7:30 am
Registration Opens & Coffee Networking

8:20 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

8:30 am Industry Leaders’ Fireside Chat: Designing & Constructing Biological Systems with Novel Functionalities to Produce More Efficient & Accessible Therapeutics

  • Mark Kotter Founder & Chief Executive Officer, bit.bio
  • Jake Becraft Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Strand Therapeutics
  • Dave Hava Chief Scientific Officer, Synlogic

Synopsis

  • Reflecting on the evolution of synthetic biology over the past decade: what have we learned?
  • Leveraging different therapeutic modalities (small molecules, mRNA, cell therapies, vaccines and more): what is next for synthetic biology?
  • Exploring the challenges that lie ahead: how do we predict the future challenges

9:30 am Gene-Circuit Powered Off-the-Shelf CAR Cell Therapies for Hard-to- Treat Malignancies

  • Russell Gordley Senior Director, Gene Circuit Discovery, Senti Biosciences

Synopsis

  • Engineering smarter cell therapies with gene circuits to enhance efficacy, safety, and control
  • Developing Logic Gates to enable precision targeting of cancer cells while preventing toxicity of healthy cells
  • Leveraging Multi-Arming strategies to target multiple disease pathways in solid and liquid tumors
  • Regulating cell therapies in vivo with Regulator Dial and using Smart Sensors to detect and respond to disease environments

10:00 am Developing an End-to-End Data Management & Analysis Strategy for Biologics at AstraZeneca

  • Andrew Phillips Director, Bioinformatics, Biologics Engineering, AstraZeneca

Synopsis

  • Therapeutic potential of biologics in general, and antibodies in particular, are the most widely used biologics. Discuss recent developments in antibody design to encode more complex logic for improved therapeutics, via bispecific antibodies, T cell engagers, and antibody drug conjugates
  • Understand the complexity of biologics research and development, and the opportunity to better integrate the design-build-test-learn cycle for improved throughput and increased insight
  • Consider the potential for computational modelling and machine learning to accelerate antibody design, and the need to improve data management and experimental methods to enable this

10:30 am Leveraging a 4 Billion Year Evolution Program: Nature-driven Protein Discovery and Design for Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • Exploring expanded novel sequencing diversity using BaseGraph, one of the most diverse proprietary metagenomic datasets
  • Searching protein space by function and performance, instead of sequencing or structural homology
  • Generalizing our approach for any protein type – nucleases, base editors, transposases, and entirely novel systems to develop a next-generation genome editing toolbox

10:40 am Morning Break & Speed Networking

Synopsis

As the engineered biology community unite in-person for the first time, this session will provide valuable networking time with your peers, enabling you to forge new and lasting connections

Exploring Engineered Biology Therapeutic Applications in the Clinic

11:30 am Accelerating Gene Editing Workflows Towards the Clinic (Virtual Presentation)

Synopsis

  • Approaching the FDA with confidence about On/Off target analytics and safety determinations
  • Aligning nuclease license and guide production from research to clinic from the beginning
  • Automation brings editing and screening depth sufficient for creating multi-edited MCB

12:00 pm Engineering Living Medicines for Patients Living with Chronic Disease

  • Lauren Popov Director, Translational Biology, Novome Biotechnologies

Synopsis

  • Engineering and engrafting bacterial strains in the human gut to deliver targeted therapeutic activities
  • Controlling and tuning the colonized bacteria with a daily dose of prebiotic polysaccharide
  • Reporting clinical trial results, challenges to overcome, and future plans

12:30 pm Translating Synthetic Biology Innovations into Cell Therapy Products

  • Qi Cai Director, Cell Biology, Kite Pharma: A Gilead Company

Synopsis

  • Identifying opportunities and challenges in the cell therapy field
  • Exploring the disruptive potential of synthetic biology in overcoming these challenges
  • Optimizing the design-build-test-learn cycle to accelerate therapies to the clinic

1:00 pm
Lunch Break & Networking

Leveraging Novel Technologies & Control Strategies for Improved Therapeutic Efficacy & Patient Safety

2:00 pm Utilizing Synthetic Biology to Engineer Safer & More Durable Integrated Circuit T Cell (ICT) Therapies

  • Matt Drever Vice President, Molecular Biology & Protein Engineering, Arsenal Biosciences

Synopsis

  • Understand how targeting dual antigens with logic gates provides improved tumor specificity and potency
  • Discuss how targeted gene knockdown increases potency, proliferation, and functional persistence

2:30 pm Implementing Next-Generation Cellular Reprogramming for the Consistent & Scalable Production of Cells for Therapies

  • Mark Kotter Founder & Chief Executive Officer, bit.bio

Synopsis

  • Modulating cell characteristics and optimizing function for therapeutic application
  • Making stem cells scalable with synthetic biology

3:00 pm Leveraging Synthetic Biology to Increase Control in RNA-based Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • Creating switches to control the expression of mRNA in precise cell types
  • Enabling precise control of the location, timing, intensity, and duration of therapeutic expression for improved efficacy and lower toxicity
  • Highlighting the challenges in development and future work

3:30 pm
Afternoon Break

4:00 pm Developing Engineered Biology-Based Gut Microbiome Therapeutics

  • Edward Green Founder & Chief Scientific Advisor , CHAIN Biotechnology

Synopsis

  • Discussing CHAIN’s Clostridium Assisted Drug Development (CADDTM) platform based on a single bacterial chassis for targeted drug delivery to the lower gastrointestinal tract
  • Engineering biology is used to add specific therapeutic functionality
  • Examining how the CADDTM platform has broad clinical applicability i.e., oral vaccines targeting infectious disease, and for immuno-oncology

4:30 pm Leveraging Precise Gene Writing in Mammalian Genomes

  • Marc Güell Co-Founder & Scientific Lead, Integra Therapeutics

Synopsis

  • Widening the scope of CRISPR-associated technologies: from gene editing to gene writing
  • Exploring gene and gene circuit writing in mammalian genomes
  • Outlining examples of translating writing technology

5:00 pm Chair’s Closing Remarks & End of Conference Day One