10 Questions w/ Carlos Bustamante — Prof @ Stanford / Co-Founder & CEO @ Galatea
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Carlos Bustamante
Carlos Bustamante, over the past 15 years, has led a multidisciplinary team working on problems at the interface of computational and biological sciences. Much of his research has focused on genomics technology and its application in medicine, agriculture, and evolutionary biology. His first academic appointment was at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. There, much of his work focused on population genetics and agricultural genomics motivated by a desire to improve the foods we eat and the lives of the animals upon which we depend. He moved to Stanford in 2010, to focus on enabling clinical and medical genomics on a global scale. He has been particularly focused on reducing health disparities in genomics by: (1) calling attention to the problem raised by >95% of participants in large-scale studies being of European descent; and (2) broadening representation of understudied groups, particularly U.S. minority populations and those from Latin America. Taken together, this work has empowered decision-makers to utilize genomics and data science in the service of improving human health and wellbeing. As Inaugural Chair of Stanford’s new Department of Biomedical Data Science, his future goal is to scale these operations from focusing on researchers to consumers and patients, where we ultimately want our work to have the greatest impact.
In 2017, Bustamante was appointed a Chan-Zuckerberg Investigator and, from 2011–2016, he was a MacArthur Fellow. He also received a Stanford Prize in Population Genetics and Society in 2016, a Sloan Research-Fellowship in Molecular Biology from 2007–2009, and a Marshall-Sherfield Fellowship from 2001–2002. Bustamante also has a strong interest in building new academic units, non-profits, and companies. He is Founding Director (with Marcus Feldman) of the Stanford Center for Computational, Evolutionary, and Human Genomics (CEHG), and former Founding Associate Director of the Cornell Center for Comparative and Population Genomics (3CPG).
He serves as an advisor to the US federal government, private companies, startups, and non-profits in the areas of computational genomics, population and medical genetics, and veterinary and plant genomics. He is currently Director of EdenRoc Sciences, Founder @ Arc Bio, & an SAB member of: Embark Veterinary, the Mars/IBM Food Safety Board, & Digitalis Ventures.
We sat down with Carlos Bustamante to ask his viewpoints on everything from entrepreneurial lab culture, what he looks for in new research topics, to advice on building companies…
1
What advice would you give to founders working with University Tech Transfer looking to spinout out a company?
“Go for the jugular. It takes a ton of energy, time, and concentration to build a company so it only makes sense to tackle big and meaty questions. So go solve aging. Go cure cancer. Shoot your shot. For me, it was solving how do we deliver precision health at scale for every body? Seems easy, but it sure isn’t.”
2
Can you describe your process for vetting new ideas to pursue in your lab?
“It’s part art, part science, and part alchemy. George Church once said to me: “Our lab has a trade secret for how we do science and it’s even unbeknownst to me.” I kind of agree with that. You build a great team and bounce good ideas all day, and interesting stuff happens. I once visited Apple and asked them about product development and they looked left and looked right and then whispered: “we just keep passing the product around to everyone we know until we’re kind of happy with it.” Not saying it’s true or not, but it made for a good story. For me, I’ve always liked having mathematicians, anthropologists, historians, clinicians, ethicists, computer scientists, artists, and quirky people hanging out and exchanging their views on how to solve common problems. So when people should ask, “What does Bustamante Lab work on?” I’d answer “sh*t Bustamante is interested in!”. And it was partly a cheeky blow off but also a true answer. I liked running a Warhol style garage of projects where we are at the intersection of disciplines, but driven by a passion for population genetics which is the king / queen of all sciences (as everyone knows :-).)”
3
How do you establish an effective entrepreneurial lab culture?
“Let people own what they make and make sure they know they need to clean up for everything they make. That is, you’re free to bring projects to the lab, but you can’t leave your pets laying around here and expect others to feed and take care of them. Lots of folks would want to be assigned a project in academia and I was never that type of advisor. My first meeting was always (especially with postdocs): “Look, you have 24–36 months. What do you want out of this? An academic job? That’s easy. We need to get you 5–6 papers (at least), with ideally 2–3 in a high profile journal. Want to start a company? We can do that too. Want to join a company? We can introduce you to a bunch. Don’t know? Cool. We can keep it flexible.” But what we weren’t going to do is have someone come in and take over Pete or Mary or Jaun’s cell lines and do the next experiment that I wanted done for a follow on R01 since that’s just not the way the lab was organized (for better or worse). We were a collective of colleagues operating a network of projects with lots of shared interest and common funding. It was how I was raised in Lewontin lab. A bit of a Pirate Lair for population Gene if’s but it kind of works.”
4
What advice would you give to professors trying to entrepreneurialize their labs?
“It’s all n of 1, so not sure I can really be of much help except to say start operating and consulting and get your hands dirty. It’s like wanting to “work in the lab” or “learn to code”. There is no one path, just some good practices like “keep a good notebook and have controls”, “learn to use version control”, and “become familiar with how companies make money” but really from there the rest is very open ended. In some sense, most basic labs today are already small businesses. You have to run a shop. You have budget. You have cash flows. You just usually have one or two customers (NIH/NSF) and one product (a grant). That doesn’t mean you don’t know how sell or make money or negotiate which is really what business is all about. It’s all negotiation and ultimately we spend our whole lives negotiating and bartering to make bigger and bigger projects happen (which in some sense is all you’re really doing as a company). I like to say to my partners, “a company is really a collection of contracts and then financials that document how that went”. That’s no different than what we already do (except we spend most of our time trying to make sure our uni’s don’t run afoul of their nonprofit status so they don’t need to pay taxes but that’s a separate story :-).)”
5
Outside of academia, what is one seemingly random activity that helps make you a better researcher?
“Operating and consulting for businesses!”
6
How do you identify the point at which a scientific discovery is ripe for commercialization?
“When there is a market for the technology which is hard to know to be honest. 90% of venture capital (which finances roughly 80% of early stage biotech) is after you’ve seen some evidence of product market fit because investors are risk averse. They want to chase what everyone else is chasing. So they’ll do the 3 or 4 or 5 companies that’s doing DNA whatermawizz after someone in San Fran or Boston has licensed the first patent or two. That’s not a bad strategy since the world news markets right? Google wasn’t the first search engine (remember Lycos, yahoo, dogpile?!)”
7
What advice can you give to academics raising their first round of venture funding?
“Due your due diligence. The VCs are doing their homework on you. You should do the same. Talk to other colleagues and see who they have worked with and get intros. It matters who introduces you to a firm (like who introduces you to a graduate student or postdoc mentor!). It’s a big deal since these folks will be with you for years and early VCs (may) take on board seats in the company and have control and a big say in the running of the business.”
8
What advice would you give to business professionals looking to get in contact/help commercialize startups spinning out of academia?
“Again. Do your homework. Talk to VCs or others that have worked with these academics. Some folks are very sophisticated and have a big operation and have lots of tech (some overlapping with other companies). Others are just starting and may not know what they are getting into. Some may not understand that the management of the company shouldn’t necessarily come from their lab (even or especially in the beginning). A seasoned biotech investor said to me that hiring a postdoc out of someone’s lab to be employee 1 is like giving them a machine gun and having them run up a hill; not sure I agree, but I get the analogy. Not all battles are the same and so you need good tactics and strategy to win. If the postdoc developed it and knows it better than anyone and has spent time in industry (and has founder experience), then they may be a fearful choice. If it’s a big technology (or a drug), and the person really wants to be an academic and the professor just doesn’t want to leave or devote time to it, that may be a red flag. So do your homework.”
9
What advice would you give to professors in balancing founding a company and continuing to pursue academic research?
“It’s hard to balance. At some point, you may need to reduce some of the work in the lab and take on less extraneous side projects to be honest. It’s a bit like being chair or head of a graduate program. These all require time, so research in the lab may become more focused to make time for other priorities. Companies are like babies (especially in the beginning). They need lots and lots of time. Then they become like kids and then like adolescents — bigger kids have bigger problems and you are still responsible but in different ways. For me, I’ve ended up taking leaves to devote time to company formation because it’s become that important to me.”
10
What has been the most helpful piece of advice you received throughout your career as an academic entrepreneur?
“Just do it. Life is too short. Jump in and found the company. I’m now even operating as a CEO which I never thought I’d do and really enjoying it. It’s different from running my pirate layer — but still lots of fun and different challenges every day. I do teach on the side because I love having students and we have interns, but I don’t currently have graduate students or postdocs so I miss that. But life is long so one never knows what can happen over a decade as these journeys take shape.”
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