10 Women Founders Taking The Synthetic Biology World By Storm

Synthetic Biology is one of the most exciting technologies of the decade that promises to reimagine entire industries and solve the economic, societal, and environmental problems of the twenty-first century. The recent signing of the Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation, followed by last week’s report outlining “bold goals” for the U.S. bioeconomy, is putting wind in the sails of the synthetic biology industry. With the government setting an ambitious course toward our bio-future, we need equally bold and creative innovators to bring that vision to reality.

The good news is – our future is in great hands. These incredible founders – who happen to be women – are harnessing the power of biology to transform everything from health to human and animal nutrition, crop treatments, bioremediation, mining, and even haircare. Many of them will be speaking at the SynBioBeta conference on May 23-25 in Oakland, CA, where the future of synthetic biology is imagined and drafted into existence. For now, here are short introductions to the ten women founders at the helm of some of the most innovative synthetic biology companies out there.

Christina Smolke, Co-Founder, Antheia Bio

Smolke is a pioneer in the field of synthetic biology. As a Professor of Bioengineering at Stanford University, she developed many of the tools used by the industry today and was the first to produce opioids in yeast. This discovery led her to found Antheia Bio, a company unleashing the medicinal power of plants. Nearly half of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) – including many common and essential drugs – are sourced directly from nature, creating vulnerabilities in supply chains and putting stress on ecologies. Antheia is using synthetic biology to make plant APIs in more controlled and economical ways to ensure that they are available to anyone who needs them.

And if that was not enough, Smolke is also a co-founder of Chimera, a company whose mission is to end cancer with next-generation, safer, and more potent, engineered CAR T
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cell therapies. These two companies showcase the different ways synthetic biology can impact human health, from sustainable sourcing of natural ingredients to engineering living therapeutics.

Ezhil Subbian, Co-Founder & CEO, String Bio

Synthetic Biology transcends geographic boundaries. Ezhil Subbain graduated from Anna University in Chennai, India, and then went on to get a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. She has worked for over 12 years in the San Francisco Bay Area biotech industry before deciding to try herself as a founder and CEO of String Bio, one of India’s many promising synthetic biology companies.

Subbian is a scientist, innovator, thinker, and citizen of the world. At String Bio, she is leveraging the power of biology to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions for the growing world. Using a patented fermentation platform, String Bio converts greenhouse gases into high-performance products from human and animal nutrition to packaging and personal care. The company aims to make its manufacturing and commercialization processes carbon-neutral or negative to challenge the existing paradigm.

Tara Karimi, Co-Founder & CTO, Cemvita Factory

Tara Karimi launched the Houston-based Cemvita Factory together with her brother, Moji Karimi, to help usher in a clean energy transition. Cemvita’s technology platforms harness nature’s clean processes to extract the essential minerals and metals that go into electronics, solar panels, and renewable energy devices. One of the ways they do it is by using the cOre™ solutions that use natural chemicals to extract metals from ore in a low-impact, energy-efficient way. Cemvita is also working on carbon-negative feedstocks in partnership with Oxy Low Carbon Ventures (OLCV) to make bio-ethylene from CO2.

‍Andee Wallace, Co-Founder & CEO, Robigo

As co-founder and CEO of Robigo, Andee Wallace is applying synthetic biology to redesign crop treatments and create a more sustainable food system. Founded by MIT graduates, Robigo makes sustainable living pesticides based on bacteria naturally found in soil and on plants to protect crops from various diseases. They take those microbes and bioengineer them into “molecular vigilantes” that are reintroduced back into their natural habitat, eliminating the need for toxic pesticides.

Patricia Bubner, Founder & CEO, Orbillion Bio

Patricia Bubner’s goal is to create a future of food that is ethical, sustainable – and delicious. At Obrillion Bio, that vision is being realized by crafting premium cell-cultured meat that originates from top-quality breeds. Its founder and CEO Patricia Bubner, a Y Combinator graduate, is pushing the goal forward with a proprietary platform technology that is rapidly decreasing the cost of cultivated meat – not forgetting about the flavor in the process. Orbillion already has four different flavorful meats growing in the lab: wagyu beef, elk, sheep, and American bison, all sourced from the highest quality heritage animals.

Sarah Richardson, Co-founder and CEO, MicroByre

Sarah Richardson calls herself a “Germ wrangler”, which stands for a computational and molecular biologist, geneticist, and co-founder of MicroByre, a company that is “domesticating” non-model microbes to address the more intractable problems in biomanufacturing – like using less expensive feedstocks to make biomanufacturing more cost-effective. The company sources these microbes from natural environments, determines their “skillset” and gives them just a small nudge (in the form of minimal genetic modifications) to make the chemicals and materials the world depends on.

Shannon Hall, Founder, Pow.bio

What happens when the innovation of scale collides with synthetic biology? A powerful explosion in biomanufacturing capacity. As the co-Founder & CEO of Pow.bio, Shannon Hall has developed a first-of-its-kind fermentation technology that solves the capacity problem of bioproduction. The key to Pow.bio’s approach is high-performance continuous fermentation that can run for hundreds of hours. This holy grail of biology offers an order of magnitude step-change for the industry’s capacity, as well as superior speed, cost, and scale.

Reshma Shetty, Co-Founder, Ginkgo Bioworks

Reshma Shetty co-founded Ginkgo Bioworks in 2008, when “synthetic biology” was still a new name on the block. That same year, Forbes magazine named Reshma one of Eight People Inventing the Future. Since then, she has seen the company grow to over 500 people as president, Chief Operations Officer, and member of the board, and its business expand from strain engineering services to enzyme engineering, biosecurity, and biopharma. It must be incredibly rewarding to see your company grow in ways you could not have imagined.

Britta Cox, Co-Founder, K18 Hair

Britta Cox and Suveen Sahib formed an incredible entrepreneurial husband and wife duo as co-founders of K18 Hair, a haircare that scientifically nourishes and renews hair on a molecular level. Its key molecule was identified after mapping the keratin proteome of human hair and creating the unique amino acids sequence that can reconnect broken polypeptide chains that occur in damaged hair. A decade of bioscience research has led to a product that works in just 4 minutes. This is the power of biology – and the future of hair repair and hair expression.

Ellen Jorgensen, Founder, Aanika Biosciences

Aanika Biosciences leverages biology to develop tools that enhance the traceability and safety of the food system. Its founder, Ellen Jorgensen, has been an active promoter of public engagement with science in community biolabs such as Genspace, a nonprofit DIYbio lab in Brooklyn devoted to citizen science, as well as Biotech Without Borders, and even delivered a TED Talk on biohacking. Now she is back in the biotech industry again to create a truly unique, microbially-based technology for tracing foods and other goods through supply chains.

With so many creative ideas and ways to use biology to create new sustainable products, extract value from waste, protect our crops, secure supply chains, and improve our health – is there anything biology cannot do? The sheer innovative force behind synthetic biology companies is enough to dismantle the old and bring in a new paradigm.

Thank you to Katia Tarasava for additional research and reporting on this article. I’m the founder of SynBioBeta and some of the companies I write about, including Aanika Biosciences, Antheia Bio, Cemvita Factory, Ginkgo Bioworks, K18 Hair, MicroByre, Orbillion, Pow.bio, String Bio, and Synlogic, are sponsors of the SynBioBeta conference and weekly digest.