Supporting sustainable entrepreneurship in the life sciences
Chris Lowe, Emeritus Professor (right) is pictured with David Holden-White
“Life sciences are the founding stone of entrepreneurship, the key to growing the economy and society” explains Darrin Disley, Chief Executive and Co-founder of Horizon Discovery Group, a translational genomics company credited with bringing about an era of personalised medicine.
Darrin, a postgraduate of the Institute of Biotechnology at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, has established the Christopher R Lowe Carpe Diem Enterprise Programme, named in recognition of his mentor and PhD supervisor.
Darrin explains why he was keen for the programme to fund Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE) and Technology and Enterprise Club (CUTEC), as well as student bursaries: “I want to build a culture and confidence amongst students of developing and sustaining inspiring enterprises – to enable them to both start and grow Cambridge-based companies that they’re proud of, not just ones that they want to sell,” he says.
“Cambridge gave me this confidence, it changed my life. The biggest change was socially, the culture – at Cambridge it’s about [personal] growth, about developing confidence in students by exposing them to different people across all different backgrounds”.
An enthusiasm for enterprise
Chris Lowe, Emeritus Professor of Biotechnology, is still to be found behind a desk at the Institute despite retiring recently. Disley describes him as “the only one doing entrepreneurship, a pariah who started spinning companies out” when he joined as a PhD student in 1991.
And he’s still at it, with an impressive list of successful start-up stories to his name. He personally interviews every applicant for the Masters in Bioscience Enterprise programme, to check that they have the ambition and motivation needed to sustain his impressive track record and portfolio.
It is important for us that we produce high-quality postgraduates. The secret to our success is choosing good people who have that extra something – are they going to make a difference to the planet?
The value of bursaries
One of these is David Holden-White (pictured with Emeritus Professor Lowe), who abandoned a blossoming career as a patent trainee attorney to join the 2014 MBE cohort. He says: “I wanted to be involved in innovation, in creating biotech ideas, not on the periphery, passively representing others’ innovations! But coming out of a paid job and back in to education is difficult. Thankfully, I received a bursary, so have been able to pursue the MBE – without it, I would have struggled. It’s the enterprise aspect of the programme which is really exciting to me – I had all these ideas before, going round in my head but not going anywhere. The MBE programme really gives my ideas shape and form.”
Professor Lowe observes: “When I first came here, technology transfer took place over a cup of tea in a back room… This morning a former MBE student who has just secured a million-dollar contract phoned me to ask me how he should go about dealing with it.” His legacy is clear, and it doesn’t look likely that he will be slowing down any time soon.
Further reading
Read more about the impact of giving to Cambridge
Stay informed
For regular updates about the impact of giving to Cambridge, follow @yourscambridge on Twitter.
This impact story is part of
Giving opportunities
Philanthropic giving is at the heart of the success of the Collegiate University, enabling us to make discoveries that change the world and to ensure that our students receive an unrivalled education.
