Eric Nguyen

For billions of years, evolution has been biology’s most powerful search engine. Now researchers are beginning to redesign that engine itself. From orthogonal replication systems like OrthoRep to synthetic genomes, programmable mutation systems, and continuous evolution platforms, new tools are making it possible to evolve biological function with unprecedented speed, control, and scale. This session explores how synthetic evolution is becoming a core technology of programmable biology. Speakers will examine how engineered replication, genome-scale design, and AI-informed selection strategies are expanding the range of molecules, pathways, and phenotypes that can be discovered in the lab. By moving from passively observing evolution to actively directing it, scientists are opening a new frontier where genomes are not just edited, but built and evolved as programmable systems.