Turning Cells into Tiny Factories

Reshma Shetty is co-founder and chief operations officer of Ginkgo Bioworks. Her problem: How do you turn cutting-edge science into a sustainable business? Ginkgo is a synthetic biology company. The idea is to make industrial products -- fragrances, or food, or whatever -- by genetically engineering DNA, sticking it into a yeast or bacteria, and getting the yeast or bacteria to produce the thing you want. Creating a profitable synthetic biology business is a really hard problem. But if it does work, it could be massive -- like an industrial revolution with cells instead of machines. If you’d like to keep up with the most recent news from this and other Pushkin podcasts, be sure to subscribe to our email list.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Om Podcasten

Every week on What's Your Problem?, former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein talks with entrepreneurs and engineers tackling the biggest challenges at the forefront of technology. How do you make a trip to space as routine as a plane flight? How do you turn solar energy into clean fuel? How do you use AI to stop deadly infections before they spread? We hear a lot these days about how the world is getting worse. What's Your Problem? learns from the thinkers and doers trying to make our future better. iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.