Its easy to think that there’s hype in Lab-grown meat. Just another Silicon Valley utopian tech. The idea of growing meat without animals is everywhere and very distant at the same time. Now a global trend, 80 startups work on Lab-grown meat worldwide in one way or another… Four years ago there were two. Consumer interest is also evolving rapidly — the #plantbased market is growing quickly, soon it will be 10% of the meat market. Lab-grown meat has been thoroughly covered in the news, on magazine covers and in books.
Let’s take a look at decoding some questions from the news and announcements. As novelty or mainstream product, when will this meat come to market? Will it ever reach its promise of selling as cheaply as other meat in the deli case? …
This is a repub of a blog post I wrote Feb 27, 2016
The falling costs in DNA, first from PCR (polymerase chain reaction) and then from sequencing, has driven an amazing drop in cost of doing business in biotechnology. Plus, the earlier generations of basic tools have come out of patent protection, so expensive equipment has dropped in prices and a robust used market has emerged. Plasmid backbones, PCR machines, incubators, centrifuges, pipettes and other basic lab tools have dropped in price to the point where a much smaller amount of money can put together a serviceable lab bench.
At the same time, the $16 billion in research grants dispensed by the NIH last year trained tens of thousands of post-doctoral fellows and graduate students through 34,197 grants. …
Dark ages or enlightenment
“The Rise of Yeast” explains how one fungus altered history.
Engineering pathways is still an art; commercializing the products is a black art. The protein production pathway is a remarkable exception, scaling reliably and offering new kinds of functionality for products. With a greater agility and a spectrum of innovative commercial applications as examples, protein is SynBio’s killer app.
With vivid images images of petroleum bubbling to the surface of an algae covered pond, Synthetic biology promises to be the philosopher stone of 21st Century Industry — turning sugar into just about anything imaginable — plastics, fuel, flavorings, therapeutics, bringing the trillion dollar petrochem economy to sustainability. …
Lessons learned in Biotech Food Innovation
Over our first four classes and 55 startups funded, IndieBio has built up a new class of food companies. We are so honored that AgFunder’s annual survey voted IndieBio one of the ‘Top 3 most valuable’ accelerators in AgTech.
It’s been a lesson for us that biology can have such an impact on food. About a quarter of our portfolio are food and Ag companies. which have many approaches to food but are each highly innovative. …
IndieBio SF is preparing to bring in our fourth cohort which should include our 57th company next month. We fund larger and more frequent classes which works to create momentum, interest and stronger networks for our companies.
That model recently made SOSV the largest portfolio of BioTech companies (by number of companies) in Venture Capital.
Having seen hundreds of startups that have applied and scores more established companies that have generously visited us to mentor, I wanted to write about one way of looking at a BioTech startup plan — Simple BioTech.
Simple Plans Are Better Plans
In Biotech advances are often feats of technical virtuosity. AntiCancer vaccines, next-generation sequencing with nanopores or electrical current, digital PCR and microarrays are all examples of multi-billion dollar innovations that have changed the course of biology and influenced thinking in personal healthcare and national health plans. …
1984 is the #1 top seller on Amazon as I write this. It is a book that comes back in surprising times and the millions of high school essays haven’t rendered it obsolete.
As we look to the past try to understand what‘s happening now, the word ‘Orwellian’ is still difficult to define. Its not that Orwell got so much right, but the fundamental questions of the book are important
Orwell grew up poor, educated in Eton a wealthy private school (in England that’s public) on a scholarship. All his life, Orwell’s pen unswervingly defended his principles and the welfare of the people, especially the poor. …
IndieBio is excited to announce our newest class of thirteen biotech startups. These companies are bringing innovation to a host of industries, from classical biotech spaces like drug development and medical devices all the way to veterinary, information storage, and utilities markets.
While these companies will be based in downtown San Francisco for the next four months, all their technologies will have global impact.
A2a
A2A Pharmaceuticals designs computationally pre-optimized small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and antibiotic resistant bacterial infections.
Animal Microbiome
Animal Microbiome helps the monitoring and treatment of chronic health conditions in animals by providing a novel microbiome testing service. …
Elemental Machines is a new startup that is building the smart lab for 21st Century BioTech R&D. IndieBio SF, the world’s premiere Synthetic Biology accelerator, is excited to announce a partnership for its participants to have access to the Elemental Machines’ suite of products to enhance their experimental research work.
Elemental Machines’ Smart Lab System provides a portfolio of products that help researchers streamline their work, refine protocols, and improve experimental reproducibility, which is one of the most significant challenges researchers face.
With a commitment to building the future where biology is technology that will help solve our culture’s most challenging problems, IndieBio offers funding, mentorship and lab space to a select group of entrepreneurs in each class, including the 15 that presented at the recent IndieBio SF Demo Day. …
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