The Seventh International Meeting on Synthetic Biology (SB7.0) is due to take place in June at the National University of Singapore, where a truly extraordinary lineup of speakers will take the stage to discuss goals and challenges faced within synthetic biology. And while conferences in the growing field of synbio are not known for being frequented by members of the Forbes 400 list, this one will be an exception.Randal “RJ” Kirk, Chairman and CEO of Intrexon Corporation and one of the many featured speakers at SB7.0, has a reputation and a resume that precedes him. While Kirk is perhaps most well-known for his billionaire businessman status, it’s the path he took to get there that is even more impressive. Hailing from a small town in Virginia and armed with a law degree, Kirk built his self-made fortune in pharmaceuticals—an industry that, as many would agree, is uniquely inhospitable to new and small market players. Nevertheless, without a drop of formal education in the field, Kirk has been building and dealing successfully in pharma and biotech for nearly 25 years.And those 25 years have been, by any professional’s standards, unbelievably eventful for the now-biotech CEO. Just four years after graduating with his degree in law in 1980, Kirk founded General Injectables and Vaccines, a supplier of medical care products and equipment. GIV was acquired by Henry Schein, Inc. in 1998, and the very next year Kirk initiated his first professional investing endeavor by founding Third Security LLC, a venture capital firm dedicated to maintaining a small number of strategic add-value investments in biotech startups. After operating successfully for several years, in 2004 Third Security merged with Carilion Health System and the Virginia Tech Foundation to become NewVa Capital Partners. The firm continues to operate with Kirk as its Senior Managing Director.As if Kirk’s VC merger weren’t enough to handle, that same year he founded New River Pharmaceuticals Inc. with the purpose of bringing drugs to market that were safer and less liable to be abused by patients. The company’s successful development of Vyvanse, an ADHD medication that is less addicting than alternative amphetamine pharmaceuticals, was a testament to NRP having achieved its mission. Three years after its founding, the company was acquired by Shire, manufactures of the most popular ADHD drug Adderall, in 2007 for $2.6 billion.Since 2008, Kirk has served as the CEO of the biotech corporation Intrexon. The genetic engineering and synthetic biology giant was founded in 1998 by Thomas Reed, then a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati. Today, Kirk’s investment firm owns more than half of the nearly 20-year-old company’s shares.Under Kirk’s leadership Intrexon has announced plans for a number of ambitious and controversial synthetic biology achievements, including genetically modified growth enhanced salmon and reproductively-crippled Aedes aegypti mosquitoes (the variety that carries Zika, dengue, and other viruses). The company is awaiting regulatory approval to deploy the latter of these two innovations in the U.S. The GM mosquitoes, which were developed by Intrexon’s Oxford-based subsidiary Oxitec, have already completed successful pilot tests in Brazil, the Cayman Islands, and Panama. Oxitec is just one of Intrexon’s many subsidiaries and partners. Others include AquaBounty Technologies, a pioneer of sustainable aquaculture technology, and Trans Ova Genetics, a provider of bovine reproductive technologies.Until very recently, Kirk had reportedly planned to shift his position from CEO to executive chairman of Intrexon. However, in March it was announced that Kirk would be remaining Intrexon’s CEO for the indefinite future due to his indispensable role in fulfilling the company’s current trajectory toward applying synthetic biology to food, energy, and environmental science.Kirk has served as a board member at multiple corporations and higher education institutions, including his Alma mater Radford University and the Virginia University Research Partnership.He has ranked on the Forbes 400 list for several years running and, having clocked so many prosperous business endeavors and so few failures, is considered to be one of the successful self-made CEOs in the world. His speakership at SB7.0 will be welcomed by attendees from all walks of the synbio spectrum.