Latest / The BioHub - by Avetix / Episode 102 - Miquel Vila-Perello - CEO of SpliceBio

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Episode 102 - Miquel Vila-Perello - CEO of SpliceBio · The BioHub - by Avetix

• 0:04
  So welcome back to another episode of the Bio Podcast.
• 0:07
  Today we're joined live at Jeffries by Mckelvey of Splice
• 0:11
  Bio, fresh off the back of getting Series B of the year on
• 0:16
  Monday at the LA Awards. Michael.
• 0:19
  Fantastic to have you. Welcome to London.
• 0:21
  Sorry about the weather. Nothing you could.
• 0:23
  Do about me, Yeah. How have you found things so
• 0:27
  far? Great.
• 0:28
  So thank you very much for having in the podcast a pleasure
• 0:30
  to be here and tell you about Splice bio and our worked on on
• 0:34
  Stargard disease. So yeah, yeah, I'm so far great
• 0:36
  conference. It was great to receive the
• 0:38
  award kind of the recognition earlier this week.
• 0:42
  So very happy to to be here. Yeah, nice.
• 0:44
  It's great to have you in the office for sure.
• 0:46
  Yeah, awesome. I guess we always get started
• 0:49
  off with just a little bit of background on who you are,
• 0:52
  right, and your story and where you've come from.
• 0:55
  It's a pretty interesting journey, right?
• 0:57
  So. Yeah, yeah.
• 0:58
  So I, yeah, I'm sort of a basic researcher by training.
• 1:03
  I'm chemist slash biochemist. And I always thought I would be,
• 1:08
  you know, my career would be in academia, basic science.
• 1:11
  But at some point I really got interested in in bringing the
• 1:13
  innovations who were developing and, you know, make them a
• 1:17
  reality for for patients. So I, but my kids in Barcelona
• 1:21
  then moved to the States. I lived over there for about 10
• 1:23
  years. I was working with Professor Tom
• 1:25
  Muir, who has been pioneering the field of protein splicing at
• 1:29
  Rockefeller and then Princeton. And that's where we developed
• 1:33
  our core technology. And together with Tom Muir, a
• 1:37
  former postdoc from his lab, Sylvia Frutos, and actually a
• 1:39
  friend, you know, a childhood friend from myself who was doing
• 1:43
  an MEA at Wharton. We founded the company and here
• 1:47
  we are. I didn't realize we're Sylvia at
• 1:49
  Princeton as well. Yes, well, she had been at
• 1:51
  Rockefeller. OK, She never moved to to
• 1:54
  Princeton. Yeah, but obviously she was very
• 1:56
  familiar with ideology and it made signs too nice to have her
• 2:00
  as part of the team. Awesome.
• 2:02
  And then you, you brought up back to to Barcelona and got it,
• 2:06
  got it going, Yeah. Yeah, indeed.
• 2:08
  Nice. Awesome.
• 2:09
  That's cool. And walk us through a little
• 2:11
  bit. So obviously ophthalmology gene
• 2:14
  therapy pretty Goodyear for for that generally speaking.
• 2:18
  And you obviously mentioned Stargard disease there.
• 2:22
  And yeah, what what's your opinion on the sort of current
• 2:25
  state of the, the space I guess in, in that disease?
• 2:28
  And what are you guys looking to solve with the with the platform
• 2:31
  you're developing? Yeah.
• 2:33
  So Stargard disease, as you know, it's a, it's a the most
• 2:36
  prevalent inherited retinal dystrophy.
• 2:38
  So it's a disease of the retina where patients basically
• 2:43
  progressively lose vision. It typically starts with the
• 2:46
  first second decade of life and then people progressively lose
• 2:50
  sight. There's currently none, no
• 2:53
  approved treatments, but it's a disease that affects a lot of
• 2:56
  people. So there's quite a bit of
• 2:57
  activity on the space. I think gene therapy approaches.
• 3:01
  The idea is that, you know, we'll be able to address the
• 3:04
  root cause of the disease. This is caused by mutations on
• 3:07
  these very large gene called ABCA 4 and, and basically our
• 3:11
  technology that you know, we can talk about it now or if you we
• 3:13
  can talk about it later, allows us to basically put that gene
• 3:18
  back into the retina of those patients so that we can address
• 3:21
  the the root cause of the of the disease.
• 3:23
  Yeah, understood. And that plays into the name of
• 3:26
  the company, right, Because it's quite a large mutation and that
• 3:28
  sure what your technology enable enables you to deliver that.
• 3:33
  Yeah, Station, whereas classic technology and gene therapy
• 3:37
  might. Yeah.
• 3:39
  Exactly. So our technology, it's based on
• 3:41
  these reaction called protein splicing.
• 3:43
  That's what we were studying at Rockefeller and Biansten.
• 3:46
  There was a reaction that, you know, back in the day, they
• 3:48
  didn't really make it into the textbook biology books.
• 3:51
  So many people know about RNA splicing, but DNA protein
• 3:55
  splicing, it's a little bit more sort of obscure and basically a
• 3:59
  reaction that from 2 protein fragments we can generate the
• 4:03
  full length protein from those bragments.
• 4:07
  And this is catalyzed by some smaller sort of molecular
• 4:10
  machines that we that are called indanes, men are act as sort of
• 4:14
  molecular Velcro. So in starter patients, they
• 4:17
  have mutations in the Super large protein.
• 4:19
  So typical gene therapy approaches that are based on the
• 4:22
  use of viral vectors to deliver those genes into the retina of
• 4:26
  patients don't work because the gene is too large, so you cannot
• 4:29
  fit it into those vectors. And so our protein splicing
• 4:33
  approach allows it. We've basically split this 2
• 4:36
  into two fragments. So we can call the liver 2 viral
• 4:39
  vectors. And then inside the cell,
• 4:41
  through protein splicing, we can form the full length of protein
• 4:44
  notes. So yes, the name of the of the
• 4:46
  company, I think it's a good reflection of what we actually
• 4:49
  do. We do splice, yeah.
• 4:51
  Yeah, 100%. There's always a story
• 4:53
  somewhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 4:55
  yeah. Absolutely.
• 4:56
  Awesome. Cool.
• 4:57
  Where were you guys up with things currently when it comes
• 5:01
  to the the clinic? Walk us through that journey a
• 5:03
  little bit. So as you know this year, but
• 5:05
  we, we raised our Series B financing, we raised you $135
• 5:10
  million, which you know, allows us to basically take our program
• 5:15
  into, into the clinic. So we dosed our first patient
• 5:19
  earlier this year. As far as we know, it was the
• 5:21
  first time someone had put in things into, into human beings.
• 5:26
  So I think it was a huge, big step for us and, and hopefully
• 5:30
  for, for the field. And you know, the trial has been
• 5:32
  progressing very smoothly throughout this year.
• 5:35
  And we're gearing up to continue with the trial and, and, and you
• 5:39
  know, start to treat more patients so that we can in the
• 5:42
  coming years generate safety and efficacy data to to allow us to
• 5:46
  demonstrate that that this therapy works in humans and can
• 5:50
  address the, the unmet need in the patients.
• 5:53
  So if you don't mind, just walk us through the, yeah, the
• 5:55
  timelines you mentioned obviously, but dosing the first
• 5:59
  patient in your phase one trial and when are you expecting to
• 6:03
  know more about the outcome of of Phase 1?
• 6:06
  Is that next? Year or so we the plan is that
• 6:09
  we the financing of a serious Bay will reach a clinical proof
• 6:12
  of concept and we're doing well to to achieve that.
• 6:17
  Yeah, the airlines done. Yeah, sure.
• 6:20
  And that's, yeah, pretty key, right.
• 6:22
  You've got to be capital efficient to get to your next
• 6:25
  inflection point, get to the next day, which allows you to,
• 6:28
  yeah, raise more capital and to get key cycle.
• 6:31
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.
• 6:32
  To get to the next. Stage, Yeah, no, it's exciting
• 6:34
  though, for sure. Cool.
• 6:36
  I mean, look, we touched on as well during our our prep for
• 6:39
  this that you know how key Barcelona has been for the
• 6:43
  company, obviously, yeah. In my hometown.
• 6:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and Sylvie's as well,
• 6:49
  right. Yes.
• 6:50
  So yeah, it's definitely not a a basil or.
• 6:56
  Yeah, it's not Boston. Yeah.
• 6:58
  A Boston yeah exactly I was just thinking European but yeah it's
• 7:02
  it's definitely growing right there's has to be a lot of
• 7:05
  success stories coming out of it I know it's an obvious reason
• 7:09
  why you start the company sure right yourselves until this bus
• 7:13
  was there other factors involved in that and.
• 7:16
  Yeah. So I think, you know, both
• 7:18
  Barcelona and Catalonia and more generally are doing things well
• 7:21
  in India's base to try to, you know, grow this biotech sector
• 7:27
  as a, as a, as a, as a sector of the economy that the, you know,
• 7:31
  the region wants to strengthen. For me, as you said, they were
• 7:34
  obviously personal reasons of wanting to go back in a way it
• 7:37
  had received, you know, throughout my academic career,
• 7:41
  numerous fellowships from, from public funding from the
• 7:44
  government, etcetera. So to me, when we decided to
• 7:46
  start the company, there was also a little bit of a yeah,
• 7:50
  idea of being able to contribute or sort of give back to a sector
• 7:54
  that was starting at that point. I think Barshana and Catalonia
• 7:58
  are doing things well. It's a, it's a very good place
• 8:01
  for basic research. So there are great research
• 8:04
  institutions where research of excellence is being conducted.
• 8:08
  I think there's also very good hospitals for clinical research.
• 8:11
  I think sometimes, you know, we decided that in Spain, it's that
• 8:14
  you're the country where the most clinical trials are run in
• 8:17
  Europe. And Barcelona is a city within
• 8:19
  Spain where the most clinical trials are are run.
• 8:21
  So there's a lot of experience in running clinical trials.
• 8:25
  And then on the private end, I think there's a quite active VC
• 8:29
  community. So many of the VC funds in Spain
• 8:33
  or South of Europe are actually based in Barcelona.
• 8:36
  And culturally, I think there's this stereotype, which I think
• 8:39
  it's, it's, it's partially true as all stereotypes that Catalans
• 8:44
  have these strong spirit of entrepreneurship.
• 8:46
  So I think that gives also the, the spark for people to want to
• 8:50
  start new ventures. And I think that's creating a
• 8:52
  little bit of like broth from good things can happen.
• 8:57
  And I think that this the, the, the Bartian habits definitely
• 9:00
  growing and we are seeing more and more.
• 9:02
  Hopefully we'll continue to see more.
• 9:05
  We just need to complete the cycle, right?
• 9:06
  We're seeing good financings, we're seeing deals.
• 9:09
  We need to start more to see more and more good exits as
• 9:12
  well, as well as drugs getting into the market, right?
• 9:15
  That's the final goal for for all of our companies, yeah.
• 9:19
  I know you touched on it, but the the VCs in the area are
• 9:22
  quite focused on those early stage investments.
• 9:26
  Yeah. So many of them our strong
• 9:29
  company creation and early stage investments, but they also do
• 9:32
  obviously investments in late stage.
• 9:34
  And I think many of them. And the first one that started
• 9:37
  to do that was kind of one of the earliest funds was Issios
• 9:41
  Capital who did our seat financing.
• 9:44
  And they were from the early days very active in also
• 9:47
  investing outside their turf, right, See investing in other
• 9:51
  European and even American companies.
• 9:53
  And I think that was a necessary step to, to kind of showcase
• 9:58
  what's being done locally, which then enable, you know,
• 10:02
  international investors to eventually come back and invest
• 10:05
  also in personal companies. I, I don't like to put ourselves
• 10:08
  as an example of anything, but it did happen in our case right
• 10:12
  where we our Series A was called by ECS, but UCB Ventures and we
• 10:17
  were able to bring many other investors including Gilden and
• 10:21
  Novartis went to fund, but also NEAUS investor that had not
• 10:25
  previously invested in in Spain. Yeah, no, for sure.
• 10:28
  I think he did a podcast with Geordie right around assignment
• 10:31
  to CSPS. Yeah, yeah, that one is in in in
• 10:35
  Spanish. So I don't.
• 10:36
  Yeah, how how I think, Yeah. And the Spanish, that's three
• 10:39
  sub at idols. Yeah, I'd have to get an AI
• 10:41
  translator or not for myself, but no, Yeah, How, how did you
• 10:46
  find raising the series being this market?
• 10:48
  Because earlier in the year, things were not down in the
• 10:51
  doldrums, but they were difficult, right.
• 10:52
  I think we've seen a little bit more positive traction in the
• 10:55
  past few months. But yeah, when was?
• 10:58
  It that you announced a series. Based some, so we announced in
• 11:00
  the summer, in the early summer and it obviously, yeah, it it
• 11:06
  was tough to raise it because obviously you're announcing the
• 11:08
  summer that means you've been working on it for a while.
• 11:11
  Yeah, actually some of we start we knew it would it was a tough
• 11:16
  time to be fundraising. So we actually started very
• 11:19
  early on to start having those informal contacts with investors
• 11:23
  even before you are formally fundraising.
• 11:25
  I think we had one of those initial meetings with actually
• 11:28
  our who eventually led the round EQT.
• 11:31
  We had one of those first meetings at Jeffrey's 2023.
• 11:39
  It was in a coffee shop here next to the Waldorf and we met
• 11:43
  with Daniela, who totally became because of the lead from the EQT
• 11:46
  side at that time. Just if you know, getting to
• 11:50
  know each other, but that just then you that relationship grows
• 11:54
  and the process moves forward and then eventually they, they
• 11:57
  become the the lead investors. But yes, it's, I think it's
• 12:01
  still taking longer than obviously in the 2021 time
• 12:05
  frame, but I think it is getting a little better and we're seeing
• 12:08
  some more financings and that helps, you know, everyone to
• 12:14
  become sort of more active. Yeah, you know.
• 12:16
  For sure. I think you hit the nail on the
• 12:18
  head. It's time, all right?
• 12:20
  And yes, yes, yeah, CEOs, most of the zeros in our network are
• 12:24
  always fundraising. That might just not be
• 12:27
  officially fundraising. They might not be in the process
• 12:29
  of actively raising but those conversation.
• 12:33
  Need to happen and obviously, and I think I've mentioned this
• 12:37
  in in other interviews or party has the importance of trust and
• 12:41
  it's not that secret sauce, but you know trust takes time for
• 12:45
  Shan and and they need to see you also executing and they
• 12:49
  typically they'll never have enough with the data package
• 12:53
  that you presented right. There's always something else.
• 12:56
  So you did and that's the same with public financings, right?
• 12:58
  You need to have like something else coming up that they can
• 13:02
  that can become the catalyst for, for the financing.
• 13:05
  Yeah. And in our case, it was the Ind
• 13:08
  filing. Yeah, for sure.
• 13:09
  How have you found the whole yeah process of, of, of
• 13:14
  fundraising, but also being ACEO from a scientific background?
• 13:19
  Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's a
• 13:21
  different world, right from the from the research side of
• 13:24
  things. So yeah, how's that
• 13:26
  transitioning? For you now I've been it for a
• 13:28
  while. So I I managed to partially
• 13:32
  forget or, or or put on my back the the the in imposter syndrome
• 13:37
  is that I had in the early days and sometimes it's still like
• 13:41
  creeps out saying I think. I think as a scientist, you are
• 13:45
  trained to constantly having to learn new things.
• 13:48
  And that's definitely that I can relate as a, as a CEO as well,
• 13:51
  right? At least of a small growing
• 13:53
  company, you're constantly faced with new challenges that you've
• 13:55
  never faced before. So you really need to have the
• 13:58
  ability to, to learn and, and be willing to, to learn and be
• 14:02
  willing to admit that you don't know about that stuff and you
• 14:05
  need people that will help you learn about it.
• 14:07
  So I think that's something that I can relate with the two paths,
• 14:12
  maybe something that it's challenging as a as a CEO and
• 14:15
  maybe as a scientist or this. I was trained within my project
• 14:19
  to basically take control of everything, be the master of
• 14:23
  everything as ACEO. That's not possible.
• 14:27
  But at the beginning there is the tendency to do that.
• 14:30
  So there's the risk of micromanaging the team.
• 14:33
  So that's something that you need to learn how to delegate
• 14:35
  effectively in a way that things can happen.
• 14:38
  And then you also feel comfortable with that
• 14:40
  delegation. So that I think now I mean a
• 14:43
  good place, but that's been a learning curve.
• 14:45
  Yeah, is that the advice you pass on to someone in a similar
• 14:49
  position or looking? Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely
• 14:53
  find a way that you can delegate efficiently and then obviously
• 14:57
  try to surround yourself with the best people that you can,
• 15:01
  right. There's this half reason that I
• 15:03
  don't know, we said it about, you know, if you are the
• 15:06
  smartest person in the room, you've brought, particularly as
• 15:09
  a CEOI think you've done something wrong.
• 15:12
  I think you should have strive to have people way smarter than
• 15:15
  yourself helping the company move forward because I mean,
• 15:19
  we're definitely just yeah, yeah, there's enough in our
• 15:21
  shoulders. So you really need to have a
• 15:23
  good team. And I think we've been very
• 15:25
  fortunate. No, definitely I supplies to.
• 15:27
  Be able to build. That thing, yeah, delegating
• 15:31
  absolutely key, But you can't delegate to a poor team.
• 15:34
  You have to have excellent people, yes, around you, right
• 15:37
  as the adage of of hiring smarter PDF than yourself is.
• 15:41
  Yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely true.
• 15:44
  And sometimes it's not intuitive, right?
• 15:46
  Because I think particularly when you're technical experts,
• 15:48
  you're used to it's comfortable, comfortable to lead from the
• 15:53
  excellence that you have in a specific field.
• 15:56
  Yeah, but that's not the only way to lead, right?
• 15:59
  And you need to be comfortable leading people who as who said,
• 16:02
  right, They are smarter and they know way more than you about
• 16:05
  certain things. But otherwise it's impossible.
• 16:07
  Yeah, no, for sure. I mean just looking super long
• 16:10
  term and and not all in you to anything.
• 16:12
  And you know, feel free to say what you you can get and will.
• 16:16
  But like long term, what's the what's the vision for where,
• 16:20
  where you're taking things like roughly in the space?
• 16:24
  Are you looking at just the Sjogren's?
• 16:26
  Are you looking at other indications?
• 16:28
  What's? What's the thinking?
• 16:29
  No. So I think obviously our central
• 16:32
  focus, it's developing the the treatment for Stargart.
• 16:35
  There's a clear unmet need. There's patients that are sort
• 16:38
  of waiting for, for these therapies.
• 16:41
  We as a company, we have this technology that really allows us
• 16:44
  to develop treatments for many diseases.
• 16:48
  There's many diseases that have this limitation that you cannot
• 16:51
  put them in a small viral vector.
• 16:53
  So there's this vision of, you know, really through our
• 16:56
  technology unlocking the potential of gene therapy in all
• 16:59
  those diseases. We internally we're focusing on
• 17:03
  tissues where we can do localized administration and
• 17:06
  that's definitely the eye and it makes a lot of sense for the
• 17:09
  technology. And I think we see also it makes
• 17:11
  a lot of sense from the sector perspective.
• 17:13
  We see a lot of fundraisings in that space.
• 17:16
  We see a positions. So I think the field it's honing
• 17:20
  on that for for a reason and for geotherapy and for us.
• 17:25
  So that's an area of interest beyond ophthalmology.
• 17:28
  I think the CNS or the inner ear, other organs were
• 17:33
  obviously, you know gene therapy.
• 17:35
  I think it's a, it's a modality that makes sense and where our
• 17:39
  technology can again, as we said, unlock many targets that
• 17:43
  are not possible, we ought our and approaches.
• 17:46
  Why do you think? I mean, I guess there's a few
• 17:48
  different reasons behind why ophthalmology has been a little
• 17:51
  bit of a safe haven for GFA because yeah, on a wider basis
• 17:56
  like that there's even first half scientists in Chesters this
• 17:59
  year, right. But ophthalmology focused
• 18:01
  companies seem to be pulling through.
• 18:03
  Yeah. Do you think that's purely
• 18:04
  because it's, Yeah, localized oil and safety issues, less, not
• 18:09
  non existent, but yeah, less, yeah, that's pressing or?
• 18:12
  Yes. So I think there's a couple of
• 18:14
  the key challenges EG therapy are the safety aspects and the
• 18:19
  manufacturing. I think in ophthalmology you
• 18:25
  basically just by going in that organ we take care of those two
• 18:28
  problems off the bat, right. So obviously doses are within
• 18:32
  thousands of times lower than what you need for systemic.
• 18:35
  So in terms of the manufacturing, it makes the
• 18:38
  whole thing much easier. It also takes care of the
• 18:41
  economics of cost of goods etcetera.
• 18:43
  So which it's an issue for other for systemic gene therapies in
• 18:47
  ophthalmology it's a non issue. And then as as you mentioned
• 18:51
  raised there's the also these immune privileged or partially
• 18:55
  immune privileged nature of the eye, which also makes the the
• 18:59
  safety profile much more. Yeah, there is benefit might get
• 19:03
  a favorite. Yeah, got you.
• 19:05
  So, and I think, you know, we've seen in the, in the past years,
• 19:11
  maybe in the 2020-2021, there was this huge expectation that
• 19:15
  gene therapy and maybe gene editing would be the cure for
• 19:18
  all diseases. And that's something that then
• 19:22
  maybe it was faced with a reality and there was like a
• 19:24
  really negative reaction to, to the space, which was probably
• 19:28
  maybe also an overreaction. And I think now we're getting
• 19:32
  two more mature, stable positions where gene therapy
• 19:36
  will be suitable for some therapeutic areas or for some
• 19:39
  indications. The fact that it doesn't need to
• 19:43
  work for everything doesn't mean there's no value.
• 19:45
  Yeah, yeah. In the.
• 19:46
  Modality, that's fine. I think as humans we have a
• 19:49
  tendency to overreactive things. And yeah, like some bees,
• 19:53
  amazing one minute and awful the next.
• 19:56
  Like modern society particularly has that problem.
• 19:59
  I mean moving forward for gene therapy.
• 20:03
  Generally upside of the Where do you see the field going in the
• 20:07
  next few years? Yeah.
• 20:08
  So I think the key it's that no, I think it will find after this
• 20:13
  happens at some downs, I think it will find its place amongst
• 20:17
  the arsenal of modalities that we have to treat diseases.
• 20:21
  And I think we see a more focused approach to gene therapy
• 20:25
  where it will not be this huge promise of it working for
• 20:28
  everything. It will be a more focused effort
• 20:33
  in the areas where gene therapy makes the most sense at the
• 20:36
  current time, right, Because there might be developments in
• 20:38
  the future where then it can be expanded in other areas.
• 20:43
  And, and I think one example, again, it's our technology,
• 20:45
  right? For a few years ago, you could
• 20:48
  not even consider to go after these larger genes because there
• 20:51
  was no way to deliver them. And I think our technology now
• 20:54
  opens the door to go after those genes.
• 20:56
  But I think overall there will be room for gene therapy again
• 21:00
  for, you know, not again, but in the sense that, you know, again,
• 21:03
  as I was saying, yeah, there will be room for, for, for gene
• 21:06
  therapy as a modality. But we will need to really focus
• 21:10
  on where it makes sense, not just purely because it's a cool
• 21:13
  technology. We need to use it for for
• 21:15
  everything. Yeah, I get you and I like that
• 21:18
  it has to fit into the arsenal of what else is out there,
• 21:21
  right. It's not a one stop cures all.
• 21:24
  Yeah, exactly, exactly. And and we see that, right.
• 21:28
  Obviously when you talk at the end of the day, the patients
• 21:31
  don't care about which technology you're using to treat
• 21:35
  the disease. And but biotech and particularly
• 21:39
  I think gene therapy companies because they are so tech heavy
• 21:42
  and sometimes there's been this trend to see everything through
• 21:46
  the lens of the technology. Yeah.
• 21:47
  And at the end of the day, what matters is you know, which
• 21:50
  disease you're trying to cure. Is your approach the suitable
• 21:53
  for that disease? Yeah, not if it's gene therapy,
• 21:56
  gene editing, a small molecule or an antibody.
• 21:59
  Yeah, I think that's an important thing for everyone to
• 22:01
  remember about. Yes.
• 22:02
  And it really doesn't get all they just want to be fixed as
• 22:06
  entries survey. Yeah, because notes finish on
• 22:09
  for sure. No.
• 22:10
  Thanks for coming on, Michael. Really appreciate it.
• 22:12
  We'll finish with the standard biohop question, which we
• 22:15
  thought it's about beforehand. The.
• 22:17
  I think I may know the answer, but yeah, that's if he could
• 22:20
  have dinner with one scientist, past or present, or an
• 22:23
  entrepreneur if you want. Who would it be and why?
• 22:28
  OK, Yeah, maybe. Yeah.
• 22:31
  I mean, the scientists have come to mind.
• 22:32
  I mean, he's not maybe not very well known to the general
• 22:36
  audience, but there was a Nobel laureate called Bruce
• 22:38
  Merrifield. He was the inventor of peptide
• 22:41
  synthesis. So that's my background.
• 22:43
  My background comes on how to synthesize peptides.
• 22:46
  He developed a method that really, it's then the method
• 22:49
  that has been used, also adapted to synthesize oligonucleotides
• 22:52
  that it has really made possible, the genomics and
• 22:55
  proteomics revolution. And yeah, it'd be cool to talk
• 22:59
  to him to see if, you know, he envisioned the impact he would
• 23:02
  have. Yeah.
• 23:04
  Based on that. So I think, yeah, I think it
• 23:06
  would be good to have so dinner with him.
• 23:08
  He's my sort of academic grandfather, so there's that
• 23:12
  relation, but I never had the chance to to have the dinner
• 23:15
  with him. It's.
• 23:16
  Nice, nice, good answer. Sure.
• 23:18
  Cool, Awesome. Well, great.
• 23:19
  Great to see you. Likewise, thank you for having
• 23:22
  me.