By Gail Dutton
The laboratories of George Church, PhD, professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Robert Langer, professor at the David H. Koch Institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are legendary for their ability to create biopharmaceutical companies and entrepreneurs . The two men each co-founded nearly 50 companies and advised dozens.
Not surprisingly, they share a number of commonalities that catalyze success for virtually anyone in their labs who is willing to grasp them.
Langer’s team of more than 100 focuses on drug delivery mechanisms and tissue engineering. Church’s 86 team members focus on genetics and the development of related tools. Within these categories, the projects of the laboratory members are very varied. Church and Langer provide ideas and advice, but are generally not involved in individual experiments.
Make a positive difference
Langer says his goal was not to have a big lab but to bring innovations to patients. “When we do something, I want it to make a difference in the world,” says Langer. GENERATION. “I’m an engineer and engineers solve problems.”
Having recently celebrated his 75th birthdayth anniversary, companies and foundations are asking him, “by offering him significant funding to solve certain problems. I’m not going to say ‘no’ to people who want to solve problems that can actually improve people’s lives,” Langer says.
His penchant for starting a business began in 1985 when a friend suggested they start their own company. Building companies proved effective in bringing innovations to patients that big pharma didn’t want to pursue, so they kept going.
The mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 is a great example of this. It was developed by Moderna, co-founded by Langer. Before the COVID pandemic, he says, “no big pharma company would touch it, and the press and investors didn’t care.”
The derision didn’t bother him. “I’ve failed at different times and at different things, but I’m willing to take risks,” Langer says. “It’s better to try and fail than not try.” He argues that science and innovation are iterative and even lessons can be learned from failures.
Create opportunities
The Church is known for pursuing big, ambitious ideas and gradually making them feasible.
“George is very good at taking a basic idea and expanding on it,” says lab alumnus Daniel Oliver, CEO and co-founder of Rejuvenate Bio. “He has the vision to articulate seemingly impossible goals and encourage researchers to pursue them,” such as a gene therapy that Rejuvenate shows extends the lifespan of mice by 109%.
Other ideas might prove commercially impractical, Church admits, such as one to revive the woolly mammoth, but they could eventually have applications for improving the diversity of endangered species.
“My lab and I are drawn to original projects that are labeled risky, impossible, and/or unnecessary by established power brokers, but that we pivoters find empowering,” Church says today. now aged 69. In 1976, this meant pioneering research to sequence the human genome. In 2002, that meant taking some of the first steps toward developing universal viral resistance. “For each project, we saw roadmaps of small, publishable steps that significantly reduced risk for the entire project.”
Rather than abandon unsuccessful projects, Church’s lab simply files them away until the technology evolves. At worst, they become a source of inspiration.
Church therefore encourages lab members “to have two projects: one that is risky or inspiring and one that is a more mature version of previously risky research.”
While many are here to start businesses, others aim for careers in academia or industry.
Stan Wang, MD, PhD, CEO and founder of Thymmune, is a former postdoc in Church’s lab and one of many whom Church encouraged to become entrepreneurs. “Working with George, (I realized) I could directly apply scientific innovations to develop products for patients. His company didn’t come out of Church’s lab, but Wang met his previous co-founders through him.
“George has the unique ability to create opportunities… helping researchers find alternative avenues and ways to apply their work that are more impactful,” says Wang. “His lab, unlike many others, (attracts) people from all aspects of biomedical science.”
This exposes postdocs and doctoral students to a variety of adjacent specialties.
Wang, for example, joined Church’s lab to explore CRISPR applications for next-generation cell and gene therapies, but he has also worked with groups engaged in genome engineering, stem cell biology, therapy gene and the safeguarding of gene editing technologies.
Good things
Church and Langer attract people with the right things. They are extremely talented, collaborative and, for the most part, kind. In such an environment, success “becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy,” says Oliver.
Of course, not everyone in these labs achieves their goals. Some projects do not go well and some students do not reach their potential. Although most do well, Langer says, “You don’t always hit a home run.” I try to prepare them so that they can score at least a single or a double.
Church and Langer advocate collaboration and openness. As Church says: “My main hiring criteria are being nice and motivated (rather than being a genius or particularly ambitious). We embrace being outsiders in established fields or pioneers in hybrid fields.
Scientific “Disney World”
Michael Goldberg, CEO of Surge Therapeutics and Langer Lab alumnus, describes working in Langer’s lab as “academic Disney World… because if you love science, engineering and medicine, then this is the place happiest on Earth. Bob is one of the warmest humans you’ll ever meet, and he fosters a sense of community infused with kindness. Goldberg’s company hails from Harvard Medical School and recently received FDA clearance for its first IND.
As Goldberg adds: “Bob’s lab is unique in the extent of its complementarity. Bob has created a synergistic collaborative environment that allows researchers from all backgrounds to tackle problems that are intractable to each of them individually.
“The value of complementarity extends beyond the effectiveness of combining practical skill sets,” Goldberg continues. “Scientists, engineers, and doctors each have unique perspectives and strategies for solving problems. » Multidisciplinary environments can exploit this.
Disruption and collaboration
Both Langer and Church believe in disruptive innovation, but take different approaches.
Church’s lab excels in basic research. “George tries to understand what you’re passionate about and then empowers you to pursue it,” says Lexi Rovner, PhD, co-founder and CEO of 64x Bio, a 2018 spinout from Church Lab. “He gives you the freedom of creativity and thought, he does not micromanage. Amazing things come out of it.
True to Langer’s engineering background, his laboratory excels in applied research. “Because the nature of the work in Bob’s lab is applied in this way, the outcome of any given research project has the potential to become a technology platform or product,” says Goldberg. “That’s rare in academia.”
Turnaround time
“The spirit of George’s lab is to seek big scientific breakthroughs rather than incremental ones,” Rovner says. When a technology can advance faster outside the lab than in it and attract investors, it’s time to get started.
Langer, who often takes on the role of lifelong mentor, says he has five spin-out criteria:
- a platform technology that produces products rather than more information
- was published in a leading scientific journal
- has a substantial patent base
- proof of concept in animals
- students who want to start and work in a business.
Despite their different goals, the Langer and Church labs each succeed with bold ideas that can make substantial improvements in science or directly in people’s lives. They make the impossible suddenly seem possible.
