In 1958, an engineer at Texas Instruments created the 1st microchip That invention became the basis for modern technology and the explosion of new businesses. 2012, scientists discovered that CRISPR Cas9 proteins could be used for detecting and editing genomes. It is considered one of the most significant discoveries in the history of biology, with the invention of CRISPR we suddenly have the tools to find and manipulate biology in a simple to use inexpensive way.
The next 40 years, like the last 60 years of progress with the microchip, we'll see rapid biological innovation. It will touch everything, food, diagnostics, Morgan sciences, therapeutics, energy, Pete, how we landscape our yards, everything. Biology is the new frontier. At NFX, we've been investing in this space.
And in this episode of the NFX podcast, We talked to Trevor Martin, the CEO and co founder of Maine With Biosciences, an NFX company that is now the largest repository of CRISPR Pete in the world. They are developing the Google of Biology where they will help anyone find what they are looking for in the genome.
They are also working on a rapid COVID-nineteen test that uses CRISPR technology Today, we will talk about the cutting edge of what's happening and why the future will be defined by biology. Let's jump in. So this is James Currier with NSFAX. And today, we've got Trevor Martin, the CEO of mammoth Biosciences, Trevor. Great to have you on here, man. Yeah. Thanks for, having me on. You bet.
So you're the co founder and the CEO of mammoth Biosciences, and your co founders are Janice Chen and Lucas Harrington and Jennifer Doudna, the inventor of CRISPR, along with her staff there over at her lab at Berkeley. And your startup uses CRISPR Pete editing technology for therapeutics and for diagnostics. Mhmm. And since February, you've been working to create a rapid COVID test, and we'll get into that. This COVID test is currently pending FDA emergency approval.
And Mammoth recently announced a partnership on the test with the pharmaceutical giant, GlaxoSmithKline, right? This is a company that that once it works and once it can be manufactured at scale, these are the guys to be able to do it. And look, I met you through Omni Drori of TechBio, back in 2007. And I got a chance to fund your Pete seed round in June of 2017 weeks before you graduated, with your PhD in genetics at Sanford.
Then we led the seed round that fall, and then we had artifacts that participate in all the rounds subsequently. And at the time in June, when we funded you, it was your first job out of academia. And prior to Stanford, you went to Princeton, my alma mater, which is great to see. And you grew up in rural Morgan, and you're now 31. But I got it all right. Yeah. That's my resume for sure. Thanks for taking a break from what you've been working on to talk with us.
We know you're busy, and, I think it's, not an overstatement to say what you guys are working on is actually very Morgan. So, thank you for the time. So let's, let's give some basic context about the basics of Mammoth. What is CRISPR and Civil terms and how does it work? For those that have heard about CRISPR, you they've probably heard about it in the context of, like you mentioned, gene editing.
There's been a lot of kind of newspaper articles around engineering, the human race, editing humanity. And these aren't incorrect, kind of descriptions of CRISPR. It is an amazing gene editing tool, and that's kind of where it's really come onto the stage originally. But I think at Mammoth, what we see is that that explanation is a bit incomplete.
So we see really crisper more broadly as a way of kind of having a search engine for biology in a way of programmatically interacting with what messy previously thought to be in many ways in the James way that we can program a computer. And once you start thinking about crisper in that way, it really kind of opens up all the possibilities. So for example, using as a diagnostic tool, having that go into some sort of very complex sample.
And if and only if it successfully finds a certain target that you've programmed into it, then it will read that out. You know, there's there's Cas 9, there's Cas 12, 13, 14. You guys are really focused on 12, 13, 14. And these are basically types of proteins that allow allow you to go in and sense what's in there to read out what DNA or RNA is existing in the cells and then report back or go in and snip and cut it and and make edits to it. Is that right?
Yeah. So more generally, we're really kind of focused on the next generation of CRISPR. So whether that's pertains in the 12, 13, or the brand new, 14 family, that we've developed and characterized, or if that's something we haven't even, discovered yet or there that doesn't fit into any given classification to some. And the kind of most famous CRISPR protein out there is Cas9, and that's the one that most people have heard of.
And I think what's interesting is that even from the genesis of Mamm We couldn't have used Cas9 to build the types of diagnostic systems that we're building because it doesn't have the special properties that we use. But part of our thesis is that new proteins in this kind of crisper universe enable new functionalities. So it's not just having something new for the sake of it being new.
It's really something new allows you to unlock something that wasn't possible before, like, these kind of CRISPR based diagnostic system. In a way, it's almost like, the discovery of a microchip where you have completely new capabilities that we didn't have before. How is it different from the biology that came before?
I mean, maybe maybe try to play out some of that that analogy with you know, what life was like before we had a microchip and and then afterwards and and what came, of course, as a result of having a microchip, the internet, and cell phones, and everything. Yeah. So it's interesting because actually, even before Cas9, there's been ways of interacting with DNA and RNA to cut it and edit it.
For example, there's things like, talents, but one of the major breakthroughs, even with Cas9, which is an amazing tool itself, was the kind of programmability of that before it was something that took a lot of time, a lot of effort, you know, maybe an entire PhD to edit a single locust and a genome, for example.
And when Cas9 came along, one of the huge transformations there, and you often hear about this in terms of, kind of talking about the democratization of access to these types of tools is they don't need to have a lab and like a core facility and all these different people that are super, well trained to create like, a talent system for this one locust that it's gonna be kind of a whole ordeal to get working.
Instead, you can really quickly and rapidly and iteratively, most important go after are, editing even many places in the genome through things like genomic screens because of a key part of this kind of crisper technology present in the first Cas9 version as well, which is the programmability. And that programmability comes from the fact that the CRISPR CAS system is a protein fundamentally. So it's something you could hold in your hand, or you could hold a million of them in your hands.
And the way you program it is by giving a thing called a guide Morgan we're very, very good at synthesizing and creating these guide RNAs. And these guide RNAs are you can kind of think of them literally as, letters, like, ATCG. And you can think of the CRISPR for TIN is kind of a Google where you type in a search string, and that search string is your guide RNA, and then it'll go find Once it finds it, you can do many things so that you can cut it so you edit.
You can report out that it found it. You can chew through it, destroy it. You can turn something on, turn something off, etcetera, So that was kind of the first big breakthrough. What we're excited about at mammoth is then taking that to the next level. So even though Cas9 is an amazing tool, there's still many limitations. One example of limitation would be that you can't actually send it anywhere. There's actually kind of limitations on where it go.
So it can only go to these zip codes, but not these other zip codes.
And with some of the proteins we've discovered, for example, from the Casa Fourteen family that we've now developed into these really awesome tools, you can actually target anywhere in the genome for diagnostics, which is a huge, kind of sea change in what's possible, especially if you're looking after a specific genomic targets, you can't just rely on happening to have, the right sequence in the area that allows you to target it.
So to give us all a sense of how quickly this is happening, Cass 9 was was was invented when? Like anything in, science. Obviously, it's a long journey, but really came on the scene in 2012. 2012. And then And then and then Cas 13 was 2017, Cas 14 was 2018. I mean, it's all happening right now. Right? It's It's kind of interesting that that, you know, these technological innovations have taken place in biology that now give us these new tools, and they simply didn't exist 3, 4 years ago.
Yeah. And I think it's definitely accelerating as well. Like, the whole field of synthetic biology, generally, in this idea of interacting with biology in this kind of programmatic way is definitely, I think, capturing the imagination and also taking off. And there's this kind of common phrase obviously in the valley around kind of software eating the world.
And I think definitely the message, for the next decade, in my opinion, is that that was just kind of the appetizer and that biology is really kind of the main course here in of what can fundamentally transform the way we interact with the world. And, of course, there'll be many awesome products built in that space. Right. And it's probably not just in this next decade, but it's probably 30, 40 years. Well, yeah, beginning in the next 10 years, and we'll see where it goes from there.
Because these are really the first tools of of the microchip, if you will, for for what's to come next. And the programmability and the iteration that you can do with this CRISPR tool is is what's new, and it's also what we were able to do in software, you know, starting in the seventies eighties once the substrate of the computational system was strong enough, then we could, start to iterate.
And then that's really where we saw a lot of explosive opportunity, and that's what we're getting with Chris. Pete amazing. So you're doing both therapeutics and diagnostics using CRISPR at Mammoth. And then what's the business model? Just give people a sense. How does How do you guys make money?
Yeah. So I think fundamentally, we view, kind of CRISPR as this platform for searching through biology, finding something, and then doing, what you want to do with that kind of sequence once you find it. So once you start thinking about crispering that framework, it becomes, like, very we'll actually to think about, but, okay, we find something we wanna report out that we found it.
We find something we wanna, edit it in many different ways or even things we, you know, can do beyond that turning something on, turning it off, etcetera. And in terms of, the business model there, I think it's gonna, of course, be different depending on the exact application you're going after. So diagnostics 6, for example, has a very different business models generally than, kind of therapeutics and editing.
But fundamentally at MAMA, one of the ways that we can scale the company is especially early on working with really trusted partners, very deeply, and in close collaboration to really kind of enter these markets in the strongest way possible. So partners like? Yeah. So I think the recent, news around GSK is a good example of this.
Where, you know, we're a young startup with a really exciting technology and a ton of expertise around how to actually build that to a product that can Beller, millions are actually, in this case, truly billions of people. And we have a ton of expertise around how to really create that product and make it the best thing it can be.
And then we can partner with a company like, GSK, for example, that has incredible expertise in kind of global distribution, manufacturing things that scale bringing things through many different regulatory processes. And it's kind of one of these things where it's the best of both worlds in terms of them making a huge bet on innovation and the space. And making a huge bet on a partner that believes in, innovation and bringing exciting new technologies to the market.
So that's an example where I think you can have the best of both worlds in some sense. And so GSK is almost like building an app on top of a platform. So if you said you had Microsoft OS and you built word perfect on it, you built Excel on it. You Beller you built various apps on top of the Microsoft OS. You could be saying the same thing for me with Biosciences where GSK is gonna help you build the COVID diagnostic you're gonna build it, and then they're gonna distribute it.
But that would be an app that would then live on top of the platform of Mammoth Bioscience. And And then those people make money, and then they pay you a portion of the money that they make because they pay you rights to use the platform, get the data, get the thing developed. Right? Working with partners is a good way to kind of scale across different verticals.
And then, of course, you know, long term as you further develop these technologies and gain t's in building them to Morgan, you can also imagine going directly in certain markets yourself. So it's kind of an interesting strategy where you can really grow very quickly and very effectively, while still maintaining, long term value where, you know, as you go after different applications, you can, of course, go directly if that's the choice that you wanna Got it.
And you guys have also announced the Therapeutics Partnership as well. So now there's a a company that wants to build basically an app, if you will, Morgan a particular instance of using CRISPR On the therapeutic side and the editing side? Yeah. So on the editing side, we've also announced a partnership with, Horizon Discovery, where they're using it for some exciting applications there on the editing side. And where where's the company based, Trevor? Just to let everybody knows.
And how many folder? We're in south San Francisco, just kind of the, I think, the slogan of there is the birthplace of biotech. So a really exciting place to be in general, because there's definitely a lot of kind of large companies. Genentech is one of the main companies there, of course. But then tons and tons of startups as Beller it's a very interesting ecosystem.
And actually we're on the campus of one of our investors as well, which is Verily, which is one of the life science arms of Alphabet or Google, I guess, especially for a minute still. And that's also a really interesting kind of micro ecosystem where we're also on the campus of, you know, a much larger company, but many kind of very fast growing startups are there as well, and it's really just kind of great environment to be Got it.
And, you know, I've I've heard, recently that hundreds through over 300 biotech startups, so synthetic biology, computational biology companies have moved to the Bay Area over the last 24 months from all over the world to be in the growing ecosystem here in the Bay Area. And I think that, South Sanmer isco is really the epicenter of it. And so you're running this company, and January 2020 comes. What happened?
I mean, we use the word pivot a lot when we talk about changes companies need to make to their business model, when responding to say, global pandemic, but you don't use that word when you describe what happened to you earlier this year. When you went from looking at infectious diseases to going after this new virus, take us back to that moment when you realized that COVID was something that required all of your attention? And what did you do? So that's a great question.
And I think from the very beginning of the company, we've been interested in leveraging CRISPR VASTI nostics for infectious disease. And so that's why it was a very natural kind of process for us to really kind of start developing a test for COVID 19 very quickly. And very early on, one of the things that was incredibly helpful is the network that we've built up around the company.
So, for example, one of our defic advisory board members, Doctor Charles Chu, a leading professor over at UCSF here in San Francisco. He is a worldwide expert in infectious disease. And so we had a conversation with him very early on. And, definitely, he was very supportive of us seeing about what CRISPR Diagnostics could do in this type of situation because definitely, one of the advantages we see at the technology is that a test can be spun up very rapidly, for example.
What do you mean very rapidly? So instead of taking, many months to develop a new test really taking weeks to do so. And I think we really proved that out earlier this year when within weeks of kind of making this decision to, create a CRISPR based diagnostic for COVID 19, we're able to post on our website, white paper, actually describing how, anyone could run this test. 2 weeks to to get, something going rather than 3 to 4 months.
Right. And I think that's especially for a new technology, like, CRISPR diagnostics where you're not kind of capitalizing on decades decades of creating tests before. I think that's an especially powerful statement to be able to put out this type of white paper showing, how a crisper diagnostic could function.
And then I think that was further validated when, shortly thereafter, we were able to publish this paper in nature by technology where we actually had the largest and most rigorous set of real patient samples run on, COVID 19 CRISPR diagnostic, almost a 100 samples and showed that it had really great sensitivity and specificity. So 100 samples is considered a pretty good panel for something like this in such a short amount of time, and that was pretty exciting at the time.
Back in what January, February. Right? I don't know the exact date on the paper, but in general, I think I we had probably around 84 samples, which is, yeah, just far above, kind of what's required for regulatory sessions. And you were able to get to those samples through UCSF.
Through our collaboration with Doctor Charles too, for example, and that's where we're having a really strong network around the company of, you know, amazing individuals experts in their fields is super critical, I think, for moving quickly and kind of developing these types of tests as well. You know, once you had done that, When did the team decide? Okay. Let's go all in on COVID 19 and and solve this.
Yeah. So I think from the kind of very beginnings of when we're working on the white paper, it was definitely something where we knew that CRISPR Diagnostics had the potential to actually make an impact here if we've worked on it hard enough You were looking at the virality of it. You were looking at it's this sort of death rates that were coming out of Wuhan, and you said, oh, this is a serious thing. This is worth this is worth our attention.
I mean, because We didn't have lockdowns in the US until, what, March 16th or something. Yeah. No. I mean, I think it definitely comes down to kind of a global perspective around definitely, you've seen, you know, things like, H1N1 and, you know, even in other parts of the world, things like Zika and Ebola.
And I think one of the promises of CRISPR based diagnostics is that can create tests that are actually both effective for things that we can use it for in a non pandemic situation and the develop world, but also can be something that's leveraged in the developing world and then like low resource settings where you can't have a huge amount of equipment and, people that are trained to run that specific type of So that's where I think also some of the impetus comes
from in terms of moving very quickly. Obviously, we don't have a crystal ball in terms of saying, okay, this is like how much of a pandemic's gonna be or not, but I think even at that early stage knowing that CRISPR diagnostics can have an impact. And bring us up to speed, where are we with the COVID test? So Beller us, tell us about the test. How fast will it work? Where can you do it? And why why is it a significant breakthrough versus what we already have?
Yeah. So the way I view kind of diagnostics in general today is a bit of tale of 2 cities. So on the one hand, you have molecular testing, and that's, things that people may have heard before, like, PCR sequencing, These are technologies that can have incredibly high accuracy, but they require long turnaround times. Like, maybe you need to mail in a sample because they're gonna be weeks before you get a result.
Requires expensive equipment, you know, $100,000 machine, $10,000 machine, requires trained personnel, people in lab coats kind of pipetting stuff back and forth. So that's the disadvantage. But the advantage is it's really the gold standard type, technologies. On the other end of the spectrum, you have, kind of rapid tests. So these can be you may have heard of, like, antigen antibody tests.
These are things that can be in the format of, like, our pregnancy tests, but typically suffer from much lower sensitivity and specificity. And often are not molecular. So they're not testing for the DNA and RNA. They're looking at proteins. And that's gonna give you a kind of different part of the disease progression. For example where typically there's aren't gonna be very effective in the early asymptomatic stages. We're looking at the nucleic acids can be.
And so the advantage here is, you know, very scalable, very accessible, very easy to use where the disadvantages often not molecular are detecting nucleic acids and then often lower sensitivity and specificity. I think the promise of CRISPR based diagnostics is what if you could actually kind of unify these 2 fields and what if you could actually have molecular style results in this rapid style form I think that's, fundamentally what's exciting.
So what if, you know, within 20 minutes, you could get a result that has the same accuracy as what you would get going into a lab by taking a nasal swab or but are similar sample and using something in the format of a pregnancy test to get that result.
That would be transformative, and that's kind of been a bit of the ultimate aim of 6 as a field generally for a while, and that's where it's really exciting that technology breakthroughs like CRISPR can really enable us to get towards that type of product. And with this COVID test, you've proven that this approach works in the lab, but now you need to go through more development. When do you think that development will get to the point where this could be mass produced approximately.
Yeah. So what's exciting is that we've shown that the fundamental kind of chemistry has amazing sensitivity. It's to city, and it's very simple, and it's something that could be put into this, really simple format. So now, of course, the next step is, okay, doing that. And we've been working on that for a while. But of course, there's, still work to be done to achieve that goal. And our, goal right now is that by the end of the year, we would have, EUA submitted to the FDA around that.
And an EUA is for those listening? It's an emergency use authorization. So that would be starting, the regulatory process Great. And so the regulatory process with the FDA might take months and months typically, but because it's an EUA and emergency 1, they would get back to you in several days or a week or 2. It's kind of a constantly changing guidance, but definitely faster than the normal process would be. And so the FDA is aware of what you guys are doing.
They're eager for you to give them what you're trying to give them. And they're ready. They're in the they're ready position to get what you've got and and and approve it if it really, really works.
And then let us, let us spread this around because theoretically, you could have this at home, and then you could just take a picture of it with, your cell phone and send it to the, you know, center for disease control or, you know, your state disease control, and you could actually watch a pandemic sort of move across the landscape, almost in real time. With this type of a tool. Is that is that part of the vision? Yeah. So definitely you'd want it connected to next steps, for example.
So that could either be through a picture or maybe even more easily and scalably, you can just be Bluetooth that connects the result to your phone. So you don't kind of have too much interpretation going on. And then more generally in terms of next that could be telemedicine, telehealth that could be anonymously sending results to an organization like the CDC could be many different kind of, parameters there. Where the important thing is that it's, actionable.
And obviously, in a pandemic, your COVID 19 status is very actionable, and I think many people would like to know but also making sure that it's supported is a key feature of connecting that to, something like your friend so that you know, okay, say have a positive result, what are the steps that I should actually take next? And you're not left kind of wondering and worrying. The next COVID, if you will, COVID 22 or COVID 25.
With mammoth around, it could all change where as soon as it emerges in Wuhan, mammoth grabs a bunch of samples the few weeks figures out, you know, what the signature is. And then within just a few months has tens of 1,000,000, 100 of 1,000,000 of home diagnostics available all tied into the internet so that we're ready if it actually jumps the ocean and starts coming to the US or Europe or wherever or vice versa. That's that's a world we could be living in in the next 2 years.
Yeah. Well, I think, yeah, you can actually, you could do even better than that, actually, by because of the way the system works and because it's programmed by this guide RNA, you could even stockpile millions of tests, but without the guide RNA so that within even just, you know, weeks could have millions of test ready to be deployed without having to go through the full process of, you know, creating the entire, pregnancy tests like device.
Instead, you can just add a single Reagent potentially, and that's even more powerful. Amazing. That sounds fantastic. Boy, could we have used that this last year? That would have changed It's the whole thing. Yeah. The pandemic is really exposed. I think a surprising gap in our diagnostic capabilities in some ways. I definitely personally think it's crazy that in 2020, we don't have this ability to very rapidly give an accurate molecular test, at scale.
And that's definitely a big part of what we're solving at mammoth. Lectra, let's let's talk about you for a little bit and and start to get at some of the things that you've learned being a CEO. You're thirty one years old. You're you're the CEO of of this very important company. You guys have a a library of of, you know, CRISPR IP that's the largest of the world. Just prior to this, you were a PhD student at Stanford you know, you hadn't actually worked in industry before this.
You're learning on the fly. I'd love to get at what it's like to transition from scientists to founder to entrepreneur. So if we could, let's go back to the early days when we met. You're a PhD student, your final year, you're presenting your business idea to start up showcases Stanford. Right? And you met Omry Drori, who is a former CEO of genome compiler and and then became the head of Bizdev and M and A at Twist, after Twist acquired genome compliler. And then Omri introduces Unime.
And and you and I get to meet at my garage here in Palo Alto. You know, we talked about the bio platform idea. We, changed the name of the company to mammoth, which is more spellable than than the original one. You brought on 3 new co founders, including Jennifer Noudna, who co discovered CRISPR, and that was a great period of of change for you.
What were some of the things that it was like to transition from this world of of biologists, computational biology, and and academia into being a founder and and then raising capital? Yeah. So I think, one area that actually a PhD and that type of training is actually very helpful, interestingly enough for a startup is, dealing with uncertainty.
So I think in a PhD, the whole point is that you're trying to go after things that no one's ever done before, and there's no textbook that you can follow to get there or Beller you shouldn't probably be doing it. So I think that's actually one area where founders coming out of that environment and myself definitely can leverage that to our advantage in terms of, like, being more comfortable with, like, okay, we don't know what the answer is. We don't know where this is headed.
It could go many different options, and frankly, being comfortable with failure, the 1st 3 years of your PhD Morgan people say that's kind of just where you learn how not to do things, for example, Flint in a startup as well, definitely a huge part of it, in my opinion, is being comfortable with, failing or coming close to failing and kind of persevering through that I think that's somewhere where actually maybe it's underappreciated how much,
graduate school and PhD training, can actually be an advantage. Yeah. I think I think that, that's great news. For all of us because, we need people like you coming out and building stuff, making stuff. And, you know, we need, folks who have this deep domain knowledge in computational biology to actually use that in a way that of, expands and touches 100 of 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000 of Pete, and you are doing just that. So I'm glad that you got that training.
Are there ways of thinking the clash between thinking like a biologist and thinking like a founder. Did did you have to reinvent any frameworks that you think through? Yeah. No. I think definitely, obviously, there's, you know, a lot of differences. And I think a key one for me personally was as the company. I mean, well, even very quickly, early on hiring our 1st employees, but especially as the company has grown, something graduate school doesn't prepare you for as much.
And I think even for people staying on academic path probably should prepare you better is, managing Pete, actually. Because definitely, you know, there's a big impetus towards collaborating and things like that and EMEA, although I don't think there's none of that either, but there's definitely not any sort of like formal training or, really kind of extensive, like mentorship processes or Like, how do you manage a team? How do you, motivate people?
How do you deal with someone that's feeling, less motivated? And I think that scenario where especially as a startup grows, that becomes, you know, 90 plus percent of your job, and that's incredibly important. And I think they're one of the things I'm excited about personally is just getting the smartest people on earth and people that are way smarter than me to work on really interesting problems with me that I think are Morgan.
So that part, came very easily to me in terms of that's just what's exciting and what I like to do. But I think, more formal work around how do you make sure to manage effectively and things like that or somewhere where graduate school maybe doesn't prepare you as well as it could. That's a great point. And, you know, I've noticed even at, even at your young age, you've managed to hire some of the best people in the world for building this type of a company and people who are older than you.
Why is it than you have more experience than you. And how do you how do you relate to them? How do you see yourself and your role in the company to to quote unquote manage them or work with them, if you will? Kind of my number one goal in general is to get people that are better than me to help us on this journey because I think that's the only way you'll accomplish incredibly ambitious goals. And then just be the glue. Be the glue that ties them together and inspire them with the vision. Right.
And the key there is really if you're gonna hire really awesome people, then there's no point in trying to just force kind of what you want them to do. Cause otherwise, you could hire people that aren't really awesome and smart and, you know, just tell them what to do.
So I think they're that makes it very easy for me to really always be thinking about how to empower people and how to make sure that people are put in the right situation where they can leverage They're kind of superpowers rather than, putting people in a situation and saying, okay, this is what you should be doing. And I think in many ways it's it's it's interesting because it sounds like an easier thing to do.
Like, okay, you just find really smart people and then you put them in the right situation, but I think that's actually in many cases way harder than just hiring someone and then trying to force what you think they should be doing on them. Right. What what do you do around culture? You know, this this is a, what, 35 Pete? I mean, it it could end up being 100100 mean, we have Genentech as an example. I mean, this thing could be sort of infinitely sized.
What are you what are you doing right now in terms of building culture? Yeah. So in this type of model, culture is extremely important. So from very early in the company, we've written down cultural values, for example, but cultural, like, writing them down only goes so far. It's definitely an important stuff that I think many companies don't do.
And I think that's definitely something you should do, but it's only step 1 of, you know, probably infinite steps, but, you know, at least, you know, many steps And I think the more important part that we're always self evaluating on is do we actually bring these kind of cultural values that we've outlined and claim that are important to us into decision making when we're making tough decisions, do we actually reference them in those decisions?
And do they actually influence, what we end up doing? So that's kind of how we view culture more broadly is, okay, you have values that you've thought about and that the company's aligned on these being important. But then on self reflection, when, you know, especially when times are tough, let's say, or when you're making a tough decision, is that a framework that you bring in for making the decision? And if not, maybe you need to adjust your values or maybe you need to start doing that.
And and you guys and you guys, have coaches. Right? Mhmm. And, so each of the management and the and the founders have coaches to help them be even better at their job, which I think is great and is a is an opening and a and a communication improvement. I know several of you have done the, the lit program, the leaders in technology that's Carol Robin and Joe Greenstein, program for, up and coming leaders that focuses on culture and communication and, you know, your own personal growth with it.
You know, one of the things we've said, it un effects is there's no corporate growth without personal growth. Right? There's no, there's no a corporate victory without personal victories. So, you know, these are these are very far looking things. I mean, you guys are building a real foundation.
I think you've you've said that to me in the past that the idea at this early stage even with all the chaos of you know, the fundraising and the partnership with GSK and the moving of the offices and the hiring people as quickly as you can and the the press coming out all the time about mammoth. I mean, there's 100100 of press, press mentions of of mammoth just in the last year alone.
And with all that, you're still spending the time on the on the culture and the foundation and the communication because you can see pretty far into the future about how how sizable this Pete. And and, you said to me in the past that, you know, culture is really the secret weapon. Culture is how you really scale these things. So you don't have to actually direct every piece of it.
And, you know, I think a lot of founders don't spend that time, and I think you guys are such an exemplar in in doing that. So I wanted to commend you on that. Yeah. I can definitely, especially in the day area, be expensive, many of these programs, but I think definitely long term, it's worth it. And even if you're using the, you know, you don't have to use the super fancy, expensive programs.
I think part of it as well comes down to especially early on when you're looking at investors hopefully being able to choose investors that you think could also help in these types of situations and have similarly aligned, kind of cultural focus can be a way of helping, kind of lay that foundation as well.
Yeah. I mean, we've we've often seen the difference on board members or operators before they became board members, you know, when they were in their own companies, because there's a lot more EQ required to to often get in and manage folks. And I think that finding people who support you in digging that deep foundation is critical for sure. What other advice do you have for early stage founders in biotech? I mean, you've you've come pretty far with what you've done in just the last 3 years.
I think it's becoming more and more popular actually for graduate students and postdocs to found companies, which I think is super awesome. And I don't think it takes away from academia at Flint terms of, like, I think these are just different ways of trying to make a really awesome impact on the world.
And I think that's one of the advantages of biotech as well, in the kind of corporate world is that it's just just really clear line towards, public good and aligning that with a profit incentive. And I think that's where some of the most iconic companies are built is when those aren't in conflict. So I think that's really exciting for the field in general is that we'll probably have a lot of really awesome advances for human health as a result of this.
In terms of kind of advice and things to watch out for, I think one thing definitely, that's a big difference that you have to be comfortable with. Well, depending on which track you wanna take exactly, but let's say you wanna CEO of a biotech startup is you have to be comfortable stepping away, from the details of the science. And I think that's gonna be a key stumbling block as a company grows is that if you aren't super okay with that, which is Flint. Right?
There's no value judgment there at all. In fact, you know, some people might take people to the science is like higher value. But it just means you need to be careful about what role are you actually playing in the company.
So if you want to be CEO or, like, chief operating officer, you know, some other role that's not chief scientists, but even for chief scientists, let's say, really being able to understand that, hey, like, I'm not gonna be writing code necessarily as much as I was before, and I'm not gonna be micromanaging every single scientist on the team. I'm gonna hire really awesome people that can do amazing science better than me equal to me, you know, hopefully not worse than you would do.
That would put you in a bit of a spiral in terms of hiring. But really having that mentality of empowering others because in graduate school and even in a postdoc as well, often it's can be an individual contributor type role, even if you are managing some RAs really you're doing a ton of the work, and that's super rewarding. And you need to be comfortable or at least understand that as part of the growth of the company that won't be your role going forward.
And I think that's a really important kind of mental thing to at least consider at the beginning. Like, is that something you love, and is that what you wanna do for the rest of your life? Just stay really close of the science and really be kind of in the weeds of it Beller single day coding, or do you want to manage a team of really awesome scientists that are really in the weeds.
And, of course, you know, staying close to it and understanding it, but not being in that exact same individual contributor role. I think that's a really key. Yeah. The CEO role, you're All the hard decisions come to you if they were easy someone else would have made them. So you're spending your day making the hard decisions. You're spending your day recruiting and managing, spending your day fundraising, talking to press.
And I think that actually goes into the second, kind of key area, that I've found has been important, which is understanding regardless of what your role is, but definitely, of course, for the CEO, especially, what are the things that uniquely you can do and what are the things that other people can do better than you or can do, or you shouldn't be doing. And I think they're, kind of constantly asking yourself that question can really make yourself way more high leverage.
Because I think one mistake that can be made early on, and I'll fully admit this mistake myself, is that filling up your calendar can feel like a productivity measure. But it's actually, in many ways, it might be the worst measure. It's actually opposite. It's like it's like inversely correlated with productivity, maybe.
And definitely early on, especially once you showed up your calendar a bunch, you have all these meetings all day where, like, you're being productive and you're talking to people can feel scary, actually, in some ways, to, like, just clear your calendar and be like, no, like, actually, there's no meetings to stay. And I just need to, from 1st principle, focus on what I, as an individual, can do to be high leverage and really make the company go from 1 to 10 x, not 1 to 1.01.
And that's a big transition. To put a point on that, I mean, when you first launched, you were approached by tens and tens of people around the industry trying to work with Mammoth, and you took meetings with them. And you pursued potential partnerships with them.
And I remember after 8 or 9 months, you sort of realized these folks aren't the folks that are gonna get it done for These people need us to help them with their careers and in their divisions, of their companies more than we need them they can't really help us get done what we need to get done and you reorient it.
And your and your calendar had been very full and you had felt very productive, but but choosing who to work with, particularly when you're building a platform like you guys are and you're sticking applications on top of that platform, who you partner with is a critical decision. I mean, I think it's a very good point to to for founders to make a differentiation between busyness and productiveness. Yeah. It's an easy truck to fall into.
Yeah. What's been the most challenging part of your founder journey so far? What's been the thing that has been hardest? Is it emotionally hard or intellectually hard? Or No. I mean, it's definitely both emotionally and intellectually hard. Anyone that tells you otherwise is, extremely lucky or aligned.
But I think in general, the hardest for me, I think because this is one area where graduate school doesn't prepare you as well is, making sure I'm an awesome coach, and kind of adviser and coach, but in the more important sense, like coach and confidant and kind of leader for the company in terms of, you know, managing a huge and growing team.
And that's thankfully something super exciting and incredibly interesting to me, but it's definitely somewhere where that's been kind of a hockey stick growth area because of, you know, this different background I'm coming from. Sure. And and you have a big board. You know? I'm a I'm a board observer on the board since the beginning, and And, you know, it gets bigger and bigger, every few months. And those are all relationships and communications and conversations that you need to have.
And that's a whole another group. And then you've got all the business development relationships because they all wanna talk to the CEO. Right? And so you you have to manage those relationships as well. You have a huge constellation of both employees, partners, and board members, investors that you need to, to manage from where you sit. And so that's been that's that's been a lot of energy and a lot of learning. And and what's been your favorite part of the journey so far?
Yeah. So my favorite part is, definitely seen us, build product and the technology advancing and getting closer to launch. Think seeing something go from something that was, you know, in a paper and in academic lab and now is getting closer and closer to being a transformative product that could benefit billions of people is incredibly rewarding and kind of exciting journey And that's definitely, super inspiring, I think, for everyone in the company to see that, work over time.
Oh, and I think you guys are are are so lucky to have you know, been working on this this new discover, this new invention of CRISPR. It's it's a whole sea change in what's possible. And to be the stewards of that, into the world, I think, is an incredibly great honor and and a good responsibility for you guys take on. I feel like you should be very excited.
So So, Trevor, one thing I wanted to ask you about was, you know, CRISPR makes, editing biology so much easier, so much more iterative than it's been in the past. And you know, it could be used for great good, but it might be that someone might try to use this for great ill. Is there a way we need to think about how we protect ourselves from the great ill Beller allowing for the great good. Yeah. It's a great question.
And I think, in many ways, the kind of meta conversation is similar to things like artificial intelligence and kind of other technologies that could just fundamentally change how we interact with the world.
And they're speaking personally I think it's a key conversation that has to include not just scientists and biotechnologists, but really society at large because I think it is, more fundamental question about where do we as, you know, humanity or, you know, at least whatever political boundaries you wanna be in in the United States or, in the UN or whatever level we wanna talk about, where do we wanna go? Most co as COVID has shown us, it's not just the US.
I mean, you know, it's a all these all these sort of genetic things are sort of worldwide. Right? Very quickly. Yeah. I know. Especially in biology, of course, borders can be a little bit more meaningless in terms of having any impact on what's actually going on. But I think, fundamentally, it's really first having the conversation.
I'm not sure there's been, like, a very conservative effort to really have a worldwide conversation around, like, what are things we think are appropriate for these powerful new tools and other things that we think are inappropriate. And people can sign on to that or not, but at least the lines are very clear and will know which side of the lines they are on.
And I think that's, there's been some initial steps towards that, but still mostly coming from scientific circles rather than political or, other circles. And I think it's a conversation that truly needs to involve everyone, not just, you know, scientists and patients, of course, but politicians, religious leaders, other, business leaders, you know, just everyone's lives will be affected by these technologies.
So everyone needs to have a voice in terms of kind of making a stand on where we had society bring them. So my hope is that, as these technologies continue to advance, of course, you know, that's something that's going to happen worldwide. So it needs to be a worldwide conversation we don't all have to agree on where those lines are, but at least there needs to be transparency around what lines we are drawing.
Yeah. Well, I look forward to hearing, hopefully, in the next year or 2 about someone pulling this conversation together because it's, gonna become, more and more important over the next year or 2, particularly as mammoth advances in its ability to to edit and to diagnose and, you know, these these technologies get more and more mature it does feel as if, as powerful as they are for good, we do need to make sure that we draw those lines and be really clear about
who's on team and who who is behaving as if they're not on the team because it affects all of us, whether it starts in Wuhan or whether it starts in New Jersey or or South San Francisco. So I've gotta say it. It does feel like Mammoth is at the beginning of something truly significant Pete. And, I'm very proud to be associated with it, but also just proud of you. For taking it on and for leading the way you're leading. I mean, seriously, it's it's been great to watch over the last 3 years.
There's an energy flowing through this company that is the technology and the many things it can do. And and like I said, it's a lot like seeing the birth of the microchip. There's certainly, you can sometimes feel the energy around things and and there's certainly a lot of energy around this. And I just wanna thank you for being on and for doing what you're doing. And, thanks for your advice to the founders. And, we wish you well.
We know you're busy, and, and good luck with getting us, the COVID diagnostic of our dreams in the next year. And then I would look forward to seeing what you do after that. Thanks, Trevor. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Now it's happy to chat.