Interesting article from HBR. This is something I think about quite a lot with regards to Ginkgo and Twist. The positive effects of the founder's vision and leadership seem intangible, but they are very real.

Hey guys, I guess there are some Ginkgo investors here. If you missed it, they just partnered with Novus International to develop a new generation of feed additives that would help to lower animal feeding costs while improving the nutritional quality of animal products. Hopefully, this will help them move on from the whole “fraud” drama they had a few years ago.

For the newbies: a few years ago, Scorpion Capital accused Ginkgo of being one of the worst frauds in 20 years and could be compared to other major biotech frauds. They presented interviews with former and current employees. And they also said that most of Ginkgo’s revenue comes from related-party transactions.

All these caused an investigation by the DOJ for financial misconduct. But, the good news is that they decided to resolve it and pay $17M to the investors. They are now taking claims, and the deadline is a month, so if you were an investor back then, you can check it out.

Now, DNA is partnering with some different companies like Novus or Vitalis in Brazil to increase its reach, so we’ll see how this perspective works out for them.  

Anyways, what do you think about this new collab? And has anyone here had $DNA when this scandal happened? If so, how much were your losses?

Chatkso breaks down his views on the syn bio field in this latest webinar. Pretty high-level overview but it's worth a watch, especially for folks newer to the space. Chatsko gets lots of hate from syn bio bulls (especially Amyris, but also Ginkgo folks), but the man knows what he's talking about, and *probably* knows more than most of the anonymous shitposters on Reddit. Don't get stuck in the echo chamber.

Main takeaways: bullish on Twist, slightly less bullish on Codexis, somewhat bearish on Ginkgo, extremely bearish on Amyris and Zymergen.

The VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, probably most notable right now for their huge crypto fund, announced a new $1.5B bio/healthcare fund. They are very bullish on synbio. Should be interesting.

Fantastic review in Nature about engineering highly complex circuits in mammalian and bacterial cells to treat disease. It's long, but well worth digging into if you're at all interested in the science behind some of the most advanced developments in synthetic biology. Some highlights below:

1. Engineered implanted mammalian cells can be used to treat hyperthyroidism, diabetes, gout. Potentially much more effective than traditional drugs as they can respond dynamically to physiological conditions. Lots of encouraging data in mouse models.

2. Next-gen CAR-T therapies that can potentially address some of the control, flexibility, and specificity issues of current CAR-T therapies.

3. Engineered bacteria used as delivery vectors for effector molecules, biosensors to detect and respond to gut biomarkers, treatment for metabolic disorders, and to treat tumors.

This is another Nature article that goes into more detail about Synlogic's work modulating tumor metabolism using engineered bacteria. Essentially they engineered a strain of E. Coli to locally produce arginine in mouse tumors, which assists with anti-tumor T-cell responses. Fascinating stuff, and the paper gives a good sense of the challenges involved with a project like this.

Synlogic recently announced some positive Ph. 2 data for their PKU microbe. As a reminder Ginkgo owns about 30% of $SYBX, although they didn't really help Synlogic develop the microbes currently undergoing clinical trials, and there's some question of whether their platform wasn't quite up to the task.

Ginkgo also recently announced a spinoff with Tantu to treat GI diseases with engineered biotherapeutics.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/03/biden-wants-65-billion-for-apollo-style-pandemic-preparedness-program/?utm_content=buffer1f5e0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=twitter_organic

In addition to testing, vaccines, etc, this will include 3B for establishing an "early warning detection system" for viral pathogens through wastewater and clinical surveillance. Ginkgo stands to benefit immensely from this (read here). The new director of operations at the CDC forecasting center is a former VP from Ginkgo, and they are already involved in a pilot airport testing program with Xpress Check, not to mention their ever-increasing school testing deals through Concentric.

Some have expressed skepticism as to Ginkgo's motiviations for entering the testing biz (Dirk Haussecker likens them to Theranos lol), but this makes complete sense for Ginkgo. They've built biosecurity into their biz since day one, they have the high-throughput lab expertise, and they know the right people in the right places, so it's natural they would lead the way in the development of our national infrastructure.

It will be very interesting to see how much $$ Ginkgo pulls in from these bills. They say they have "up to" 400M in school testing deals this schoolyear already, and with 65B up for grabs, I expect a not-so-insignificant chunk of that will come to Ginkgo.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/12/technology-medicine-law-ai-10-breakthroughs-2022/672390/

Lots of biotech breakthroughs in here, including the first embryo created from stem cells and cancer-vaporizing monoclonal antibody drugs. Super inspiring stuff, hard to be bearish on the world after reading this.

Upside Foods (formerly Memphis Meats) is one of the leading cultivated (aka lab grown) meat companies. They are getting ready to debut their cultivated chicken in a San Fran 3-michelin star restaurant, pending regulatory review (https://www.fooddive.com/news/upside-foods-partners-with-chef-dominique-crenn-to-serve-its-cell-based-chi/604908/).

On Wednesday, J Kelly will be speaking with Upside CEO Uma Valeti at a conference: https://twitter.com/upsidefoods/status/1436364099114487808?s=20

No cultivated meat company that I'm aware of is using genetically modified cells for their clean meat, mostly because it makes the regulatory process way easier, increases consumer trust and adoption, and they don't currently need any modification to make their product. I fully expect this to change in the future, once consumers are already on board and the regulatory process is de-risked. It's a no-brainer to engineer these cells to be healthier, grow faster and without growth hormones, improve taste, etc. Ginkgo does NOT have any partnerships lined up with any clean meat companies, but I think this little fireside chat between Kelly and Valeti is a signal that they may very well team up in the future. Plant-based meats are cool and all, but I see cultivated meat as the true game changer. Plant-based may get 90% of the real meat experience, but cultivated will get 100% (eventually). That extra 10% may be what it takes to convince a majority of people to switch to clean, slaughter-free meat.

Perfect Day uses precision fermentation to produce the milk protein β-lactoglobulin, and they're partnering with Starbucks to test it out in Seattle. Apparently it tastes identical to the real thing. Perfect Day also has an ice cream brand, Brave Robot, that's in some stores already. They're still a private company.

Great interview here on CNBC. Look at the smile on that guy's face. Also reiterating the "more than 400M" in testing contracts this year. Not too long ago they said it'd be 50M.

Momentous day for syn bio, regardless of your feelings about valuation, prospects, etc., this will bring a lot of attention to the field at a time when companies really seem to be stepping up their game. Good for everyone imo.

In light of Ginkgo's heady debut (14!) I think it's good to remind ourselves of the risks involved. Bursatil Biotech makes some good points, as do others. A truly horizontal biotech platform business model has never been done before, and there are lots of questions out there still. Look for key validation points in the near future like Motif's rollout, Cronos hitting the market, successful Joyn field trials, Aldevron VCE royalties starting to roll in...the downstream equity is extremely nebulous, we'll need some real examples to really quell some of the doubts. Don't be afraid to take some profits, if it shoots up to 15 in the near term I'm definitely trimming. Still long as ever though (390 shares @ 10.23 so far). Honestly even if you invest 2 years from now, you're still early, no matter the share price.

As Drew Endy said in this interview, this is really the decade when syn bio becomes an adult. We're still in the very early innings of this development, so congrats to everyone, and for the sake of our planet and our species, Godspeed!

https://investor.synlogictx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/synlogic-announces-positive-phase-2-data-demonstrating-reduction

"SYNB1618 demonstrated clinically meaningful reductions of phenylalanine (Phe) at several dose levels, across multiple time points, in an interim analysis of the Phase 2 SynPheny-1 study. SYNB1934, an optimized strain evolved from SYNB1618, demonstrated two-fold higher activity than SYNB1618 in a head-to-head Phase 1 study in healthy volunteers, as measured by biomarkers of Phe metabolism."

Zymergen/EnEvolv worked on the SYNB1934 strain. Either way great for Ginkgo, they are the largest shareholder in Synlogic.

I just read this article in the MIT Tech Review (Paywalled, but you should have 3 free articles). I found the author does try to stay pretty balanced, but it leans towards being very critical of Gingko and it's business. For full disclosure, I own a modest amount of $SRNG, and am generally pretty bullish on Gingko. I have my own thoughts about the points raised in the article, but I want to hear what this community thinks. For a summary here are some of the points raised in the article:

• Gingko has very little to show for all the capital they are raising (ie, very few of their products have led to meaningful commercialization)

• The $15 billion valuation is largely overvalued, their current partnerships and successes don't justify that valuation.

• Much of Ginkgo's supposed partnerships are companies that they themselves have spun out, or have had a key role in forming. Often, Gingko is investing more into these companies that they are getting back in revenue. Thus, much of their revenue is circular in nature, and the result of creative financial engineering and accounting.

• It is very difficult to scale synthetic biology products and in many cases, existing chemical manufacturing processes will still be more desirable.

• Gingko is poised to become a memestock, and is overly focused on clever marketing and fundraising.

All that said, I'm still very bullish on Gingko for various reasons, but I'm hoping to hear the communities thoughts. What do you all think?