The Big Experiment
Ever wondered how technology start-ups, well, start-up? For most founder entrepreneurs, it is the biggest experiment they'll ever run. Like most experiments, the result isn't known beforehand and it often doesn't work first time. On a bigger scale, how do big tech companies turn innovative science into profit?
Mark Davison interviews founder scientists, executives, investors, communicators, and others in the technology start-up and corporate science ecosystems.
Learn how great ideas turned into thriving businesses (or not) from those who made it happen (or didn't). Get business tips, lessons learned, and life lessons straight from the people who know.
Inspiring, disastrous, funny: hear what life in a science-driven company is really like.
Straight-talking, no nonsense, but conversational style. All technical content is explained for the non-specialist - you don't need a PhD or fluency in jargon and technobabble.
Episodes
27 episodes
Tim Corcoran: Cosmetics from Cyanobacteria
Is the answer to sustainable chemical manufacturing floating in our oceans?Ocean cyanobacteria, like plants, use sunlight as power to help them make complex chemicals. Traditional industrial chemistry requires a lot of power and ca...
From Jellyfish to Wound Healing with Dr Andrew Mearns-Spragg
What if the solution to chronic wound healing has been floating in our oceans for 600 million years?Jellyfish collagen isn't just different from the cow and pig-derived materials used in medicine today. It's actually better at healing hu...
Jenny Barnett: New tests and drugs for schizophrenia
Can neuroscience finally catch up with the complexity of mental illness?Society faces a huge and growing burden from mental illness and impairment. Schizophrenia, for example, is a bigger socioeconomic burden than all cancers put togethe...
Paul Beastall: Fuelling our future planet with a zero-carbon biofuel
Forget drilling—what if diesel could be grown instead?In this episode we head into the world of engineered biology with Paul Beastall, CEO of HutanBio. He explains how his team is cultivating an oil-rich microalgae, previ...
Brain-on-a chip? Neurons as future biocomputers with Dr. Ewelina Kurtys
What if the future of computing isn’t silicon... but neurons?In this episode, we explore a radical new frontier where biology and technology come together — programming living neurons as processors.I am joined by Dr. Ewelina Kurty...
A Brain-Based Revolution in Women's Health: The Nettle Device with Emilė Radytė
Three-quarters of women report that menstrual symptoms impact their daily performance, yet until recently, no one had looked at the brain's role in these symptoms.In this eye-opening episode I am joined by Emilė Radytė, PhD—Harvard and O...
Therapeutic brain-computer-interfaces for glioblastoma, with Dr Elise Jenkins
Electrical monitoring and stimulation could revolutionise diagnosis and treatment for some of the most aggressive brain cancers and intractable neurological diseases.In glioblastoma, a particularly aggressive brain tumour that is hard to...
Che Connon. Lab-grown tissues in medicine, food and fashion
Imagine that we could make tissues indistinguishable from those produced by humans or animals, at will, and at comparable cost to the natural products. With the rate of progress being made, it won’t be imaginary much longer.If we don’t n...
On the Road! A Quick Tour of Synthetic Biology
In this episode of The Big Experiment, we are live, recording from the Synthetic Biology UK 2024 conference hosted by the Biochemical Society, at Hinxton Hall near Cambridge, home of the famous Genome Campus.Synthetic biology is the pra...
Transforming Cancer Care: The Fight Against Cachexia with Robin Bhattacherjee
Weight loss drugs are in the spotlight. Obesity is a huge and potentially profitable problem, attracting lots of scientific and medical resources.But there are circumstances where avoiding weight loss is crucial and where it is benefici...
Revolutionising Heart Surgery with Francis White
Heart valve surgery is one of the most complex procedures in medicine.Francis White and his company Heart Biotech Ltd are trying to change all of that, by making heart valves in a totally new way. This will make surgery simpler and more ...
Ovaries, Menopause, and Genomics with Dr Stasa Stankovic
This episode went live on World Menopause Day.Menopause is an inevitable aspect of life for half of the global population, but one that requires far more study. New genomic insights could empower women with better reproductive choices a...
Hazel Jones: Enhancing Drug Discovery with 3D Genomics
What role does 3D genomics have in drug discovery?In this episode I am joined by Hazel Jones, CEO of Enhanc3d Genomics, to find out more about this cutting-edge technology.Hazel is a dynamic and flexible senior leader with exper...
How Medicines are Developed: Mark's Quick Guide
What does it take to get a new drug to market?I have been involved in the drug industry for 35 years. I’ve worked for big pharma like GlaxoSmithkline, contract research organisations (CROs) like Charles River and IQVIA, and for several ...
Zoe Kourtzi: Artificial intelligence and predicting dementia
1 in 2 of us will be affected by dementia in our lives.Something so prevalent without a cure requires novel approaches for diagnosis.In this episode I am joined by Professor Zoe Kourtzi, from the University of Cambridge. Zoe is ...
Lily Elsner - Breaking the Taboo: Men's Fertility Testing
Men’s fertility is falling and fast.In the last 50 years sperm counts are down by 60%. Yet this is still a topic that no one is really talking about.My guest in this episode, Lily Elsner, is the co-founder and CEO of Jack Fertil...
The Ignite Program at the University of Cambridge Judge Business School
This edition of The Big Experiment is a little bit different to the usual format.I'm on the road visiting the famous University of Cambridge Judge Business School to talk to people at the Ignite program. It’s an intensive w...
Mike Teiler – Innovating Type 1 Diabetes Treatment
My son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 13.Which is why this episode is very close to my heart. There are big life-altering challenges for the patient and their family in managing type 1 diabetes. With limitations to the...
Dr. Kärt Tomberg - Making Better Protein Drugs
The challenges of scientific entrepreneurship don’t end when you get funding.In fact, a whole new set of challenges arise, from finding labs, to building your team and more.In this episode I talk to Dr. Kärt Tomberg, CEO and co-...
Ruchi Sharma - Innovation in Stem Cells
Would you have the guts to pitch directly to the customer to sell your idea?You need to be prepared to hear no a lot, and learn from the experience to adapt for the next time, to get the yes you need.This was the reality faced by ...
Joel Eichmann: Making cell biology efficient and sustainable
It is a guilty secret that the pharma and biotech industry has a big carbon footprint. Single-use plastics are a huge problem. Sensitive experiments need clean, sterile labware. This has often meant using virgin plastic with little or no recycl...
James Dooley: Transforming clinical treatment of neuroinflammatory conditions
Imagine being able to internalise the pharmaceutical factory into the human.You could avoid the contamination risks and need for purification in biologic production.In this episode I am joined by Dr James Dooley who is doing just ...
Janette Thomas: Delaying ageing to treat chronic diseases
The global population is getting older and with that comes more disease.What if we could delay ageing as a way of treating those diseases?My guest in this episode is Janette Thomas, CEO of Five Alarm Bio Ltd., a drug discovery c...
George Adjabeng: Giving back through Entrepreneurship
Imagine having to climb a mountain every day just to get to school. This was the childhood of my guest George Adjabeng.George Adjabeng grew up in Ghana, the son of subsistence farmers. He excelled at chemistry in school and college, and...
Steve Harvey: Writing DNA, Building a company
What is the future of DNA and gene synthesis?Before the covid pandemic, nucleic acids were mostly research tools. Terms like mRNA vaccines (nucleic acids as clinical agents) were relatively unknown. But since then, RNA and DNA have been...
