Beaker List – Caltech Edition
Top Entrepreneurial Life Science Professors @ Caltech
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By:
Alix Ventures: Supporting Early Stage Life Science Startups Engineering Biology to Drive Radical Advances in Human Health
Overview
Behind every transformative technology is a team of brilliant scientists and researchers. Academic research in particular is a driving force for technological innovation. Here, we have identified a ‘Midas List’ of researchers who have pioneered highly transformative technologies that have translated to the clinic. Using venture backed startups as a primary guide along with other impact metrics such as patents, citations, and thought leadership, the following professors have demonstrated patient impact, providing significant contributions to the startup ecosystem.
Caltech is small but prizes excellence and ambition. The Institute's extraordinary faculty, students, postdoctoral scholars, and staff are expanding our understanding of the universe, shifting paradigms, launching new fields, and inventing the technologies of the future. They are producing transformative breakthroughs in fields ranging from quantum science and engineering to bioinformatics and the nature of life itself, from human behavior and economics to energy and sustainability. Caltech is home to more than 50 research centers and institutes and 45 Nobel Prizes. As an example of the amazing work that this university is producing, we would like to highlight ten professors leading life science entrepreneurship efforts at Caltech, both in innovation and strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem of the school.
We asked the ever incredible Frances Arnold for comment on how Caltech fosters an entrepreneurial environment & what entrepreneurship means to her:
“Caltech has a remarkable culture of believing anything is possible—no problem is too hard. That culture produces world-changing discoveries and fearless entrepreneurs.”
- Frances Arnold
Frances Arnold
Frances Arnold is the Director of the Donna and Benjamin M. Rosen Bioengineering Center and Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering, and Biochemistry. Arnold conducted the first directed evolution of enzymes, which are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. Her findings led her to become a 2018 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. The uses of her results include more environmentally friendly manufacturing of chemical substances, such as pharmaceuticals, and the production of renewable fuels. Arnold's current research at her lab, the Arnold Group, is focused on repurposing diverse existing proteins and their promiscuous functions for new chemistries, generating catalysts for ncAA formation, and designing new ML-based approaches for directed evolution.
Arnold is a member of the board of directors of Alphabet, Illumina, Generate Bio, National Resilience, & Altos Labs. She is a co-founder of Gevo, Provivi, & Aralez Bio.