Talking DNA: Programming a New Life Language

a SXSW Interactive 2016 Submission

Featuring renowned data scientist Aaron Kimball from:

What is this presentation about?

We use DNA to cure diseases, pinpoint genetic disorders and create new materials. To do this effectively, scientists must be able to design and concisely specify collections of changes to DNA for in-lab testing. To empower these users, what’s needed is a declarative language that allows people to express DNA design constructs in a more human-readable way. How much more could we do if we applied a programming language similar to SQL to DNA? This technical presentation will take audience members through the process of designing a flexible system that is built by engineers, used and understood by scientists and interpreted by machinery, ultimately opening new doors to designing DNA.

What will I learn?

● What lessons we can apply to DNA design from programming languages like SQL

● Why now is the time for a new biological programming language● What challenges this new language poses and overcomes● How the world stands to benefit from this new programming

language● The implications of introducing a new programming language as we

take the next steps in our work with DNA (both human and microbial)

At Zymergen, Aaron is responsible for building the data architecture to facilitate a robotics-driven approach to genome engineering. Prior to joining Zymergen, Aaron worked at several big data-oriented startups. He was the first employee at Cloudera, where he helped with a variety of big data challenges. In 2010, Aaron co-founded WibiData, the big data application company. Aaron has been working with the open-source project Apache Hadoop since 2007 and authored Apache Sqoop and MRUnit. He holds a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a master's degree from the University of Washington in computer science.

Prior Speaking Appearances: ● HBaseCon● Structure: Data● WTIA TechNW

Aaron KimballCTO, Zymergen