Kate Adamala is McKnight Presidential Fellow Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota and co-founder of Biotic, a global non-profit supporting synthetic cell engineering. 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. This work spans questions from the origin and earliest evolution of life, using bioengineering to colonize space, to the future of biotechnology and medicine. Kate is the leader of the BioBOLD Initiative, and co-founder and coordinator of the international synthetic cell engineering consortium Build-a-Cell. Lab info protobiology.org.