The rise of synthetic biology and its various offshoot applications in climate tech, biotech, medtech, foodtech and allied technologies such as DNA data storage presents unprecedented opportunities for innovation and societal benefits, while also creating new challenges in biosecurity. This session will explore strategies to secure the synbio supply chain, opportunities and challenges in scalable containment technologies, traceability systems such as genomic barcoding, deployment of AI solutions for biosecurity, and frameworks for managing the intellectual property (IP) rights of engineered biological assets in a rapidly complexifying supply chain. Our expert panel will discuss the role of emerging technologies in enhancing supply chain transparency, safeguarding against misuse, and ensuring compliance with evolving regulatory landscapes. Join us to gain valuable perspectives on how collaborative public-private efforts, innovative digital and molecular tools, and adaptable regulatory practices can maintain security, foster ethical growth, and protect public trust across the engineering biology ecosystem.

The importance of biocontainment of engineered microbes for environmental release (EMERs) is often discussed, but why and when is biocontainment really needed? This session will include short talks on our technical capabilities and needs for containing EMERs, the infrastructure needed and available for testing and measuring the efficacy of biocontainment systems, obstacles and potential solutions for achieving regulatory clarity, and the ethical, legal, and social implications on different publics of decisions to use or not use EMERs.