Weston Kightlinger is Co-Founder and CEO of Ridge Bio, a biotechnology company pioneering AI-enabled enzyme and targeted drug design for precision medicines. Ridge Bio uses proprietary machine learning models and high-throughput cell-free experimentation to design enzymes and bioconjugate therapeutics.

Weston earned his PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Northwestern University as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow and completed postdoctoral work with Professor Mike Jewett. He previously co-founded and served as CTO of SwiftScale Biologics, which was acquired by Resilience in 2021.

Weston built Ridge Bio while serving as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Sutter Hill Ventures, where he remains a Strategic Advisor. He is recognized as a pioneer in cell-free synthesis and enzyme design with expertise in protein glycosylation and biomanufacturing.

Ridge Bio raised 25M in seed funding led by Sutter Hill Ventures in September 2025 and launched with its first ADC collaboration and NativeLink and ProTrigger product lines. The company generates up to a million-fold more sequence-function data than conventional methods.

Ridge Bio's platform enables drug developers to create safer, more precise medicines across antibody-drug conjugates, CAR-T therapies, and enzyme-based therapeutics. The company's advisory board includes Nobel Laureate Carolyn Bertozzi and leaders from Stanford, MIT, and other top institutions.