Fermenting the Future While Making Biomanufacturing Nimble - with Shannon Hall

In this episode of the SynBioBeta Podcast, John Cumbers sits down with Shannon Hall, co-founder and CEO of Pow.bio, to talk about how her team is flipping traditional fermentation on its head. Pow.bio’s AI-enabled, continuous fermentation platform decouples cell growth from production—enabling higher yields, faster scale-up, and dramatically lower costs. Shannon shares what led her to leave a successful career at Bio-Rad, why manufacturing is the often-overlooked bottleneck in synthetic biology, and how her company is bringing modern, data-rich, software-driven biomanufacturing to life. From food proteins and fine chemicals to probiotics and enzymes, this episode explores the promise of continuous systems, digital twins, and the smart bioreactors of tomorrow.