John CumbersJohn Cumbers Ph.D., is the founder of SynBioBeta, an activity hub for synthetic biology startup companies, industry and investors. He is an operating partner at DCVC and runs the DCVC SynBioBeta fund which invests in seed and pre-seed stage companies He received his Ph.D., in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry from Brown University. John holds a masters degree in bioinformatics from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and an undergraduate degree in computer science from the University of Hull in England. In 2005, he founded the iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machines competition) team at Brown University, was an iGEM ambassador to China in 2006/2007, and worked at NASA for 7 years in the field of synthetic biology and resource utilization in space. At NASA he led partnerships to bring new technologies to bear on sustainability challenges on Earth and in space. In 2010, John was the recipient of a National Academies Keck Futures Initiative award to hold a workshop on the role that synthetic biology could play in NASA's missions. Find John on LinkedIn, SynBioBeta, and Twitter as @johncumbers. Read More Read Less