How Europe’s R&D leaders are transforming biotech with Benchling

Benchtalk Europe 2025 brought together a vibrant cross-section of Europe’s biotech community — from early stage startups to global biopharma leaders — to exchange ideas, showcase breakthroughs, and chart the next chapter of digital innovation in life sciences. The Changemaker Awards highlight the individuals and teams who are pushing that transformation forward by turning ambition into operational excellence and empowering their teams to make impactful scientific progress with Benchling.

This year’s awardees span across industries from cell engineering to precision fermentation. Their work reflects the best of the Benchling Community and the future of modern R&D.

bit.bio’s mission — precision reprogramming of human cells at scale — demands a rigorous digital foundation. Few people have shaped that foundation more than Mirelle Radley, whose impact on bit.bio’s culture of data excellence is nothing short of transformative.

Mirelle has been the architect of a company-wide shift toward structured, standardized, and FAIR data. She led the rollout of result tables, Benchling’s structured tables that help teams capture, standardize, and analyze experimental data while linking results directly to registered samples. Her ability to translate scientific work into elegant, practical workflows has streamlined collaboration and eliminated inefficiencies. She has also championed high-impact automation, especially in Cell Engineering, reducing hands-on time and dramatically lowering the risk of manual error. In an environment where a single mistake could delay a program for months, Mirelle’s work reduces risk and accelerates progress.

Kathleen Long, Scientist at bit.bio, shared:

“Mirelle is our go-to expert, our process innovator, our standards-bearer, and the key link between our scientific teams. She has created innovative solutions, improved our data integrity, and delivered quantifiable efficiency gains. She embodies the spirit of a Benchling Champion in every sense of the word.”

Novonesis is a global biosolutions leader, advancing sustainable innovation through enzymes, microbes, and functional proteins that improve agriculture, nutrition, and health. Their mission is to transform the way we produce, consume, and live — whether that’s creating nutrient-rich foods, reducing chemical use, or capturing carbon. 

In their R&D, Novonesis is leveraging a unified digital data strategy, powered by Benchling, to break down silos between high-throughput wet labs and computational teams. In the Benchling Community, the Novonesis data science and digital teams have become highly engaged members — consistently sharing insights and contributing to conversations that help customers get more value from the platform. Several members of the team rank among the top contributors of all time (#4, #12, #13, #22, and #43), and their product requests consistently rise to the top of the Benchling Ideas Portal, sparking discussions that help shape improvements for the broader community. The Novonesis Implementation Team reflects what makes the Benchling Community thrive — a steady commitment to sharing knowledge and helping others do better science.

Martin S. Borchert, Sr. Director, Scientific Data Strategy and Systems at Novonesis had this to say about their partnership with Benchling: 

“Our R&D goals at Novonesis are more ambitious than ever, and a strong digital strategy is essential for achieving them. Our partnership with Benchling sets us up to work at speed and scale. We’re able to automate key aspects of R&D… Thanks to AI-ready data and integrated systems, we can apply machine learning techniques to our work today.”

Read on to discover how Benchling partners with Novonesis to accelerate research. 

When it comes to reshaping the future of food, Onego Bio stands out for turning scientific innovation into real-world impact.

Using precision fermentation, Onego Bio produces Bioalbumen — an ethical, sustainable, and scalable alternative to egg white protein. In a global market where egg supply is unpredictable and intensive farming has environmental and ethical costs, Bioalbumen represents a breakthrough with the potential to transform food systems worldwide.

Their science is matched by their commitment to excellence. “Integrity, transparency and scientific rigor is at the core of everything Onego does,” stated Sara Sajaniemi-Afonso, Account Executive at Benchling. In September, the U.S. FDA confirmed that Onego’s Bioalbumen is GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) for use across food and beverage applications — a major milestone that validates both their approach and their product.

As they scale into commercial production, Onego Bio is demonstrating how biotechnology can meaningfully reshape supply chains, sustainability, and global food security. Their work is a powerful example of science improving lives at scale.

Alchemab Therapeutics is redefining how antibody discovery happens. Built on a mission to understand human resilience, Alchemab’s platform analyzes the protective immune responses of individuals who remain healthy despite high-risk factors. This year, they advanced an indication into clinical development through a partnership with Eli Lilly, powered by deeply structured, Benchling-driven workflows.

Inside the organization, Alchemab has transformed its scientific data foundation. Scientists shifted from ad-hoc capture to fully structured ELN usage, standardized data models, automated sample registration, and schema-driven workflows — including a “resiliency” schema tailored to their unique scientific approach. With Benchling, they have accelerated IND timelines, unified antibody formats, and strengthened analytical workflows that support rapid iteration. Teams now actively request standardization because they see the value in speed, clarity, and downstream decision-making.

Benchling teams describe working with Alchemab:

“Alchemab exemplifies transformational impact at scale. This is a customer that deploys, adopts, iterates, and partners. For raising the bar on scientific data excellence and for proving how modern R&D runs on Benchling, Alchemab is a standout choice for Changemaker of the Year.” 

Powering the future of science

This year’s Changemakers represent the best of biotech — rigorous, collaborative, inventive, and relentlessly focused on moving science forward. Their work shows what’s possible when great science meets advanced systems, empowering people to build together.

Congratulations to all our winners! Want to see how innovators across the Atlantic are driving digital transformation? Explore the stories from this year’s Benchtalk Boston Changemakers.