Kate Adamala, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MNKate Adamala is McKnight Presidential Fellow Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota, and a Polymath Fellow of the Geneva Center for Security Policy. Her research focuses on synthetic cell engineering, with the aim of understanding chemical principles of biology, using artificial cells to create new tools for bioengineering, medicine, and foundational research. The interests of the lab span questions from the origin and earliest evolution of life, using synthetic biology to colonize space, to the future of biotechnology and medicine. Kate is a co-founder of the synthetic cell therapeutics startup Synlife, a leader of the BioBOLD Initiative, and co-founder and coordinator of the international synthetic cell engineering consortium Build-a-Cell. Lab info protobiology.org