Presenter
Erika DeBenedictis
Erika is a former astronomer and current synthetic biologist. As an undergraduate at Caltech, Erika worked on topics in computational physics including space mission orbit design at NASA and computational protein design at D. E. Shaw Research. Erika worked with Kevin Esvelt at MIT during her PhD, where she used laboratory automation to tackle problems in synthetic biology. She led an academic lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London, UK focused on using Robotics-Accelerated Evolution to push the limits of biotech for use on Earth and in Space. In 2021 she founded Align to Innovate, a nonprofit improving the reproducibility, scalability, and shareability of life science research with programmable experiments. Erika is now the CEO of Pioneer Labs, a nonprofit that engineers microbes for Mars.
Abstract:
Humanity today grapples with the urgent need for climate-positive solutions on Earth and a vision for what a positive relationship with nature might look like. However, new green technologies often struggle to compete with entrenched industrial processes that prioritize cost over environmental impact. At Pioneer Labs, we are taking a new approach: using space as a unique testbed for developing and refining green technologies. We engineer biomanufacturing solutions to upcycle raw materials and waste streams into all the essentials for human life. Parallel efforts explore climate engineering approaches, such as nanoparticles, to warm Mars and create environments where photosynthetic organisms can grow, enabling a self-sustaining biosphere. By advancing these efforts, we aim to make biomanufacturing ubiquitous, reliable, and green—on Earth and beyond.