Learn how Valley DAO is democratizing access to synthetic biology technologies and solving large systemic problems through the power of community.
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In this Episode
Valley DAO is a community that aims to democratize access to synthetic biology technologies, which refer to the tools and techniques used to design biological systems. Valley DAO's mission is to help scientists with the commercialization pathway, as a lot of research gets stuck in academia or even in the industry. The current innovation ecosystem is inefficient and slow, and Valley DAO has identified three main problems that are slowing it down.
One of the problems is related to how early-stage synthetic biology research is funded. Academics spend around 50% of their time applying for grants when they could have spent that time working in the lab. Grant-giving organizations usually have strict criteria on what kind of research is allowed with these funds, which leads to many high-impact projects not seeing the light of day. Valley DAO sources high-impact academic research projects with very high upside and de-risks them very early on through the different subject matter experts that they source through the community.
The second problem is the gap in the know-how and network and the expertise of these academics to commercialize and translate their research. The tech transfer office at the university is responsible for commercializing the work at universities. But many tech transfer offices have become very bureaucratic and hard for academics to navigate and understand how they actually work. Valley DAO helps academics create a business plan for their work, recruit a C-Suite to rapidly prototype companies, get connected with R&D partners, and ultimately Angels and VCs for later stage funding.
The third problem is the lack of platforms where academics can collaborate in a safe manner without risking their data or their results being breached or being copied by someone else. Valley DAO aims to become a repository for intellectual property, kind of like building blocks where somebody can search for them, find them, sub-license them, and maybe spin out a company. Intellectual property is a really big thing in biotechnology, and the problems with IP are that it's very slow, and how it can be transacted. Valley DAO aims to make intellectual property much more searchable and discoverable.
Valley DAO is an inspiring community that is changing the way we view synthetic biology and the way we approach the innovation ecosystem. They are providing a new way of funding early-stage academic research, and they are creating a safe and collaborative platform for academics to work together. Valley DAO is like a playground for adults, a bazaar where all kinds of things are happening all the time. It's about being intentionally collaborative and working together to achieve something much bigger than an individual. If you are looking for a community of like-minded individuals who are passionate about synthetic biology and creating a better world, then Valley DAO is the place for you.
