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 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