#SynBio Podcast

Kathryn Hamilton is the Managing editor and senior staff writer at Bioeconomy.XYZ. As well as Senior Consultant, (Biomedical Positioning) at Booz Allen Hamilton. She believes that Biotechnology is humanity’s highest art form. In this episode, Shrestha sits down with Kathryn to discuss:

-How Kathryn’s previous scientific training has helped her beyond the traditional realms of research and academia.

-How the creation of local science ecosystems can help establish greater trust between science and society.

-The current and future state of the Bioeconomy.

Todd Is a senior research scholar and executive committee member at NC states genetic engineering and society center. His work explores the scientific and technological frontier, stimulating discovery and bringing new tools to bear on public policy challenges that emerge as science advances.

He has been appointed to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) technical and policy task force on synthetic biology and gene drives, which culminated in the first comprehensive assessment of the impacts of synthetic biology and gene drives on conservation. In 2020, he was appointed to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity’s Ad-Hoc-Technical Expert Group (AHTEG) on synthetic biology.

Todd plays a very active role at iGEM, as a long time judge and by serving as the co-chair of its sustainable development goals program and as the former co-chair of the human practices program.

In todays episode we discuss:

-Bringing the iGEM SDG working group to life.

-The first few questions iGEMers should ask themselves when trying to develop an SDG project.

-The intense, controversial and hopeful conversations taking place at the UN and within the convention of biological diversity.

Miroslav Gasparek is a PhD candidate in engineering science at Oxford University. He’s also a venture fellow at Civilisation ventures, and part of the steering committee at the European Union SynBio society. 

Miro’s research lies at the intersection of SynBio, control theory and data-driven control methods like reinforcement learning. He’s interested in the practical applications of SynBio, its wider impact and providing solutions to real-life problems. As well as understanding how meaningful and live-saving innovations get to the market.

Topics explored in this week's episode:

-How does a life scientist get interested in Venture Capital?

-How to formally analyse an investment opportunity in Synthetic Biology

-Why are there more challenges for raising capital for SynBio companies in Europe when compared to the US?

-Miro’s research journey as well as Fellowship experience at Newton Ventures and Civilisation Ventures.

Miro's website: https://www.miroslavgasparek.com/pages/about.html

Drew has served on the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the Committee on Science, Technology, & Law; he currently serves on the World Health Organization’s Smallpox Advisory Committee. Esquire magazine recognized Drew as one of the 75 most influential people of the 21st century.

Topics discussed in todays episode:

-Does the most transformative SynBio research lie outside academia?

-The cultural, political and economic systems that will enable SynBio development in the years ahead.

-What is the key vulnerability of a for-profit organisation?

-How can we engineer biology with evolution?

Is climate change opening the floodgates of the germ zoo? Are Silicon Valley investors understanding and accepting climate change? In this episode, Zeeshan chats with Arvind Gupta and Po Bronson about their book, Decoding The World, where they try and decode the real cause of the pandemic, climate change, iGEM and SynBio & Silicon Valley!

Arvind is the founder and a venture advisor at IndieBio, which is the world’s first and leading accelerator dedicated to startups in biology to solve the world’s problems. As founder, Arvind has redefined the possibilities of early stage biotech, investing in over 136 companies over five years and growing the IndieBio portfolio into billions of dollars in value. His current role is at the global VC firm, Mayfield,  where he co-leads the engineering biology practice whose mission is to invest in science based companies that could change history. Po Bronson was a finance and tech journalist covering Silicon Valley for Wired, The New York Times Magazine, and an op-ed contributor for The Wall Street Journal. His science journalism has been honored with nine national awards, and he is the author of seven bestselling books that are available in 28 languages worldwide. Po is currently the Managing Director of IndieBio and General Partner at SOSV, the venture firm that backs IndieBio.

Deepmind’s work and success in protein structure prediction shows how exciting of a time it is to be part of biology and science in general. AlphaFold 2 is revolutionary, and to help me understand the science behind it, I'm joined by Charlie Harris. Charlie is currently finishing off his masters degree in Bioinformatics and Theoretical Systems Biology at Imperial College London, where he is working with Prof Michael Bronstein looking into generative models for structure based drug design. Charlie is also the chair and founder of the Imperial College Computational Biology Society. He's also about to start a PhD at the University of Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine.

Links:

-AlphaFold 2 Nature paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03819-2

-AlphaFold 2 and the EMBL-EBI database Nature paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03828-1

-Oxford Protein Informatics Group blog: https://www.blopig.com/blog/2021/07/alphafold-2-is-here-whats-behind-the-structure-prediction-miracle/

-Mohammed AlQuraishi AlphaFold 2 blog post: https://moalquraishi.wordpress.com/2021/07/25/the-alphafold2-method-paper-a-fount-of-good-ideas/amp/

-Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine website: https://ccaim.cam.ac.uk/

Doug is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University. His research focuses on the development of tools for the specification, design, assembly and test of synthetic biological systems. On this episode, we discuss the relationship between robots and synthetic biology. As well as if automation is going to end up making SynBio more centralised.