Emilie Fritsch, Principal Scientist at Syngenta, joins Fane to talk about her journey from scientist to lab automation specialist. As her career evolved, so did her understanding of the automation needs of science. She went from molecular biology to the perfect blend of science and automation learning the best of both worlds to shape better science. The podcast is filled with nuggets of wisdom to take away, here’s what you can expect: (3:00 mins) Being thrown into the deep end of lab...

Mario Antonio Torres Acosta,Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCL, joins us to talk about his lab automation journey as an academic, specifically teaching others how to use lab automation. There’s plenty to cover in this episode, but you can look forward to hearing about: The shift to lab automation post-pandemic (5:25 mins) Automation and expertize is fluid, so should be the approach to adopting it and to think in the long term (11:30 mins to 16:21mins) Commitment is a big barrier to...

Gintarė Bučaitė is a Senior Scientist at Benevolent AI, and she’s carved out her career working in academia, big pharma and small biotech doing what she does best - enabling scientists to do the science they want to do. But it’s not always been easy. In this podcast, she talks about her journey of actively shaping her career and the science she wants to achieve. From the uncertainty of her post-doc career to her forays in data science to enable scientists to do the science they want, Gintarė...

Phil Kay is a Learning Manager at JMP with over 16 years of practical experience working with a multitude of companies across industries championing Design of Experiments (DOE) and the marvels of this transformational methodology. In this podcast, he talks about how DOE in life sciences has been a fascinating evolution to watch. How it’s transformed the way biopharma companies get drugs to market faster, how it’s helped improve the productivity and predictability of R&D teams, and how it...

Markus Gershater is the Chief Science Officer of Synthace and has over 15 years of experience working with biopharma and life sciences companies to enable better experimentation for scientists. He’s also a champion for Design of Experiments (DOE) as the way forward for experimentation. In this podcast, Markus goes into the framing of “Lab of the Future”. He shares his own personal experiences to dig into this adage and why he feels the framing “isn’t quite right”. He says “the lab is more...

Christa Short, VP for Process Sciences at Wheeler Bio, is a master in navigating bioprocessing. She’s spent over 20 years working with biopharma companies to develop their drugs as quickly and as scalably as possible. In this podcast, Christa shares her experiences and deep insights on her life as a bioprocess expert. She’s spent her career navigating the tricky challenges you need to overcome in order to thrive in a fast-paced CDMO environment. She discusses what the grand vision is for...

John Conway is a cloud lab evangelist and founder of 20/15 Visioneers and has over 30 years of experience working with biopharma companies tackle their R&D challenges in a multitude of capacities to drive forward changes through technology, strategy and change management. In this podcast, Jon talks about the R&D journey he has taken in the last 30 years, change management over the decades, the changes that we as an industry need to make and ultimately - the bright future that awaits...

Traci Howard is a Management Consultant with Attainment Consulting Services and has over seven years of experience working with the unique challenges facing biotech companies - among them, managing change. Following on from Part 1, which looked at the broader industry, Fane Mensah and Traci Howard take a closer look at life science organizations. Traci shares her tips and tools to introduce new technologies into an organization, and how to encourage the successful adoption of computer-aided...

Traci Howard is a Management Consultant with Attainment Consulting Services and has over seven years of experience working with the unique challenges facing biotech companies - among them, managing change. In Part 1 of this special two-part episode of CABTalks by Synthace, Fane Mensah and Traci Howard discuss the broad industry challenge of implementing the appropriate technologies in the appropriate organizations at the appropriate time, as well as how vendors and tech developers should...

Alexandre Super is a Data Scientist in upstream process sciences at UCB, a global biopharma company focusing on neurology and immunology.  In this episode of CABTalks by Synthace, Alexandre and Fane discuss bioprocessing and data management. What are the challenges in moving from R&D to a scaled-up process? And how are Computer-Aided Biology tools helping tackle bioprocesses’ biggest challenge of all: capturing high-quality data.  Listen in to learn how Automation, Miniaturization, and...

Jesse Johnson is head of Data Science and Data Engineering at Dewpoint Therapeutics, an R&D-stage biotech startup, and the author of the Scaling Biotech blog where he pursues his goal to find ways to scale biotech research platforms through better software and organizational design. In this episode of CAB Talk, we discuss Jesse's framework for scaling biotech, explore the three big trade-offs of Cost vs Reliability, Immediacy vs Generality, and Flexibility vs Consistency, and touch on...

With advancements in artificial intelligence and cloud computing technologies, there are a growing number of solutions in Computer-Aided Biology. But what exactly are the problems? We speak with Dr Mike Fero, the former CEO and current COO of TeselaGen - one of the first big AI companies in the Computer-Aided Biology, on the problems facing scientists and how CAB companies should be articulating that problem. We also chat about Mike's journey from Physics into Computer-Aided Biology, the...

Biology is a notoriously difficult research area, especially for replicating results. To paraphrase from a film that has inspired thousands of people to get into this field: life finds a way (of behaving unexpectedly). Because everything is so interconnected in biology, the one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) approach is usually taken to investigate biological systems. But what if there were a better way to gain insights into the holistic nature of biology and explore the interconnectedness of...

Research in life science is changing fast. The skillsets of scientists can barely keep up with the changing technology, demanding new and better knowledge of statistics, programming, experimental design as well as a plethora of new automation tools. So what will the lab and, more importantly, the researcher of the future look like? We asked Dr Melissa Sterry, who is a Design Scientist, Systems Theorist and Futurist, to help us imagine the future of research. #ComputerAidedBiology #Automation...

Cloud computing is helping revolutionize the personalized healthcare space with 21st century Computer-Aided Biology tools. Next generation sequencing technologies capable of generating more data than ever before, the storage, processing and analysis of that data is more than a single machine can handle. Enter the cloud. In this episode we talk with Jo Bhakdi, CEO of Quantgene, a company bringing the power of next generation deep sequencing to liquid biopsies to search for early signs of...

Vaccines, vaccines, vaccines! That is all we hear about these days. But how do they work in the body? And how is the world of vaccine development changing with new Computer-Aided Biology tools? We talk to Assistant Professor Bruno Correia at EPFL in Switzerland about the challenges facing vaccines and his research on protein engineering and design. 

Intellectual Property has a funny relationship with research and innovation. Sara Holland is a patent attorney at Potter Clarkson and expert in Synthetic Biology IP. She talks us through the steps in identifying if your research could be protected, what goes into making a patent, and dispels the rumors around publishing vs patenting - you can have it all!

Getting started in a career is hard and for the field of Computer-Aided Biology, it can be extra difficult. A multitude of skills are often sought after by employers, and everybody wants someone with experience. Where do you start in CAB? How does the hiring process work and what are employers really looking for? And what can I expect to earn? In this episode we speak to Tom Agg of Vivid Technology who explains it all!

We never thought it would happen but we have finally reached the end of 2020! What better way to honor the year of hindsight than by looking back and catching up with our guests from earlier in the series (and the pandemic) to see how 2020 played out for them and what their thoughts are on the future. Starring: Keltoum Boukra of LabGenius, Joby Jenkins of SPT Labtech, Marilene Pavan of LanzaTech, James Reading of University College London, Tess Korthout of The Hyve, and Davide Danovi of...

It's Industry vs Academia on the podcast this month! We’ve got Exscientia’s Dan Crowther and PhD Student Chloe Hsu discussing Machine Learning and Drug Discovery – don’t miss out on our exciting chat about what makes a good drug target and how do you tackle reproducibility issues in software. Chloe and Dan also chat about the differences between academia and industry, and how they need each other to work. Both our guests get to ask each other a burning question - great insight into how the...

Labs are trending towards more integration of machines and software - electronic lab notebooks, integrated devices and cloud-based systems makes up key elements of cutting edge research environments. However, scientists need to interact seamlessly with these devices and what better way to communicate our experimental intentions than by speaking. This month, we talk to LabVoice's Dan DeAlmeida to chat about development in the lab and his company's exciting technology that is revolutionizing...

Conferences, webinars, and online demos are the new normal but the buzz of seeing things live and up close as well as meeting new people has changed the way we learn, network and even simply pay attention to developments in our field.  This month, Fane and Dave talk about conferences they've participated in, before and during COVID, and the lessons we could learn from attending vritual events. 

In this special episode of CAB Talk, Fane and Dave discuss going back to work during the COVID-19 crisis with leaders in the field of Automation and Software. These tools can help researchers catch up on time lost to lockdown and do more effective science going forware. Listen in as we join Joby Jenkins of SPT Labtech (our guest on Episode 2 of CAB Talk!), Emilie Fritsch of Synthace, Daniel Thomas of Arctoris, and David Dambman of Biosero as we talk automation strategy, software integration...