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TBDO Sessions Ryan Timothy Gill

TBDO Sessions Ryan Timothy GillTBDO Sessions Ryan Timothy Gill

25/04/2017
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TBDO Sessions Ryan Timothy Gill

R_473.10_AULA

25/04/201711:00R_473.10_AULATBDO SessionsRyan Timothy GillSlade Professor, Chemical and Biological Engineering. CSO, Muse Biotech"Impact in nontraditional manners: An academics journey through the startup world"Host: Cironi López, PabloAbstract:Abstract: Woud you rather change the world through a ground breaking scientific insight or through a new technology that changes the way people lived? A nature paper or a PCR machine? Creating 1000 jobs or educating 1000 students? These questions do not have to have mutually exclusive answers — in many centers of innovation faculty, leaders, and students are doing both, and doing them exceptionally well. In fact, in some cases it is expected that faculty will devote a certain amount of their to serving the nonacademic community, to translating societies investment in them into innovations that help to justify societies continue support. In my own case, entrepreneurship was an intense interest from an early age, and as a young faculty member at the University of Colorado I was put into a position to start a new company one decade ago. Along with my student Mike Lynch, we invented new method for mapping genes to traits (Lynch et al, 2007, Nature Methods) that allow us to engineer complex traits in industrial processes. We leveraged this technology, a range of connections, and fantastic timing (Oil was at $120/barrel) to found Opxbo, whose first product was microbially produced Acrylic Acid, a direct replacement for the petrochemicallly derived Acrylic Acid (an $8 billion/yr product). Eight years, 75 employees, and $75 MM later Opx was sold to Cargill. In 2012, I worked with Rob Knight (a colloborator and friend at CU) to found Biota, Inc. A company focused on the use of micro biome data to improve identification, development, and production of oil. Biota is now located in San Diego, and was the first micro biome investment of Illumina investments. Finally, in 2015-16, I worked with Tanya Lipscomb and Andrew Garst to found Muse bio, whose focus is the development of an automated instrument for multiplex genome editing, engineering, and cloning. Muse’s lead investor and Chairman are founders of Illumina, and collectively the team is working towards become the Illumina of genome writing. In this talk, i will provide details for these stories, provide some perspective on my experinces, and discuss what i have learned about the questions posed above.