I was in the house when the house burned down

SynbioBeta 2025: a failure of a synthetic biology conference

Welcome, new readers

Sundman figures it out! is an autobiographical meditation, in the spirit of Michel de Montaigne, of a 71 72 year old guy who lives with his wife in a falling-down house on a dirt road on Martha’s Vineyard that dead-ends into a nature preserve.

Incidents, preoccupations, themes and hobbyhorses appear, fade, reappear and ramify at irregular intervals. If you like this essay I suggest checking out a few from the archives. These things are all interconnected.

Précis & rant

Last week, May 5-8, I attended the SynbioBeta (“SBB”) Global Synthetic Biology Conference in San Jose, CA. This post records some of my impressions.¹

SynbioBeta’s focus is as much on the synthetic biotechnology industry — which is growing at an accelerating rate — as it is on the scientific advances that are driving this growth. There were dozens of presentations on new technologies coming out of corporate laboratories — but none that I recall about new results from university labs. There’s been a significant vibe shift since the early days of SBB — it’s much more corporate now — goodbye to biohacker Jo Zaynor injecting themself with a Crispr cocktail of DNA and Cas9 protein in attempt to edit their own genome as you sit sipping whiskey from a ‘Biohack the Planet’ shot glass.

The overriding theme of this year’s event was AI — artificial intelligence and machine learning in all their various flavors. AI to speed up DNA sequencing! AI to automate laboratories! AI to generate novel DNA sequences and to predict protein structure and function! AI to search for potentially dangerous DNA sequences (e.g. bioweapons) in novel AI-generated DNA sequences! AI as scientists’ assistants!! AIs to design experiments, formulate hypotheses and replace scientists!!! AI embedded in biological systems — using RNA to mimic the behavior of ‘transformers’ that make possible LLMs like ChatGPT!!!

There was some amazing stuff on new forms of life using 'non-canonical' DNA that codes for 'non-canonical' amino acids not found in nature, and there were apparently sober neuroscientists talking about transferring selves from one substate to another, like in that legendary Borgesian/Nabakovian novella Cheap Complex Devices.

Although this year’s event was more corporate, less academic, less freewheeling (and less fun) than SynbioBeta events eight or ten years ago, I still learned a lot and met some cool people. As a special bonus, the conference afforded me one spectacular experience of déjà vu, a long-ago dream of mine made real.

But I heard no explicit mention of the brutal dismantling of the scientific infrastructure underway in United States in any presentation until my own remarks during a sparsely-attended, third-day-afternoon panel discussion about the interplay of art and technology.

The ongoing war on science in the USA was the proverbial Giant Wooly Mammoth in the SynbioBeta 2025 room, the reality that nobody dared speak about. It was profoundly disappointing. Had the prominent scientists, biotechnology industry leaders, inventors and professors on the program issued a joint statement condemning

• the draconian cuts to budgets of the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health and other agencies;

• the harassment of guest scientists from outside the USA;

• the political attacks on universities as bastions of free inquiry;

• the threats to individual scientists, and much else,

I am confident that the overwhelming majority of people in attendance would have endorsed it.

But set aside the perhaps fantastical notion of a joint statement. I would have been happy if any of the 200+ prominent speakers at the convention other than me had used their platform to even acknowledge the context in which the event was taking place.

I count this failure to use this opportunity to rally the synthetic biology community to the cause of protecting and advancing the cause of Science, with a capital ‘S,’ more than just a missed opportunity. In this regard, SynbioBeta’s 2025 Global Synthetic Biology Conference was a failure.

SBB 2025, where I became my own invention

Below, an image from a large vinyl sign that stood in the booth of Nanome, a company that makes an ‘augmented reality’ system that allows people to manipulate molecules that appear to float in the air above them.

Dieter! Dieter Steffen! Is that really you? You’re certainly looking a lot more buff that I recall you being!

Here’s a paragraph from my novel Acts of the Apostles, which I published in 1999. I wrote these words sometime in 1995:

Dieter Steffen stared intently at the molecule floating in the air above his upturned palms. Like a magic fairy hovering over the cupped hands of a wonder-filled child, the molecule rose when Dieter raised his hands, sank when he lowered them. To Dieter Steffen, this molecule was a magic fairy, as wondrous as any mythical being that ever held a child enthralled.

At the Nanome booth I put on a VR visor and was given a controller to hold in each hand. A button was pushed, a complex molecule floated before me, and I became Dieter Steffen, a fictional entity I had created nearly thirty years ago, working in my secret laboratory in Basel, Switzerland in 1995, on a project to create artificial life modeled on bacteriophage. That was trippy.

On one level it was totally awesome. Using Namome’s AI-driven system to build molecules in thin air is mind-blowing.

Yet in another way the déjà vu I experienced was disconcerting. Not only because the experience was so uncannily familiar, but also because I know what happened to Dieter Steffen in Acts of the Apostles. His life did not have a happy ending.

Culture Shapes Technology

Here’s the abstract of the panel I was invited to sit on:

Culture Drives Technology     

This track delves into the dynamic interplay between cultural values and technological innovation, exploring how cultural needs, beliefs, and creative practices actively shape the development and adoption of new technologies. Key topics include the influence of art and storytelling on user-centric design, the role of tradition in tech adaptation across global markets, and the emergence of technologies that foster cultural preservation and social resilience. This track is essential for understanding technology not as an isolated driver of change but as an adaptive force deeply rooted in human experience and societal values. Thursday, May 8th at 2:30 PM  

A couple of weeks before the conference, my fellow panelists & I met by zoom to get acquainted and share perspectives on this topic, and we followed that up with an email discussion. I contributed the following two quotes:

From Carl Sagan, the planetary scientist, cosmologist and science popularizer who passed away in 1996:

We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. And this combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces. Who is running the science and technology in a democracy if the people don't know anything about it? Science is more than a body of knowledge, it's a way of thinking. A way of skeptically interrogating the universe with a fine understanding of human fallibility. If we are not able to ask skeptical questions, to interrogate those who tell us that something is true, to be skeptical of those in authority, then we're up for grabs for the next charlatan, political or religious, who comes ambling along.

From Paul Krugman, the economist and Nobel Laureate, who published an essay called MAGA’s War on Science just 2 days before the start of SynbioBeta 2025, in which he documented some of the Trump regime’s extreme anti-science actions:

Why should those who aren’t scientists care? In the 21st century, science isn’t some esoteric intellectual affair. It’s the foundation of social and economic progress. And no, we can’t expect the private sector to fill the gap left by loss of government support. Basic research is a public good: it generates real benefits, but those benefits can’t be monetized because everyone can make use of the knowledge gained. So government support is the only way to sustain science. And that support is being rapidly ended.

The SBB Main Stage & side shows

SynbioBeta conferences typically devote mornings to events on the stage of the main ballroom — starting with a welcome by SynbioBeta founder and empresario John Cumbers, and followed by a succession of keynote addresses, ‘fireside chats’ (2 or 3 people sitting on couches having a conversation), and short presentations of new scientific results or technologies — which are often basically sales pitches from biotech companies, whether tiny startup, mega-transnational behemoth, or something in between. After a break for lunch the program continues on the main stage, but there are also discussions and presentations in smaller rooms. And of course, there’s a big hall for exhibitors.

Although there were some preliminary activities on Monday, May 5, the 2025 Global Synthetic Biology Conference proper kicked off on Tuesday, May 6, with a ‘fireside chat.’ Here’s how it was billed:

Unbound Biology: The Next Era of (Bio)Computing

The future of computing is being rewritten by biology. In this landmark session, Axios Managing Editor for Science & World, Alison Snyder, sits down with Stanford professor and synthetic biology pioneer Drew Endy and Microsoft CTO Kevin Scott to explore how programming living systems will transform the architecture of innovation. From designing cells with logic and memory to harnessing biological systems for sensing, computation, and decision-making, biology is becoming a powerful substrate for information processing. Join us for a forward-looking conversation on the convergence of synthetic biology and computing—and what it means for the future of technology, medicine, and planetary health.

You might have thought that this would be a good time to acknowledge that shit was going on in the real world that might put a damper on this glorious future — especially after Scott let slip that he and “JD” (Vance that is) had talked about such things.

But, nah.

In the hallways and meeting rooms, a fear of speaking up

The reason you go to conferences like this, or any conference, I suppose, is for the serendipity, the chance encounters and random conversations. In that regard SBB 25 delivered, as usual.

I went to 2 great panel discussions on biosecurity — that is, preventing bad things from happening through misuse of this new technology, whether accidental or deliberate. One of the panels was called 'A biosecurity zero-day'² (I sat in the front row for that one!), and afterwords I had some great conversations with people actively working in the field.

I met an amazing scientist who's been in the news a lot lately — Jacob Glanville, who’s developing a ‘universal antivenom’ based on his study of the blood of Tim Friede, a man who has subjected himself to 200 bites by venomous snakes.

I met Glanville when we found ourselves sitting next to each other recharging our laptops near one of the few electrical outlets in the hallway outside the main ballroom. When I mentioned that I sometimes wrote about bioethics, he said, “you might find one of my projects interesting; it had several bioethical angles. . .”

Over 3 days I met a few more people who chanced to sit near me when I was charging my ancient MacBook. And in each case I got around to asking them if they had heard anybody talking from a stage or dais about what was being done to science outside the halls of the San Jose Conference Center. And they all said something to the effect of, ‘No. I think everybody’s afraid to bring it up.’

A virtual visit from Senator Todd Young, Republican from Indiana

In the afternoon of the second day of the conference there was a session on the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (‘NSCEB’). It began with a five minute video in which Senator Todd Young, of Indiana, wearing a suit and tie, standing before a bunch of American flags, talked about the importance of biotech, including biopharmaceuticals and bio-manufacturing, not only to the US economy, but to America’s national security. He spoke of the need for a national policy, much as China has a national policy. He mentioned the need for a regulatory and business environment that would unleash the power of private capital and allow us to work in concert with our allies and partners.

After the video concluded, Caitlin Frazer, Executive Director of the NSCEB, gave a twenty minute talk on what the Commission’s report contains and why people attending SBB should partner with it.

That evening, back in my hotel room, I posted this note on Substack:

At Synbiobeta synthetic biology conference in San Jose I just watched a 5 minute video by Senator Todd Young & a 20 minute talk by the Director of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology. From my notes: "Am I tripping? What am I hearing? Have I gone insane???"

To which a reader named ‘Ro’ replied WHAT WAS IT? An Octopus man?

And I replied to Ro’s query:

It was a reasonable plan for a rational approach to enhancing biosecurity and enhancing the biotechnology sector in a United States of America. Unfortunately it was for an America that no longer exists.

The plan presupposes an America where scientific enterprise is respected by elected officials of both parties; where the National Science Foundation, National institutes of Health, and similar, are intact and function without interference by criminal gangs like the Doge Boys; where Congress (not Trump or Musk or Big Balls) retains its Article I powers to decide how taxpayer money is to be spent; where young graduate-student scientists can count on their small stipends to be there each month when their bills are due; where government contracts are awarded to private sector enterprises based on rigorous criteria, not on how many Trump (crypto) coins the competing bidders have purchased; where visiting scientists don’t have to worry that masked, heavily armed, secret police might kidnap them on public streets in broad daylight if their political opinions, or even their scientific findings, do not conform to some arbitrary criteria emanating from a North Korean-like Presidential Palace; where our allies know that they can trust us. Among other fantasies.

That this Constitutional America no longer exists is a direct consequence of choices made by Republican Senator from Indiana Todd Young, and his Republican colleagues, who voted to confirm anti-science wackadoodle nut-job Robert Kennedy as head of HHS; who applauded Musk’s gang’s wholesale dismemberment of all science in the US not currently bankrolled by oligarchs; who have pretended to not notice that MAGA zealots have been threatening the lives of patriotic heroes like Dr. Fauci and hundreds of others for having had the temerity to believe in science and work diligently to save lives.

That Senator Young, a person of malice and endless bad faith, would make a video to be played at Synbiobeta imploring us to work hard and patriotically to defeat the evil Chinese, and that he would send as his emissary a woman who began her talk with her announcement that 18 months ago she knew nothing about synthetic biology — that is what made me write in my notebook “AM I TRIPPING?”

The notes of a deranged chronicler of biodigital technopotheosis on Caitlin’s Frazer’s talk: “‘Rely with[sic] allies. Deepen relationships.’ Sure, Jan. THEIR SCIENTISTS ARE AFRAID TO COME HERE!!!”

Senator Young voted to confirm Robert Kennedy as Secretary of Health and Human Servcies. He has not spoken out against DOGE; has made no public comment repudiating the current administration’s assault on NSF, NIH, NASA, etc, nor about attempts to blackmail universities. And yet he purports to speak as a voice of reason in Congress about American science. The National Security Commission on Emergency Biotechnology may have some merit. But the Senator is full of shit.

Let’s check in again with Dieter and his floating molecule

More from my 1999 novel Acts of the Apostles, which anticipates where things are headed today using systems like Nanome’s:

The orthogonal Diels-Alder adduct: five benzene rings, some associated nitrogens, fluorines, and a solitary silicon. It was an exotic, and, Dieter thought, a profound molecule—profound in the way that a chessboard is profound before the first piece has been moved, as a piano is profound before the first note has been played. It was profound as DNA itself was profound: it embodied an infinitude of possibilities. This molecule, a billionth of a meter across, was the one he had been seeking for six years. It was, he dared to hope, the last piece needed to complete his and Pavel’s machine. If Dieter’s calculations were correct, this simple molecule was the key that would unlock the tabernacle in which resided the Holy Grail itself.

Nitrogen, carbon, silicon, fluorine—red, black, white, green: a perfect T, two walls intersecting at a right angle. It looked like part of a building made of colorful plastic blocks. Dieter was only vaguely aware that he was not looking at the molecule itself, but at an image of it on a computer screen. And it was not floating in the air in front of him; that was an illusion created by the visor through which he looked, just as the image of his hands was generated by the data gauntlets that he wore. He grabbed the model, one hand on each wall, and twisted it. He felt the resistance to this torsion through the data gloves: the molecule wanted to keep its shape. Using a foot pedal, he increased the power in the gloves— just a fraction, a factor of 1.1. He twisted the molecule again and felt it snap: the two walls now lay in the same plane, one on top of the other, like two sheets of multi-colored paper held by an invisible spring. He couldn’t pry them apart more than a tiny bit without again increasing the power with the foot pedal.

An illusion: but to Dieter Steffen this molecule was more real than the chair in which he sat. It was more real than the visor and the speakers in his headset, or the twenty-five inch Digital MicroSystems graphics workstation in front of him, more real than the data gauntlets on his hands or the cradle in which his right foot rested. This molecule was reality itself.

Note that the Nanome system isn’t quite as fancy as the one I invented for Dieter. It doesn’t doesn’t have data gloves that give feedback about the strength of chemical bonds, nor foot pedals to control them. But I hereby give Nanome permission to use these ideas for their own system.

My turn to speak

When the time finally came for our panel on How Culture Shapes Technology, my co-panelists spoke eloquently about the proper roles of communities in setting agendas for scientific research and the importance of centering humans — both those now here and those to come — and not, for example, profit — when developing new technologies. They spoke of the importance of language, metaphor and storytelling; they spoke of building and finding community.

As I sat listening to them I imagined the eloquent things I might say, but when the moderator asked me to comment my head was full of Warren Zevon’s song “I was in the house when the house burned down” and I flashed back on my firefighting days, and what came out of my mouth was something like:

“I’m a storyteller. I’m a novelist. I believe in the importance of language, metaphor and storytelling. I believe in literature. But I was also was a firefighter for ten years, and I want to tell you that our house is on fire.”

I don’t have a transcript of our remarks on that panel — which is probably for best, since I was pretty tongue-tied and mumbling, and would probably cringe to read now what I said then. But I do remember exhorting members of the audience to take whatever actions they could in defense of free and open publicly-funded scientific inquiry — as individuals and as members of organizations, etc. And I also remember talking about the trend of oligarchicaly-funded research institutions that was very much in evidence at SBB 25, and why that concerned me. I was trying to emphasize that is our house that is on fire, and that we, the synthetic biology community, must step up. Wish I had said it better.

Inarticulate though I may have been, I got the impression that some of my remarks, anyway, were well received.

After the panel had concluded I spoke briefly with some members of the audience. I wish it had been possible to continue the conversation longer. I will revisit this panel and its themes in part two of this essay, coming Real Soon Now.

In which ask for a favor (or two)(or three. . .)

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To beat that equine animal which is no more, which sings in the choir invisible

I had hoped that the prominent scientists on stage at SBB would set aside for a moment all their enthusiasm for the great breakthroughs we’ve seen over the last few years and which we anticipate in the years to come; I had hoped that the founders of exciting new synthetic biology companies would stop crowing for a few minutes about their great successes and that all these luminaries of the exciting world of synthetic biology would speak courageously from their hearts about the out-and-out war on science being conducted by the Trump regime, directed by our new Lysenko, Robert Kennedy, and by Musk’s techboi stormtroopers. But although there is a war going on, a very real war, it was only alluded to a very few times at SBB 25, and only in the very mildest, euphemistic terms.

I wish that John Cumbers, a man I respect and who has always been kind to me and supportive of my work, had spoken out.

The periodicals Nature & Science, and dozens of scientific institutions and professional organizations have declared the situation of science in the USA a 5-alarm fire. But at SynbioBeta, evidently things are fine.

Perhaps the SBB scientific community doesn't worry that they may someday be victims of a new Lysenkoism. And maybe they won't be — oligarch- & corporate-funded research institutions were prominent at SBB, while the National Science Foundation & National Institutes of Health were nowhere to be seen.

Photos of your humble substacker at SynBioBeta 2025. (That’s KC Green’s immortal meme, by the way.)

This essay continues in Oligarchs triumphant and biopunks rave as Lysenko returns from the grave: Further thoughts on SynbioBeta 2025 — in which I try to pull together my thoughts about synthetic biology, oligarchicly-funded vs publicly funded science, George Church & the dire wolf brouhaha, the unsung hero of the Human Genome Project, biopunks, cowardice at synbiobeta 2025, and the fate of humanity.

Cheerio!

Addendum: Dr. Greg Poland’s beautiful and courageous keynote address

After I posted this essay, my friend Simon, an SFIO! subscriber, sent me the following note:

This speech was delivered recently by Greg Poland at the world vaccine congress. This is the kind of speech I think you wish you had heard at the SynBio conference...

Dr. Poland delivers exactly the kind of address I wish I had heard at SynbioBeta

In part 2 of this I was in the house when the house burned down essay I will include excerpts from Dr. Poland’s short (~8 minutes) welcoming words at the World Vaccine Congress, which took place in Washington, DC, a mere two weeks before SynbioBeta 2025 took place in San Jose. And I’ll also include a link to the full transcript.

But in the meantime I implore you to click on the image above and listen to Dr. Poland’s beautiful and courageous ‘Opening Remarks’.

1. For background on my experiences at SBBs past, and what I was anticipating before going to this most recent event, see my post from April 13, 2025, SynbioBeta Dreaming 2025.

2. For a great explication of relevant concepts in cybersecurity, I highly recommend Kim Zetter’s awesome book Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the launch of the world’s first digital weapon.