Science Innovation Ecosystem

In 1966, two scientists got an $80,000 grant from the U.S. government to study microbes in Yellowstone’s hot springs. They basically went around sticking slides in hot mud to eventually prove for the first time that life could exist at such high temperatures. It sounded like obscure science for science's own sake—maybe even like a waste of taxpayer money. But from that research, they discovered a heat-resistant enzyme that years later became the foundation of PCR (polymerase chain reaction). PCR made it possible to rapidly copy DNA—an innovation that revolutionized genetic science. Processes that were either impossible or took teams of experts months were suddenly doable in a few hours. Fast forward decades, and because of that single grant: 🧬 The Human Genome Project was possible. 🧬 We mapped genes like BRAF, including the rare gene mutation I have. 🧬 We developed targeted therapies like Mekinist, designed to interrupt the exact signaling pathway my mutation hijacks. That random federal $80K grant? It led to me not dying. If the U.S. government doesn't invest $80,000 in scientists playing in the geiser mud at Yellowstone over 50 years ago, doctors today wouldn't be able to accurately diagnose diseases like mine and treatment might be limited to blunt, aggressive chemo and the hope 🤞 that it would be effective. Investing in science and research is precisely what makes our country great. Haphazardly eliminating federal grants will weaken our greatest strengths, and could literally result in the loss of lives that would otherwise have been saved thanks to advances made possible by the funded research. [I learned about this story from the awesome team at Radiolab Podcasts WNYC Studios and their podcast about it: https://lnkd.in/g-XJXH_B]

1,205 investors writing checks for deeptech. Not every VC understands hardware & science. Not every fund has the patience for 5-7 year timelines. But the ones that do are actively deploying. The deeptech investor base is smaller than software but it exists, and it’s well-capitalized. I mapped 1,200+ funds globally that genuinely invest in deep tech - broken down by vertical, stage, geography, and investor type. - 177 Purist funds - exclusively deep tech, won't touch software (Playground Global, Material Impact, First Spark Ventures, FORWARD.one etc) - 481 Specialist funds - focused on specific deep tech verticals (ARCH Venture Partners for biotech, SET Ventures for energy, 2i Ventures for defense etc) - 247 Generalist Arms - deep tech divisions of larger platforms (a16z Bio + Health, Earlybird-X, Deep Tech Fund (an Alumni Ventures Fund)) - 151 CVCs — corporate venture arms (Intel Capital, Shell Ventures, BMW i Ventures, Samsung Next, Lockheed Martin Ventures etc) - 57 Government-backed funds (In-Q-Tel, SPRIND, BPI, British Patient Capital, Temasek) - 45 Industrial investors (Bosch Ventures, BASF Venture Capital GmbH, Siemens Energy Ventures) - 28 University funds (Oxford Science Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital, MIT's The Engine) - 19 Venture studios (Deep Science Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Pioneer Fund, Activate, Creative Destruction Lab etc) The full database is free. Comment 'deeptech' and I’ll share the table. P.S. Quite sure I am missing someone but genuinely would love to make it the most complete / comprehensive database out there - so if you know funds that should be on this list, drop them below.

I’ve reviewed thousands of job applications from academic scientists looking to move into biotech startups. Here’s how the best applications stood out ⤵️ Sharing this for folks graduating from PhDs this year or thinking about a change - it’s still a tough market out there, but one that’s hopefully improving! _______ 1️⃣ Show how your personal values align to the company mission. Why? Startups want to change the future. Demonstrate you’ve been independently working towards that same future → this indicates you’ll work hard & find the day to day meaningful. How? Example, for a company developing phages to treat antibiotic resistant bacteria: ✅ My PhD research focused on optimising a gene therapy for children suffering from grey platelet syndrome. During that time, I volunteered in the pediatrics ward. I am motivated by improving health outcomes for the most vulnerable. ❌ Having finished my PhD, I am looking to make the jump into industry. _______ 2️⃣ Directly explain how your scientific expertise can solve the startup’s problems. Why? This shows your ability to connect the dots between “the company problem that needs to be solved” and “the impact I can have.” Startup MVPs have proactivity in spades. How? Example, for a company developing cultured meat: ✅ A big problem for the cultured meat industry is developing immortalised, scalable cell lines. As a genetic engineer, I can generate cell lines capable of feeding millions of people. ❌ My 6 years of experience with mammalian cell culture and background in genetic editing make me a great fit for your company. _______ 3️⃣ Incorporate metrics (beyond publications!) into your resume. Why? Publications = academic currency. Scientific breakthroughs allowing a company to get profitable and survive = startup currency. Publications require detailed science capable of getting past peer-review. Startups require time-boxed, outcomes-oriented science. That’s really different! Metrics indicate you already understand that shift in mindset - and no matter what your project focused on, you can frame it in terms of startup-relevant metrics. How? ✅ Supported two summer students to achieve xyz outcome in three months ✅ Generated 5 novel immune complexes in 2 months ✅ Achieved XYZ while dropping experiment costs by 20% ❌ Conducted a research project analysing how XYZ ❌ Published in a prestigious journal. _______ 4️⃣ Show - don’t state - your communication & collaboration skills. Why? These skills are 10x more important when working at a fast pace with people from different professional backgrounds. How? ✅ Three-minute thesis contest ✅ Industry/startup work experience ✅ Engagement with an entrepreneurship community ✅ Cross-discipline collaboration ✅ A well-written career summary connecting the dots between your skills & the value you can bring to the company. As always, builds or add-ons welcome: I made some of these mistakes when I first graduated from my PhD, you don’t have to 😉

EXCLUSIVE: Three young MIT researchers are launching their new biotech startup today, having raised a $28 million seed round from investors like a16z, Amplify Partners, and Zetta Venture Partners. The company, called Boltz, was formed in late 2024, partially in response to seeing AI models in biology growing more capable yet less accessible. As a public-benefit corporation, Boltz aims to keep open-sourcing its major models, while making a business in selling software and services in deploying these in the lab. “What we started seeing with AlphaFold 3 is the best models are becoming more and more closed,” CEO Gabriele Corso told me. “The level of impact of these models is how good the models are multiplied by the number of people who are able to access them. We want to maximize both sides of the equation.” More on the future of a 13-employee startup worth watching closely in Endpoints News: https://lnkd.in/eTiFrQy8

Is federally funded university research a waste of taxpayer money? Let’s talk return on investment. Over the last 17 years, my lab has received ~$15M in federal research support. Here's what taxpayers got in return: ✅ 44 PhD students, 8 MS students, and nearly 80 undergraduates trained in cutting-edge bioengineering—now leaders in biotech, academia, and public service. ✅ 80+ issued U.S. patents and 200+ peer-reviewed papers, sharing knowledge that improves health and spurs innovation. ✅ 5+ startups launched, raising $150M+ in private investment and creating 150+ high-skilled jobs. ✅ 5+ products commercialized, including IntelliSep, a sepsis test saving lives and reducing hospital costs (~30% mortality reduction, ~$1400 saved per patient). First used in hospitals in Louisiana, Alabama, and Texas. That’s just one lab. And that’s just what we can track. The full ripple effect of training, ideas, tools, and technologies created in university labs is far greater. Now, consider this: One F-35 fighter jet engine costs about $14M–$16M—just the engine. A single border wall segment (1 mile) under some contracts has cost $15–$30M For the cost of one jet engine or a half-mile of wall, federal research funding can launch companies, train leaders, save lives, and return 10x in private investment and impact. What’s more capital efficient? What has a longer-lasting impact on society? Federal research funding isn’t charity. It’s one of the smartest, most leveraged investments the U.S. makes. 🔊 If you run a research lab, I encourage you to post your own return on investment from federal research support. Show the public and policymakers just how much value we’re creating—and why this investment in America’s scientific engine is among the most capital-efficient bets our country can make to power it's future. #ScienceFunding #AcademicROI #InnovationEconomy #ResearchImpact #FederalFunding #PublicInvestment #STEM

Europe is sitting on a €9 Trillion opportunity. And the blueprint to unlock it is already being built in Heilbronn. 🇪🇺💡  The newly released Redstone University Startup Index 2026 dropped some staggering data this morning. If European higher education institutions optimized their budgets to produce spin-offs as efficiently as top-tier global benchmarks, over the next decade Europe could gain: 📈 +€5 Trillion in additional GDP 💼 +13 Million new jobs 🚀 +445,000 additional startups  But the report highlights a critical bottleneck: too many European institutions treat entrepreneurship as an afterthought rather than a core mission. We have a massive commercialization gap. So, how do we bridge it? You stop trying to tweak an old engine and instead build a new, "Entrepreneurship-Native" ecosystem from the ground up. Look no further than what the Dieter Schwarz Stiftung is orchestrating in Heilbronn. We aren’t just funding education; we are pioneering the exact infrastructure the Redstone report demands. Take a look at how the pieces connect: 1️⃣ The Academic Engine (Bildungscampus in Heilbronn): By bringing heavyweights like the Technische Universität München (TUM)—which ranks #5 in the Redstone Index for ultra-large universities—directly to Heilbronn, we’ve embedded top-tier entrepreneurial research right into the region's DNA. 2️⃣ The Launchpad (Campus Founders): With the recent launch of GRAVITY, a massive 7,000 m² co-innovation and startup hub, they’ve created the perfect physical melting pot where students transform into "Entrepreneurship-Native" founders. 3️⃣ The Future Tech Magnet (IPAI): By establishing the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI), Heilbronn is anchoring these new ventures to the most critical economic driver of our generation: Applied AI.   The Redstone Index proves that academic venture-creation isn't just a "nice-to-have" metric—it is a macroeconomic imperative for Europe's global competitiveness. Heilbronn's playbook shows that when you deliberately align philanthropy, world-class academia, state-of-the-art infrastructure, and deep tech, the flywheel spins fast. We don't need to look to Silicon Valley for the future of ecosystem building. The blueprint is right here. What are your thoughts on the report’s findings? How can more regions adopt the Heilbronn model? Let’s discuss in the comments. 👇 #Entrepreneurship #VentureCapital #Innovation #StartupIndex2026 #DeepTech #AI #Heilbronn #EcosystemBuilding #DieterSchwarzStiftung #IPAI #TUM

Translating health science into understandable and clear health advice isn’t easy, especially on social media. And it’s not about what algorithms want us to do to engage their users. It’s about how people think. In the past three years, the World Health Organization worked on a project with Meta, using their Brand Lift Study tool to test how different kinds of message framings, built on behavioural science theories, affect how people perceive risk and act on it. In the paper below, we highlight a measles vaccination experiment in which we targeted parents of young children. We compared two types of messaging: - Verbatim: fact-based and precise “1 in 1,000 children who get measles will die.” - Gist: essence-based and emotional “Some children who get measles will die.” Both are accurate, but they communicate risk differently. Here are a few reflections from the process: - We need to design social media public health campaigns with behavioural science lenses, not just communication instinct. - We need to evaluate impact beyond likes and shares; focus on understanding and intention. - We must keep messages evidence-based but human; clarity matters as much as accuracy. What matters most isn’t how much information we share, but how people make sense of it. Small shifts in framing can change how people understand risk and how they act on it — which is the ultimate objective of public health communication. WHO project team: Simon Williams Elena Altieri Mohamed Gulaid Giselle Miguens Lisa Menning Karin Stein, MD, MScPH

The New Innovation Geographies For the past 15 years, Julie Wagner and I have been engaging with dozens of cities and metropolitan areas on the organization of their innovation economies. Our work led us to write The Rise of Innovation Districts in 2014. Julie then co-founded The Global Institute on Innovation Districts in 2018 to build a field of practice, informed by objective evidence. Mega forces — the rise of geopolitical tensions, the reshoring of production, the acceleration of next generation technologies, the demand for skilled workers — are not only reinforcing the value of innovation districts but driving new kinds of innovation constellations. Our latest piece describes how these constellations include tightly bound innovation districts, manufacturing focused hubs with R&D capabilities and more expansive innovation corridors. We use examples from South Yorkshire’s AMRC, Pittsburgh’s AI Avenue and Phoenix’s emerging industrial landscape to illustrate the new spatial configurations. The upshot is this: to maximize productivity, technological advancement and worker performance, the mapping, branding and activation of connected economic geographies takes on renewed importance for public, private and civic institutions and investors. https://lnkd.in/gPekyJsP

Regardless of what you've been told, academic communication and dissemination is (much) more than just publishing. When I started my research career, I thought publishing papers was the key part of being successful in academia. Needles to say, was I wrong! Academic communication is a powerful ecosystem that extends far beyond peer-reviewed journals. Here are 5 critical communication channels every academic should master: 1. Conference Presentations • Storytelling matters more than dense data slides • Practice your narrative arc • Engage, don't just inform 2. Digital Platforms • Twitter/X for rapid knowledge sharing • LinkedIn for professional networking • Personal blogs for deeper insights • YouTube for visual explanations 3. Collaborative Workshops • Cross-disciplinary dialogue • Knowledge co-creation • Breaking academic silos 4. Public Engagement • Science communication podcasts • Media interviews • Community lectures • Making complex ideas accessible 5. Mentorship & Dialogue • Guiding next-generation researchers • Informal knowledge transfer • Building intellectual communities Pro Tip: Your research impact isn't measured just by publication count, but by how widely and effectively you communicate your insights. Have you expanded your academic communication beyond traditional publishing? What strategies have worked best for you? #PhD #Research #Science #Scientist #Academia #Professor #Nature #Publishing

𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐳𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝: 𝐅𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐬, 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 – 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐥 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐩𝐨𝐭𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 The 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐟 𝐨𝐟 2025 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫𝐭-𝐮𝐩 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞. 𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐛𝐲 +36% 𝐭𝐨 𝐂𝐇𝐅 1.47 𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐝𝐫𝐨𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 -10% 𝐭𝐨 124. A small group of highflyers, mainly in biotech and medtech, drove this growth. Most start-ups - especially in late stage rounds - continue to face difficult fundraising conditions. 𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐩𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐬 - Biotech accounts for CHF 705 million, around half of all invested capital - ICT and fintech sectors recover significantly - Foreign investors, especially from the US, remain dominant - Exits and IPOs remain rare - Outlook for the second half is cautiously optimistic - Late-stage fundraising remains difficult 𝐌𝐞𝐝𝐓𝐞𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 - Investment volume increased by +37% year-over-year - CeQur raised over CHF 100 million for its needle-free insulin patch - Mosanna Therapeutics received capital to advance its sleep apnea treatment - Other companies benefit from strong academic connections and experienced teams - Clinical maturity and real-world application remain key to attracting funding 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 - Basel recorded CHF 420.5 million in investments - Basel with new all-time high surpassed Zurich in growth dynamics - Dominated by large biotech deals - Strong ecosystem with institutions like the University of Basel and IOB - RhyGaze, an IOB spin-off, raised CHF 80 million for gene therapy targeting blindness 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞 - 𝐒𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐬 𝐕𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐇1 2025: https://lnkd.in/euNmF4UP