Dayal Saran, PhD is Program Director at Ginkgo Bioworks. He holds a bachelor degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in biochemistry. He started his career with a post-doctoral fellowship under the direction of Nobel Laureate Hamilton O. Smith at the Synthetic Biology and Bioenergy Group at the J Craig Venter Institute. Prior to Ginkgo, he was Program Lead at Evolva where he managed and directed projects on biosynthesis of plant terpenes. He also worked as a research scientist at Codexis Inc, for several years, engineering fungal and yeast strains for the saccharification of agricultural biomass into biofuels. Dayal has authored and co-authored publications in peer reviewed journals and patents related to synthetic biology.