Grow Everything Biotech Podcast 161. (Holiday Replay) Leaf It to Science: How Foray Bioscience's Ashley Beckwith is Reforesting the Future
In this special holiday replay episode, we revisit our conversation with Ashley Beckwith, founder of Foray Biosciences, who shares her groundbreaking work in plant cell culture and tissue engineering. Growing up in Colorado, Ashley watched forests disappear to housing development and wildfire—experiences that sparked her lifelong mission to reimagine how we produce plant materials. After training as an engineer and working in medical device development, she pivoted to apply tissue engineering concepts to plants, initially exploring lab-grown wood before discovering a more fundamental problem: the lack of accessible, efficient plant cell culture processes. Today, Foray develops fabricated seeds for forest restoration, creates harvest-free plant products, and builds AI-powered tools to accelerate plant science R&D. Ashley explains why plant cells are the fundamental building blocks for everything from molecules to materials to entire ecosystems, and how her company is working to solve the seed shortage crisis that prevents us from restoring 94% of post-wildfire sites. She also discusses the potential for de-extinction of recently lost plant species in California and the importance of creating regenerative rather than extractive relationships with plant systems. This conversation explores the intersection of synthetic biology, forestry, and biomanufacturing while reminding us that we are all, whether we know it or not, plant people.
Grow Everything brings the bioeconomy to life. Hosts Karl Schmieder and Erum Azeez Khan share stories and interview the leaders and influencers changing the world by growing everything. Biology is the oldest technology. And it can be engineered. What are we growing?
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Chapters:
- (00:00:00) - Holiday Greetings and Stranger Things on Broadway
- (00:04:41) - Introducing Ashley Beckwith and Foray Biosciences
- (00:07:17) - Growing Up in Colorado: Watching Forests Disappear
- (00:10:48) - From Medical Engineering to Plant Biology
- (00:15:00) - The Lab-Grown Wood Experiment
- (00:18:58) - Understanding Plant Cells as Versatile Production Agents
- (00:25:00) - Fabricated Seeds for California Biodiversity Restoration
- (00:33:00) - Addressing the Wildfire Restoration Seed Shortage
- (00:42:00) - Building the Plant Operating System with AI
- (00:50:00) - Why We're All Plant People
Links and Resources:
- Foray Biosciences
- SF500 (Argentinian Global Venture Fund)
- Syensqo Corporate Venture Fund
- H.C. Wainwright
- University of Vermont - Dr. Steve Keller
- University of Maryland - Dr. Matt Fitzpatrick
- Foray Biosciences
- 154. No Trees Were Harmed: Symmetry Wood's Gabe Tavas on Growing Wood from Waste
Topics Covered:
developmental biology, morphology, morphospace, planarians, electroceuticals, bioelectricity, tissue regeneration, biomedical applications, holidays, Christmas
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Email: groweverything@messaginglab.com
Music by: Nihilore
Production by: Amplafy Media