workers!


    Built With Biology, LLC
    3559 Mount Diablo Boulevard #2, Lafayette, CA 94549

    info@builtwithbiology.com

    If you no longer wish to receive our emails, you can unsubscribe here.
    Modify Your Email Preferences


    Email Marketing by ActiveCampaign