Dr. Simone Bianco was a research staff member and manager of the department of Functional Genomics and Cellular Engineering at the IBM Almaden Research Center. He is an expert in computer driven design of biological systems. Dr. Bianco has contributed to the design of vaccines, antivirals, antimicrobials and immunotherapies, and holds several patents in synthetic biology. He is a founding PI of the NSF Center for Cellular Construction, which aims at transforming cell biology into an engineering discipline. Dr. Bianco is a TED speaker with over 1M views, recipient of IBM’s Outstanding Research Achievement Award, and an honorary visiting lecturer for the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, for his standing in the field of dynamical systems and commitment to education.