Today John Cumbers talks with Ali Tamaseb, an investor at the venture firm DCVC. John will be talking to Ali about his technical strategy for finding super-founders, emerging challenges for founders, particularly in synthetic biology, and what emerging market he is most excited about these days.

Ali is an entrepreneur, a previous startup founder, and a highly technical academic researcher. Ali has walked in the shoes of the scientist-turned-entrepreneur, and has first-hand experience with the challenges they face. At DCVC, he works on a broad spectrum of areas ranging from computational health and bio to cybersecurity. Ali received his Biomedical Engineering degree from Imperial College London, and he also graduated from the SIGM program at Stanford Graduate School of Business. He did research in the fields of neuroscience and human-computer interaction. Ali was an honoree of the British Alumni Award, and Imperial College President’s Medal for Outstanding Achievement. His work has been featured in BBC, Guardian, Forbes, The Telegraph, TEDx, and others.

Thanks to DCVC (@DCVC) for making this episode possible.

Connect with Ali: @alitamaseb

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Today John Cumbers talks with Dr. Santanu Dasgupta, Senior Vice President and Head of Biology at Reliance Industries Limited. John will be talking to Santanu about why algae is a great engineering platform, Reliance’s role in India’s arts, culture, and urban renewal, and the challenges to building the synthetic biology community in India

Santanu has more than 25 years in biotechnology research experience in various leadership roles. He has led many breakthrough global agriculture biotechnology programs, and has contributed to the discovery of numerous plant traits. He’s the author of several peer-reviewed papers and is the inventor of more than twenty US patents in the area of pathogen resistance in plants, drought tolerance, gene expression, and improved algae. Santanu has also contributed papers in over 100 National and international meetings and symposium.

Thanks to Reliance for making this episode possible.

Connect with Santanu: https://in.linkedin.com/in/santanudasgupta

Connect with John: @johncumbers

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Be sure you make it to SynBioBeta 2019 this October 1-3! Click here for more information.

Today John Cumbers talks to Dr. Christina Agapakis, biologist, writer, artist, and Creative Director at Ginkgo Bioworks. John will be talking to Christina about the role of creativity and design in biotechnology, what are Ginkgo’s top aims in terms of technology and its culture, and what kinds of opportunities she is most excited about today.

Christina serves as creative director at Ginkgo Bioworks, an organism design company that is bringing biology to industrial engineering. In that role, she collaborates with engineers, designers, artists, and social scientists to explore the many unexpected connections between microbiology, technology, art, and popular culture. Her graduate work at Harvard focused on producing hydrogen fuel in bacteria and making photosynthetic animals. She has taught designers at the Art Center College of Design and biomolecular engineers at UCLA, and once made cheese using bacteria from the human body. She is a prolific writer on biology, technology, and culture for a number of outlets. She’s also a founding editor of Method Quarterly, a magazine about science in the making.

Thanks to Ginkgo (@ginkgo) for making this episode possible.

Connect with Christina: @thisischristina

Connect with John: @johncumbers

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Today John Cumbers talks to Dr. Jenny Rooke, the founder and Managing Director of Genoa Ventures, and one of Silicon Valley’s leading venture capitalists in the synthetic biology industry. John will be talking to Jenny about how VCs assess the value and potential of firms, what it takes to start your own VC firm, and what kinds of opportunities she is most excited about today.

For over a decade, Jenny has been deploying capital at the frontiers of life sciences innovation, seeking out technology-fueled solutions and category-defying opportunities. Jenny began her venture career at Fidelity Biosciences. At the Gates Foundation, she managed $250M in project funding in genetic engineering, diagnostics, and synthetic biology. In 2018, Jenny founded her own firm, Genoa Ventures, building on her successful track record.

Thanks to Genoa Ventures for making this episode possible.

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Today John Cumbers talks to Ursheet Parikh, partner at Mayfield and leader of their biotechnology and health care portfolios. The conversation is about what it takes to scale synthetic biology companies, some of the challenges they face, and how platform technologies in synthetic biology can help float all boats.

Ursheet is a proven repeat entrepreneur and executive who brings 15 years of product and leadership experience to the investment team at Mayfield. He focuses on innovation that is redefining the application and infrastructure stacks in cloud, mobile, enterprise technologies, genomics and digital health.

Ursheet’s current investments include Cloud Genix, Mission Bio, Mammoth Biosciences, Netsil, Qventus, Rancher Labs, Shiftleft, Versa Networks, and Zipongo.

Prior to joining Mayfield, he was an extremely successful leading manager at Microsoft and Cisco.

Thanks to Mayfield for making this episode possible.

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Be sure you make it to SynBioBeta 2019 this October 1-3! Click here for more information.

Today John Cumbers talks to Alexandre Zanghellini, co-founder and CEO of Arzeda about Protein Design 101. Alex leads Arzeda’s product and technology development and IP strategy. He’s an inventor of Arzeda’s platform for computational protein design and more recently also branched into computational metabolic pathway design. Alex will

introduce protein design, discuss automation and technical advancement, touch on a few applications, and the potential of protein design to improve the world and bring new products to market.

Thanks to Arzeda for making this episode possible.

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John Cumbers talks to Ben Kellogg about telling a compelling synthetic biology story. Ben is the founder of BWK, an award-winning PR consulting firm representing clients like TED, MIT, Modern Meadow and Culture Biosciences. As the PR partner to TED’s Fellowship program, BWK works directly with the 400+ TED Fellows including scientists, technologists, artists and entrepreneurs. Ben graduated from Yale with a degree in English and has a decade of experience advising executives and entrepreneurs on their PR communications strategy.

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Be sure you make it to SynBioBeta 2019 this October 1-3! Click here for more information.

The SynBioBeta Podcast is here!

Subscribe now. Episode 1 debuts July 10th.

Conversations with synthetic biology’s leading thinkers on building a better world with biology. The podcast is hosted by John Cumbers, founder and CEO of SynBioBeta, where tech meets bio and bio meets tech.

Stay updated on the latest news in synthetic biology, check out our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media:

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Be sure you make it to SynBioBeta 2019 this October 1-3! Click here for more information.