Laura Stone holds a Bachelor of Science (BS) in Biological Chemistry from the University of Chicago (2009) and a PhD in Chemical Biology from Harvard University (2015), where she was awarded the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Her PhD thesis focused on developing strategies to combat antibiotic resistance.

Laura’s expertise spans microbiology, automation technologies, high throughput screening, and strain library development. She has held various leadership roles at Ginkgo Bioworks, including Director of Capacity Planning, where she built operational models to optimise staffing and equipment needs, and Director of Foundry Technology, where she identified automation solutions for fungal engineering workflows. Earlier in her career at DSM, she developed microtiter plate protocols to predict bench-scale fermentation performance and managed high throughput screening projects. As Head of High Throughput Screening and Assay Development at Ginkgo Bioworks, she led a team responsible for large-scale enzyme and strain performance experiments.

At Bactobio, Laura heads the Microbial Generation team, setting research direction and driving progress toward company goals in novel microbe isolation and new technique development. She also fosters the development of the team’s expertise in microbial generation.

In her free time, Laura enjoys running, reading, hiking, and visiting museums.