June 6, 2023

Developing foundational tools for engineering metabolism inside cells to solve important societal problems.

Developing foundational tools for engineering metabolism inside cells to solve important societal problems.

Jay Keasling, the CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). He is also a Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and also the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley.. He’s also a...

Jay Keasling, the CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). He is also a Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and also the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley.. He’s also a Senior Faculty Scientist @ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and also holds other prestigious positions around the world.

We talk about Jay’s initial foray into startups; working with grad students and postdocs; challenges translating lab research to startups; funding; partnerships; equity splits; lessons learned from failures and other topics.

Shownotes:
- Jay Keasling CV: https://www.jbei.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2019.10.19-Keasling-CV.pdf
Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI)
- Initial foray into startups: Amyris
- Deciding which research projects become startups
- Working with graduate students and postdocs
- Building partnerships
- Working with investors: Philanthropy, angel investors, VCs and corporate VCs
- Faculty co-founders and equity split challenges
- Pivots & networking
- Lessons from failures