Today John Cumbers talks to Dr. Christina Agapakis, biologist, writer, artist, and Creative Director at Ginkgo Bioworks. John will be talking to Christina about the role of creativity and design in biotechnology, what are Ginkgo’s top aims in terms of technology and its culture, and what kinds of opportunities she is most excited about today.

Christina serves as creative director at Ginkgo Bioworks, an organism design company that is bringing biology to industrial engineering. In that role, she collaborates with engineers, designers, artists, and social scientists to explore the many unexpected connections between microbiology, technology, art, and popular culture. Her graduate work at Harvard focused on producing hydrogen fuel in bacteria and making photosynthetic animals. She has taught designers at the Art Center College of Design and biomolecular engineers at UCLA, and once made cheese using bacteria from the human body. She is a prolific writer on biology, technology, and culture for a number of outlets. She’s also a founding editor of Method Quarterly, a magazine about science in the making.

Thanks to Ginkgo (@ginkgo) for making this episode possible.

Connect with Christina: @thisischristina

Connect with John: @johncumbers

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