BOSTON, April 11,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Ginkgo Bioworks
(NYSE: DNA), which is building the leading platform for cell
programming and biosecurity, is hosting its 5th annual Ferment
conference. The conference brings together stakeholders from across
the synthetic biology community, including R&D leaders, Ginkgo
Technology Network partners, experts from across academia,
journalists, and many more. Because the event has reached its
in-person capacity limits, a livestream will be available on
Ginkgo's YouTube page and Ginkgo's Investor Relations
page.
Ferment will begin with a keynote address from Ginkgo co-founder
and CEO, Jason Kelly, who will
discuss the value that customers across industries can create on
Ginkgo's platform, whether they're engaging in end-to-end cell
engineering programs or are leveraging Ginkgo's new Lab
Data as a Service product. His keynote will
describe Ginkgo's progress in building out the Foundry, Codebase,
and AI assets which comprise its powerful horizontal platform, and
which can help customers unleash the full power of their R&D
teams using Ginkgo's services.
Jason Kelly, CEO and
co-founder, Ginkgo Bioworks: "AI is rapidly changing how all of
us think about biological research. The ingredient that's missing
is high-quality data, and we're so excited to make the data factory
we've built, and are continuing to scale, available to scientists
across the industry. Our scientists already have access to these
best-in-class services, and now we're opening them up to you, so
you can get better data, better models, and better
bioengineering."
Platform Presentations
Ginkgo's technical experts will
share more details about platform developments and services
throughout the day at Ferment.
Ginkgo's General Manager of Biosecurity, Matt McKnight, will introduce Ginkgo
Biosecurity, the evolution of Concentric by Ginkgo, which is
building and deploying the next-generation biosecurity
infrastructure and technologies that global leaders need to
predict, detect, and respond to a wide variety of biological
threats.
Matt McKnight, General Manager
of Biosecurity, Ginkgo Bioworks: "I'm so excited to share our
keystone products with the world today. Biological risk, whether
natural or manmade, is increasing across the board, but we have the
power to change the calculus. Ginkgo Canopy, our radar for
biological anomalies, tracks the emergence and evolution of
biological threats for early warning and deep insight. It's
always-on, pervasive, and can be tuned to detect a large and
growing set of pathogen targets, to help leaders worldwide
understand the biological risks that are closest to home. And with
Ginkgo Horizon, we can generate actionable biological intelligence
that integrates insights from the global network of Canopy
biomonitoring with our digital open-source intelligence and
AI-powered modeling tools to help those leaders get the decision
support they need. All of these capabilities will come together in
CUBE-D, our first flagship biosecurity facility in Doha."
Ginkgo's co-founder and CTO, Barry
Canton, will take the stage for a technical keynote
featuring technical leaders from across Ginkgo's platform,
including Will Serber (Head of
Automation), Emily Wrenbeck (Head of
Protein Engineering), Uri Laserson
(Senior Director of AI Research), and Shawdee Eshghi (Senior Director of Mammalian
Engineering) to discuss Ginkgo's strides in data generation and
model training for AI across a range of applications.
Barry Canton, CTO and
co-founder, Ginkgo Bioworks: "Data is the limiting reagent for
AI. When it comes to biology, data is the key ingredient for
standing up foundation models and making use of fine-tuned models.
You need enormous data sets for the former, and rapid access to
high-quality, lab-in-the-loop data generation for the latter. We're
very excited to share our progress in making both of these
offerings available to our customers so they can make the most of
this revolution in biological R&D."
Lightning Talks
Hear from developers using the Ginkgo
platform to build new applications, including:
- Cradle (Stef van Grieken,
CEO)
- ImaginDairy (Arie Abo,
co-founder and CSO)
- Centrient (Limber Acosta, Director of Innovation &
Technology)
- Light.bio (Keith Wood,
CEO)
- Verb Biotics (Todd Beckman,
CEO)
- Bayer Crop Science (Benoit
Hartmann, Head of Biologics)
- Factorial Biotechnologies (John
Wells, founder and CEO)
- Microba (Trent Munro,
Senior Vice President of Therapeutics)
- OneOne Biosciences (Julien
Sylvestre, founder and CEO)
- Allonnia (Nicole Richards,
CEO)
- GreenLab (Stephen Lallo,
Director of Corporate Development)
- Bioweg (Prateek Mahalwar, founder and CEO)
- BiomEdit (Aaron Schact,
CEO)
- AQUA Cultured Foods (Stefan K.
Baier, CSO)
- Zymtronix (Stéphane Corgié, founder and CEO)
- Vivici (Stephan van Sint
Fiet, CEO)
- Sumitomo Chemica (Satoshi
Okamoto, Chief Research Coordinator, Corporate Planning
Office)
- Ayana Bio (Weslee Glenn, Vice President of Innovation)
Ginkgo's customers will speak to the strides they have made by
leveraging Ginkgo's platform to supercharge their biological
R&D and accelerate everything from the design to development to
commercialization of their products. This newly announced progress
includes the achievement of a major milestone, ahead of schedule,
in a previously announced program on nitrogen fixation between
Ginkgo and Bayer.
Benoit Hartmann, Head of
Biologics at Bayer Crop Sciences: "We have our eyes set on
realizing a bigger future for biologicals by leveraging open
innovation through partners like Ginkgo, who are using the power of
synthetic biology to change agriculture for the better. Whether
it's crop protection, nitrogen optimization, or carbon
sequestration, the potential for these innovations for growers and
communities worldwide is massive. The important scientific progress
we have seen coming out of our nitrogen fixation program enables
that better future, and will help us deliver the next generation of
biologicals."
Jennifer Wipf, Chief
Commercial Officer, Ginkgo Bioworks: "It's always such a thrill
to see so many of our partners and colleagues under one roof at
Ferment. The ingenuity and drive they bring to product innovation
and commercialization has always been the inspiration for what we
do. Like so many of us across the team, I know what it's like to be
in their shoes and to be sitting across the table from R&D
vendors and need a solution that just doesn't exist. That's
the gap we're closing with our service offerings at Ginkgo, and
we're just getting started."
The day's programming will also include a series of panels and
discussions:
- Beyond Bits and Bases: AI's Path to Unlocking the Mysteries
of Biology
-
- Moderator: Anna Marie Wagner
(Head of AI and SVP, Corporate Development, Ginkgo Bioworks)
- Panelists:
-
- Karen Akinsanya, PhD (President
of R&D, Therapeutics, Schrödinger)
- Iya Khalil, PhD (Vice President
and Head of Data, AI and Genome Sciences, Merck)
- Molly Gibson, PhD (Origination
Partner, Flagship Pioneering, and co-founder & Chief innovation
Officer, Generate Biomedicines)
- Deborah S. Marks, PhD (Professor
of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical
School)
- Global Biosecurity in Practice
-
- Moderator: Alison Snyder
(Managing Editor, Axios)
- Panelists:
-
- Cindy Friedman, MD (Founding
Director, CDC's Traveler-Based Genomic Surveillance Program)
- Wilmot James, PhD (Professor of
Practice in Health Policy Services and Practice & Senior
Advisor for Pandemics and Global Health Security at the School of
Public Health, Brown University)
- Nikki Romanik (Special Assistant
to the President, Deputy Director and Chief of Staff for the Office
of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy)
- Productivity Redefined: Paving the Way to Sustainable Pharma
Innovation
-
- Marcus Schindler, PhD (Executive
Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer, Novo Nordisk)
- Jennifer Wipf (Chief Commercial
Officer, Ginkgo Bioworks)
- Fireside Chat with Renee
Wegrzyn and Jon
Terrett
-
- Moderator: Michael Specter
(Staff Writer, The New Yorker & Visiting Scholar, MIT Media
Lab)
- Panelists:
-
- Jon Terrett, PhD (Head of
Research, CRISPR Therapeutics)
- Renee Wegrzyn, PhD (Director,
Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health)
- Building Biological Worlds: A Conversation About the Future
with the Creators of "Vesper"
-
- Moderator: Christina Agapakis,
PhD (Senior Vice President of Creative & Marketing, Ginkgo
Bioworks)
- Panelists:
-
- Kristina Buožytė (Director, Vesper, and CEO, Natrix
Natrix)
- Alexis Perrin (Producer, Vesper
& founder, Rumble Fish Productions)
- Bruno Samper (Director, Vesper
& co-founder and CEO, Nedd)
The full event schedule can be found at
https://www.ginkgoferment.com. A video livestream of the event will
also be made available to the public, including on the company's
investor relations website at
https://investors.ginkgobioworks.com/events.
About Ginkgo Bioworks
Ginkgo Bioworks is the leading horizontal platform for cell
programming, providing flexible, end-to-end services that solve
challenges for organizations across diverse markets, from food and
agriculture to pharmaceuticals to industrial and specialty
chemicals. Ginkgo Biosecurity is building and deploying the
next-generation infrastructure and technologies that global leaders
need to predict, detect, and respond to a wide variety of
biological threats. For more information, visit
ginkgobioworks.com and ginkgobiosecurity.com, read our blog,
or follow us on social media channels such as X (@Ginkgo and
@Ginkgo_Biosec), Instagram (@GinkgoBioworks), Threads
(@GinkgoBioworks), or LinkedIn.
Ginkgo Bioworks Investor
Contact:
investors@ginkgobioworks.com
Ginkgo Bioworks Media
Contact:
press@ginkgobioworks.com
Forward-Looking Statements of Ginkgo Bioworks
This press release contains certain forward-looking statements
within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including
statements regarding the capabilities and potential success of
Ginkgo's cell programming platform. These forward-looking
statements generally are identified by the words "believe," "can,"
"project," "potential," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate,"
"intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may,"
"should," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely
result," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are
predictions, projections and other statements about future events
that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a
result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could
cause actual future events to differ materially from the
forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not
limited to: (i) volatility in the price of Ginkgo's securities due
to a variety of factors, including changes in the competitive and
highly regulated industries in which Ginkgo operates and plans to
operate, variations in performance across competitors, and changes
in laws and regulations affecting Ginkgo's business, (ii) the
ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other
expectations, and to identify and realize additional business
opportunities, (iii) the risk of downturns in demand for products
using synthetic biology, (iv) the uncertainty regarding the demand
for passive monitoring programs and biosecurity services, (v)
changes to the biosecurity industry, including due to advancements
in technology, emerging competition and evolution in industry
demands, standards and regulations, (vi) the outcome of any pending
or potential legal proceedings against Ginkgo, (vii) our ability to
realize the expected benefits from and the success of our Foundry
platform programs, (viii) our ability to successfully develop
engineered cells, bioprocesses, data packages or other
deliverables, and (ix) the product development or commercialization
success of our customers. The foregoing list of factors is not
exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and
the other risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors"
section of Ginkgo's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on February 29, 2024 and other documents filed by
Ginkgo from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and
address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause
actual events and results to differ materially from those contained
in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak
only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put
undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Ginkgo assumes no
obligation and does not intend to update or revise these
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events, or otherwise. Ginkgo does not give any assurance
that it will achieve its expectations.
View original content to download
multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ginkgo-bioworks-previews-todays-annual-ferment-conference-announces-lab-data-as-a-service-302113853.html
SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks