Greetings to all skin microbiome enthusiasts and readers.

This week’s blog is dedicated to two friends who are my pillars of strength, making me feel unstoppable when we collaborate. Drs. Tina Jeoh and Jane Fife are these pillars; they’re not only incredibly intelligent and passionate about their work but also immensely successful and always eager to help others achieve their potential. For years we talked about the absence of adequate bioformulation conferences—a gap we’d noticed for decades, waiting for someone to establish such a community. Then, in a single meeting and conversation, 18 months ago we decided to “women up” and take the initiative ourselves. That decision led to a successful full-day bio-formulation event at the SIMB conference. 

SIMB, the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology, graciously agreed to host our bioformulation day during their annual meeting from August 5-8 in Boston. From securing a society to host our concept to devising the name (we chose FAB for Forging Advances in Bioformulation), defining the sessions, writing an abstract, finding speakers, and planning every minute of the day—it was all a delightful experience since I was doing it with two of my favorite people. 

We’ve just wrapped up our session to resounding success, featuring presentations on a variety of topics—from the role of genomics and gene editing in stabilizing live cells to the use of chemical additives in fortifying bacteria to the integration of AI for more precise formulation selection and design to the significance of packaging and accelerated stability testing in bioformulation evaluation, to the necessity of realism over mere hope, and to the challenges and triumphs in industry regarding the formulation and scaling of microbial products.

I look forward to continuing our discussion on bioformulation and view this conference as our initial milestone, aiming to accomplish much more in the future.

Until the next blog, cheers!