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[00:00:00] Erum: he was like, "There are people that, promote biology and love it, and he calls them probiotics.

[00:00:05] Erum: Yeah. And then those that just are against biology are antibiotic. And I was like, "Oh my God, this guy is full of dad jokes."

[00:00:17] Erum: Hey, Rum. Welcome back from California.

[00:00:20] Erum: Hey, Carl. Yes, welcome back. Welcome back to all of our listeners. You're now listening to an award-winning podcast, Grow Everything, where we talk about how biology is technology and transforming every industry. How do you feel, Carl, for the podcast winning the award?

[00:00:38] Karl: I feel really great, and I'm really proud, and I'm so happy for us and for our listeners. Our listeners are really what make this podcast possible and real. We do this for them. So I'm so excited for our listeners to have been given this award.

[00:00:54] Karl: What do you think, Rum?

[00:00:55] Erum: Yeah. I'm also very, excited for our guests, right? It's not just us, Carl and Rum show. We're just rambling on and on, although we're doing that today. it's also for our guests, right? We really see this Grow Everything as a platform for all of the founders and executives and, scientists, investors, thought leaders, all the people that are really growing the bio-economy, leveraging technology.

[00:01:21] Erum: Not just biology as technology, but AI, computer science. guests really make this podcast come to life, and the fact that they join us, come on to this platform, this Grow Everything platform and share their stories, it's remarkable.

[00:01:38] Erum: And the impact that it has had, because the award that we won is the Impact Award. And Really, this podcast has made an impact. We know that people have joined the Break into Biotech program after listening to this podcast. We know people have started companies.

[00:01:55] Erum: They pivoted their companies. They've made business decisions, or they changed the way that they frame their company or their technology by listening to the Grow Everything podcast, by hearing others talk about it. And so we're very happy to have had this impact, and we're happy that the podcast has been recognized for the impact.

[00:02:14] Erum: So thank you, SynBio Beta. Thank you to the community. Thank you to everyone that has recognized this podcast as a podcast to listen to. So stay tuned for that, and now we're really excited to talk to you about what actually went down at SynBio Beta 2026.

[00:02:31] Karl: Yeah. One of the big things that, In addition to being at SynBio Beta and given that award, we ran into a lot of people who listen to us, and you're talking about the impact that we have made on people.

[00:02:42] Karl: There was a high school student from Seattle who was a junior in high school. I'm sorry, I don't have her name, it's probably, from a legal point of view, better not to mention her name. But she said that the whole reason that she was at SynBio Beta was because of our podcast, and that she really wanted to go into synthetic biology.

[00:03:00] Karl: So I was touched by that comment, and anytime someone would walk up to us or me individually and talk about the podcast, I felt like, we are doing a good job because the whole point of the podcast is to have our community excited about what others in the community are doing and to just show what is possible with biology as a technology.

[00:03:20] Erum: Yeah, that was a very beautiful moment. my, heart just felt so full when she came up to us and to talk to us. we did have a lot of listeners come up to us. I want to give a special shout-out to Brian Dolan, who we got a chance to meet. He did say he's our biggest fan, so that's his words, not ours.

[00:03:36] Erum: He said he's our biggest fan and was really hyping up the podcast to other people that were around us. so that was really cool, and just, like, walking around and having people come up to us and say hi. I kind of felt like Xena: Warrior Princess at Comic-Con. You know? I was just like, "Is this how she

[00:03:55] Karl: Brian says he's our biggest fan, but I thought Nimi Vashi was our biggest fan.

[00:03:59] Erum: Oh, yeah, Nimi, hello. Hi to you. Yes, it was great to see her as well. so yeah, it was cool. It was great to see our listeners. not fans, not fans.

[00:04:08] Erum: They're listeners, they're f- friends. and it was really cool, and I'm just glad that we've been sticking with it. It's, we're in our fourth year, and there's a lot of exciting things happening, and there really is no shortage of content when it comes to Growing Everything.

[00:04:24] Karl: Yeah. So let's talk about the conference itself.

[00:04:27] Karl: We were in San Jose at the San Jose Convention Center for SynBio Beta 2026. You and I were together a lot. We split up constantly. we were walking the floor. What was the highlight for you when you weren't sitting absorbing information, Iram?

[00:04:43] Erum: Well, of course, just meeting people of, just talking to them, whether we knew them or not.

[00:04:47] Erum: of course, if we knew them, it's always great to see people you know and, to be able to, you strengthen those relationships. I feel like that's one of my big takeaways, is to see the people that, we see, not regularly. I mean, of course, we saw some people from Brooklyn, so special shout-out to those from people from Brooklyn and New York City, who we do see throughout the year and got to see them again.

[00:05:05] Erum: but then people that we just see annually at SynBieta because they live far away. And then meeting new people. I mean, I just loved hearing what they were doing. A lot of, new technologies out there, a lot of cool companies that, were new to me. they might have been around for a while, but I didn't see them, before.

[00:05:22] Erum: But a lot of DNA synthesis, protein engineering, enzyme engineering and that was pretty cool. what about you? What were some things that you saw in the halls?

[00:05:32] Karl: Okay. So besides the, DNA synthesis, which is basically the backbone of the biotech industry, and protein engineering, which is where real-world applications happen, and AI to make all of biotech easier and more engineerable, there was a couple things that kind of surprised me.

[00:05:52] Karl: One was talking to a founder who's focused on using DNA as a storage medium. We have had one person on the podcast talk about that. There is a company that's well-known called Catalog, which had been bought by another company. I feel like we haven't seen a lot in that space. I think Twist, which is a big DNA company, also had a spin-out focused on DNAs for storage, and I think there's a huge opportunity there.

[00:06:17] Karl: not to mention, there's a couple of biomanufacturing companies that I talked to, in, side sessions or at lunch. And I have to say that- People will be blown away. Like, as we start to talk about this stuff and we start seeing the companies that are really, putting the pieces together, I think that people will be blown away by what's happening right now, not what's on the horizon in a year or 10 years, but really what's about to hit the market today.

[00:06:44] Erum: Yeah. The DNA data storage is so interesting. I think you're referring to Anagha Rajesh. Yes. Um, Anagha's great, and I saw on LinkedIn that she got to talk to Emily Leproust. A- Anagha posted a picture of her and Emily, which was really cool.

[00:06:58] Erum: That's, like the beautiful thing at conferences, like you can meet people that might be, further along than you when it comes to company creation, but are like-minded and partnerships can happen just by walking the halls. it was just a beautiful thing. When I saw that picture, I'm like, "All right, Anagha, go for it."

[00:07:15] Erum: Like, that's exactly what you need to do, just be, talking to people that are like-minded, people that might have more resources. I mean, I don't know what's going on at Twist, although I did l- really enjoy Emily's conversation on the main stage, which we can talk about in a second.

[00:07:29] Karl: Yeah. And I think, you're talking about partnerships.

[00:07:31] Karl: We're gonna talk about a session where, the end of it, I mean, you would think all these companies would be competing against each other, but the moderator's like, "Wouldn't it be a beautiful thing if we all worked together?" And I think that really sparked a lot of discussion among the panel members, and that is really one of the reasons why I like going conferences is to meet new people, but also to introduce people to each other, something that you and I are really good at doing.

[00:07:53] Karl: Okay, Rum, so let's talk about the sessions. You can't attend all the sessions because there's so many of them, and there are several that we attended together, but then there's many we attended separate from each other.

[00:08:04] Karl: Tell me about the sessions that stood out for you.

[00:08:06] Erum: Yes. Well, one of the sessions on day one that really stood out was the one, by Cellular Intelligence. what a name for a company. they had an incredible video, and if I can find that video on YouTube, I would love to share it. it's So this company really focused on cellular signaling and living matter, so which is very interesting.

[00:08:27] Erum: we have been looking at this space for a bit. for listeners of the pod, you might remember that I went to this workshop on computationally designed organisms, which is, an incredible, organization. the organization's called the ICDO, which looks at living matter. But This idea, living matter, it's very, incredible.

[00:08:46] Erum: and, there's two things. Like, living matter is what it is, right? It's alive. we do use fermentation, we do use microbes to make matter, but that matter is usually not alive. it's just molecules that were produced by the microbes. so that I think is very interesting.

[00:09:01] Erum: And, living matter you can use, of course, for human health, right? To make different, organs or, tendons or different parts of our body that are alive, and you can make those things outside and then put them in when you need. so I really liked that conversation. and in particular, the CEO, Micah, was talking about how they produced this, AI, program called BioBrain.

[00:09:24] Erum: And, know, it creates hypotheses and can reason and learn and discover things that we can't even think of, right? Biology's so complex. And so we have our context windows and everything, just from our education and exposure to industry, but we don't have all of it. We meaning human mind. So to be able to, have a brain that's constantly, a brain, I'm doing brain in quotes, but, like, to have, an AI that's really looking at, all, biology, not just like the brain, not just the immune system.

[00:09:56] Erum: They're all connected. but how do they connect, and what are we missing? That's what I'm really interested in. So that was a great, great session. What about you? What session stood out for you?

[00:10:07] Karl: I would just say, you to our listeners, if you're interested in cellular intelligence, you should listen to our episode with Mike Levin of Tufts University.

[00:10:15] Karl: and, our goal is to have him come back on. But one of the sessions that stood out,was when Neon came up and presented what they're doing around biomanufacturing. They've got a 200-million-year-old bioreactor And they're using chicken eggs. And what they're doing is they're engineering chickens to produce biologics in eggs, and then they crack them open and purify the proteins or the biologics that they've engineered the chickens to produce.

[00:10:44] Karl: I love this. We're gonna have Sam Levin and Dimi of Neon on the podcast in a few weeks, and it aligns very beautifully with this thesis that I've had around dirty biology, where maybe it's cheaper to use plants or existing biology to produce new molecules or new products, and our ability to engineer life or living organisms allows us to be able to do that.

[00:11:09] Karl: And it's just gonna become way cheaper to do that in some cases than it is to put steel in the ground. And I think when Sam presented it, he was saying, We do so much production in CHO cells," which are Chinese hamster ovary cells, "and then we try to recreate those cells using stainless steel.

[00:11:26] Karl: Why do we do that when we can potentially go back to eggs and engineer them?" I love that. I know you love it, too, and I'm very excited about having them come back on.

[00:11:35] Erum: Yeah, so that'll be in a few weeks. We'll have Sam Levin and Dimi on. and it's great. I mean, Sam Levin, we've known for a while.

[00:11:42] Erum: We've known him when he was at his previous company and, he's here in the New York City area. And we've been seeing him, over the years at different events and I always ask him like, "Well, what are you working on?" And he's like, "Oh, it's stealth. I'll be sharing it soon." And I'm like, "Oh, okay." And then he'll, give us a hint that he's working with eggs. I'm like, "Oh, okay." and then I'm like, I know that,we use, eggs to help, produce vaccines, but this is completely different. it's not like that.

[00:12:07] Erum: the idea of engineering the chicken to be able to produce the biologics in the egg and the- then just crack them open is, interesting. And I think, it makes sense because we do have high volumes of chickens that we grow. but I feel like the concept might turn people off.

[00:12:27] Erum: And so I think the messaging is going to have to be very, nuanced, I guess you can say, or be, you know, very, deliberate in how it's being presented because, Sam did an amazing job. It was a great presentation for the crowd. I we all get it because we're all biologists, and there were people laughing in the audience when he was presenting, but he did, trying to make it humorous and it's like, Why are we using these steels? we have chickens." Like almost like a matter of fact, right? and, that was great, but like to be able to open it up to other people and he's not creating this company for the average consumer, right? It's going to be for other businesses.

[00:12:59] Erum: As long as they understand, that's gonna be the most important thing. but anyway, we'll talk with Sam Levin and Demi more about Neon so stay tuned for that.

[00:13:08] Karl: So then, friends at Procter & Gamble, were on the main stage and, they were talking about their native brand of products, because they have added a bio ceramide, to their products.

[00:13:20] Karl: And, ceramides you may know are made by the body. It's a lipid and, it's an interesting product. You re- do you wanna talk about this a little bit?

[00:13:28] Erum: yes, that was really cool to see P&G on stage. We saw all the people we work with on stage with John Cumbers, which was really nice, and it was great to hear that they're continuing to biomanufacture ingredients, and ceramides is a great one. Ceramides are made by the body. It is a lipid.

[00:13:42] Erum: So we have it, but, you we wash them off, in the shower. we need more of them, so why not put them together in a topical, product? And here we have the native product, so very, very cool. and what I really appreciated hearing was that Myka from P&G. was talking about the consumer research that they did to talk about their products and what consumers want to see when it comes to skincare products.

[00:14:13] Erum: and onething is there's a lot of noise about dermatologist approved products. Everything is dermatologist approved, so if everything's dermatologist approved, what actually stands out, right? And so, what P&G did was they asked consumers, "

[00:14:29] Erum: Who do you want to hear from?" And it was great toconsumers want to hear from biologists, 'cause consumers understand that skin is biology, and then they want to know how products can influence their skin, particularly the skin barrier. People are now starting to learn a lot more about the skin, so they want to hear from biologists.

[00:14:47] Erum: So will we see biologists approve on the Native brand of products? Perhaps.they were giving away a lot of products, during SynBio beta. they had their Native, shampoos and conditioners. I didn't examine the bottle, but if it says biologist approved, oh my gosh, that would be amazing.

[00:15:06] Karl: Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing more of that.

[00:15:08] Erum: And then, you know, JC comes in with, the partnerships, but the real real saying, "Hey, look, we're so excited to work with people that are making unique, ingredients for our products," but, when they need a partner, you can have the best product, but if it's expensive, they can't work with you.

[00:15:23] Erum: And he said on stage, single digit per kilo, meaning under $10 per kilo is what they look for for some of the, big ingredients.

[00:15:32] Karl: Yeah, and the thing about that price target is, in some cases, it's gonna be unreasonable, like you say, for high performance ingredients that are very active and are produced in minute quantities.

[00:15:44] Karl: But many products don't really need a lot more than that. But I think for mass produced products, if you're gonna be producing at P&G scale, which is something they talked about when they were here on the episode, getting down to that single digit per, per kilo is gonna be key, and I saw technologies that are gonna make that possible.

[00:16:01] Karl: especially when you take into consideration feedstock, organism, manufacturing, facility, people are gonna be driving those costs way down.

[00:16:10] Erum: Yeah, yeah. And P&G scale is billions of people, billions of product, and so- they need to get those costs down to be able to produce at that quantity.

[00:16:20] Erum: So a very great conversation with P&G. did you get a chance to see the Twist conversation, by the way, with Emily Leproust we were talking about earlier?

[00:16:27] Karl: I actually didn't see it, but I've, known of Twist for many years and have known Emily as well. they're mostly known for being a DNA synthesis company.

[00:16:36] Karl: What did they talk about in the presentation that you saw?

[00:16:38] Erum: Yes. Well, their DNA synthesis for sure, but now they're making proteins. A lot of people are now making proteins, which is great, and that is the, the central dogma of biology, right? So that works in terms of going from DNA to, I mean, RNA and everything, but then you go to proteins.

[00:16:57] Erum: and so that's very interesting. Emily's funny. She is very, very funny. And so she was talking about they have these new approaches she was sharing their new approach and it's like peeing your pants. It feels great at first, but then you realize what you've done.

[00:17:14] Erum: I was just like, everyone was just cracking up at that. That's so

[00:17:19] Erum: funny.

[00:17:20] Erum: Yeah, yeah. And I was like, yeah, so new approaches can be, really exciting at first and like, "Yes, we're doing it."

[00:17:26] Erum: But then, of course, you're like, "Oh my gosh, now I have to spin up a lot of, different operations and put more resources to this and making sure we get, this out to the market." it was great to see Emily and the very candid conversation she had on stage. So I really appreciated that.

[00:17:43] Karl: And I mean, one of the things that we talk a lot about here at Grow Everything is biotech products that are everyday products, and there was a panel that you attended, I didn't it, called Everyday Bio. Can you talk about that panel, Liram?

[00:17:56] Erum: Yes. I loved it. So Everyday Bio, it was, a panel with Arthur Gardner-Smith of Reformation Hair, Micah Coffender of P&G, so P&G c-comes back for the session, Jake Miller of Marvel Labs, and Marvel Labs makes the strongest glue, a glue that can hold together graphene.

[00:18:15] Erum: I mean, it was moderated by Zach Abbott of ZBiotics, who we've had on the pod, and we had a, couple of chances to talk to him, during SynBio Beta this year, and it's great to hear what ZBiotics is up to. But a great conversation. I mean, I felt like Arthur, I didn't even get a chance to talk to him much even after the panel.

[00:18:31] Erum: I did get a chance to speak with him, via Zoom a couple of months ago. Incredible founder. And just like everything he was saying, it was just you could listen to him for hours. He was talking about, this idea- Of engineering out toxicity when it comes to products. And he was talking about in particular for haircare, when there's, very harsh products that are used to strengthen hair or coil hair and just very bad.

[00:18:56] Erum: You know more about hair than I do. Yeah,

[00:18:59] Karl: the chemistry of hair straightening is pretty harsh. And, there's a number of people working on it. I appreciate that Arthur's working on it as well, and I think he's taken an enzymatic or protein-based approach to hair straightening.

[00:19:12] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. it's more safe and, effective I'm sure, and I really, loved that part of the conversation. And I think a lot of people are very interested in talking to him. there's his technology and the approach and his, business acumen, but also just the way he, like, talks about, biology and it's just incredible.

[00:19:30] Erum: so great conversation. a lot of these sessions were all about programmable and engineering.

[00:19:37] Karl: Okay. Of course, they were. It is synthetic biology, which is all about engineering biology.

[00:19:43] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. So there was an engineered longe- jevity session, which, you know, I love, everyone's approaches to longevity.

[00:19:51] Erum: And it was great because in this conversation, they were taking a look at animals that live long and how they evolve to live long and protect themselves against environmental stressors. And that was, a great starting point. so that was one part of it.

[00:20:08] Erum: Like, there are organisms that live long, okay? and they do this because they have, genes that help them live long. And then they're talking about human biology and that the fact that we are already starting to make decisions about genes and moving genes around. So why can't we start moving genes around to help us live longer?

[00:20:31] Erum: and I was like, "Oh, okay. That's a really interesting point." And so they were talking about, gene therapy and cell therapy. and this approach is by Matter Bio, that I thought was very fascinating, is that they started to look at this, aging disease. So it's an accelerated aging disease.

[00:20:49] Erum: And it's when like, for example, people in their teens look like they're in their 60s.

[00:20:55] Erum: So what if they made a therapy, a gene therapy, to help those people and then perhaps that could help others or, anyone, decelerate aging.

[00:21:06] Erum: it's just the idea of like, off-brand use.

[00:21:08] Erum: for example, the whole idea of GLP-1s, it was used for people with diabetes in a stronger dose. But in a lighter dose it was used for weight loss.you still need prescription, but this is the same type of, discussion. That same-- take that playbook and use it for longevity.

[00:21:23] Erum: So I thought that that was incredible. and the whole thing though that is challenging when it comes to measuring the efficacy of aging is that you can't really measure it, right? or even the idea of preventing disease, it's like it's hard to measure and prove that the prevention actually worked, because you don't get the disease, is it because of the prevention therapies or because it just never arose? so anyway, I thought that was a really interesting conversation about engineering longevity. Any thoughts?

[00:21:52] Karl: Yeah, I mean, I think that this kind of thing is pervasive. There's a lot of money flowing into longevity research, and like you said, it's really hard to track whether or not, the therapies or the interventions are actually working or not.

[00:22:06] Karl: I think that, this requires new ways of measuring health, which there's so many ways that people are measuring health these days. Blood tests. I wear an, a Apple Watch. You wear your Oura Ring.

[00:22:17] Karl: And I think those are different ways of measuring. But whether these interventions work or not, I think it's just gonna have to be something that happens over time, and I think there's potentially a whole industry that will come up to measure whether these things are effective or not. I mean, we're all kind of guinea pigs in this, and I'm very excited for it.

[00:22:35] Karl: I'm here for it.

[00:22:36] Erum: And the big sessions and, you know, it was undeniable that AI and bio and pharma Was discussed at length at SynBio Beta. Yeah, all the time. Yeah, all the time. All the time. Yeah. All the time. So there's multiple sessions and luncheons and breakout sessions about it.

[00:22:55] Erum: Did you get to go to any? Any thoughts there?

[00:22:57] Karl: I felt like now is just a part of the discussion at SynBio Beta. Even when we talk about the panels that we moderated, we had to make sure that there was some AI component or some mention of what AI was enabling. And, I think we've talked about this a fair amount in the past here on the podcast, where we say it's not just that AI, will help us uncover biology and understand it better, but it's the impact of biology on AI will go the other way.

[00:23:26] Karl: So these two things will work together. biology has its own language. We try to use AI to translate that language. I think at some point the language of AI will become the language of biology.

[00:23:37] Erum: Yeah. I mean, in particular in pharma, that's the big thing is, right, we, do see AI in biology, but the applications in pharma.

[00:23:45] Erum: And so a lot of pharma represented at SynBio Beta this year. Eli Lilly was there, BMS, J&J, a whole bunch of different pharma companies. And so I went to the Startup Pharma Alliances breakout session, and it was really interesting to hear,

[00:24:00] Erum: Christina Kitko from Lilly talk about Lilly's Tune Lab, which is giving access to Lilly's data sets for people to develop therapeutics

[00:24:11] Erum: another interesting thing that I really appreciated, this, to be able to think about manufacturability of these drugs because so much happens upstream. Like, can we discover these drugs? Can we synthesize them? Which is important, but can we produce them at scale?

[00:24:27] Erum: Something that, needs to be considered. I thought that was really great. the J&J CTO was at this breakout session, and, You know, AI can cut lead time by half." Also found out that Lilly is Claude Native, which is very interesting. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

[00:24:42] Erum: Yeah, yeah, because a lot of big companies are Gemini, but they, Lilly is Claude Native. I got the chance to go to this AI Bio luncheon, and it was really cool to see. It was sponsored by Neon, so, you know- Okay ... Sam Levin. All right, nice flex there. Right. You know, sponsoring the luncheon. And then there was, like, another company called, Mithril As well.

[00:25:03] Erum: And the big speaker there was, Eric Carter Abrams of Anthropic.

[00:25:09] Karl: Oh, interesting.

[00:25:09] Erum: Yeah. So, we all got to have lunch and hear their conversation about, Lilly getting into this space in terms of their models, the various models. There's so many. and, Mythos is like the big one that's coming out that they want more people to use.

[00:25:24] Erum: And, you know, they're very interested in clinical and regulatory solutions and, of course, how they can help with the high throughput work that needs to happen. they understand that there's an ecosystem of tooling and scientists that need to remain in the loop, of course, not just AI's gonna take over.

[00:25:40] Erum: It's such a human endeavor when you need to make sure that things are done, with precision, without, minimal mistakes. and then of course, you have liquid handling. I mean, there's all of it. Ideally, you have, the automated lab where just robots and you can just, you know...

[00:25:57] Erum: We'll get there. But right now we're a little bit far from that.

[00:26:00] Karl: Eric was also on the stage, with Marc Theissier Levine, who has a company that received a huge amount of funding many years ago. and, what Eric made clear was that Anthropic, is very interested in biology, and I think that, Dario, the founder or the co-founder of Anthropic, has a biology degree or has some interest in biology.

[00:26:21] Karl: And we've mentioned it here on Grow Everything a few months ago, Anthropic bought an AI drug discovery company. So I think it's super interesting that you mentioned that Lilly is using Anthropic or is a Claude native, enterprise, because Anthropic is known for going for the enterprise play.

[00:26:38] Karl: And I keep thinking that part of the reason why they bought that AI company was so that big pharmaceutical companies would have a model themselves without having to depend on all these external players that are offering, similar or competing models. And I think, there's a lot of room because there's a lot of ways that we can, thread this needle.

[00:26:55] Karl: So I was very excited to see Eric on stage and to really hear that conversation.

[00:26:59] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. and I think a big thing too is that, know, that company that they acquired is Coefficient Bio, and, so it is gonna be interesting to see how they leverage that. But this is a funny story. so, you know, at this luncheon, I was meeting people for the first time and, and it was great. Met people from the Chan Zuckerberg Institute and, these pharma companies. I'm like, "Oh, hi, my name's Eram." Um, they're like, "Oh, okay. Nice to meet you." And I was, like, talking to them.

[00:27:25] Erum: And then the conversation happens, and it starts off talking about Eroom's law.

[00:27:31] Erum: Oh, yeah.

[00:27:33] Erum: Which is a horrible law that talks about how the rate at which pharma, advances means that the, cost of pharma increases too. Like, I don't know, the innovation goes down, but the costs go up.

[00:27:47] Erum: Something like that. So it's, like, backwards to Moore's law, which means that things get cheaper as things get smaller. and that's great. Moore's law is great. So Eroom's law, which is backwards, the inverse of Moore's law, it's, like, a bad thing. And I turn around to the people that are looking at me, and, they're like, "Is that your name?"

[00:28:05] Erum: And I was like, "No," 'cause it's, it's... like, "That's F'd up." And I was like- And I'm like, "It's Eroom's law, not Eram. It's different."

[00:28:15] Karl: Yes, it's named after Eram- No ... but we changed the spelling. No. No, no, no. So there that ... so there would be no confusion.

[00:28:21] Karl: No,

[00:28:21] Erum: no, no. That was so bad. That's super funny.

[00:28:24] Erum: Yeah, it was crazy. but I did get a chance to talk to Eric of Anthropic. I wish I could be like, "Oh, and we recorded it. Here's a clip." But no. Yeah. Yeah. I did not record it. one of the things that was talked about a lot is the, concept of, target discovery and how you understand where the targets of disease are, and thenI'm like, "Well, there might be a core target ac- across populations, but, as we know, everybody's different." So the idea of, personalized target discovery. How do you do that? Yeah, and he was like, "That's really interesting."Yeah.

[00:28:54] Karl: so you were talking about you met him at a lunch.

[00:28:56] Karl: I don't know if you were there when Bruce Friedrich of the Good Food Institute talked about the future of meat. So, Alternate proteins and investment in those types of things has been relatively low. there was a lot of hype and a lot of money poured into the space in the early 2020s, and here we are in 2026, and Bruce came up there.

[00:29:18] Karl: He just wrote a book called "Meat," and he said that alternate meat is basically the electric vehicles of food. And he talked a lot about, you know, animal health and what we do to these poor animals that, we grow as meat. And he talked about the technological progress that we're making. And yes, there's been pushback.

[00:29:37] Karl: Certain states have banned it. I think Florida is banning alternate meat. And even when the Defense Department was talking about using, alternate proteins or making it possible for soldiers to grow meat on site, there was a lot of pushback against that. But the Defense Department is very interested in this.

[00:29:55] Karl: DARPA's very interested in this. And Bruce was making the point that the costs are coming way down, and we're gonna start to see these things more on the shelf. I've said this before, I'm super excited for the future of meat. Non-animal derived protein, I'm very excited about, and I'm really excited about the new form factors that will come out.

[00:30:15] Karl: So I'm not expecting to see something that looks like a steak. I'm expecting something that looks much more like a protein bar that I would buy at the store, and it maybe is, like, high in protein, and I just throw it on my grill and I cook it, and it's easy to pack in my fridge because it's square.

[00:30:32] Karl: But I'm very excited about this stuff, so it was really, like, nice to see Bruce there talking about it. And when he was signing books, which I didn't grab one,the line was one of the longest lines I saw at, this event.

[00:30:43] Erum: Yeah. And I think, like, if there's more conversation about, we drink, beer and kombucha and all these things that are fermented, but we've learned how to ferment and make different meats or, like, proteins, and, m-maybe it'll be more accepted.

[00:31:01] Erum: I mean, lab-grown just doesn't sound appetizing, there definitely needs to be new storytelling, even the storytelling to, make the form factors or the flavors more acceptable, right? So, there's sourdough bread, right? rather than, just white bread, but the sourdough, you taste that sourness, and maybe there's, a different flavor, right?

[00:31:20] Erum: there's, fermented meats and fish and stuff that have its own flavor that are delicious in its own way. So I think there's a lot there. and for all of the gains of alternative meats, the fermentation, maybe there's more gains in health, in lowering cholesterol.

[00:31:36] Erum: But that all remains to be seen. I don't even know. but perhaps that can be programmed into the meat. Everything's programmed and engineered into the meat,

[00:31:47] Karl: Well, but you ended up, up going to a panel called Programming Nutrition. I didn't attend that one, but what was that about?

[00:31:52] Erum: that was a great panel. it had, um, a bunch of amazing people. Shout out to Gregory Hawken of Mars, who was on my panel, which we'll talk about in a little bit.

[00:32:01] Erum: also Casey Lippinmeier. He's the CTO of CheckerSpot, and he also created the DHA strain that is now used, in all products. So if you've ever seen milk that has DHA, enhanced- Oh, I didn't know

[00:32:13] Karl: Casey did that. Amazing. Yeah.

[00:32:15] Erum: Yep, yep. And of course, like, this is a conversation about, nutrition and food, right?

[00:32:22] Erum: And you have, people that come from the world of snacking, so, you candies and chips and stuff, and, people that are, growing, like, fruits and vegetables and meats and stuff.

[00:32:32] Erum: So, there's a lot in this conversation. I would say the first thing that, Casey talked about, which I think, definitely came from experience, but we talk about in the podcast oftentimes when, especially when talking about biomanufacturing, is having the end in mind.

[00:32:47] Erum: how does fermentation behave in a 250,000-liter tank? How can you think about that fermentation at that scale? and then, kind of work backwards and understand, what does the strain need to do? You know, how much, gases and nutrients and stuff does it need? How can it operate under different pressures?

[00:33:08] Erum: We were talking about pressure. So, I thought that was very interesting. and then this, the big conversation was like, snacking versus health foods, and how do you combine the two? And I think snacking is a very interesting form factor for any type of health or medication.

[00:33:27] Erum: And, this idea of, like, food and medication, food is medicine. But, can we do it more, I guess- pharmaceutically or industrially,Because people adhere to snacks, and like my previous life, I worked in the digital health space, the big question was medication adherence, right?

[00:33:43] Erum: you have a disease, you need to take medication, and you might forget and it's like, but how do you adhere? Snacks, drinks, things that you definitely do every day, like how do you work them together? So whether you're at work or in front of TV or like commuting, like you're always kind of consuming something.

[00:34:02] Erum: Yeah. I mean, at least I am. you know, I'm a grazer. I love to, I love to graze. I love just to eat all day. I don't like eating like a huge meal. Like I don't like that. but I do like to graze.

[00:34:12] Erum: so then this gets into the world like if you're creating these, molecules that have all these benefits and potential claims, then how do you make sure your science is rigorous and that you have a clinical trial-like approval process for these food items, for new food molecules?

[00:34:31] Erum: And hopefully things are kind of shifting in that direction, but remains to be seen. I did watch this, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver talking about, gas station drugs or,

[00:34:43] Karl: Behind the counter, they've behind the counter.

[00:34:44] Erum: Yep ...

[00:34:45] Karl: you know, a, vitamin pack or a men's health pack. Yeah. It's always for men. Yeah.

[00:34:51] Erum: and they're like completely unregulated, and the people get addicted to them. Totally. And it's just like really bad. But anyway, so can our government, can our industry, can we all just, align around safety and health?

[00:35:02] Erum: And then you'll make money. if things are safe and healthy, you'll make money. Like it doesn't have to be addictive. can we just not do that anymore? Healthy can be addictive. people are, drinking Liquid IV and like all these things. Like people get a, Athletic Greens, like all

[00:35:16] Karl: Right.

[00:35:16] Karl: People

[00:35:17] Erum: get addicted to health. Let's kind of go in that direction.

[00:35:20] Karl: I just think that there are so many opportunities there, and it's one of those spaces that, it's continues to move along, at its own pace.

[00:35:28] Karl: I think we need to have more of those innovators come on the podcast to talk about what they're doing because it's happening all around us, and food, as you say, is medicine, and it's something that we eat every day all the time. So I'm looking forward to seeing more innovation in that space. You had previously talked about going to this, drinks tasting.

[00:35:51] Karl: I was listening to it the other day, and you were talking about, like, all these non-alcoholic beverages, these functional drinks.So I'm super excited about this space. I just think we have to have more people come on.

[00:36:03] Erum: Yeah, absolutely. and then, like, one of the other panels, which we both got a chance to experience, was a bio-literacy panel, It was amazing. It was jam-packed. I can't remember everyone that was on there, but of course, we had our friend Alexander Titus, who was on the podcast, representing the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, and Drew Endy. Drew Endy was on stage. Drew Endy, the professor of Stanford focusing on synthetic biology.

[00:36:30] Erum: Wow, that was such a great conversation. I just felt like they were speaking to us. I mean, we do talk about biology a lot. We try to define as much as we can to make biology more accessible to a larger population. But what were your thoughts?

[00:36:43] Karl: so what's interesting was that was the last panel on the last day, and people are ready to leave.

[00:36:51] Karl: the entire, convention center has been broken down or is being broken down, and yet bio-literacy panel, the bio-literacy panel turned into a packed standing room only room. I got there, I was standing at the back.

[00:37:06] Karl: And, every panelist was amazing, and Drew, of course, being one of the modern fathers of synthetic biology, is an amazing person. We really want to get him on the podcast, and he says he's gonna come on. So there's a lot, that he is doing to increase bio-literacy. He does a lot of work with the government, teaches at Stanford.

[00:37:25] Karl: What were your thoughts, Hirum?

[00:37:26] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. It was great to hear, all the work that he's doing. He has an article coming out about technology and freedom on July 4th. Oh, okay. Which is, you know, well-positioned. Yeah. so gotta read that. and talk about it, on the podcast and share a link to that.

[00:37:42] Erum: I think he's just so funny. I feel like Drew Endy, There's bio-literacy, but then there's humor. I think people really understand humor. And he was talking about, how there's different people that are on this spectrum of bio-literacy or, promoting biology, and he was like, "There are people that, promote biology and love it, and he calls them probiotics.

[00:38:02] Erum: Yeah. And then those that just are against biology are antibiotic. And I was like, "Oh my God, this guy is full of dad jokes."

[00:38:11] Karl: Yeah, and I mean, for those who don't know it, Drew was responsible for being the founder of the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, iGEM, which is its own entity.

[00:38:23] Karl: They do a big jamboree once a year. Now it's in Paris. and then he also talked about retirement GEM- ... molecular biology classes at retirement homes, and he gave the example of his father telling him the story about going to the molecular biology class. and, asking Drew what he was gonna expect from that.

[00:38:43] Karl: and I think he said, "You should expect to learn about the CRISPR."

[00:38:46] Erum: Yeah. Yeah. That was really sweet. I mean, the fact that a retirement home has a molecular biology class, that's, so amazing and love that. it wasn't Drew that asked the retirement home to have this.

[00:39:00] Erum: it was just complete coincidence, and he was like, "Hmm, okay. So if there are these older adults that are interested in biology, maybe there should be a retirement GEM and have them engineer, you know, microorganisms." I think it's a beautiful thing. Let's do it. they have lots of wisdom, older adults.

[00:39:15] Erum: Maybe they'll make some type of, unique, microbe or, different type of, biological pathway that can help with a certain problem. You never know.

[00:39:24] Karl: Yeah, and I would just say this is what Genspace does. One of the things that Genspace, the community lab in Brooklyn, is known for is offering classes to teach people different parts of biotechnology, and it is one of the few places where you're gonna find senior citizens or older adults working with high school students side by side to learn what biotechnology offers.

[00:39:46] Karl: And so I think Drew's vision of this is very important and timely.

[00:39:49] Erum: and so this bioliteracy panel, again, was so great for us in particular. I mean, Messaging Lab, Grow Everything, we're all about comms and communicating, and getting more people, interested in biology.

[00:40:01] Erum: And Drew was sharing a story about how he was talking to people in, Congress about, initiative, and he was like, "Oh, with DNA, this is what we need to do, blah, blah, blah," and he's, like, going on and on about it. And he was, like, talking about it. And then, he gets stopped and, the guy asks, like, "Wait, what is DNA?"

[00:40:21] Erum: And Drew was like, "Oh my gosh," like, He just took things for granted, and I think we do this on the podcast where we just start talking about things. That's why we have Lizette who can, be like, "All right. You guys are talking, like, way too deep into the world of biology.

[00:40:33] Erum: You guys need to define a few things." and so this idea of like, Let's take a step back," and then like, the way that Drew said it, it's like, look, not everyone knows everything, right? And bioliteracy is, like, just to know a field. It's not the fact that people don't know or haven't learned,

[00:40:50] Erum: They don't have a learning disorder, but there is a teaching disorder, right? If you can't teach someone something so they understand, it's not the person's fault sometimes. It could be the, teacher's fault for not teaching correctly.

[00:41:04] Erum: And I think a lot of people can resonate with this if they think about the teachers over time. I had great teachers, but sometimes I had teachers I'm like, "You're not teaching me anything. didn't even start from zero. You started from, like, 50

[00:41:15] Karl: I- And you never brought it back.

[00:41:16] Erum: Yeah, and never brought it back. So like, finally they do the lift. but I thought that was great. It's like if you don't have empathy for teaching correctly, your lessons are not getting across, and that's on you as a teacher or as a communicator.

[00:41:27] Karl: Well, and I think it's all really up to all of us who are listening to this podcast, and in general, if you're in this space, you have to meet people where they are.

[00:41:36] Karl: Just because someone doesn't know what DNA is, doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with them. when we talk about biotechnology, we often talk about beer and wine, or we look for the places where people understand what biotechnology enables, things that people can understand easily, and then that's where you can meet them and, expand on all the beauty of the things that we do with biotechnology.

[00:41:59] Erum: right. And then, of course, we were on some panels. So let's talk about that really quick.

[00:42:05] Erum: You were on a panel, you moderated a panel called The Dark Proteome. Ooh.

[00:42:12] Karl: yeah, so it's super funny because, Jen Dion of Pumpkinseed, who's also a professor at Stanford, said that John Cumbers had done a really good job, marketing that panel. And really the panel was about the unknown proteome, in other words, the proteins that are expressed by cells that we still don't understand.

[00:42:30] Karl: Like we have DNA, we can read DNA, we can read RNA, but there's so many proteins, and I'm just talking about in the human body, that we don't understand because biology is operating constantly, and it's constantly changing based on the needs of the environment, based on the foods that you're eating.

[00:42:47] Karl: And I was really lucky to be on this panel, like I had talked about it previously. the panelists were Leroy Hood, who is a legend in biotechnology. he helped develop the DNA synthesizer, has had many, many discoveries. There's a whole book written about Leroy Hood. Divya Thakur from Google DeepMind, Emad from Ribadyne, Jen, who I mentioned from Pumpkinseed, and Paul Schnier of Lilly.

[00:43:12] Karl: And the wh- whole panel was really how do we discover all these proteins that we don't know? And the takeaway was, AI is making this faster for us to understand the dark proteome. There's new techniques, timelines are collapsing, but at the end of the day, the more we know, the more targets we have to drug and the healthier we can make humanity.

[00:43:32] Erum: Amazing. Ah, so sad I missed that, but I'm glad that you gave us a recap. So this is what this is about.

[00:43:38] Karl: It is what it is. And you, Iram, you know, we've been doing a color series here on Grow Everything. Tell me about your panel.

[00:43:45] Erum: Well, yes. I loved my panel, about artificial colors out, bio in. and be- we've been deep diving on bio colors here on the podcast.

[00:43:53] Erum: The panelists include, Birgit Cameron of Prism Bio, Ricky Cassini of mychroma, and Gregory Hocking, who's VP of external innovation at Mars. So, great conversation with innovators and, a potential big buyer. You know, Mars has M&M's, it has Skittles, so taste the rainbow. I mean, hello.

[00:44:14] Erum: Right. And Gregory was like, "They make a billion M&M's a day." Something like, something so crazy. And I was like, "What?" and it was a great conversation. It was a conversation that, you know, we have had, on these episodes for our BioDye series. Gregory Hawking bringing a great perspective saying, "Hey, look, we're not looking for just one color.

[00:44:34] Erum: We're looking for a platform of colors," because they don't just have one color in their snacking division. They have multiple colors. and it was very cool. the fact that this was like, you know, a breakout session, it wasn't recorded.

[00:44:45] Erum: A lot of people in the audience, asked some great questions. I started asking a very interesting question, to Gregory in particular because, this whole idea of, there's starting to be a ban on all these, synthetic dyes that are made through petrochemistry, and it's supposed to be phased out this year and next year.

[00:45:01] Erum: And so, I asked towards the end, I'm like, "Well, what happens if you don't?" And like, "Is there a fine?" You know- Yeah ... "What's going to happen?" What was the

[00:45:08] Erum: answer? Yeah.

[00:45:09] Erum: And Gregory was very diplomatic. He was like, " we'll cooperate.

[00:45:13] Erum: we do want to make this effort and, he doesn't know. I mean, we don't know. Yeah. Like, what is gonna happen? Like, what is it? So that was cool. And then the funny thing, about my panel was that there was a dog in the audience.

[00:45:23] Erum: I've never experienced a, dog. It was like a, a poodle of some sort. and I was like, "Oh, hello."

[00:45:30] Erum: Yeah. I was like, "Great. Great." And then you had another panel, Carl.

[00:45:36] Karl: Right. So I moderated a panel on enzymes, probably no surprise. and, it was with Alex Rose of Cascade, who's been on the podcast, Matthew Thompson, our friend from Biomatter, who we do need to get on the podcast, Trevor Nix of Caravel, and Michael Herskowitz of, International Foods & Fragrances.

[00:45:54] Karl: And, another really interesting panel. It was, Last day and almost the end of the day, we thought there wasn't gonna be a lot of people in the room, so we ended up sitting on the front of the stage. We made it very friendly. and yet the room ended up being mostly filled. And really, what we talked about was how nature has this vast library of enzymes that do many tasks.

[00:46:16] Karl: but AI and modeling allows us to tune those enzymes and to make them more efficient. I think Trevor brought up the fact that, we have, monoclonal antibodies. They have this very specific structure, that allows them to be very functional in what they do in the body. And he started talking about, well, can we engineer those so that instead of having bispecific, which means they have two parts to them, we just had monospecific enzymes that would serve a therapeutic purpose.

[00:46:44] Karl: The other thing we talked about was how we're engineering enzyme to support different conditions. when we think about biomanufacturing, we've talked a lot on the podcast today about these huge steel vats, 250,000 liters. We're making enzymes that, work in nature do things that they're not naturally set up to do.

[00:47:01] Karl: So how do you engineer enzymes so that they're able to withstand pH, withstand pressure, withstand these huge volumes? So that was really, what we talked a lot about on the panel, and it was very well received. I really appreciated the people who were on the panel, and we had a long conversation afterwards with the people who were there who came to, listen to us.

[00:47:20] Erum: Oh, wow. That's great. there's so much to deep dive into. enzymes are, like, are so important when it comes to biology, so thanks for sharing that. anything else you want to share? beyond the panels, beyond the sessions, what else happened?

[00:47:35] Karl: so I think we would be remiss if we didn't mention Chef Pierre Thiam, who was the chef for a dinner that we went to that was sponsored by Cradle, who's also been on the podcast.

[00:47:47] Karl: And Chef Pierre is known for importing a grain from Senegal called fonio, which is, this robust, easy to cultivate grain that is highly nutritious. And I have to say that that experience, I had a, bluefin tuna tostada, which I'm still thinking about right now. I don't usually mention food experiences, but that experience and the way he talked so eloquently about the need for us to look at nature, he was also very complimentary to the people in the room, talking about how we need both biology and more respect of nature, really resonated with the way I think about biotech.

[00:48:26] Karl: Hiram, you were there. What did you think of that?

[00:48:28] Erum: yes, that's right. Chef Pierre Thiam was, like- incredible for all those reasons. what stood out to me, I didn't get to try the bluefin tuna thing because it was, like, out by the time I- Yeah, it was gone.

[00:48:37] Erum: I'm sorry. It's gone. It was ... Yeah.

[00:48:38] Erum: They gave you the last one.

[00:48:39] Erum: Thanks, Carl. I'm not gonna talk

[00:48:40] Erum: about

[00:48:40] Karl: it anymore.

[00:48:42] Erum: But there was this amazing dish. It wasn't by Chef Thiam, um, 'cause, like, the restaurant also made food, but Chef Thiam made the fonio dishes. but there was, like, this, Italian pasta but with some Thai flavors in it.

[00:48:54] Karl: Oh, that was amazing. Oh my goodness.

[00:48:55] Karl: It was bucatini- Yeah ... a lemon bucatini.

[00:48:58] Erum: Yeah. And I was like, "Wow, this is really good." It had, like, lime leaves and some, you know, Thai chilies. It was really good. It was really good. And so, Chef Pierre Thiam, Senegalese, runs a couple restaurants, I think one in New York and one in, SF.

[00:49:11] Karl: In Oakland, yeah. And he also had a few restaurants here in Brooklyn, closer to where you live in, on your side of Brooklyn. So, Nostrand Avenue, and Flatbush, I think.

[00:49:21] Erum: and Chef Pierre Thiam also had some sessions at SynBio Beta. I didn't get to go to those, 'cause again, there's sometimes there's 14 sessions happening at one time. Yeah. It's so crazy. So it's a bit challenging. We'll have to figure that out and see how we can somehow- Yeah, clone

[00:49:34] Karl: ourselves.

[00:49:34] Karl: Yeah ... clone

[00:49:35] Erum: ourse- yeah. There we go. Um, then I just, like, appreciated meeting all these amazing people at the side events, at the happy hours. got to meet, Peter Clarke of Novo Nordisk, who is from Philly. I met a lot of people from Philadelphia, so that was really cool because that is where, I grew up and I went to school around there and lived there for a little bit.

[00:49:53] Erum: Gregory Hawkinson from Philadelphia. I met a space biotech founder, Mario Maggio, who makes bioreactors for space. He's from Philly. Wow. Yeah, we're definitely gonna have Mario on. just, like, incredible, what they're working on. And so, amazing, like the people that turned up at SynBio Beta this year.

[00:50:09] Erum: what they're working on, bonkers.

[00:50:12] Karl: Yeah. Bonkers. In a good way, by the way.

[00:50:14] Erum: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Bonkers meaning cool.

[00:50:16] Erum: But yeah, incredible. And I also wanna say, like, just to wrap this up, What a great conference. It just, I loved it. I think my whole thing this year was strengthening relationships with people, and of course making new ones. But it, but just the idea of strengthening it, like just hanging out with Biomatter, fr-friends from P&G, just being able to talk to them more and s-seeing how they're doing.

[00:50:39] Erum: it's a, a beautiful thing. That's why I love conferences. I mean, and then you get to spend time, like you're immersed, right? It's a four-day conference, but you're also like, Actually, it's a three-day conference, but you c- the day before and the day after, it makes it five days. And so, being able to spend time and fully immerse in this topic.

[00:50:54] Erum: I'm still processing. Like, we are recording this like, two business days after the conference. so like there's so much to still unpack and process for us. But of course, we'll sprinkle those thoughts throughout the future episodes. What about you? Reflection?

[00:51:11] Karl: appreciate all of that. one of the things that I've tried to do, over the past couple years is especially get to know the people who have been going to SynBio Beta as long as I have.

[00:51:19] Karl: So I've been going for more than 10 years. one person that I really missed was Susan Rosler, who's a professor in Edinburgh. I did not see her this year, so I'm gonna write her a note and tell her that we missed her. But nice to see Jamie Bacher. He has a new startup. Carl Handelsman, who's an investor, who's been going as long as I have.

[00:51:38] Karl: and so, the event always kicks off the night before with a new attendees event, and we were joking around that there should be an old attendees event. And it wouldn't be as big of a group, it might not be as fun, but I think it is a good way to acknowledge the people who've been going for a long time, and this community that has been built, around this event, and, the progress that people have been making.

[00:51:59] Karl: So amazing, conference. As you said, strengthening relationships was a great thing to do, and meeting new people.

[00:52:42] Karl: Amazing. Well, with that, I wanna thank everyone for listening to this recap of the SynBio Beta 2026 conference. We definitely recommend going next year. We love meeting people in person. We do have a couple live events coming up.

[00:52:56] Erum: we are going to be having a live event during New York Tech Week where we'll be doing a live demo. Not us, but our friends at Ro-Ling will be, doing a live demo.

[00:53:05] Erum: and we'll be recording that for the podcast. So Feel free to join us if you are in town. so we also plan to do a live recording at Genspace for a fundraising event, that will be in June as well. We'll s- share details as they come.

[00:53:20] Erum: And finally, the next conference that we have on our radar, which there might be some beforehand, but this is a big one, we plan to go to World Biomarkets, in Omaha, Nebraska in September. They do have, conference in the Netherlands in June, but if whether you go to the Netherlands or in Omaha, World Biomarkets is offering you a 25% off discount.

[00:53:42] Erum: Use the promo code GrowEverything to get that discount.

[00:53:45] Karl: Excellent. So thank you for tuning into the Grow Everything podcast. If you have any questions or comments, please do reach out to us. We love hearing from our listeners. Our contact information is in the show notes.

[00:53:57] Karl: and don't forget to subscribe to our Substack.

[00:53:59] Erum: Let's grow