Ginkgo Bioworks Previews Today’s Annual Ferment Conference, Announces “Lab Data as a Service”

Posted on by Ginkgo Bioworks

Today we’re thrilled to be hosting our 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.

Lab Data as a Service

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.

“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.” 

Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder, Ginkgo Bioworks

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.

“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.”

Matt McKnight, General Manager of Biosecurity, Ginkgo Bioworks

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.

“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.”

Barry Canton, CTO and co-founder, Ginkgo Bioworks

Lightning Talks

Hear from developers using the Ginkgo platform to build new applications, including:

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.

“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.”

Benoit Hartmann, Head of Biologics at Bayer Crop Sciences

“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.”

Jennifer Wipf, Chief Commercial Officer, Ginkgo Bioworks

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: 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)

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.

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