Ginkgo Ferment is a Ginkgo Bioworks’ annual gathering, hosted by its CEO Jason Kelly, featuring curated panel discussions, fireside chats, and talks all exploring applications, implications and context of synthetic biology. The meeting showcases the complexity and diversity of this growing ecosystem: the individuals, organizations, investors and startups that are driving innovation, and as a part of Ginkgo Bioworks’ ecosystem. Faber Futures was invited to moderate the panel on Investing in Sustainability, with Natsai Audrey Chieza chairing a critical discussion about investing, policy and materials between Gina McCarthy (former U.S. EPA Administrator, Director of C-CHANGE (Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment), at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health); Christophe Schilling (CEO & Co-founder, Genomatica); and Katherine Collins (head of sustainable investing at Putnam Investments). The conversation offered a deep dive into what sustainable growth to secure our shared futures means, and how to make it happen.
At this year’s Ginkgo Ferment, Ginkgo Bioworks also launched their inaugural issue of GROW Magazine. In the spirit of IBM’s THINK magazine (first published in 1935), Ginkgo’s GROW ushers in a new era of programming, only this time with biology. Following a shareholder letter from Jason Kelly, this first edition features writing by Luis Campos on how space-age visionaries primed us for synthetic biology, and from Cynthia Graber & Nicola Twilley on why it’s so hard to make a cheese replacement. A conversation between Tom Knight and Sarah Richardson explores divergent definitions and views of what synthetic biology can and should do. We are excited to see how the publication evolves!