access to human organs can you imagine a
world where animals are no longer used
to test new medicines
I normally imagine this world I believe
it I believe it because I have seen a
glimpse of it and I’m here to tell you
what I’ve seen it takes seven to ten
years to develop a new drug and it’s
costing us about three billion dollars
this cause we’re all sharing but do you
know who is the biggest loser here and
who is ultimately paying the highest
price it’s the patient that needs her
medication and keep some waiting and
waiting and realizing that that
medication might not come through that
that medication might fail in the end of
the development process imagine that we
can develop drugs without using animals
we will be able to provide the cancer
patient the patient with Parkinson’s
disease not only with a hope but with a
imagine if I told you that there is a
way to test new medications in human
tissue without using humans would you
believe me well something I something
that we have understood clearly here is
that we are failing but here’s a problem
we are not failing fast enough we’re
failing too late in the development
process but how can we how can we fail
fast well we need better tools to fail
fast and here is where we come in we
have developed 3d bioprinting technology
which allows scientists around the world
to bio-print human tissues and organs on
demand imagine the impact that we can do
together
now these tissues have also have already
found applications applications such as
skin tissue models liver tissue models
it’s already happening today I was
introduced by this to this technology in
2008 I was introduced to the field of
tissue engineering and that’s when I
came to Sweden I was introduced by to my
mentors while pursuing my master’s
degree in biomedical engineering when I
was introduced to this field I knew what
I had to do it was like love at first
sight I just couldn’t see myself doing
something else so I went right at it
mechanical engineer just finished his
bachelor’s no idea about biology
the last biology course I had taken was
back in high school
10th grade all professor all teachers so
I they really listened
and but I knew something I knew that I
just had to be part of this movement and
I wanted to influence it they didn’t
have the tools but I knew I wanted to be
part of it so when I started studying I
showed up to my course biomaterials and
I remember coming into this classroom
similar to this and hearing the material
I couldn’t understand anything what is
this foreign body response blood
coagulation cascade that they’re talking
about it was what what language is this
I do not understand that created in me a
motivation a passion – after classes go
on immerse myself into all the material
I could find whether it was books
getting lost in Wikipedia getting lost
in YouTube in order to absorb as much as
I could to understand something in class
for the second time in my life I felt
lost in that classroom the first time
was as a kindergarten dinner except that
now I knew how to read how to write and
behave maybe so moving to Sweden that
was that led to a series of event
life-changing events and I would die I
will never forget as you can see I was
very excited not only excited I was
committed to learning about tissue
engineering I was passionate but there
was something else besides passion there
wasn’t Drive something I like to call
persistence lessons of persistence I’ve
learned through my parents by watching
them work extremely hard to raise me in
my seven siblings
eight children can you believe that I
don’t know how they did it
I learned lessons of persistence and
perseverance by watching them struggle
by seeing their devotion to us I’ve
never seen anything similar more devoted
individuals I have not seen they were
devoted to one thing providing my
siblings and I a higher education
something that themselves were not
fortunate enough to have my mother for
example she went on sixth grade that’s
what she had to finish her education
that’s all she was able to study
she went over and over again year after
year on the same class sixth grade sixth
grade sixth grade
that was the last class that her village
in that labor school in Mexico could
could afford
now imagine my mom was she loved
education but she just couldn’t have it
back then so she knew something
education is the way for my children to
succeed and they show that by providing
us with the gift of education a gift I
will forever be thankful for I remember
that at some point it was six of us at
university the tuition was getting
higher and so were we
my parents they they they if if I say
struggle is under rated but they have a
vision and they had a dream and they
fought for that dream and now I’m here
today because of them fast forward ten
years and I finished my PhD in tissue
engineering a dream I had since I was
into
in 2008 I was part of this community
I’ve been part of this amazing community
of bioprinting for the past seven years
contributing to this amazing and
ever-growing community into that same
year 2015 I met Erika Donal we started
working the same project meant to be a
short project we quickly realized that
there was something bigger than we were
thinking and we were to our surprise
that ended up to being the foundation of
our company in on January 27 2016
Eric and I founded selling the first
Boeing Company in the world the early
team small team we had our software
wizard Yocum we have our master of coins
goostin aka CFO Eric or Bosman and me
that was the early team it was very
simple it’s been very simple since day
one we focus on customers we focus on
developing products that have a need in
someone’s lab and we just get on the
doing we are doers we believe that the
future is built in the present and the
future belongs to the doers there have
been many times when things get tough of
course it’s a small company small team
there’s friction but there’s always one
thing we keep in mind just keep doing
doing is bigger than perfect you don’t
have to get it ready first and just keep
doing that doing influences your mind in
a way that is so powerful that even if
you lose motivation just by simply doing
will get the motivation back
so we believe that motivation is
overrated 2016 when we launch launch our
company our first product was the
selling buying now that product we found
immediate success we believe that
because already one hour after we
launched this product in our webshop we
got an order and then the next day we
got another order essentially started
building customers started building our
business a few weeks went by a few
months went by and we realized you know
what our market is very small we need to
how do we increase our market how do we
sell more Inc if we’re the bearing
company how do we make business we
realize that the current the situation
back then was the following not many
people could get into this field not
because lack of interest it was because
of money issues lack of capital back
then bioprinters range from 100 to 200
thousand dollars
can you imagine that’s a lot of money
for anyone we said okay if we want to
innovate if we want to be make makeup
truth through effect through difference
we need to get as many people as we can
so we decided to launch the world’s most
cost-effective bioprinter and that
became the incredible back when I was
doing my PhD I built my first bio
printer my professor said you know what
I don’t have that kind of money so
you’re gonna have to build it yourself I
said gladly so I thought you know what I
build it once if they’re gonna look
pretty I was the only user I think I was
the only one that could use it but hey
if I can do it once I can
were twice now at least I know what not
to do right so introducing this product
to the market that really gave us the
the advantage to start moving forward
start conquering lab by lab we we
realized that this was a global market
why because in other in in our small
experiment the first POS the first
orders that came through they were from
different countries we said we hit
something our vision was this we wanted
to start a movement our vision was to
have these premium bioprinters these buy
up offer this vibrant technology to
hundreds thousands of labs around the
world and creating a movement it’s not
easy but it’s well worth it we started
selling our printers our bearings and so
on by the third month of operations we
were already profitable something
unheard of almost in the biotech
industry by month ten ten months after
is fun in the company this was in
November 3rd 2016 we did an IPO again
this was unheard of we were moving so
fast we had so much momentum the vision
was clear we were just running towards
it again doing as you know it takes one
team with the same vision to make things
happen a team that is willing to put the
extra hours to go the extra mile to
accomplish things in our company the
vision is clear the purpose is clear and
it takes individuals with passion that
want to make a difference in this world
and that feel that they can make a
difference in this world my team we’re
close to 40 right now it’s
building a bioprinting community I can
tell you that it has been fun as you can
see here we we travel we go lab to lab
why because we want to educate our
customers we want to educate the public
how bioprinting is done and this takes
education this takes you know going to
to performing this hands-on essentially
the way it works is that you have a bio
ink and you have yourself in a
suspension and you mix these two
components in order to create in order
to suspend yourself in the bearing once
you have the cells homogeneously
embedded in the bearing then it’s ready
to print and you use one of these bio
printers to print the tissue model that
you want to – to print in terms of the
things that we’ve been doing up till now
we’ve been working for example with
human cartilage in the process again you
have a blueprint which is the form of a
human ear you have a bio ink you put the
cells in there and you have a bio
printer the bio printing process of
printing a small human ear it takes
about ten minutes and you can the most
amazing things that you can culture this
printed tissue model with living cells
and you can study them how they behave
again this is an evolving process this
process is not static is a dynamic
process the green in the green dots you
can see in the living cells and you can
see that there they continue to stay
alive during the process was more
impressive is that they are forming a
new tissue they are forming in this case
cartilage tissue as shown by the by the
blue color which is staining positive
for glycosaminoglycans found in
cartilage for example
another interesting area we’ve been
working on heavily skin tissue models
imagine if the possibility of being able
to create skin grafts for for patients
that have suffered burns this is how the
cells look inside in the blue you see
the same the nuclei of the cell the
green is how the cells stretch out this
is a dynamic system evolving system the
cells are adapting to their tissue again
we have a vision and we envision a
future where animals are no longer
needed to test and bring forward new
medicines my dream is to translate this
technology to the pharmaceutical
industry into the clinic simple maybe
not but we we want to bring better
health care treatments to patients in
need this dream we can accomplish
together these are the doors and we can
accomplish this dream by working
together by using our unique expertise
between scientists and companies we are
the biological revolution and it comes
down to one thing we believe that we
need to move in order to see the future
is not that we see the future we need to
move we move in order to see the future
and the future is created in the present
and the future belongs to the doers
thank you [Applause]