SynBioBeta 2026 Speaker

Miki Heller

Brain Repair Foundation

Co-founder

Miki is a strategy and operations leader, and a mother of four whose work now sits at the intersection of rare disease, AI, and brain repair. She studied aerospace engineering at Cal Poly, began her career teaching middle school math through Teach For America, and later earned a joint MPP/MBA from the Harvard Kennedy School and Harvard Business School. Most recently, she worked at Astranis, where she spent eight years as Vice President of Operations and Strategy helping scale the company and leading all core business functions.Mikiโ€™s entry into biology and medicine came through her son Levi. After typical early development, Levi began a slow regression at age two and a half, eventually losing language, social engagement, motor skills, and the ability to follow directions. After years of advocating for deeper testing, Miki and her husband Jake learned that Levi has DEE-SWAS, a rare epileptic encephalopathy causing near-continuous abnormal brain activity.That diagnosis launched their work to stop Leviโ€™s seizures, identify root cause, and pursue brain repair. Miki and her husband Jake are now building the Brain Repair Foundation to support research, drug repurposing, neuromodulation, and other approaches that may help Levi and others living with neurological injury.

Blue watercolor illustration of a folded protein structure
Blue watercolor illustration of a folded protein structure
Blue watercolor splatter with lime dots
Blue watercolor splatter
var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Reagan

Jarvis

Anocca AB

CEO, Co-founder

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Alex

Rives

CZI Biohub

Head of Science

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Karenโ€ฏ

Akinsanya

Schrodinger

President, R&D โ€“ Therapeutics

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Christopher

Arendt

Takeda

CSO, Head of Research

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Stef

van Grieken

Cradle

CEO

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Michael

Koeris

DARPA

Director, BTO

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Jennifer

Dionne

Pumpkinseed

CEO

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Daniyal

Hussain

GSK

Exec. Dir., Tech BD

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Cynthia

Hong

Novartis

Dir., Search & Evaluation

var(--variable-xyeEn_rYM)

Sarah Lynn

Tao

CSL Behring

Sr. Dir., S&E; Ig TA & Tech Lead

Blue watercolor illustration of a folded protein structure
Blue watercolor illustration of a folded protein structure
Blue watercolor illustration of a folded protein structure
Blue watercolor illustration of a folded protein structure
Blue watercolor illustration of a folded protein structure

SynBioBeta 2027 May 3-6, San Jose, California