Emily Leproust | AIChE

Emily Leproust

CEO, Co-founder
Twist Bioscience

As an early pioneer in the high-throughput synthesis and sequencing of DNA, Dr. Leproust is disrupting markets to enable the exponential growth of DNA-based applications including chemicals/materials, diagnostics, therapeutics, food and digital data storage. In 2020, BIO presented her with the Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership. Foreign Policy named her one of their 100 Leading Global Thinkers and Fast Company named her one of the Most Creative People in Business. Prior to Twist Bioscience, she held escalating positions at Agilent Technologies where she architected the successful SureSelect product line that lowered the cost of sequencing and elucidated mechanisms responsible for dozens of Mendelian diseases. She also developed the Oligo Library Synthesis technology, where she initiated and led product and business development activities for the team. Dr. Leproust designed and developed multiple commercial synthesis platforms to streamline microarray manufacturing and fabrication. She serves on the board of directors of GeneDx as well as the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington DC-based nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization focused on reducing biological threats. She is an investment advisor for NFX Bio and co-founder of Petri, an accelerator for start-ups at the forefront of engineering and biology. Dr. Leproust has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers – many on applications of synthetic DNA, and is the author of numerous patents. She earned her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from University of Houston and her M.Sc. in Industrial Chemistry from the Lyon School of Industrial Chemistry.