April 2, 2025 • 18 mins
This week on BioTech Nation, I speak with Dr. John Cumbers, founder and CEO of SynBioBeta, the annual synthetic biology conference. We discuss how biology, AI, and technology are transforming industries, covering tracks on human health, planetary health, and hyperscale biology. SynBioBeta 2025 will take place in San Jose, CA, from May 5 to 8.
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Dr. Moira Gunn (00:11):
How would you describe the cutting edge, the
scientific and technicalfrontier of how we can or might
engineer biology and understandhow living organisms, including
us, work? The field is calledsynthetic biology, and maybe you
or your company is already doingit or wants to at least know
(00:33):
what's happening. Well, there'sone easy way every year to
figure it out. Today, I speakwith John Cumbers, the founder
and CEO of SynBio Beta, theglobal synthetic biology
conference. This year, 2025,it's in San Jose, California,
May Fifth Through Eighth, andwe're going to talk about what's
(00:54):
happening there.
John, welcome to Biotech Nation.
Dr. John Cumbers (00:58):
Hi, Moira. Thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Moira Gunn (01:00):
Now I have to say I like your leading motto,
if you if we can call it thatfor the conference, biology,
technology, plus purpose drivenpeople. I gotta say there are
several thousand purpose drivenpeople at this conference.
Dr. John Cumbers (01:16):
Well, it's been a pleasure curating this
community for the last thirteenyears in the Bay Area. You've
come to the event twice lastyear. We gave you a Lifetime
Achievement Award for yourservices to Biotech
Communications, so it's an honorto be on the podcast for the
first time, but the reason weincluded the people in the
(01:37):
tagline for the conference isbecause, yeah, we love the
technology. Yeah, we love thebusiness, but what we really
love is the community and thepeople who are actually making
this stuff happen.
Dr. Moira Gunn (01:47):
Well, you have a number of tracks and a number of
focuses. Let's go there. Whatare these? I see four here.
Human health, tools andtechnology, planetary health,
and the business of biology andsociety.
What's in them? These are theseare very broad categories.
Dr. John Cumbers (02:05):
I describe Synbio Beta as being at a
software conference in the1980s, because they are broad.
The conference is so broad. Youcome to Synbio Beta and you
might chat with Rick Doblin,who's the founder of MAPS,
talking about psychedelics andyou might chat with the CTO of
(02:25):
Microsoft, Kevin Scott, who'sgoing to be talking about bio
and AI and you might chat withKim Branson, who's the head of
machine learning and artificialintelligence at GSK, so it's
like this eclectic mix of peopleand we really can simplify it
into human health, planetaryhealth, and then the latest
(02:47):
track that we've announced,which is called hyperscale
biology. And that's all aboutthe intersection of AI and bio
and the huge impact that that ishaving on the field and is gonna
continue to have on the field.
Dr. Moira Gunn (03:00):
I love this hyperscale biology. I didn't
even know about that.
Dr. John Cumbers (03:05):
It's a term that I stole from Illumina
Ventures. Nick Niclera came upwith it and I said, that's an
amazing term. He said, yeah,we're investing in hyperscale
biology. We are looking forpeople who are going out there
and thinking about bigger datasets than we've ever been able
to think of and feeding thosebig data sets into biology. Of
(03:27):
course, Illumina is a sequencingcompany, so they think about
lots and lots of data.
But I said to him, that's anawesome term. Can I take it? And
he said, sure. So I went andregistered the domain name,
Hyperscale.bio and created thisnew track because, you know, if
you don't keep moving with aconference and a community, then
you become stale and old. So wehave about 20 different AI
(03:48):
companies who are coming to talkabout what they're doing at this
year's event.
Dr. Moira Gunn (03:52):
So we have not only companies, we have
individuals who are from boththe industry and academia. We
even have students.
Dr. John Cumbers (04:01):
Yeah. We, we love to bring the next
generation on board. And ifthere are any students
listening, then they can emailinfosynbiobeta dot com and offer
to volunteer. They can also buya student pass if they want to
join the student program.Because again, if you don't
innovate, you know, I'm alreadyold, I'm 45 Moira, so we need to
bring the next generation ofbiotechnologists in, and we have
(04:23):
a partnership with Nucleate,which is an organization all
around the world that bringstheir leadership to the summit
as well.
So, yeah, forget about the nextgeneration, which is easy to do,
you know, you won't have avibrant community, so that's
definitely a big part of it.
Dr. Moira Gunn (04:37):
Well, I wanna thank you. At least one of my
former students is actuallyleading a track. That would be
Sarah Ives.
Dr. John Cumbers (04:44):
I didn't know Sarah was your former student.
Sarah's fantastic.
Dr. Moira Gunn (04:48):
She's not only a former student, she's a former
producer on Biotech Nation.
Dr. John Cumbers (04:54):
That means that I know three of your
producers then. That's amazing.Well, Sarah is leading the track
on engineered human therapiesand she's really been doing a
great job at bringing in some ofthe most innovative speakers.
And one of those reallyinteresting people that we have
who's doing cell therapymanufacturing is Dean Kamen. And
(05:14):
you may know Dean from Inventingthe Segway.
He's founded First RoboticsCompetition, but for the last
few years, he's been working onan organization called Army,
which is a regenerativemanufacturing institute funded
by the Department of Defense.And so Dean is gonna be coming
and talking all about celltherapies and how we can scale
the manufacturing of them forthings like organ replacement
(05:37):
and some really interestingapplications around. He's also
going to be talking aboutvaccine development with Jake
Glanville, who's another friendof ours.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:47):
He hires every student he can find from me. He
even said to me once, if you canbelieve this, can you give me
maybe the names of the peoplewho applied to your program, but
you had to reject because therejust wasn't room? I said, thank
you, Jake. I'm sure they'd loveto meet with you.
Dr. John Cumbers (06:07):
So this is Jake Glanville at Centivax and
he's going to be talking aboutuniversal immunity and we're
actually doing a very specialevent with him and Dean Kamen
and Raj from Flagship Ventures.So, you know, that gives you a
sense of the breadth of theevent, just from the people that
(06:27):
we've mentioned.
Dr. Moira Gunn (06:28):
Everyone's doing many things, interconnected many
ways. I mean, Flagship, ofcourse, was the funder of
Moderna and about 30 othercompanies in a very interesting
way how they do that. And and,of course, Jake's, just mother
is a gun. So you know?
Dr. John Cumbers (06:46):
That's right. You're related. Yes. I forgot
that.
Dr. Moira Gunn (06:50):
He got all the brains. I hate that part. We
have that argument many times,many times. But, anyway, the it
is interesting in the sense thatthere are so many different
things. When you're getting to acertain point, you're talking
about tools that could drivemany different types of
technology, biotechnology.
(07:11):
And I do have to say so manytimes these conferences seem to
be about biopharmaceuticals orjust diagnostics simply because
that's the largest marketsector. So, you know,
frequently, that's what happens.The big money drives that. But
in fact, you're also talkingabout, consumer products. You're
(07:33):
talking about chemicals andmaterials.
You're talking about food andagriculture as well as space.
Where does space come in?
Dr. John Cumbers (07:42):
Space comes in because I'm so passionate about
settling the solar system. Iworked at NASA for seven years
in the bioengineering programand I dreamed of being able to
design organisms that couldproduce food, design organisms
that could purify our water andrecycle it and produce
materials, send engineered cellto the surface of Mars, but also
(08:04):
send a DNA synthesizer. So whenyou figure out that there's too
much perchlorate on the surfaceof Mars, you can do a hot swap
of that genome and design a newbug that's going to be able to
metabolize that perchlorate ordo something else with the CO2
or nitrogen that it finds there.So biology is this most
versatile manufacturingtechnology and it's, as Craig
(08:28):
Venter said in his book, Life atthe Speed of Light, you don't
need to take everything with youwhen you settle the solar
system. You just need a DNAsynthesizer and biology and you
can recreate everything that wehave here that's biologically
produced anywhere you go in thesolar system.
So that's the connection betweensynthetic biology and space.
Dr. Moira Gunn (08:47):
Well, doctor Cumbers, I have to say, you
know, you had a career being asynthetic biologist at NASA. You
know? Why did you make the leapover to creating this?
Dr. John Cumbers (08:58):
Well, NASA should be the most innovative
place to work in the world, butunfortunately, it's put inside a
box called the federalgovernment.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:12):
Oh, those guys.
Dr. John Cumbers (09:14):
So I had the opportunity to start Synbio Beta
to start my own company and I'min Silicon Valley. I'm living
and breathing the startupenvironment, so all of my
friends around me were startingcompanies or raising funds, so
after seven years there, I waslike, okay, I think I can make a
go of this and pulled the ripcord and never looked back. It
(09:36):
was definitely the rightdecision for me at the time.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:39):
Like all the best conferences, you have an
exhibit area. What's in yourexhibit area?
Dr. John Cumbers (09:47):
That's right. We have over 80 exhibitors come
into the conference and mostlythese are the geeks who are
making equipment, makingautomation. So you can go around
the expo and look at a lot ofthese machines in action like
automatic pipettas or machinesthat move plates around. So
there's just a lot of automationthat happens, but there's also a
(10:09):
lot of the companies that youmentioned, the chemicals
companies, the materialscompanies, the food companies
are bringing their wares andshowing people what these things
do. In the past, we had thecompany EcoVative come and they
brought a car with them and thecar was aligned with leather
that had been grown frommushroom mycelium.
So that's just one example ofsome of the materials that you
(10:31):
can see there. We have thecompany Arzada, which is using
machine learning to designenzymes. And you can taste
sugar, a sweetener, anartificial sweetener that
they've made using, so it's astevia, so it's not actually
artificial, but they're usingthese engineered enzymes to
convert one form of the Rebprotein into another, which
(10:54):
gives it that sweetness. So youcan literally taste the products
of the bioeconomy. And then wehave another company called
LightBio and LightBio was on thefront page of Time magazine in
December because they have theglow in the dark petunia, and we
actually premiered that at theconference a couple of years
ago.
And you also have anothercompany called Living Plants,
(11:16):
NeoPlants, which are makingplants that can suck out,
pollutants from the air. They'rebased in Paris. So that just
gives you a sense of thediversity of the kind of people
that you get in the expo at theevent.
Dr. Moira Gunn (11:29):
Which reminds me, you're also talking about
climate tech and theenvironment.
Dr. John Cumbers (11:34):
Yeah, that's a huge piece of it and we have a
whole track on that in terms ofscale up and manufacturing. Mark
Warner from Liberation Labs isthe person behind that track and
if you think about syntheticbiology as a manufacturing
technology, yes, it is great forproducing drugs, but what it's
(11:56):
also really good at is forproducing anything that is made
from carbon. So if you thinkabout a carbon molecule in the
air and you think about howwe've got too much of these
carbon molecules in the airbecause we're sucking up oil
from the ground and we'reburning coal and natural gas,
well, what if you could have atechnology that sucks out that
(12:19):
CO2 from the air and puts itinto something useful? And of
course that technology is allaround us. This is what
photosynthesis does all thetime.
So now if we could engineerthese cells to now produce a
chemical that we want or asurfactant that we want or a
cosmetic that we want or a foodproduct that we want, then we
can enable what's broadly calledthe bioeconomy to flourish. And
(12:43):
McKinsey put out a report acouple of years ago that shows
that 60% of global inputs couldbe made using biology. And right
now we're at about 5%. So if thepolicies are right to
reconfigure our economy, there'sa huge growth boom that's gonna
happen around biomanufacturingand that's why we've got the
(13:03):
whole track and the wholesegment on climate change and
planetary health.
Dr. Moira Gunn (13:08):
Now there are all kinds of specialized
luncheons, you know, CEOs, oh,of course, one for the media,
senior tech leadership,investors, marketing and
messaging, and women's luncheon.How do you decide who gets a
luncheon and why are theygetting these luncheons?
Dr. John Cumbers (13:28):
We have a meeting at the company and we
look across the whole ecosystemand we're about 2,000 people
that come to the event and sosome big trade shows you go to
and you just feel lost. You justfeel it's too big. It's like a
zoo. So these smaller eventsthat we put on, we have one for
(13:49):
the AI and biopharma people tomeet on the Wednesday night. We
have one for, as you said, thewomen's luncheon on the
Thursday.
So we just identify groups thatwe think are really interesting
and groups that should bebrought together and might not
otherwise have the chance toconnect and we put on these
special events throughout theconference. And some of them
(14:10):
are, we put them on as SymBioBeta. Others are put on by our
sponsors to group together. Youknow, we have one particularly
around drug discovery, anotherone around planetary health. So
once people sign up for theevent, our BD team reaches out
and helps to slot them into theright special events that they
might be a fit for.
(14:30):
And the investor one is a bigone. That's always a popular
one. And then we had VinodKhosla speak at our CEOs event
for all of our CEOs as well. Soyeah, we just try to find these
small pockets and do what we canto promote people coming
together.
Dr. Moira Gunn (14:46):
I'm glad you mentioned Vinod Khosla because
there were two LifetimeAchievement Awards and for those
of you who don't know who Vinodis, he is a very, very famous
biotech venture capitalist. So Iwas as thrilled to get the award
as to get the other person whogot the award was Vinod Khosla,
which I always mention. Clashedmy award up as well. It was very
(15:10):
nice. It was very nice.
So you're going to have awardsagain this year?
Dr. John Cumbers (15:14):
We are going to have awards again this year.
I can't quite say who's going towin them yet, but we're going to
be announcing them very shortly.But Finode has been coming to
Synbio Beta for over ten yearsand he's one of these amazing
guys that's done the successfulcrossover from tech into
biotech. So, you know, hefounded Sun Microsystems back in
(15:34):
the day. That's earned him thebillions of dollars that he has,
but he just keeps reinvesting init.
And he's invested in a number ofcompanies in our space and
really helped out some of theentrepreneurs to succeed and put
them on this stable path torevenue and profitability, which
is fantastic.
Dr. Moira Gunn (15:52):
Well, it just goes to show you, you don't have
to have a billion dollars to getan award from SendBioBeta. I
just wanted to point that out.
Dr. John Cumbers (16:01):
I've been listening to you since I arrived
in the Bay Area in 02/2008. Iremember driving my car home and
you're one of the few peoplethat I would just, it was always
on a Sunday night and I wouldjust get glued to it. I was
like, you are speaking to me,you know, like the Geek Squad
was coming out and I was justlike, I can't believe only in
(16:24):
the Bay Area could we be solucky to have Moira Gan who
produces content directly intoour ears for the tech community,
so it's a special privilege tohave you.
Dr. Moira Gunn (16:34):
Oh, that is so great. And, of course, it it's
always gone all over the world.So all these people everywhere
are like, I hope they feellocal. They're they're family
for us. They're all family.
And and, actually, and in therun up to this, you were telling
me that they could use BiotechNation to get a discount.
Dr. John Cumbers (16:54):
That's right. If people wanna come and join
our community, they can go tothe website and register. And if
they just type in BiotechNation, then they will get a
discount code to register forthe event.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:05):
Can't buy a house with it, but it's
something, I wanna say. It's arecognition.
Dr. John Cumbers (17:10):
But you might be able to meet your co founder
at the conference or meet theinvestor that will fund your
startup, and then in, you know,five or ten years' time, then
you can buy a house with that.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:20):
There you go. And by the way, you might just
get that idea or the completionfor your current idea, and, it
all comes together. This is noteasy stuff. We all know that. So
John, thank you so much forjoining me.
I'm so sorry it's the first timeyou've been on. I hope you come
back and see us again.
Dr. John Cumbers (17:39):
I would love to come back. Well, we're
continually driving new topicsand new information and bringing
new people together, so ifthere's new ideas that I have or
particular trends, I'm happy tocome on and discuss them with
you.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:52):
My guest today is John Cumbers. Find out all
things Synbio Beta atsynbiobeta.com. That's
Syn,syn,bio,bio,Beta,beta,.com.And, of course, when you
register, you could use thediscount code BioTechNation at
this year's twenty twenty fiveSynBioBeta conference. It's in
(18:16):
San Jose, California, May FifthThrough Eighth.
All things SynBioBeta atSynBioBeta.com.
How would you describe the cutting edge, the
scientific and technicalfrontier of how we can or might
engineer biology and understandhow living organisms, including
us, work? The field is calledsynthetic biology, and maybe you
or your company is already doingit or wants to at least know
(00:33):
what's happening. Well, there'sone easy way every year to
figure it out. Today, I speakwith John Cumbers, the founder
and CEO of SynBio Beta, theglobal synthetic biology
conference. This year, 2025,it's in San Jose, California,
May Fifth Through Eighth, andwe're going to talk about what's
(00:54):
happening there.
John, welcome to Biotech Nation.
Dr. John Cumbers (00:58):
Hi, Moira. Thanks so much for having me.
Dr. Moira Gunn (01:00):
Now I have to say I like your leading motto,
if you if we can call it thatfor the conference, biology,
technology, plus purpose drivenpeople. I gotta say there are
several thousand purpose drivenpeople at this conference.
Dr. John Cumbers (01:16):
Well, it's been a pleasure curating this
community for the last thirteenyears in the Bay Area. You've
come to the event twice lastyear. We gave you a Lifetime
Achievement Award for yourservices to Biotech
Communications, so it's an honorto be on the podcast for the
first time, but the reason weincluded the people in the
(01:37):
tagline for the conference isbecause, yeah, we love the
technology. Yeah, we love thebusiness, but what we really
love is the community and thepeople who are actually making
this stuff happen.
Dr. Moira Gunn (01:47):
Well, you have a number of tracks and a number of
focuses. Let's go there. Whatare these? I see four here.
Human health, tools andtechnology, planetary health,
and the business of biology andsociety.
What's in them? These are theseare very broad categories.
Dr. John Cumbers (02:05):
I describe Synbio Beta as being at a
software conference in the1980s, because they are broad.
The conference is so broad. Youcome to Synbio Beta and you
might chat with Rick Doblin,who's the founder of MAPS,
talking about psychedelics andyou might chat with the CTO of
(02:25):
Microsoft, Kevin Scott, who'sgoing to be talking about bio
and AI and you might chat withKim Branson, who's the head of
machine learning and artificialintelligence at GSK, so it's
like this eclectic mix of peopleand we really can simplify it
into human health, planetaryhealth, and then the latest
(02:47):
track that we've announced,which is called hyperscale
biology. And that's all aboutthe intersection of AI and bio
and the huge impact that that ishaving on the field and is gonna
continue to have on the field.
Dr. Moira Gunn (03:00):
I love this hyperscale biology. I didn't
even know about that.
Dr. John Cumbers (03:05):
It's a term that I stole from Illumina
Ventures. Nick Niclera came upwith it and I said, that's an
amazing term. He said, yeah,we're investing in hyperscale
biology. We are looking forpeople who are going out there
and thinking about bigger datasets than we've ever been able
to think of and feeding thosebig data sets into biology. Of
(03:27):
course, Illumina is a sequencingcompany, so they think about
lots and lots of data.
But I said to him, that's anawesome term. Can I take it? And
he said, sure. So I went andregistered the domain name,
Hyperscale.bio and created thisnew track because, you know, if
you don't keep moving with aconference and a community, then
you become stale and old. So wehave about 20 different AI
(03:48):
companies who are coming to talkabout what they're doing at this
year's event.
Dr. Moira Gunn (03:52):
So we have not only companies, we have
individuals who are from boththe industry and academia. We
even have students.
Dr. John Cumbers (04:01):
Yeah. We, we love to bring the next
generation on board. And ifthere are any students
listening, then they can emailinfosynbiobeta dot com and offer
to volunteer. They can also buya student pass if they want to
join the student program.Because again, if you don't
innovate, you know, I'm alreadyold, I'm 45 Moira, so we need to
bring the next generation ofbiotechnologists in, and we have
(04:23):
a partnership with Nucleate,which is an organization all
around the world that bringstheir leadership to the summit
as well.
So, yeah, forget about the nextgeneration, which is easy to do,
you know, you won't have avibrant community, so that's
definitely a big part of it.
Dr. Moira Gunn (04:37):
Well, I wanna thank you. At least one of my
former students is actuallyleading a track. That would be
Sarah Ives.
Dr. John Cumbers (04:44):
I didn't know Sarah was your former student.
Sarah's fantastic.
Dr. Moira Gunn (04:48):
She's not only a former student, she's a former
producer on Biotech Nation.
Dr. John Cumbers (04:54):
That means that I know three of your
producers then. That's amazing.Well, Sarah is leading the track
on engineered human therapiesand she's really been doing a
great job at bringing in some ofthe most innovative speakers.
And one of those reallyinteresting people that we have
who's doing cell therapymanufacturing is Dean Kamen. And
(05:14):
you may know Dean from Inventingthe Segway.
He's founded First RoboticsCompetition, but for the last
few years, he's been working onan organization called Army,
which is a regenerativemanufacturing institute funded
by the Department of Defense.And so Dean is gonna be coming
and talking all about celltherapies and how we can scale
the manufacturing of them forthings like organ replacement
(05:37):
and some really interestingapplications around. He's also
going to be talking aboutvaccine development with Jake
Glanville, who's another friendof ours.
Dr. Moira Gunn (05:47):
He hires every student he can find from me. He
even said to me once, if you canbelieve this, can you give me
maybe the names of the peoplewho applied to your program, but
you had to reject because therejust wasn't room? I said, thank
you, Jake. I'm sure they'd loveto meet with you.
Dr. John Cumbers (06:07):
So this is Jake Glanville at Centivax and
he's going to be talking aboutuniversal immunity and we're
actually doing a very specialevent with him and Dean Kamen
and Raj from Flagship Ventures.So, you know, that gives you a
sense of the breadth of theevent, just from the people that
(06:27):
we've mentioned.
Dr. Moira Gunn (06:28):
Everyone's doing many things, interconnected many
ways. I mean, Flagship, ofcourse, was the funder of
Moderna and about 30 othercompanies in a very interesting
way how they do that. And and,of course, Jake's, just mother
is a gun. So you know?
Dr. John Cumbers (06:46):
That's right. You're related. Yes. I forgot
that.
Dr. Moira Gunn (06:50):
He got all the brains. I hate that part. We
have that argument many times,many times. But, anyway, the it
is interesting in the sense thatthere are so many different
things. When you're getting to acertain point, you're talking
about tools that could drivemany different types of
technology, biotechnology.
(07:11):
And I do have to say so manytimes these conferences seem to
be about biopharmaceuticals orjust diagnostics simply because
that's the largest marketsector. So, you know,
frequently, that's what happens.The big money drives that. But
in fact, you're also talkingabout, consumer products. You're
(07:33):
talking about chemicals andmaterials.
You're talking about food andagriculture as well as space.
Where does space come in?
Dr. John Cumbers (07:42):
Space comes in because I'm so passionate about
settling the solar system. Iworked at NASA for seven years
in the bioengineering programand I dreamed of being able to
design organisms that couldproduce food, design organisms
that could purify our water andrecycle it and produce
materials, send engineered cellto the surface of Mars, but also
(08:04):
send a DNA synthesizer. So whenyou figure out that there's too
much perchlorate on the surfaceof Mars, you can do a hot swap
of that genome and design a newbug that's going to be able to
metabolize that perchlorate ordo something else with the CO2
or nitrogen that it finds there.So biology is this most
versatile manufacturingtechnology and it's, as Craig
(08:28):
Venter said in his book, Life atthe Speed of Light, you don't
need to take everything with youwhen you settle the solar
system. You just need a DNAsynthesizer and biology and you
can recreate everything that wehave here that's biologically
produced anywhere you go in thesolar system.
So that's the connection betweensynthetic biology and space.
Dr. Moira Gunn (08:47):
Well, doctor Cumbers, I have to say, you
know, you had a career being asynthetic biologist at NASA. You
know? Why did you make the leapover to creating this?
Dr. John Cumbers (08:58):
Well, NASA should be the most innovative
place to work in the world, butunfortunately, it's put inside a
box called the federalgovernment.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:12):
Oh, those guys.
Dr. John Cumbers (09:14):
So I had the opportunity to start Synbio Beta
to start my own company and I'min Silicon Valley. I'm living
and breathing the startupenvironment, so all of my
friends around me were startingcompanies or raising funds, so
after seven years there, I waslike, okay, I think I can make a
go of this and pulled the ripcord and never looked back. It
(09:36):
was definitely the rightdecision for me at the time.
Dr. Moira Gunn (09:39):
Like all the best conferences, you have an
exhibit area. What's in yourexhibit area?
Dr. John Cumbers (09:47):
That's right. We have over 80 exhibitors come
into the conference and mostlythese are the geeks who are
making equipment, makingautomation. So you can go around
the expo and look at a lot ofthese machines in action like
automatic pipettas or machinesthat move plates around. So
there's just a lot of automationthat happens, but there's also a
(10:09):
lot of the companies that youmentioned, the chemicals
companies, the materialscompanies, the food companies
are bringing their wares andshowing people what these things
do. In the past, we had thecompany EcoVative come and they
brought a car with them and thecar was aligned with leather
that had been grown frommushroom mycelium.
So that's just one example ofsome of the materials that you
(10:31):
can see there. We have thecompany Arzada, which is using
machine learning to designenzymes. And you can taste
sugar, a sweetener, anartificial sweetener that
they've made using, so it's astevia, so it's not actually
artificial, but they're usingthese engineered enzymes to
convert one form of the Rebprotein into another, which
(10:54):
gives it that sweetness. So youcan literally taste the products
of the bioeconomy. And then wehave another company called
LightBio and LightBio was on thefront page of Time magazine in
December because they have theglow in the dark petunia, and we
actually premiered that at theconference a couple of years
ago.
And you also have anothercompany called Living Plants,
(11:16):
NeoPlants, which are makingplants that can suck out,
pollutants from the air. They'rebased in Paris. So that just
gives you a sense of thediversity of the kind of people
that you get in the expo at theevent.
Dr. Moira Gunn (11:29):
Which reminds me, you're also talking about
climate tech and theenvironment.
Dr. John Cumbers (11:34):
Yeah, that's a huge piece of it and we have a
whole track on that in terms ofscale up and manufacturing. Mark
Warner from Liberation Labs isthe person behind that track and
if you think about syntheticbiology as a manufacturing
technology, yes, it is great forproducing drugs, but what it's
(11:56):
also really good at is forproducing anything that is made
from carbon. So if you thinkabout a carbon molecule in the
air and you think about howwe've got too much of these
carbon molecules in the airbecause we're sucking up oil
from the ground and we'reburning coal and natural gas,
well, what if you could have atechnology that sucks out that
(12:19):
CO2 from the air and puts itinto something useful? And of
course that technology is allaround us. This is what
photosynthesis does all thetime.
So now if we could engineerthese cells to now produce a
chemical that we want or asurfactant that we want or a
cosmetic that we want or a foodproduct that we want, then we
can enable what's broadly calledthe bioeconomy to flourish. And
(12:43):
McKinsey put out a report acouple of years ago that shows
that 60% of global inputs couldbe made using biology. And right
now we're at about 5%. So if thepolicies are right to
reconfigure our economy, there'sa huge growth boom that's gonna
happen around biomanufacturingand that's why we've got the
(13:03):
whole track and the wholesegment on climate change and
planetary health.
Dr. Moira Gunn (13:08):
Now there are all kinds of specialized
luncheons, you know, CEOs, oh,of course, one for the media,
senior tech leadership,investors, marketing and
messaging, and women's luncheon.How do you decide who gets a
luncheon and why are theygetting these luncheons?
Dr. John Cumbers (13:28):
We have a meeting at the company and we
look across the whole ecosystemand we're about 2,000 people
that come to the event and sosome big trade shows you go to
and you just feel lost. You justfeel it's too big. It's like a
zoo. So these smaller eventsthat we put on, we have one for
(13:49):
the AI and biopharma people tomeet on the Wednesday night. We
have one for, as you said, thewomen's luncheon on the
Thursday.
So we just identify groups thatwe think are really interesting
and groups that should bebrought together and might not
otherwise have the chance toconnect and we put on these
special events throughout theconference. And some of them
(14:10):
are, we put them on as SymBioBeta. Others are put on by our
sponsors to group together. Youknow, we have one particularly
around drug discovery, anotherone around planetary health. So
once people sign up for theevent, our BD team reaches out
and helps to slot them into theright special events that they
might be a fit for.
(14:30):
And the investor one is a bigone. That's always a popular
one. And then we had VinodKhosla speak at our CEOs event
for all of our CEOs as well. Soyeah, we just try to find these
small pockets and do what we canto promote people coming
together.
Dr. Moira Gunn (14:46):
I'm glad you mentioned Vinod Khosla because
there were two LifetimeAchievement Awards and for those
of you who don't know who Vinodis, he is a very, very famous
biotech venture capitalist. So Iwas as thrilled to get the award
as to get the other person whogot the award was Vinod Khosla,
which I always mention. Clashedmy award up as well. It was very
(15:10):
nice. It was very nice.
So you're going to have awardsagain this year?
Dr. John Cumbers (15:14):
We are going to have awards again this year.
I can't quite say who's going towin them yet, but we're going to
be announcing them very shortly.But Finode has been coming to
Synbio Beta for over ten yearsand he's one of these amazing
guys that's done the successfulcrossover from tech into
biotech. So, you know, hefounded Sun Microsystems back in
(15:34):
the day. That's earned him thebillions of dollars that he has,
but he just keeps reinvesting init.
And he's invested in a number ofcompanies in our space and
really helped out some of theentrepreneurs to succeed and put
them on this stable path torevenue and profitability, which
is fantastic.
Dr. Moira Gunn (15:52):
Well, it just goes to show you, you don't have
to have a billion dollars to getan award from SendBioBeta. I
just wanted to point that out.
Dr. John Cumbers (16:01):
I've been listening to you since I arrived
in the Bay Area in 02/2008. Iremember driving my car home and
you're one of the few peoplethat I would just, it was always
on a Sunday night and I wouldjust get glued to it. I was
like, you are speaking to me,you know, like the Geek Squad
was coming out and I was justlike, I can't believe only in
(16:24):
the Bay Area could we be solucky to have Moira Gan who
produces content directly intoour ears for the tech community,
so it's a special privilege tohave you.
Dr. Moira Gunn (16:34):
Oh, that is so great. And, of course, it it's
always gone all over the world.So all these people everywhere
are like, I hope they feellocal. They're they're family
for us. They're all family.
And and, actually, and in therun up to this, you were telling
me that they could use BiotechNation to get a discount.
Dr. John Cumbers (16:54):
That's right. If people wanna come and join
our community, they can go tothe website and register. And if
they just type in BiotechNation, then they will get a
discount code to register forthe event.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:05):
Can't buy a house with it, but it's
something, I wanna say. It's arecognition.
Dr. John Cumbers (17:10):
But you might be able to meet your co founder
at the conference or meet theinvestor that will fund your
startup, and then in, you know,five or ten years' time, then
you can buy a house with that.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:20):
There you go. And by the way, you might just
get that idea or the completionfor your current idea, and, it
all comes together. This is noteasy stuff. We all know that. So
John, thank you so much forjoining me.
I'm so sorry it's the first timeyou've been on. I hope you come
back and see us again.
Dr. John Cumbers (17:39):
I would love to come back. Well, we're
continually driving new topicsand new information and bringing
new people together, so ifthere's new ideas that I have or
particular trends, I'm happy tocome on and discuss them with
you.
Dr. Moira Gunn (17:52):
My guest today is John Cumbers. Find out all
things Synbio Beta atsynbiobeta.com. That's
Syn,syn,bio,bio,Beta,beta,.com.And, of course, when you
register, you could use thediscount code BioTechNation at
this year's twenty twenty fiveSynBioBeta conference. It's in
(18:16):
San Jose, California, May FifthThrough Eighth.
All things SynBioBeta atSynBioBeta.com.
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