Guru sat down with Serghei Glinca, CEO of CrystalsFirst. In this interview, Serghei sheds lights on CrystalsFirst's innovative technology for stabilizing the protein crystal, challenges that come with starting a new business, the need for entrepreneurship in today's world and much more!

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Stabilizing protein crystals 

CrystalsFirst uses technology to rapidly accelerate the whole process from the protein crystal to the 3d structure by stabilizing the protein crystal. It’s very hard to obtain protein crystals and harder to stabilize them so this critical technology allows CrystalsFirst to accelerate the whole process by a factor of 10.

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Why does CrystalsFirst screen the protein crystals directly?

In a typical physical functional assay, the readout is a binary yes or no. But by screening the protein crystals directly they can also obtain the “where” and “how” regarding the binding in the readout on the crystallographic screen. Serghei enlightens us that there are rules behind the stability of protein crystals that nobody would have expected and their technology uncovers those rules

Innovative approaches often lead to amazing realizations

CrystalsFirst has always put protein crystals first. This was validated by a publication by Boehringer. Serghei tells us that when you have an innovative approach or technology, you often hear that's not the status quo, but if you're persistent and stay in the game you'll see that you're ahead of the curve.

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Challenges that come with starting a business

Serghei reflects on the difficulties involved with starting a business.

It’s a tough journey and you’ll have to constantly reinvent yourself by adjusting your priorities on a weekly basis.

This is no easy task so he cautions us to think twice before jumping into it. 

Entrepreneurship in the scientific world is an imperative need of our time.

Serghei is optimistic that we’ll be seeing a rise of scientist entrepreneurs that will be able to manage all facets of their business.  Being knowledgeable about science and having the ability to code will go hand-in-hand with business research and marketing skills.

Difference between scientific and business ambition

Serghei talks about how scientific ambition is different from business ambition.

In science, you have to uncover something unknown which requires a lot of doubting the known. In business, you leverage the known and try to make it better.

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Advice to bio entrepreneurs

Serghei offers valuable advice for future bio entrepreneurs by suggesting that there are not many places on earth where there is an oversupply of funds, so if you have a chance to move to any of these places/hubs, you should definitely do it. This will help you evolve your company much faster.