Biotechnology and Synthetic Biology

Andrew Hessel, PhD. Distinguished Researcher with Autodesk Inc.’s Bio/Nano Programmable Matter group, Former Co-Chair, Bioinformatics and Biotechnology with Singularity University, Co-Founder of the Pink Army Cooperative. 

Andrew Hessel: is a futurist and catalyst in biological technologies, helping industry, academics, and authorities better understand the changes ahead in life science. He is a Distinguished Researcher with Autodesk Inc.’s Bio/Nano Programmable Matter group, based out of San Francisco. He is also the co-founder of the Pink Army Cooperative, the world’s first cooperative biotechnology company, which is aiming to make open source viral therapies for cancer.

Trained in microbiology and genetics, Andrew has continually worked at the forefront of genomics, first to read and comprehend bacterial, human, and other genomes and more recently to write them. He believes the technology that makes this possible, called synthetic biology, is revolutionary and that it will eventually surpass information technology (IT) as an economic engine and driver of societal change. He speaks widely on topics that include cells as living computers, life science as an emerging IT industry, and biological safety and security.

Andrew is an advocate of open genetic engineering, believing that the field will increasingly resemble the software industry and give rise to open source, single purpose (app), and ‘freemium’ applications, and that it will be spearheaded by younger programmer-entrepreneurs. He is active in the iGEM and DIYbio (do-it-yourself) communities and frequently works with students and young entrepreneurs to help them be successful. Since 2009, Andrew has also been the co-chair of Bioinformatics and Biotechnology at the Singularity University, located at the NASA Research Park in Mountain View, California. There, he educates graduate students and executive participants on the disruptive shifts underway in life science and helps them become actively engaged in these changes. In November, 2011, he was appointed a fellow at the University of Ottawa, Institute of Science, Society, and Policy, focusing on how next-generation technologies shape society’s future.

Andrew has given dozens of invited talks related to synthetic biology, for groups that include Autodesk Inc., the FBI, the United Nations Biological Weapons Convention Implementation Support Unit, TEDx, Intel Inc., the New America Foundation, Alberta Innovates Technology Futures, the Oil Sands Leadership Initiative, and Statoil.