Ginkgo Bioworks Previews Today's Annual Ferment Conference, Announces "Lab Data as a Service"

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Apr 11, 2024, 07:01 ET

BOSTON, April 11, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Ginkgo Bioworks (NYSE: DNA), which is building the leading platform for cell programming and biosecurity, is hosting its 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.

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.

Jason Kelly, CEO and co-founder, Ginkgo Bioworks: "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."

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.

Matt McKnight, General Manager of Biosecurity, Ginkgo Bioworks: "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."

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.

Barry Canton, CTO and co-founder, Ginkgo Bioworks: "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."

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

Cradle (Stef van Grieken, CEO)
ImaginDairy (Arie Abo, co-founder and CSO)
Centrient (Limber Acosta, Director of Innovation & Technology)
Light.bio (Keith Wood, CEO)
Verb Biotics (Todd Beckman, CEO)
Bayer Crop Science (Benoit Hartmann, Head of Biologics)
Factorial Biotechnologies (John Wells, founder and CEO)
Microba (Trent Munro, Senior Vice President of Therapeutics)
OneOne Biosciences (Julien Sylvestre, founder and CEO)
Allonnia (Nicole Richards, CEO)
GreenLab (Stephen Lallo, Director of Corporate Development)
Bioweg (Prateek Mahalwar, founder and CEO)
BiomEdit (Aaron Schact, CEO)
AQUA Cultured Foods (Stefan K. Baier, CSO)
Zymtronix (Stéphane Corgié, founder and CEO)
Vivici (Stephan van Sint Fiet, CEO)
Sumitomo Chemica (Satoshi Okamoto, Chief Research Coordinator, Corporate Planning Office)
Ayana Bio (Weslee Glenn, Vice President of Innovation)

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.

Benoit Hartmann, Head of Biologics at Bayer Crop Sciences: "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."

Jennifer Wipf, Chief Commercial Officer, Ginkgo Bioworks: "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."

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: Anna Marie Wagner (Head of AI and SVP, Corporate Development, Ginkgo Bioworks)
Panelists:

Karen Akinsanya, PhD (President of R&D, Therapeutics, Schrödinger)
Iya Khalil, PhD (Vice President and Head of Data, AI and Genome Sciences, Merck)
Molly Gibson, PhD (Origination Partner, Flagship Pioneering, and co-founder & Chief innovation Officer, Generate Biomedicines)
Deborah S. Marks, PhD (Professor of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School)

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.

About Ginkgo Bioworks

Ginkgo Bioworks is the leading horizontal platform for cell programming, providing flexible, end-to-end services that solve challenges for organizations across diverse markets, from food and agriculture to pharmaceuticals to industrial and specialty chemicals. Ginkgo Biosecurity is building and deploying the next-generation infrastructure and technologies that global leaders need to predict, detect, and respond to a wide variety of biological threats. For more information, visit ginkgobioworks.com and ginkgobiosecurity.com, read our blog, or follow us on social media channels such as X (@Ginkgo and @Ginkgo_Biosec), Instagram (@GinkgoBioworks), Threads (@GinkgoBioworks), or LinkedIn.

Ginkgo Bioworks Investor Contact:
[email protected]

Ginkgo Bioworks Media Contact:
[email protected]

Forward-Looking Statements of Ginkgo Bioworks

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding the capabilities and potential success of Ginkgo's cell programming platform. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words "believe," "can," "project," "potential," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," "strategy," "future," "opportunity," "plan," "may," "should," "will," "would," "will be," "will continue," "will likely result," and similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are predictions, projections and other statements about future events that are based on current expectations and assumptions and, as a result, are subject to risks and uncertainties. Many factors could cause actual future events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements in this press release, including but not limited to: (i) volatility in the price of Ginkgo's securities due to a variety of factors, including changes in the competitive and highly regulated industries in which Ginkgo operates and plans to operate, variations in performance across competitors, and changes in laws and regulations affecting Ginkgo's business, (ii) the ability to implement business plans, forecasts, and other expectations, and to identify and realize additional business opportunities, (iii) the risk of downturns in demand for products using synthetic biology, (iv) the uncertainty regarding the demand for passive monitoring programs and biosecurity services, (v) changes to the biosecurity industry, including due to advancements in technology, emerging competition and evolution in industry demands, standards and regulations, (vi) the outcome of any pending or potential legal proceedings against Ginkgo, (vii) our ability to realize the expected benefits from and the success of our Foundry platform programs, (viii) our ability to successfully develop engineered cells, bioprocesses, data packages or other deliverables, and (ix) the product development or commercialization success of our customers. The foregoing list of factors is not exhaustive. You should carefully consider the foregoing factors and the other risks and uncertainties described in the "Risk Factors" section of Ginkgo's annual report on Form 10-K filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") on February 29, 2024 and other documents filed by Ginkgo from time to time with the SEC. These filings identify and address other important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Readers are cautioned not to put undue reliance on forward-looking statements, and Ginkgo assumes no obligation and does not intend to update or revise these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Ginkgo does not give any assurance that it will achieve its expectations.

SOURCE Ginkgo Bioworks