Allen Liu received a B.Sc. degree in Biochemistry (Honors) from the University of British Columbia in 2001. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biophysics in 2007 from the University of California-Berkeley and received his post-doctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute-La Jolla. He started his group in 2012, and he is currently the Associate Chair for Graduate Education and a Professor in Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and Biophysics at the University of Michigan. His current research interests lie in cellular mechanotransduction and bottom-up synthetic biology, and his lab uses tools from quantitative cell biology, synthetic biology, biophysics, and microfluidics. He has received the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Young Innovator by Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering (CMBE), a Rising Star from CMBE-Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), and was named a Future of Biophysics Burroughs Wellcome Fund Symposium speaker. He is an elected Fellow of the BMES, and a recipient of the Endeavour Executive Fellowship (Australia) and the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Experienced Researcher (Germany)

Seung Hwan “Allen” Lee is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science and Ray D. & Mary T. Johnson/Mayon Plastics Professor at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. His passion for engineering microorganisms to enable sustainable energy and chemical production began during his undergraduate research at UCLA under Prof. James Liao. After completing his undergraduate studies, he earned his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Rice University, where he worked under the guidance of Prof. Ramon Gonzalez. His undergraduate and doctoral research focused on the efficient biological utilization of one-carbon (C1) compounds through engineering native and synthetic metabolic pathways. As one of the co-inventors of the Formyl-CoA Elongation (FORCE) pathways, he helped develop a novel approach for converting C1 feedstock into value-added small molecules. During his postdoc under the guidance of Prof. Greg Stephanopoulos at MIT, he has expanded his research to include engineering non-model organisms, leveraging their inherent abilities to efficiently utilize C1 and C2 feedstocks. Beyond his research, Allen is actively engaged in biotechnology and climate technology communities, participating in organizations such as the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (SIMB), the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC), and the MIT Energy Conference.

Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro is a Professor at Imperial College London, where he leads a research group working on Engineering Biology and sustainability. He is the director of the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Proteins and the Microbial Food Hub. His research focuses on the use of microorganisms to convert renewable feedstocks into valuable products (such as food ingredients). He has published over 200 articles, most on topics related to microbial bioproduction (precision, biomass and traditional fermentation).
Rodrigo obtained his PhD at the University of Salamanca (Spain). Before joining Imperial, he carried out his postdoctoral research at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE, France). He has been a visiting researcher at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) and AIST (Japan).

I am a metabolic engineer and systems biologist with research interests primarily focused on finding/developing novel biological pathways for waste upcycling. My group does “full stack” metabolic engineering, from in silico modelling and design through to bench-scale fermentation to evaluate scalability. I am also the co-founder of Phycus Biotechnologies, which makes bio-based glycolic acid using a novel, sustainable fermentation process.

Dr. Alberto J. Donayre-Torres is a Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC) in Lima, Peru. He holds a Ph.D. in Plant Genetics and Biotechnology from CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico (2009), and completed postdoctoral training at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Colorado State University (USA), where he spent five years advancing synthetic biology platforms for programmable biological systems. His research sits at the convergence of synthetic biology, advancing biomaterials using bioconjugation engineering (ACS Omega, 2025). He leads projects developing open-source tools for DNA assembly (pyBrick-DNA, J. Comp. Biol., 2023) and develops international collaboration on predictive biomaterial modeling AI-assisted. Dr. Donayre has supervised undergraduate and graduate research in recombinant protein synthesis, hydrogel functionalization, and bioconjugation — and actively contributes to the global synthetic biology community as co-organizer of international congresses and developer of open bioengineering platforms.

Joy Y. Zhang is a Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice (GSEJ) at the University of Kent. Her research examines evolving science–society dynamics and their implications for the global ethical governance of emerging life sciences. Conceptually, her work advances the theorisation of cosmopolitanisation, decolonisation, commoning, epistemic justice, and subaltern politics. Empirically, her research focuses on four major scientific powers—China, India, the UK, and the US. She has studied the governance and science diplomacy of emerging life sciences—including stem cells, synthetic biology, genome editing, and experimental therapies—alongside climate politics, food movements, and environmental engineering. She currently leads three cutting-edge social research programmes on engineering biology and its applications in critical minerals, biomedicine, and agriculture, with the aim of informing social and policy deliberation in the UK and internationally. She is the author of three academic books and publishes widely in high-impact journals across the natural and social sciences. She is frequently interviewed by global media and advises leading research and policy institutions in Europe and Asia.

My group focuses on using synthetic control systems to re-engineer plants, filamentous fungi, and viruses. I am passionate about fighting global hunger and malnutrition. My major hobbies are cooking, making art, and reading. Science fiction is my favorite genre and I love that my job gives me the opportunity to bring some of the things I have read about closer to reality.

Dr. Yousong Ding received his B.S. in Applied Chemistry from Peking University in 2000, his M.S. in Chemistry (Advisor: Prof. Liangcheng Du) from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2004, and his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor in 2010, where he trained under Professor David Sherman. He subsequently completed postdoctoral research with Professor Frances Arnold at Caltech. In 2012, Dr. Ding returned to Michigan to join Pfizer Inc. (Kalamazoo, MI) before beginning his independent academic career at the University of Florida in July 2013. He is currently a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at UF. Dr. Ding’s research group integrates synthetic biology, medicinal chemistry, microbiology, molecular biology, and microbiome engineering to discover and develop bioactive natural products that address current and emerging medical challenges. At UF, he has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers and filed more than 20 invention disclosures. He is also a frequent reviewer for funding agencies including the NIH, NSF, and others.

Cresten B. Mansfeldt is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he leads research at the intersection of synthetic biology, environmental microbiology, and wastewater surveillance and management. His work focuses on tracking and mitigating emerging contaminants, including synthetic biology products, within urban water systems. Prof. Mansfeldt has published extensively on microbial ecology, biotechnological risk, and post-fire water impacts, and actively bridges academic, regulatory, and community sectors to advance environmental resilience.