Upcoming Event: AI × Microbiome Innovation | 3rd Annual JBIMS Microbiome Innovation Forum

Hosted by the Joint Berkeley Initiative for Microbiome Sciences in partnership with Taxa Technologies. 

We are thrilled to announce the capstone event in the JBIMS AI in Microbiome Science Event Series: the third annual JBIMS Microbiome Innovation Forum (aka Industry Mixer). This vibrant gathering is designed to connect local microbiome-related researchers, startup founders, investors, policy-makers, non-profit groups, and more to spark new collaborations and amplify the impact of our shared work. This year’s event will provide a forum for microbiome leaders to explore future directions of the field, in particular those that have been unleashed by the power of AI. 

New this year, the event will be geared toward identifying bottlenecks in the translation of microbiome discoveries, emphasizing those that AI can help resolve. Leveraging the diverse expertise this event attracts, we will moderate interactive discussions to identify possible solutions and partnerships. The mixer will utilize AI-facilitated networking, discussion, and synthesis to harness the creativity of individual contributors and diverse groups. We will synthesize questionnaire and discussion outputs in a product to be shared with the wider community.

This year’s forum will feature a dynamic lineup of activities aimed at fostering meaningful connections between academia, non-profit organizations, and industry, including:

  • Keynote talks from distinguished leaders across the microbiome science landscape.
  • Poster presentations and lightning talks highlighting cutting-edge research.
  • A panel discussion on AI opportunities and impacts in microbiome science.
  • Facilitated networking to connect across attendees.
  • Recruitment opportunities for Bay Area scientists at all career stages.

Last year’s event drew over 140 attendees, representing more than 35 companies and 50 research groups from UC Berkeley, LBNL, UCSF, UC Davis, SFSU, and more.

This is a unique opportunity to network with peers, forge new partnerships, and engage with the next generation of microbiome experts.

This event is brought to you thanks to support from JBIMS Innovation Partner Taxa and our sponsors Biohub, BiomeSense, Homeworld Collective, and Juniper VC. Special thanks to Homeworld Collective for supporting this year’s problem-centric approach.

Keynotes (titles coming soon):
– Cheri Ackerman Araromi (Cofounder & CEO, Concerto Biosciences)
– Adam Arkin (Senior Faculty Scientist, LBNL; Professor, UC Berkeley) – “Phages, Phenotypes, and Phantom Partners: Where AI Accelerates, What Biology Still Costs, and Who Holds the Idea”

Plenary:
– Jacob Baker (CSO, Taxa) – “Lineage resolution reveals hidden determinism in microbiome dynamics”

Industry Lightning Talks:
– Niokhor Dione (Founder, Wurus Biosciences) – “Microbiome culturing in the AI era”
– Kevin Honaker (Cofounder & CEO, BiomeSense) – “Beyond the Model: Novel Data Infrastructure to Turbocharge AI Workflows”
– Holly Ganz (Cofounder & CSO, AnimalBiome) – “100,000 Microbiome Samples Later: Why Prediction Is Still Hard (and How We Fix It)”
– Andrew Ligeralde (Computational Scientist, Phare Bio) – “AI for Antibiotic Drug Discovery”
– Jenny Yang (Co-Founder & CEO, Outpost Bio) – “Lab-in-the-loop: Making Human Microbiology Computable”

Academia + Government Lightning Talks
– Aziz Kamoun (Graduate Student, UC Berkeley) – “Foundational Scale Metagenomics Infrastructure”
– Lauren Lui (Research Scientist, LBNL) – “An Archipelago of Species: Mapping Metagenomic Sequence Space with β-VAE Embeddings”
– Rodney Ridley Jr (DOE SCGSR Fellow, Joint BioEnergy Institute) – “Elucidating novel routes of plastics biotransformation via metagenomics and statistical learning”
– Wenjun Zhang (Professor, UC Berkeley) – “Decoding the Oral Microbiome Metabolism: Accelerating Metabolic Gene Cluster Translation and Probiotic Development”

Panelists:
– Adam Arkin (Senior Faculty Scientist, LBNL; Professor, UC Berkeley)
– Srilekha Bhattiprolu (Associate, Juniper)
– Jessica Green (Program Manager, Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H))
– Seenia Hong (Member of Technical Staff, Edison Scientific)
– Jenny Yang (Co-Founder & CEO, Outpost Bio)

And many more awesome poster presentations during the networking session!

Organizations registered this year include: Ample Agriculture, Angstrom Innovation, AnimalBiome, ARPA-H, Berkeley City College, BioConsortia, BioKEA, Bowdoin College, California Institute for Biodiversity, Carnegie Institute of Science, Concerto Biosciences, Corteva Agriscience, Diablo Valley Community College, Differential Bio, Drūl, Edison Scientific, Finish Line Bio, Gates Foundation, Genentech, Gladstone Institute, Groat Bio, HM.CLAUSE, Innovative Genomics Institute, Joint BioEnergy Institute, Joint Genome Institute, Juniper VC, Kanvas Bio, KBase, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Liminal Venture Studio, Mars Inc., Matterworks, Maxwell Reitman Consulting, Michroma, Microcosm Foods, Microvi Biotech Inc., NASA, Nexilico, Oath Biome, OnSight Dx, Outpost Bio, Shimadzu, UC Davis, UCSF, Windfall Bio.