Co-founder & CTO at Modern Synthesis. Growing materials from microbes and scaling the circular bioeconomy. Learning the ropes of fatherhood.
London
Joined April 2014
- Tweets121
- Following454
- Followers450
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Ben Reeve retweeted
🌟Discover UKRI-funded innovation in Sustainable Textile Production!🌟
🦠 👗💼 @ProfTomEllis is leading a collaboration between Imperial College London and Northumbria University to investigate the applications of bacterial cellulose as a sustainable alternative to dyed leather!
Ben Reeve retweeted
Great look at the work Ben, Jen and team (@SynBioBen) at Modern Synthesis are doing. I love how lux the material can look.
edition.cnn.com/2024/05/01/s…
Ben Reeve retweeted
London-based biotech startup Modern Synthesis creates sustainable alternatives to traditional fabrics, curbing emissions and plastic pollution associated with the fashion industry. 🌎💡
📹 Take a look at their @CNN video feature below ⬇️
@SynBioBen
bit.ly/44BFeg3
Ben Reeve retweeted
We're hiring! We're taking another big leap in using synthetic biology to engineer materials - this time for sustainable food and textiles. In the next few weeks, we've up to 4 postdoc positions opening up. I'd love to hear from anyone interested in joining us this year. Pls RT🔁
Ben Reeve retweeted
Such a great founder feature on Jen Keane, CEO of @collabfund portfolio company Modern Synthesis. She's spent her entire career working on biomaterials, and even grew her own shoe using bacteria and nanocellulose. Read more about her, the manufacturing process spearheaded by @SynBioBen , how they hit price parity, and what keeps her at night: agfundernews.com/meet-the-fo…
Great write up of our journey and technology at Modern Synthesis here - making bags from bacteria 🦠👜agfundernews.com/meet-the-fo…
Ben Reeve retweeted
Today’s review marks a huge step forward for UK spinout founders 🇬🇧
It adopts almost all of the policy reform proposals I made via @spinoutfyi and have been pushing on for 2 years.
A few thoughts on why this is a big day for the ecosystem and UK science&tech below:
Ben Reeve retweeted
🤩 #SynbiTECH2023 is just 3 weeks away! 🤩 If you haven't secured your ticket yet, view the brilliant line-up of SynBio stars and register here:
synbitech.com/
Ben Reeve retweeted
Share your ideas with innovators driving the synbio revolution at #SynbiTECH2023. With a conference programme packed with networking opportunities, SynbiTECH is the perfect event to collaborate with pioneers in the industry.
Secure your place now: synbitech.com/book-your-tick…
Ben Reeve retweeted
📢 The 2023 Founder-led Biotech Tour
In November, we're teaming up with 50+ founders to bring the community together in four cities.
SF: 11/2
Boston: 11/7
NYC: 11/9
London: 11/13
+ virtual events including co-founder matching, speed networking, and more.
Feeling super energised by the response to our latest announcement - the first bag to be made with our bacterial nanocellulose-based materials. It's hugely motivating to see the enthusiasm of the biotech, design and fashion communities. You can read more on Dezeen here:
Bacteria were used to grow this one-off edition of the Bou Bag by Danish fashion brand Ganni, made from a leather alternative by London biotech company Modern Synthesis.
dezeen.com/2023/09/21/ganni-…
Our materials and CEO Jen were at 10 Downing Street to show the opportunities for engineering biology in the UK. They're asking for your views in the consultation at the link below as well🦠
📢Engineering biologists, we want to hear from you!
The government is fielding a call for evidence on this cutting-edge field.
@NorwichChloe met with pioneering UK businesses to discuss challenges and opportunities facing the sector.
Have your say ⏬
gov.uk/government/consultati…
It's positive that there's pent up demand from companies growing so fast. Streamlining planning & building regs etc. could have a big payoff. We had fun converting an old warehouse that used to be a brewery into a lab/manufacturing space but it was a big effort 🍻🦠🧫
This is a really big problem, and massively limiting to progress… early stage startups and spin outs in the UK find themselves needing to be property developers
reuters.com/world/uk/lab-cru…
Ben Reeve retweeted
We don’t have time. We need to deploy, deploy, deploy every technology we can now and continue developing technologies that will have a bigger decarb impact a few more years out. Then when those are at scale - we need to deploy, deploy, deploy them. We need more.
Exciting to see investors joining forces with research to fast-track material innovation for ecological and economic impact. If #WorldEnvironmentDay reminds us of anything, it's that we need to find the solutions here on Earth🌍
Today, we're excited to announce our partnership with The @WyssInstitute at Harvard University to develop novel new materials that are both better for our planet and better for consumers.
Petrochemical plastics are just all round terrible and I can't wait for the bioeconomy future theguardian.com/environment/…
Ben Reeve retweeted
In our work on engineered living materials, a question we ask ourselves is ‘How can we use synthetic biology to make materials more sustainable?’ In our new preprint, Marcus Walker @Marcus_waal answers this with ‘Bacterial Black Sheep’.
How? Read on… 🧵⬇️
biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/…
Ben Reeve retweeted
I took this photo! (12 years ago, shivering in the cold-room because it was the only place we could get properly dark)
The wacky history of glow-in-the-dark plants 🌱
A few years ago, "Glowing Plants" raised $484,000 on Kickstarter. Backlash followed and the platform banned gene-editing projects.
The original company died in 2017, but others took their place.
These are the highlights. 🧵
Jaye is fantastic at distilling the key concepts to grow as a manager - highly recommended if you're in the biotech/climate space.
Just a quick reminder that applications are due on 9/15 for @founder_leader's "Management 101" class. It's 1 hour of online learning and 30 minutes of live Zoom per week. This course is for biotech + climate tech founders and leaders. Apply today!
founderleadercoach.com/manag…
Ben Reeve retweeted
New performance materials are coming.
Many are biomanufactured and some are scaling very fast. Their superior properties have enormous potential to improve a vast range of products.
tsungxu.com/performance-biom…