Conference Day One

7:45 am Registration & Morning Coffee

8:15 am Chair’s Opening Remarks

Realizing the Potential of Synthetic Biology to Reshape Biological Systems

8:30 am Industry Leader’s Panel: Identifying Target Markets & Applications for Synthetic Biology Therapies

Synopsis

  • Insights from industry leaders on last year’s progress and market opportunities
  • Strategies for selecting the most promising therapeutic applications for synthetic biology
  • Understanding patient needs and market demands for effective product development

9:00 am Employing Logic Gating for Enhanced Specificity & Therapeutic Design

Synopsis

  • Harnessing logic gating to improve targeting and control in synthetic biology systems
  • Understanding the uses of OR and AND gating for more specific therapeutic outcomes
  • Optimizing the design and functionality of synthetic gene circuits using logic gating

9:30 am Integrated Circuit T-Cells for the Treatment of Solid Tumors

  • Steve Santoro Senior Director - Translational Sciences, Arsenal Bio

Synopsis

  • Improving anti-tumor specificity using logic gating
  • Enhancing T-cell effector function through loss- and gain-of-function augmentation
  • Engineering T-cells to resist TME suppression

10:00 am Morning Break & Speed Networking

Synopsis

As this community reunites, this session will provide valuable networking time with your peers, enabling you to forge new and lasting connections

Increasing Targeting & Specificity for Safer Gene Editing

11:00 am Panel: Re-evaluating Delivery Vehicle Mechanisms for Enhanced Safety & Efficiency

Synopsis

  • Evaluating the pros and cons of different delivery methods: engineered bacteria, LNP, viral vectors, HSV
  • Assessing their safety profiles and impact on gene editing efficiency
  • Highlighting the varying suitability of delivery technologies for improved specificity and reduced off-target effects

11:30 am Translating In Vivo Gene Editing to Microbiome Targets

Synopsis

  • Expanding the range of disease targets to bacterial genes
  • Engineering of non-replicative viral vectors to deliver large payloads to the microbiome
  • Achieving high efficiency in situ editing

12:00 pm Lunch

Computational Tools & AI for Intentional Therapeutic Design

1:00 pm Harnessing Computational Protein Engineering & Structural Modeling for Intentional Therapeutic Design

  • Kyle Daniels Assistant Professor of Genetics, Stanford University

Synopsis

  • Harnessing computational tools for protein engineering in synthetic biology-based therapies
  • Modeling protein structures to assess stability, immunogenicity, binding affinity, solubility and expression levels
  • Free energy calculation computational approach for rational design and optimization of synthetic proteins

1:30 pm Roundtable: Integrating Sequence- & Structure-Based AI Approaches to Enhance Protein Engineering

  • Stuart Licht Scientific Director of Protein Science, Moderna

Synopsis

  • Machine learning/AI approaches now enable useful functional information to be extracted from protein sequence data at a level greater than ever before possible
  • Structure prediction, now also increasingly incorporating machine learning/AI, is achieving unprecedented levels of accuracy, making actionable predictions readily available for many applications
  • Sequence- and structure-based approaches can complement each other, and finding new ways to integrate them may enable even more powerful new approaches to protein engineering

2:30 pm Afternoon Break & Networking

3:30 pm AI Assisted DNA Synthesis to Enhance Gene Therapy

Synopsis

  • Delve into the synergy between AI and HSV as a powerful platform for targeted gene delivery
  • Understand how AI-guided DNA synthesis is optimizing viral vectors to enhance their specificity, efficiency, and safety in gene therapy applications
  • Explore the potential of AI-assisted DNA synthesis to design patient-specific gene constructs that effectively address a wide array of genetic disorders

Reprogramming with Synthetic Biology for Increased Precision

4:00 pm Engineering Antibody-Based Molecules that Reshape Immune Cell Behavior for Targeted Treatment of Cancer

  • Jamie Spangler Assistant Professor, Biomedical Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Johns Hopkins

Synopsis

  • Cytokine/anti-cytokine antibody fusion proteins (immunocytokines) selectively deliver cytokines to particular immune cell subsets through distinct structural and molecular effects
  • Immunocytokines promote effector-T and natural killer cell expansion to mount potent antitumor effects
  • Tumor-targeted delivery of immunocytokines improves safety and efficacy of cancer treatment regimens

4:30 pm Sensing Intra- & Extracellular States Using RNA Editing

  • Xiaojing Gao Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University

Synopsis

  • Programmable sensing for mRNA transcripts
  • Next-gen sensor design with broader input-compatibility
  • Modular synthetic receptor for extracellular ligands

5:00 pm Close of Day 1

WORKSHOP DAY
DAY TWO