Decoding biology, made visible.
A content and brand programme for Synteny: ten short films, a stronger Substack, and a steady public presence for the scientists doing the work.
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A content and brand programme for Synteny: ten short films, a stronger Substack, and a steady public presence for the scientists doing the work.
Synteny is a London biotech building an AI model of how the immune system recognises disease, trained on data from its own wet lab.
Synteny designs T cell receptors, the molecules immune cells use to recognise a target. Antibodies can only reach the 10 to 20 per cent of proteins on a cell's surface. TCRs can reach the other 80 to 90 per cent, inside the cell, where most disease biology happens.
The platform has two halves. The Data Foundry, a London wet lab, screens up to a million TCR variants against their targets in a single experiment. MANIFOLD, a suite of models, learns from those results and proposes the next molecules to test. Its first oncology target is KRAS, one of the most frequently mutated genes in cancer.
Synteny sells access to the platform through design sprints, target discovery, co-development, licensing and direct access to its models. The buyers are pharma partners, and the case rests on trust: the data has to be right and the science has to hold, because the decisions downstream are about patients.
The team is its strongest asset: scientists from Microsoft Research, Cambridge's Early Cancer Institute and Immunocore, who present at AACR and NeurIPS workshops and write a technical Substack. Publicly, most of this goes unseen. There is no regular video, little social presence, and the Substack posts every month or two.
Build awareness of Synteny with the three audiences that matter, in a way that stands apart from every other AI biotech.
"I think every AI bio company sounds exactly the same."
Lilly Wollman, CEO, on our first call
Most of Synteny's work happens at a bench or in code, which does not film well by default. The films solve this with three things: the scientists explaining their own work, the lab shot properly, and animation that shows what the eye cannot see. Leadership appears through talks, panels, podcasts and writing, and does not have to present to camera.
The tone follows the science. Precise, open about what failed, and focused on the work.
On the call Lilly said people are flooded with social content, and raised flyers as the alternative. So social here is a way of delivering the films, not the strategy: fewer posts, each carrying a film or a result, and posters and flyers where the audience actually works.
| Channel | Who it reaches | What goes there | Lane |
|---|---|---|---|
| Substack and papers | Pharma scientists, investors, candidates | Essays, results including failed experiments, lab notes | A B C |
| Ten films, YouTube and website | All three audiences | 45 second masters, longer cuts on YouTube and synteny.ai | A B C |
| Social: LinkedIn, X and Reddit | Pharma, investors, researchers | Cut-downs, stills and captions for every film and post | A B C |
| Targeted ads on X, Reddit and Meta | Named pharma teams and candidate profiles | Paid versions of the best-performing films | B C |
| Posters and flyers in biotech hubs | Pharma business development and scientists | King's Cross, White City, Cambridge, Kendall Square, South San Francisco | B C |
| Conferences, panels and podcasts | Pharma and investors | Talks, panels and podcast appearances for Lilly and the team | B C |
| Partner and investor films | Pharma and investors | Co-released films and posts with partners and backers | C |
| University partnerships and challenges | Students and future hires | Challenges, student collaborations, model access and a film | C |
Synteny's team stays in the lab. We run the marketing, bring in the right people for each piece, and keep everything on strategy and on brand.
One consistent look and voice across films, posts, adverts and print, built on Synteny's existing brand.
Audience priorities, channels and a release calendar tied to Synteny's milestones, papers and hiring.
A planning session every month and a short weekly check-in, so nothing goes out without Synteny's sign-off.
Research, scripts and storyboards for each film. We draft, the scientists check the facts.
Shoot days, editing, sound, and the animation team for the abstract sequences.
Directors, animators, photographers and designers chosen for each job and run by Solvent, so the quality stays even.
Editing, images and film clips for the Substack, and help turning papers into readable posts.
Posting, targeted adverts, print runs and conference material, with reporting on what worked.
Finding podcasts, panels and speaking slots for Lilly and the team, and preparing them.
The Substack and the scientific papers are where Synteny already sounds most like itself. They become the hub that every film, post and talk sends people to.
Thirteen essays since September 2025, written by nine named authors, including a published negative result: when the team adapted Boltz-2 to predict protein binding strength, structure-based models lost to sequence-based ones. The last post went up on 21 July.
We propose a post every fortnight, each with a named author, a film clip or animation where it helps, and a short summary of the paper behind it. Papers and preprints get a plain-English post on the day they are released.
The two feed each other. The company publishes, the scientists share and discuss it under their own names, and each person's reputation adds to Synteny's. Over time the team become known names in the field, and that recognition belongs to the company too.
45 second masters, with longer cuts on YouTube and synteny.ai. Most are built on something Synteny has already published, and end on the post they come from.
The lab and the model teaching each other, in Lilly's words.
Antibodies reach 10 to 20 per cent of proteins. TCRs can reach the rest. Post
One of the most frequently mutated cancer genes, and how TCRs can reach it. Post
The scientists, where they came from, and why they chose this problem.
Neil Dalchau leads on camera, with the rest of the team seen at work. Lilly is filmed speaking at talks and seminars, never straight to the lens. The science carries the authority and the people carry the familiarity.
Visually the films share one system: white and pale green frames, the lab shot like a set, and abstract animation for what the eye cannot see. That keeps ten different topics looking like one series.
Frames from the films that set the tone: scientists shown fully and doing real work, labs lit with care, and the confidence of people too busy with the problem to perform.
Each film carries an abstract animated sequence in Synteny's palette: white ground, fluid movement, and forms that stand on their own as images. Messy biological data goes in, clean predictions come out.
Two days in London bank the interviews and lab footage for all ten films, so there is always finished material ready when Synteny publishes, hires or announces. Film ten adds footage from the university challenge itself.
Long interviews with Neil, Lilly and the scientists behind each topic. These become the spine of every film, plus clips for social and the Substack.
The Data Foundry at work: plates, sequencers, screens and hands, shot like a set. This footage carries all ten films.
Editing and animation in batches. Each film is locked with the scientist who owns the topic before release.
| Release rhythm | What goes out | Tied to |
|---|---|---|
| Every fortnight | A Substack post, with clips cut for social | New results, papers and lab notes |
| Roughly monthly | One of the ten films, with its longer cut | The post it comes from |
| Around big announcements | Adverts, posters and a matching film | Conferences, funding news, hiring rounds |
The exact dates follow Synteny's own calendar. What matters is that the rhythm is planned and kept.
Crusoe filmed a customer story in Synteny's lab. It shows how a platform company builds standing: by being seen alongside the customers who rely on it.
Crusoe presents itself as established by partnering with its customers in public. Nebius does the same on Reddit, with customer films about Basecamp Research and NYBAI.
Use the same approach with its own partners, customers and investors. Films and posts made together put Synteny next to the people it works with, as the authority on this part of biology.
Co-released films, joint posts, social campaigns and podcasts link Synteny publicly with the right companies. Those public links tend to become working relationships.
The Crusoe film is not out yet. When it is, we would release a Synteny cut alongside it and link it to a post on the work Crusoe filmed.
The people Synteny wants to hire are students today. Working with them directly, on real problems, is the most credible recruiting film there is.
For example, HackEurope. Europe's largest student hackathon brought 1,000 students to Dublin, Paris and Stockholm in February 2026. Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Stripe backed it, and Crusoe was an anchor sponsor. Solvent made its official film (solvent.studio/portfolio).
We plan the challenge with Synteny, manage the partners, and bring in the right specialists for each part, from event producers to editors. Everything stays on strategy and on brand. Release timing follows the films and the Substack, so the challenge becomes a chapter of the same story.
Each lane builds on the one before. Once a lane is chosen we will put a scope, timeline and fee to it.
The films, the Substack and a steady rhythm.
Lane A, taken to the people Synteny wants to reach.
Lanes A and B, with partners and universities.
Three founders, on it from start to finish, with specialists from our network brought in for each job.
Your point of contact throughout, responsible for delivery and scheduling. Ten years directing documentary.
Leads the content strategy, the Substack plan and the release calendar.
Leads the films, the animation and the look across every channel.
Pick a lane, or tell us which parts matter most, and we will come back with a scope, dates and a fee.
