The Intersection of Science and Entrepreneurship: Lessons from Arshia Mostoufi's Bio-Entrepreneurship Journey
Interview by Michaella Atienza
Arshia Mostoufi’s research interests during his undergraduate degree in cellular, molecular, and microbial biology at the University of Calgary led him to join the 2020 and 2021 Calgary iGEM team as a member of the wet lab. His iGEM experience empowered him to explore how science and entrepreneurship intermingle with each other, winning various international awards and sharing his wisdom as a business and scientific advisor to the following year’s team.
Arshia Mostoufi at the Bangkok Business Conference in Thailand.
Arshia took a special interest in researching ways to recycle rare-earth elements from electronic waste using synthetic biology, which eventually became the core project of the 2021 team, aptly named Neocycle.
The Importance of Rare-earth elements
Rare-earth elements are a group of special elements found at the bottom of the periodic table. They are important in various kinds of modern technologies from cellphones, cars, and transportation to green technologies such as solar panels or wind turbines.
“The problem is, mining them is bad for the environment and expensive. Only a few countries have the resources to do that, often creating a monopolistic situation.”
Arshia says that conventional electronic waste is often dumped in landfills and synthetic biology allows for their re-extraction and use in newer technologies. Neocycle utilizes lanmodulin, a rare-earth element binding protein to selectively and efficiently recover these metals from electronic waste.
Team Calgary 2021, Neocycle.
Bottlenecks in Neocycle
A challenge they faced was breaking the barriers between synbio and business.
“Our team was mostly biologists and engineers who had no background in business. With iGEM, we were able to form the science aspect of the project, but the pitch competitions helped us develop the entrepreneurship side as well”.
Experiences with Entrepreneurship
Arshia and the team’s entrepreneurial endeavours began after establishing a proof-of-concept and utilizing resources in their community. They started building a business model with Alberta Innovates and the Hunter Hub at the University of Calgary, learning about intellectual property and technology transfer. Towards the tail-end of the iGEM season, they joined the Launchpad Competition, a six-month competition at the university designed to cultivate entrepreneurial thinking, where they refined their business model and won first place.
Arshia attributes this experience as a “good learning curve, going from not knowing anything about business ventures to putting a good business pitch by the end. We took this idea even further by competing in more pitch competitions”.
SGC Bangkok Business Challenge which is held annually in Thailand for the last 20 years. They select 20 teams from all around the world to present in Thailand.
“It’s like Sharktank pitching style, compared to other competitions we’ve done. This has the most business focus and had actual investors and businesspeople as judges that evaluate whether your idea is investable or not. It was three days of pitching, getting feedback, and improving. Through this process, we made it to the top 6 finalists and won the second biggest prize - the Sustainability Award which was a nice ending to the experience”.
Arshia presenting at the Falling Walls Lab Finals in Berlin, Germany.
The team placed second in the WEGE competition for their “game-changing solutions for the circular economy”, winning $20,000. Arshia also won the 2021 Online Falling Walls lab Boston US, taking him to the Falling Walls Lab Finals in Berlin where he was a global call winner.
Biggest Takeaways from the Competitions
To Arshia, learning to present your idea is the biggest lesson he learned.
“If you want to make a real impact with your idea and get it out to the world, you need to communicate it to people that are not scientists because those are the people that have the money. Compared to other ventures, we were very science-heavy. So balancing the science to tell so we sound credible, but also simplifying it properly so they understand what we were saying and be able to be persuasive with our idea in a way that makes sense while seeming strong and credible, but also get them more excited and want to know more about the project”.
What would you tell an iGEM team interested in doing a similar project and wants to pursue more entrepreneurship?
Arshia’s advice for early iGEMers is to take advantage of the resources that your university provides and to start early in the iGEM cycle.
“Entrepreneurship is also a lot about networking-- whether through advisors, or HP contacts. There’s no such thing as being a businessman or needing a dedicated business major on your team. You just have to start”.
What’s next for Arshia and Neocycle?
After working as research associate at Twist Bioscience and Arshia is now pursuing a PhD at the Harvard University.
The time and resource commitment, the team’s individual career trajectories, and intellectual property ownership by their good collaborator in the Neocycle project posed a difficulty for them moving forward. As a result, they decided against moving Neocycle forward together as a real business.
To learn more about the project and Arshia’s endeavors, visit their team wiki page and connect with Arshia through LinkedIn.
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