Founders

Jarryd Campbell, PhD President and Chief Executive Officer

Jarryd graduated with his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Mayo Clinic in 2016. His graduate school career has been dedicated to developing new genome engineering tools including targeted genome editing for nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. Jarryd is also an early key contributor and former president of Byolincs, an entrepreneurial club dedicated to building a startup community at Mayo Clinic. 

Karl Clark, PhD Chief Science Officer

Dr. Karl Clark has been conducting molecular biology research for over 20 years. Karl received his BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, his PhD in Molecular, Cellular Developmental Biology and Genetics from the University of Minnesota, and he is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Mayo Clinic. As a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Clark co-invented improvements to the Sleeping Beauty transposon system, the premier non-viral gene therapy vector. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Clark joined the gene therapy startup DGI (acquired by Immusoft) and later became a co-founder of Recombinetics. Dr. Clark’s extensive experience in genome engineering includes developing gene delivery platforms and genome modifications like biosensor transgenic zebrafish for real-time detection of hormonal signaling in vivo and gene-break transposons for revertible analysis of gene function.

Stephen Ekker, PhD Chief Financial Officer

Dr. Ekker is Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Mayo Clinic and Adjunct Professor in Genetics, Cell Biology and Development at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Ekker has been conducting genome engineering for 30 years. Ekker is Editor-in-Chief of the Zebrafish journal and Associate Director of the Clinical and Translational Sciences PhD program. Dr. Ekker is also a co-Founder of DGI (acquired by Immusoft), Auric Sciences, and is Chairman of the Board and co-Founder of InSciEd Out Foundation, a non-profit focused on science education reform for a healthier world. Dr. Ekker received bachelor of science degrees (Genetics and Developmental Biology, Electrical Engineering) from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champagne where he conducted genome science work with Dr. Carl Woese. Dr. Ekker earned a PhD in Molecular Biology and Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Ekker was the founding Director of the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center for Transposon Research (now called the Center for Genome Engineering) at the University of Minnesota. The Ekker laboratory has pioneered the use of transposons, morpholino antisense oligonucleotides (including DGI's gene discovery science, Morphant® Technology), targeted genome editing methods including nuclear and mitochondrial programming in zebrafish and other organisms.

Gabriel Martínez-Gálvez

Gabriel has a double degree in Biomedical Engineering and Microbiology from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. He became interested in genome engineering from his desire to predictably program genetic devices into organisms using principles from synthetic biology. He moved to the United States for graduate school and is currently a PhD candidate at the Biomedical Engineering and Physiology program at Mayo Clinic.

Han "Bot" Lee

Han earned BS degrees in human biology and nursing in Minnesota State University, Mankato. He chose to pursue a career in biomedical science with a desire of serving people through scientific research and technology innovations. Han has been involved in technology innovations from genome engineering (Drosophila TALENs) to behavioral assays and genotyping (ASQ genotyping). He is a PhD candidate in the Neurobiology of Disease program at the Mayo Clinic.

early contributors

Cassie Bullard - Postbac Student