In this series “Meet the people behind Biotech Booster” we introduce you to the passionate people who are involved in our mission.
First up are our Thematic Cluster managers. What is a Thematic Cluster, you ask? Biotech Booster operates on a national level through five distinct Thematic Clusters (TC’s) that each represent specific biotech focus areas. They are TC 1: Industrial Biotechnology & Production, TC 2: AgroFood biotechnology, and TC 3, 4 and 5: Human health, diagnostics, therapeutics. Within these clusters – or communities – we bring together knowledge institutes, companies and other organizations from all over the country to closely collaborate and learn from each other in a unique way. With one collective purpose in mind: to accelerate the commercialization of biotech findings.
What’s your name?
Jessie van Buggenum
What is your role within Biotech Booster?
I am a Thematic Cluster Manager at Biotech Booster, with the theme “Advanced Therapeutic Medical Products (ATMPs) and Biopharmaceuticals”.
Can you describe your role in a nutshell?
I oversee a team of 8 business developers nationwide from knowledge institutes across the country and manage the Thematic Cluster 3 (TC3) office. The TC3 team supports and stimulates findings and business ideas that lead to ventures that market innovative therapies for various diseases and make them available to patients.
Who’s in your team?
Sanja Stefanovic, NKI
Jasper Dijkstra, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen
Niels Jansen, Universiteit Twente
Lorenzo Bombardelli, Leiden University
Rick Meurders, Radboud University Medical Center
Valeria Saar-Kovrov, TU Eindhoven
Annemieke van der Goot, Saxion University of Applied Sciences
Lieve van Veggel, Brightlands Maastricht Health Campus BV
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What motivated you to join Biotech Booster’s mission?
My biggest motivation to join Biotech Booster is to work with creative and motivated people who want to see their innovations brought to use. I gain energy from building bridges between people and finding creative (scientific and relational) solutions to challenges that arise with any new endeavour. Biotech Booster is about advancing the Dutch innovation infrastructure and connecting networks in business development and science, enabling new inventions to be brought closer to actual use in society.
What is, in your opinion, an obstacle in bringing biotechnology ideas and innovations to the market?
There are two significant obstacles to bringing innovations to the market: the need for more resources in terms of money and expertise/people. Biotech Booster works on both challenges as it brings together the expertise and people within the Dutch innovation ecosystem: people with a strong entrepreneurial mindset and expertise in business development and IP, for example. Second, it provides resources in terms of money through subsidies that can be requested to turn innovations into promising business cases.
You joined the team a few months ago. What are your ambitions and what do you hope to achieve in the coming years?
As a manager, I aim to foster collaboration, creativity and open working culture within the team. These values, I believe, form the basis to grow a strong network that includes expertise in biotechnological innovation, entrepreneurship, business development, IP, and legislation. We aim to create a national knowledge base and stimulate public-private partnerships in various subthemes of TC3, including cell-, gene, antibody-based therapies, biological-derived therapeutics and drug delivery methods.
If you had a few million to invest in biotech, what type of company would you start yourself or in which company would you invest and why?
One of the big challenges in our society is pollution of our natural environment and drinking water, including hormones and drugs. It’s hard to circumvent drugs and medicine end up in our ecosystem, so we must think about removal strategies, ideally already at an early stage of drug development.
I would invest in a company with a strong team that aims to develop sustainable drugs, for example, by including green, computational chemistry, and microbiology expertise. This expertise would allow the company to design and produce potent drugs that serve their intended medical purpose and that can be cleaned up from the environment in the future. This makes it an investment opportunity to contribute to a sustainable future.
If you could have dinner with any scientist, living or dead, who would it be and what would you ask them?
I would like to have dinner with a small panel of scientists with seemingly completely different views on what life is. I would ask, with the universal knowledge we have gained now on living matter and life on our planet (resulting in research fields of genetics, molecular biology, biochemistry, ecology and more), what is their view on: “What is the key question we should ask ourselves and if and how does biotechnology play a role in this century’s challenges?”
The panel I would like to talk to is composed of scientists that wrote the following books:
- Erwin Schrodinger (Physicist) wrote the book “What is Life? With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches”, with a (first) speculation on a substance called “aperiodic crystal” that should exist to enable living matter, even before the discovery of the existence and what is the role of DNA.
- Robin W. Kimmerer (Plant Ecologist) wrote many books, including “Braiding Sweetgrass”, a word symphony of insights on nature, plants, and our relationship with our earth and ourselves.
- Valentino Braitenberg (Neuroscientist) wrote “Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology”, a book with thought experiments on the mind, behaviour, consciousness and evolution.
Curious about the rest of the people behind Biotech Booster? Keep an eye out on our LinkedIn page to stay up-to-date!