Nigel F. Reuel

Nigel F. Reuel is an Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Iowa State University and is a Jack R. and Carol A. Johnson Faculty Fellow and College of Engineering Entrepreneurial Fellow.  He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering at MIT in 2014 under the guidance of Prof. Michael Strano.  After graduating, he attempted to commercialize his PhD work in a startup, Volvox Biologic Inc. (Boston), and then consulted at a larger life science tool company that obtained the startup IP (Maryland).  He then worked as a Research Investigator (PI) at DuPont’s historic Central Research and Development campus (Wilmington, DE) for two years on projects ranging from wireless power transfer, sensors, and precision agriculture.  He was then promoted as the corporate technology scout, where, for 8 months, he traveled to universities and incubators to find technology for the CTO office at DuPont. Although this was an exciting role at a large company, he quickly realized that making technology is more stimulating than finding it and was pleased with the opportunity to come to ISU and become an entrepreneurial-minded professor. Currently his group has over 15 active technology disclosures at ISURF, two granted ISU patents, and three startup company offshoots (Skroot Laboratory Inc., Frugi Biotech Inc., and Zymosense Inc. which have earned >$2M in federal grants). Dr. Reuel’s work has been recognized by the NSF Career Award (2021), NIH Outstanding Early Investigator Award R35 (2020), and 3M Nontennured Faculty Award.

See more at www.reuelgroup.org or follow @reuelgroup on Twitter

Translational Research in Biomanufacturing and Framework for Scalable Startups

This talk will highlight our group’s recent work in contact-free sensor development for biomanufacturing process optimization and product discovery.  These are built on two transduction platforms – namely near-infrared, fluorescent single walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) probes and radio frequency based resonant sensors. In addition to sharing fundamental findings from our academic work, this talk will center on our process of translating research from our lab into scalable startups.  This will focus on three recent academic projects and resultant startups: 1) resonant sensors for cell manufacturing (Skroot Laboratory Inc.), 2) near-infrared probes for enzyme activity (Zymosense Inc.) and 3) scalable cell free protein synthesis (Frugi Biotechnology Inc.). This talk is meant to encourage an early entrepreneurial mindset in academic work, provide a framework for success, and help students make real impact with thesis research.