When Stuart Fraser looked at the tech his physicist colleague Marcella showed him – a two-nanometer carbon layer that could bind biomolecules with unprecedented strength – he immediately recognised its world-changing potential. 'If I didn't commercialise this, it would be a tremendous waste for society,' he recalls thinking.
That moment transformed Fraser from a redundant academic to the founder of Culturon, an Australian biotech company revolutionising how we attach biomolecules to surfaces. Alongside Research and Business Development Manager Bailey Logan, Stuart is tackling problems ranging from diagnostic testing to agricultural innovation with their elegantly simple, cool plasma treatment technology.
At its core, Culturon solves a mundane but crucial problem: laboratory plastic plates hate the expensive proteins scientists try to put on them. They've unlocked extraordinary capabilities by using cold plasma to create an ultra-thin carbon coating that forms incredibly strong bonds with any – proteins, DNA, complex sugars, or fats – without chemical linkers. Moreover, these plates and products can be stored at room temperature for months, eliminating costly cold shipping and expanding access to remote areas – reducing both the economic and environmental footprint associated with doing science.
What began as a solution for lab diagnostics has blossomed into applications spanning multiple industries. From enhancing seed germination and creating simple soil carbon measurement tools for farmers to developing potential alternatives to harmful PFAS chemicals in cookware, Culturon demonstrates the power of platform technologies. Like the beginning of infinity, every new collaboration reveals unexpected possibilities.
Fraser and Logan's journey highlights how curiosity-led transdisciplinary innovation can create exponential value. 'Scientists, artists and people of faith are all trying to explain the world, but we just do it with different tools,' Fraser observes. In Culturon's case, these tools strive to create a future where diagnostics are more accessible, agricultural practices are more sustainable, and waste is significantly reduced.
Ready to explore how surface technology could transform your field? Discover what happens when brilliant minds cross disciplines and challenge conventional thinking.
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If you have an idea that has the potential to support the thriving of people and the planet, get in contact! We'd love to help you bring your bio-led idea to life.
Otherwise, join our online community of innovators and change-makers
andrew Gray, we'll delve deepinto the intersection of biology
, technology and society throughthe lens of complexity and
(00:22):
systems thinking.
Join us on a journey ofdiscovery as we explore how
transdisciplinary innovation,informed by life's regenerative
patterns and processes, couldhelp us catalyze a transition
towards a thriving future forpeople and the planet.
Hello and welcome to anotherepisode of the Strange Attractor
(00:48):
.
It's been a busy couple ofmonths for us getting this new
site at Notting Hill up andrunning.
It's got a couple of eventscoming up soon as well the
(01:09):
launch event and an event withMPN Network about supporting,
starting and scaling bio-ledventures in the Monash precinct,
as well as an event with theAustralian SynBio Challenge crew
.
So it's all happening and, yeah, I guess that's a big part of
why we've been delayed on thepodcast front.
Anyway, now that that littlePSA is sorted, yeah, on to
(01:33):
today's guest.
So this time around we sat downwith Stuart Fraser and Bailey
Logan from Culturon.
Stuart is the founder ofCulturon and the CEO, and Bailey
is the research and businessdevelopment manager for Culturon
.
So we've been involved,supporting, helping from the
(01:58):
sidelines and within the ringthe development of Culturon
pretty much from the get-go.
So this has been a long timecoming, sitting down to have a
chat and partake in this podcast.
We think that the tech ispretty amazing and has some
pretty large implications for somany different fields of
(02:20):
research, which is why I wasreally excited to get to sit
down and have a chat about whatthey're up to.
Yeah, who knows?
Hopefully we can um supportthem in the future.
Anyway, enough of that, enoughof me talking.
Uh, enjoy this conversationwith stewart and bailey from
culture on all righty.
So here we are again.
(02:46):
We're back, never been herebefore, back again, back again,
but never been here before Ilike it, so when's the concert?
Um?
Speaker 4 (02:56):
he's going to do.
You gonna do it for tonight.
I'm very excited, but you wentto do a leap in Portugal last
year.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It's very fun I just
would never know most people
wouldn't, especially when all myother music's just country
music.
Yeah, do a special spot, do alittle what, what is the
interest or what is that I mean?
I can't say that on the radio.
Oh, that's a great start therewe go no love of music.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Lots of good memories
at our concert, so nice no,
that's good to hear.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
So I guess it
probably we should start with
who we have in the room todayfor um, this podcast.
So, um, welcome stewart frFraser and welcome Bailey Logan.
Thank you, thanks.
Yeah, it's the dynamic duo fromculture on.
(03:50):
Yeah, I mean, I could saythings, but I'd rather not maybe
if we just, steward, did youwant to give us a bit of a
background?
Speaker 3 (04:00):
yeah, stuart Fraser,
I am the founder and CEO of
Coldron.
We're about three years old.
We'll turn three next month.
That's wild.
Yeah, I know because you knewus from the start.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Yeah, from when the
egg was first in the nest,
exactly.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
No, we're a biotech
company that specializes in
making amazing surfaces forpeople to grow cells on.
Make new diagnostics with youknow for the best surfaces in
the world.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
I love that.
I'm sure you can back that upwith evidence.
Yeah, tons of it, yeah moreevery day no, I know it's a,
it's a.
It's actually such an amazingconcepts.
I'm super keen to go there.
And Bailey, yeah, baileyiley,yeah I'm bailey.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
I'm cultron's
research and business
development manager.
Um been with cultron for twoyears now, I think.
Uh, and me and stewart metright at the start of cultron, I
think, um, which is like threeyears ago in a couple weeks,
it's exciting grown a lot sincethen.
So it's a really exciting placeto work and got a lot going on
(05:07):
we have like another projectevery time I chat with you guys.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah there is yeah, I
mean because we're a platform
technology, so we like makingthings that other people can
then add on to create more value, and going off in all sorts of
directions with people who areexperts in what they're
interested in yeah, no, it makessense once, once we get there
it absolutely makes sense whythat's the case and it's
(05:32):
exciting to see you know we canspeak to
Speaker 1 (05:34):
it in the chat later
on if you'd like.
Just like it's exciting, seeeven the potential
collaborations that are poppingup with like Co labs members as
well.
But yeah, I guess before wefully dive into it, this is
actually quite an interestingjourney, I guess from you know
your background at uni and thenmaking that transition.
So I just thought it might bereally interesting to get a bit
(05:57):
of a reason like let's let'sgive a little bit of context to
where you were and where you arenow and why that was such like
a big sort of transition in yourlife yeah, how far back do you
want to go?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
I guess I was
thinking about it and I had
quite a conventional nerdchildhood.
I think I was the kid who satand read the encyclopedia in the
corner quietly whilst hisbrother created havoc.
And then I'd just go and ridemy bike with all my mates and
(06:29):
we'd ride up into the dandenongsor down to frankston and then
suddenly realized the sun wasgoing down and had to get back
to glenway, didn't really careand um no, it was just.
I wanted to be a researcher.
From as young as I can remember.
Even I had no idea what thatmeant.
But I just I wanted to be aresearcher.
From as young as I can remember.
I had no idea what that meant,but I just always wanted to do
science and I think it's agenetic thing.
(06:52):
As an academic, I used to havestudents come into the lab and
they would vary from.
I hate it.
I hate the smell.
I want to get out right away topeople who I'd have to turf out
so I could go home.
So I think it's a bit of agenetic thing.
Loving labs, hmm, yes, I grewup in.
I was born in Perth, grew up inGlen Waverley, went to Monash,
(07:15):
did an undergrad in immunologyand pathology and, yeah, when I
was a teenager I think I reallystarted to work out what I liked
.
I remember watching LivingPlanet by David Attenborough and
just seeing the beautifulhelicopter shots of Maui and the
Hawaiian Islands covered inliving things.
(07:37):
It just always amazed me How'stheir life everywhere?
How is there life everywhere?
And my mum used to actuallysend me along to Double Helix,
which was the kids CSIRO scienceclub, which is pretty nerdy.
She was nerdy.
My mum would happily drop meoff and then come back a few
(08:01):
hours later, having goneshopping or something.
Something fun distracted me.
Yeah, I was just superinterested in it.
Don't know why my marks weren'tthat good in science.
My marks are really good inhistory in English.
Sorry, all my teachers thoughtI was gonna be a journalist, but
I just didn't find it verychallenging.
(08:21):
And science I actually wasn'tvery good at at least chemistry
and physics.
Terrible at maths, basicallyinnumerate.
Relatable.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, it's something
I've come to learn, yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
But I am good at
working out how cells operate
and how the body comes togetherand how biomolecules work.
I can model that quite well inmy head.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I think that's and
that's some.
This is a really importantpoint.
I think a lot of people tend toassume that science is very
reductionist, ik and verymechanical.
But when you're getting toliving systems, there is like a
level of like that intuitionabout understanding concepts and
how things work and being ableto play that in your mind and
(09:09):
being able to understand it in away that's not easy to
translate or explain with words,but you're like I think this
will work and I I could.
I don't know the equation, butI can understand it and I feel
like if we can prototype that,then maybe you know something
good will come from that.
Um, I feel like so many of thebest scientists have that I
think one thing that isn'tappreciated is science is
(09:31):
unbelievably creative I agree.
I say that it's theunderrepresented creative class
I, yeah, I love that yeah I feel, creative.
Speaker 4 (09:42):
And underrepresented.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Waiting for that
second part.
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I was tempted to say
that, but as a middle-aged white
male I can't really say that.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
No, no, you can't,
but at least you can use that
privilege that comes from thatposition to do something cool in
the world.
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
And so the way I kind
of see it is scientists,
artists and people of faith areall trying to explain the world,
but we just do it withdifferent tools.
So artists do it throughemotion, through conveying
emotion, People of faith do itthrough faith and scientists do
it through evidence of thingsthat we can quantify, count and
(10:20):
understand.
I think we all work togetherreally well to explain the world
that we live in, which ispretty tricky to understand.
So I find that really excitingthen, I find modeling how cells
behave in my head very, veryintriguing.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
I think cells are
quite amazing, especially when
you grow, say, stem cells, whichI've spent 30 years doing it is
quite a fascinating thing whenyou realize that nothing else in
the universe self assembles inthe same way that a cell does
and reproduces right, this, thisauto poetic nature which is
like for those who don't know,it's like self authoring,
(11:01):
essentially, if you take thosetwo words, but that is like a
fundamental tenant of life, andthe cell is like the smallest
unit that can do that, and it's,it's so amazing what can come
from this, and like the contextof the environment that you put
it in and then you can getdifferent results right yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
So I love that word
poesis that you just raised with
autopoetic.
So for about 30 years I've beenworking on hematopoetic or
hematopoesis, which is, how doyou produce blood from nothing.
So poesis is this beautifulGreek word which kind of means
the production of something, andit used to refer to glory.
Someone goes through poesis todevelop as a person and develop
(11:43):
their own character and andachieve glory.
Now we use it kind ofseparately from genesis, which
is the very first thing.
How do we then keep thatproduction going or something.
So I've studied hematopoieticstem cells for, yeah, about 30
plus years.
They're the ones in the bonemarrow that make two million new
red blood cells a second.
(12:04):
The ones in the bone marrowthat make two million new red
blood cells a second, which iskind of mind-blowing.
Yep, how do we do that?
And then, yeah, I did a lot ofmodeling with stem cells in a
dish and how we turn them intodifferent things.
And then it kind of all cametogether where I could take
someone's blood, take the whiteblood cells, turn them into stem
cells, turn those stem cellsinto different things like
(12:26):
nerves or beating heart muscle.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
In addition, try and
work out what the genetic
disease was doing and find thebest drugs for it hmm, yeah,
it's kind of mind-blowing, butreally fun yeah, I mean, I can
just see how like that sort ofwork leads into there's quite a
lot of members that we supportthat working in that space and
working with stem cells, andit's just such a fascinating and
(12:49):
rich area for development,whether it's cultivated meat,
whether it's organoids thatcould be used to do biological
computation.
There's so much that seems tobe emerging from this space.
It was primarily initiallyresearched from a very like med
tech health tech angle, but verymuch just seeing it spiral out
and I guess, in a way, that thatis where this venture has kind
(13:15):
of come from right.
It was like realizing that thiscould be in service to so many
people in the ecosystem, which Ithink is really cool.
So, yeah, did you want to speakto?
How?
I guess?
How did you come across thistechnology?
Technology?
Speaker 3 (13:29):
yes, I've got a great
colleague at the University of
Sydney, professor Marcel Abilic.
She's an amazing physicist andengineer and actually the first
time I was introduced to her,another colleague he, who's a
specialist in the circulareconomy was trying to find a way
to reuse the bone of cuttlefishand what he wanted to do was
(13:54):
treat it with um marcella'stechnology and then grow a
metapodic or blood stem cells onit, hematopoietic or blood stem
cells on it.
So that was how, how can wereuse cuttlefish bone to um give
people new therapies?
Unfortunately, it turns outthat cuttlefish bone has a
secret compartment that bacterialive in and they just get
(14:16):
popping out and contaminatingeverything constantly.
And when we tried autoclavingthem they just fell apart.
But Marcella and I startedworking together.
So Marcella's got some reallyspectacular technology.
It's based on plasma, so this isworking.
It confusing for people who doknow me as a blood person,
because this plasma has nothingto do with blood.
(14:36):
It's the false state of matterin the end, and it's actually
for pub trivia questions, if youget ever asked what's the most
common form of matter?
Plasma.
99.9% Plasma is ionized gas andall of the stars are plasma and
the universe is made up ofstars.
So the way the physicistskindly explain it is you take a
(15:01):
solid like ice, put some energylike heat, heat into it.
You'll get a liquid More energy.
You'll get a gas More energy.
And we use an electric fieldand you'll get a plasma.
So we really reduce things toits basic ionic form in a gas.
And then what Marcella found wasshe could put different
(15:21):
surfaces in and get anincredibly thin layer of carbon
on the bottom and that layer ofcarbon could bind to any
biomolecule we put on, andextremely strongly, so we
couldn't wash it off.
And that strangely, thatobscure little fact is now
(15:42):
revolutionizing how we deal withmaking new diagnostics and new
cell culture surfaces and cellagriculture and all of those
kind of things and, I guess,interesting and important
because of the role that carbonplays as, like, the most
important backbone of life,right?
Speaker 1 (16:00):
so being able to have
a carbon surface which you can
bind things to, it's just likethat.
It's a naturally something thatis binding to so many other
different things in, so it'ssuch a it's like a having a
piece of Lego that can kind ofclick into any other Lego piece,
right?
Speaker 3 (16:16):
absolutely so, and
this is carbon.
It's two nanometers thick, sotwo one billionths of a meter
thick, incredibly thin, and it'sbasically graphite.
We think.
We're not exactly sure, maybeit's a little bit wavy form of
graphite, but what it has in itis that in graphite, so,
(16:37):
carbon's got four electrons thatcan bind to its neighbors.
And then in diamond you'll haveall four binding and that's why
it's super strong.
In graphite, three bind totheir neighbors and there's one
that's kind of free and that'sthe one that we use to bind to
proteins or DNA or anybiomolecule hmm, interesting and
(17:00):
okay.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
so I really want to
weave you into this conversation
, else youales you can weaveaway.
We will get there.
We will get there, I guess so,from this collaboration.
So this was a research projectthat you first met on and then
you were like hang on a minute,this is amazing.
There's something here.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I said to Marcella
well, there's all of this field
of stem cell biology thatdesperately needs what you've
got.
And she said I've never heardabout it.
I said, well, I know about it.
And so we came from very I mean, everyone would think, yeah,
you're all scientists, but wecome from very, very different
fields, where Marcella'sthinking about atoms and carbon
(17:44):
and all sorts of things and I'mthinking about how cells can
turn into useful things this is.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
This is key, because
this is something that I speak
of all the time when I speakabout um, transdisciplinary
innovation and like, even if youjust think of this as the
metaphor of like ecosystemsright, so, the most biodiverse
regions are overlappingecosystems, which is called an
eco tone.
That's where you get the mostvibrancy of life, all this
different innovation in livingsystems and forms of being in
(18:12):
the world.
And innovation is no different,like, the most innovative
things come from the overlappingof areas.
And, to your point, yeah, sure,a scientist, but such a
different training, such adifferent way of looking at the
world, and most of the bestinnovations, I think, do come
from taking a wider boundaryperspective of how this fits
(18:32):
into other areas and othercontexts, and I just think this
is such a prime example of thatsort of thinking yeah, so we're
both in our silos and thensomeone with cuttlefish bone
came along and said can you talkto each other and try and work
something out?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Cuttlefish.
And we're like what.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Bringing people
together.
Oh, that's great.
And then so from that moment,like because we caught up with
you when you were still teaching, right.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yep, yep, yep.
So I was an academic for about30 years and, yeah, I was at the
University of Sydney inphysiology for nearly a dozen
years.
Due to things going on in COVID, most of my department got made
redundant.
Sorry, our positions got maderedundant, sorry, our positions
(19:24):
got made redundant.
And just at that time, marcellahad put in to the university
about this technology as aninvention and the university
chose not to support it to goforward, and so I had a
redundancy payout and I wasn'tgoing back to physiology and I
was actually going to become abarista, move to Cairns and
(19:46):
write the great Australian novelwhich I'm about 80,000 words
through.
I'll get there one day andinstead I started a biotech
company.
Yeah, For better or for worse.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Well, that's no.
I think it's such aninteresting journey around being
able to perceive something andgo.
You know what I'm gonna?
Speaker 3 (20:08):
I'm gonna back it,
I'm gonna as soon as marcella
showed me the invention, I waslike I actually texted her and I
said, if I ever start a company, this is it.
I think that was 2019.
Um, I just thought, wow, thepotential here is just enormous.
Um, and you know, fortunatelynow actually that technology is
else, so we have the pattern forit, which is exciting so this
(20:33):
transitioning from academia to astartup founder now I know that
your pathway is a little lesslike this.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Let's say that it's a
bit more of a break between
right.
It's like a clear okay, there'sno more work here, and then now
a startup comes.
Now, but, but still, it is atransition from one way of being
in the world to a verydifferent way of being in the
world.
So I'm super curious, I guess,like what was your experience in
(21:01):
figuring this out and was thereany, I guess, turning points or
moments that significantly haveimpacted your worldview and
your approach to, I guess,leadership as well?
Going from you know, teachingpeople, it's a very different
style of being it is, butthere's a couple of things.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
One is freedom, with
guidelines to get the best out
of people.
That's one thing I worked outwith teaching thousands of
students is that if you can getthem doing their own teaching to
themselves, then it'll alwaysbe the best type, and so I
always gave people really goodguidelines.
And then freedom to choosethings, and that leads people
(21:43):
along a path of self-learningand self-development where I
don't have to tell people whatto do.
In the end, I just give lots ofguidelines.
Um, the other thing was I was a.
I was a research and teachingacademic and so I had my own lab
and had many research studentshad ras um so I had in a way
(22:07):
kind of a proto small businessset up.
In fact, all laboratoryresearch labs are small
businesses because you have toget money in to fund it.
You have to get an output.
It's a different kind of output.
It's not a commercial product,but it's a research product yeah
, it rhymes right.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
There's similar
patting and processes that are
going on.
It's just that there might be adifferent way of relating to
resources, which might be alittle bit different once you're
a organization.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
It's not like oh, I
can just tap into that five
million dollar piece of kitthat's sitting over there now
yeah with relative ease yeah, Iwould say, academia is nowhere
near as free as people say youhave to do what you can get the
money to do the project on.
In what we're doing, I meancultrum's doing science.
(22:57):
Every day we have people fromaround the world reaching out to
us.
We're solving problems.
I do far more science now thanI was when I was an academic,
because I'm not doing admin itsounds like more like a also
like a co-design process ofscience.
Speaker 1 (23:11):
So, rather than like
we have this hypothesis or this
hunch, or like this is a fieldof research that we're trying to
further with funding, it's likehow might we apply this?
It's like a yeah, like aco-design with someone else who
has a challenge area as well aslike bringing in that design
early approach to iterating andprototyping.
Not necessarily going I needmore data to do the same thing a
(23:33):
hundred times in a row, butlike it's a it's a massive
co-design process, and that'swhat I find incredibly exciting.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
Hmm, we do have
companies, universities,
agencies from around the worldright now that reach out to us
and with specific problems.
They say you know, this is whatwe're struggling with.
Can you help?
And so far we've been up noweveryone?
I think no.
I think women and and now we'rediversifying into many
different other fields that we'dnever predict predicted,
(24:05):
including with people at Co labshe's very exciting.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
No, I look forward to
getting there, bailey yes oh,
you've been watching this like atennis match back and forward.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
Oh yeah, that's right
because I've heard I've
obviously heard Stewart do theyou know academic, 30 years,
redundant startup, but it's not.
We've never kind of gone intowhat it actually took to go from
academia to running a startup.
I'm a bit lucky to have beenthere quite early and some known
kind of what a few of thedifferences are, where the
(24:39):
issues are.
I think a lot of it's been likehow you would communicate in a
lab, yeah, and to students andto other academics.
Compared to in just aprofessional world, it's quite
different yeah out.
Here you can be a lot moredirect, yeah, which is really
refreshing.
It's very good, and there's notthis overarching kind of
grandiose ness of academia thatyou have to appeal to I think
(25:03):
there's.
Speaker 3 (25:03):
There's one thing I
like in business, which is when
I tell people what we do, theyeither say, oh, that's, that
sounds very exciting, butnothing to do with us, best of
luck.
Or and we're getting this moreand more that sounds super
exciting.
That could really help us.
We want to talk with you it'seither those two.
It's not like oh, you're athreat to my career development
(25:27):
of the university, so I don'tlike yeah, whoever you are, or
every person you talk to is adirect competitor.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Yeah, it doesn't
happen.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
It's such a shame
that that's what's happened with
academia.
Like I see it as a like a trulylike a kind of thing what the
appropriate word is a sacredthing like a pursuit of
knowledge and trying tounderstand the world better so
they can benefit everyone, notjust humans, but the more than
human world as well, and it butit does feel like it's become
very bureaucratic, overfinancialized and maybe focusing
(25:59):
on outputs or outcomes whichactually are not in service to
the whole or the people who area part of it yeah, I think the
the educational aspect and theresearch aspect has really
diminished and now it's a quitea bit of empire building by
management.
I would go off on a rant on that, but it's an important like
(26:20):
look, it's not because I'mdissing it, because I don't like
it.
I I love the concept of theuniversity, I love the concept
of academia, but it does feeloverly bureaucratic now and it
feels very stifling and quite alot, quite frankly, like a lot
of the best and brightest mindsfeel like they're being caged in
they're tuning out, they'rereally, they're walking off
(26:41):
they're walking away.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
they're getting burnt
out, which is really a shame,
because I'm a strong believerthat our universities are our
centre of innovation.
I agree, what they're not thecentre of is how to take that
innovation into the bigger world.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
And that's an
important point around the
genesis versus the poesis.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
To bring it back to a
point we mentioned before yeah,
yeah, the universities aregenesis, exactly, and start-ups
are to bring it back to a pointwe mentioned before, yeah, yeah,
and it's like genesis exactly,and startups are poises.
I, I love that man.
That's a great.
That's a t-shirt, that's right,let's start.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Let's put it there.
So, speaking of you know,stewart and colteron and the
genesis, and then bailey comingalong as well and supporting the
poesis of the keeping thethings going like.
Talk me through this when didyou come into the team and then
(27:33):
how's the experience been foryou as well?
Because I mean, it was prettymuch like straight out of uni.
Yeah, startup startup.
Speaker 4 (27:40):
So I guess when, like
me and Stewart, the journey it
is probably quite similar.
You know, undergrad biochem,then did a bit of research.
I only did a year of researchand then I had my master's in
biotech at Melbourne and thatwas all about commercialising
science because I guess,finishing my bachelor's I didn't
(28:00):
know if I wanted to do researchor anything like that.
I felt a little bit like itwould lock you into an area that
you'd struggle to get out of.
I think that's pretty true fromwhat I've been hearing from
other people.
But so I did you know somethingdifferent, focus on
commercializing science.
And it just clicked to me thatyou could have these really
(28:20):
simple ideas that are actuallyquite like complex to expand and
get out to a commercial product.
And so I met stewart at anothercompany consulting for another
company through go labs again,yeah, shout out, um.
And then I think we just we gotalong quite easily, um, and
(28:40):
from there it was just we weredoing similar things at that
company, focusing on translatingscience into an actual product
and how do you test that and howdo you prove it to people.
And then it kind of finished upa bit sooner than we probably
both expected and Stuart'sculture was kicking off a little
bit.
(29:00):
There was a lot of interest,but there was also a lot of work
for just Stuart to be doing.
There was a lot of interest um,but there was also a lot of work
for just do it to be doing,yeah, um, and I think not
dissing or anything, but therewas a lot that you didn't know
how to do?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
yeah, enormously, and
that's why you were a great
addition right at the start,because you had that interest in
commercialization that I wasdeveloping because I had to, but
you had that from the start.
Well, I hope so Well you did.
That's why we brought you on.
Speaker 4 (29:31):
Yeah, and it's been
from there.
The amount of learning I'vedone in Cultron compared to what
we actually got in New News,it's insane.
You're really thrown into thedeep end at a startup and it's
very quick, really fast-paced.
But it's pretty rewarding aswell, like every single decision
or piece of work that you makedirectly impacts the company and
(29:55):
how you're A perceived and howsuccessful you're going to be in
the long run, and I think sofar we've done a pretty good job
.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I think we have yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:03):
Quite a lot of
roadblocks, hurdles along the
way, but I think we're in aposition now, especially now
that things are going to takeoff and you know people will
hear about it soon.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Yeah, I mean, I think
we had a bit of a crunch point
about this time last year.
Yeah, I remember when mybootstrapping efforts were
running out out um and baileywas actually instrumental in
getting our first investmentsand that changed everything.
Once I could hire great peoplewho and each one of the hires
(30:38):
have really brought verydifferent things on board, and
we've had kind of an unusualprocess for hiring people, which
is we actually get to know themfirst and like them as people
and then see how their skillsets fit in, rather than looking
for a skill set and bringingsomeone in for it?
Speaker 1 (30:59):
yeah, I totally.
I get that.
I think as well.
Like, um, this sort of work isso relational, right, and you
can look great on paper, but howdo you show up day to day?
Can I have a?
Like?
The reason I knew you guys weregoing to end up doing something
was because you wouldn't stopcracking jokes all the time and
you're constantly laughing rightthen.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Our business meetings
are just strangely enjoyable.
We have meetings at 11 o'clockat night with people in europe
and we're all laughing 5 am inthe morning, 5 am in the morning
, and you know with california.
And why are we laughing?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
it was just like I
thought this was going to be
harder I think when you are ahuman and look, look, everything
that we're doing in the startupspace is incredibly difficult
and challenging, if you're notlaughing and enjoying the
journey and finding ways torelate to the inordinate amounts
of suffering that come fromtrying to do something new, like
(31:56):
you may as well not do it.
I think you have to have thatsense of humor.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
We're not digging
coal out, though we're not
suffering that much.
I mean, there's stress thatgoes on our shoulders, yeah, but
in the end of the day we can doour very best.
We can design things as well aswe can and we think we have a
very good chance of success.
But you know, we're not diggingcoal.
I'm not suffering physicallyanymore.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yes, Well, that's
good.
It's good to know Like it'syeah, when I use it.
I don't mean it in a crazysense, but it's um, yeah, when I
use it.
I don't mean it in the in acrazy sense, but it's definitely
a different experience and aheightened level of pressure
versus any other role whereyou're not the ones in complete
control like.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Well, that that's it.
You know, there's an amazingstudy about cardiac death in
british bureaucrats.
This is one thing I rememberfrom my teaching of physiology.
It's called the Whitehall study, and what they actually found
was the people who died ofcardiac problems.
We're not the top bureaucrats.
They weren't the ones at thebottom, though, the ones right
(33:05):
in the middle, where they weregetting harangued from each side
, all sides, yeah, in us orwithout, with culture on and
with startups.
It's the only pressure that wedevelop is upon ourselves
largely, and the major, themajor pressure I think we have
is imagining what we want tolook like in one month, 12
(33:30):
months, years, and we reallyhone that we know what we want
to be, and then it's justreverse engineering to get there
, and that's actually a lot lessstressful when you can see the
lights on the pathway of whereto go.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
And in a way it's
like kind of creating like a
telos, like something that'spulling you forward towards that
, rather than not necessarilyknowing where to go.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
And again, that goes
back to the super creative side
of science where you have to.
You have to time travel in yourmind to five years in the
future and say what's thatproject gonna look like when
it's all done, what's theproduct going to be in our case,
instead of what's thepublication or what's the
student's thesis and thenreverse engineer it and it's
(34:22):
actually really calming becauseit's not that you're stumbling
around in the dark.
You've got some lights in thepathway, in the aisle, in the
airplane as it's going down toland safely to land safely.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yes, um, on that note
, like I was going to save this
for a little bit later, but I'mhappy to just go there now.
Like what is your vision forthe future?
Like we haven't even got to,like what the plasma treated
surfaces like truly are and whythat's useful for biomolecular
mobilization, but like what isyour vision for the future?
Speaker 3 (35:01):
maybe we can then
backwards step yeah, so I I
guess I can.
That moment that marcellabillick showed me the invention
and I could see how it could beused all around the world to
improve everything fromdiagnostics through to growing
cells, through to many forms ofwhat we do behind the scenes in
(35:21):
science, and I could justimmediately see that we could
become the gold standard thateveryone using these kind of
plastic plates which are used.
there's millions every day beingused.
We could help reduce waste, wecould help answer questions
faster, we can convert thingsfrom you know, petrochemical
(35:45):
plastics through to corn-basedplastics and just make
everything that lab scientistsin the biomedical field are
doing just faster, easier,better, more scientifically
robust.
And the main thing I thoughtwas if I didn't commercialize
this, it would be a tremendouswaste for society, to be honest,
(36:07):
because the technology was justso epic and it has so many
repercussions to improve lifethat if I didn't do it, it would
be, yeah, a real waste.
And so that's why I'm notwriting the great Australian
rule.
In cans also, the the statelines went down cheering covert,
(36:30):
so I couldn't buy thatapartment in Cairns.
That's actually one thing thatstopped me from you know, folks
in the road, kind of thing gosh,I'm just picturing you up there
now sitting on a rocking chairjust writing this novel.
Oh yeah, it's a mullet, ofcourse, yeah, absolutely yeah.
No one would read the book,it'd just be awful.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
So I guess, with this
tech now I know that there are
some other things that make it abit more unique, like this has
been demonstrated on flatsurfaces.
But I guess, like when you'relooking at, I guess, the things
that you're using thistechnology on, it's not a flat
surface, right?
(37:15):
No?
Speaker 3 (37:16):
so basically our
technology is trying to solve
one problem that it's just notglamorous at all, it's really
mundane.
But behind the scenes there'stens of thousands of biomedical
scientists who are using plasticplates that have little worlds
in them and in each well theymight put something to measure
whether someone's got COVID orwhether they've got a problem in
(37:39):
their blood or cancer cells orall sorts of things.
And we also use them for growingcells, for a whole range of
stuff, for stem cell therapies,for immunotherapies, for
cellular agriculture.
All of these things.
And it's just the mundane bitis that that plastic hates the
expensive proteins that we'reputting on it will just destroy
(38:02):
most of them instantly and wejust put this incredibly thin
coating of carbon on that willgrab them very strongly,
basically make them part of thematerial, part of the well plate
, and then they can be stored,uh, very easily at room
temperature.
Cut down on all the packagingfor cold shipping.
You know some companies arespending millions of dollars on
(38:24):
polystyrene boxes and ice packsto ship things around the world.
We're keen on making tests thatcan go to rural and regional
Australia without any coldshipping whatsoever.
Work beautifully on a farm,those kind of things.
So it's.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
It's just a better
way of sticking molecules on,
but it actually has hugerepercussions so just to double
click on that, so your techreduces the need for chemical
linkers which is no chemicallinkers.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah, there's no
chemistry, no other chemicals
involved.
It's our plates with the carboncoating and your, your protein
or your DNA or your fatmolecules with where the first
in the world to put reallycomplex sugars that you find on
the outside of bacteria or yeastso that we can put them on.
Okay, we can put on things likehyaluronic acid, which you
(39:16):
might have heard about in thecosmetic industry.
I was going to say it's on myface.
It does not surprise me, it'sthat glow when you add it, so we
can unlike any other technologyglobally.
Sounds obnoxious, but it'sactually true.
We can put on any biomolecule.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
we haven't failed on
anything yet so I just want to
like stress this, because you'redoing a, you being the king of
playing it down, but that likethe amount of waste, that like.
So we deal with this every day,with shipments coming into the
lab, yeah, everything being ondry ice, everything being in
polystyrene packaging, like itis such a waste, yeah, sterile
(39:58):
and it's such a pain that it hasto be like that.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
But your technology
can potentially alleviate like
quite a lot of things having tobe shipped in those containers
so, yeah, we've, we found thatsome of the proteins that we
look at and we do this for eachprotein that people want us to
look at For some we can storeour protein-coated plates at
room temperature for six monthsand they behave just as the same
(40:26):
as the day after they've beenmanufactured.
So you could ship them at roomtemperature, store them at room
temperature, temperature andthen do your test and, yeah,
find out someone in you knowoutside of Alice Springs where
they can't get cold shipping hasgot you know covert or yeah,
(40:49):
something like that yeah, I justI feel like I can't stress how
big that is like.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Do you have any stats
or numbers on how much stuff is
cold shipped that you might beable to alleviate?
Speaker 3 (40:59):
I, I do know that
some of the, the big companies,
when you add up how much they'respending on cold shipping, uh,
consumables, the, thepolystyrene boxes and the ice
packs, it's in the tens ofmillions.
So if you can get, if you canalleviate that, and then also,
where does it all that go.
Speaker 1 (41:18):
That's my main thing
is like this is just so much
like.
This is reducing the carbonfootprint for the entire
ecosystem.
It's it's helping increaseefficiencies and all sorts of
things like it's not replacingpetrochemical plastics but it is
well.
We're actually working with acompany in germany, green
elephant, and they make the sameplates, but from corn so using
(41:39):
pla or yeah yeah, and so I guessthat's what's exciting as well
is that your tech is agnostic topetrochemical plastic, so it's
like what I find exciting aboutthis is that it's a drop-in
solution that can be used rightnow to reduce waste in terms of
chemical linkers and reduce theamount of stuff that needed for
shipping for cold storage.
(41:59):
But in addition to that, youcould potentially use this on
organic bioplastics or next-genmaterials and it will still work
now.
So can you explain how thatworks, right?
So I know you say cold plasma,but when I hear plasma I think
the sun, the sun, yeah, like.
Speaker 4 (42:19):
A plasma cannon yeah.
Speaker 1 (42:21):
It's like oh halo,
exactly that there is an
inordinate amount of death orheat when I think of plasma.
Yeah, no, this is a cold plasma.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
So theoretically you
could stick your hand under it.
In fact, there's a field inmedicine called plasma medicine
where they will use these coldplasmas on cancers of the skin
head and neck cancers and theyjust kind of burn off the cancer
cells and it's a it's a coldplasma, so if you feel it on
your skin it it doesn't feel.
(42:52):
It's not a thermal plasma, itdoesn't feel hot.
Speaker 1 (42:56):
I just can't get my
head around that.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
That's why we need
the physicists.
So it just it isn't reliant onusing heat to generate the
plasma, it's reliant on thepower that we put through on the
electric field.
Though I may be corrected bythe physicist there, I'm a
(43:20):
biologist.
That's all good, it's still,it's still.
So, yeah, it's, um it's.
It's not a hot plasma at all.
It doesn't warp.
The plastic, um it's.
A pla seems to get a little bitwarped.
So we're still exploring thathmm, but no, it's um, it's not a
problem at all in terms oftemperature it's such a cool
(43:41):
concept.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
I absolutely love it.
Yeah, as we've said to you,like early on, if we had money
to support something like this,we would, just because we can
see how this can have such apositive impact.
And it's it sounds like, afterthese you know this few years,
it's like people are starting torealize, oh okay, like there
really is something here yeah.
Speaker 3 (44:02):
So I mean first of
all, yeah, you are actually
offered us a huge amount ofsupport just by saying this is
not a stupid idea and we'regonna help you work out a few
numbers for things.
So right at the start, hehelped with that it was.
It was enormous because I waslike I've got an idea that's.
(44:23):
That's word for word, actually Ican't guess exactly like that
and yeah, you and andrew sat medown and just said yeah this is
how you do things and what Ifound really interesting was um,
business is really just aseries of lists and you just
work through the lists one byone.
(44:43):
I'm a big list maker.
I'm a big fan of that.
Um, just work through, tickthings off, get things done,
then you can move on to the nextthings what do you reckon has
been the like?
Speaker 1 (44:57):
I guess, what do you
reckon has been your biggest
personal learning on thisjourney?
That business is a bunch oftick lists, or is there?
Is there something else?
Speaker 3 (45:06):
business is nowhere
near as horrendous and cutthroat
as people portray unless youwant it to be well, I don't.
Speaker 1 (45:14):
I'd rather just have
a lot of business meetings where
we laugh a lot and do amazingscience and and solve problems
for people and I think that'salso another reason why we
resonated with you as a being,because you know, we were all
like I don't know if you do knowthis, but like I guess a big
part of Co lives is it's allabout business unusual, like not
business as usual, andcultivating collaborative
(45:35):
advantages rather thancompetitive advantages.
And it's just nice to see thatmore and more businesses are
coming along that are doingawesome things and also
realizing, yeah, there's likeenough room to play here
together.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
So much room.
There's a huge amount of room.
There's no one who's going todo exactly the same as us.
We're not doing exactly thesame as us.
We're not doing exactly thesame as anyone else.
If someone comes along withsomething even better, that
sounds amazing.
I can't even imagine what thatis if it's better than what
we're doing right now.
So you know, kudos to them.
But there's.
We're expanding into so manyfields.
(46:10):
Um, one thing we've reallystarted to branch into recently
is that there's a big literatureon if you treat seeds with cold
plasma, you can actually A killall the bugs on the outside and
decontaminate them and, b youspeed up germination.
So basically it changes thesurface, so more water gets in
(46:33):
sooner and so you increase thegermination yields and the rate.
And we think we can also thenstick on other great molecules
like fertilizer and planthormones and those kind of
things.
So it could be a very targetedseed package that would need
less fertilizer on the fields,that could take on an antifungal
(46:56):
molecule so that the plantisn't taken over.
Um, and we're just.
We only started exploring thatat the start of this year and I
am absolutely staggered at thenumber of people who have joined
in all around australia superexcitement.
We got primary producers inNarrabri.
We've got ag companies inVictoria.
(47:18):
Loads of academics superexcited, just struggling with
basic things.
And so we didn't evenanticipate we're going into that
and now we're probably going toactually spin off a company
subsidiary because it's justbecoming so big it makes sense
to me, because what your tech iskind of doing is just like in
(47:39):
evolution.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
You can have
something that comes along like
a prime example might be youknow, fish having lungs and then
a little bit of water gets init and then, oh well, you know,
suddenly it's a buoyancy sack.
Yeah right, but then whathappens is that, through
creating that, there is now anadjacent possible for an
evolutionary niche for abacteria or or something to be
(48:06):
able to live in that lung fisheslung yeah you know so, in a way
, what you've done.
you've figured out that there isthis, now this entire adjacent
possible that's made availablethrough this technology and it
can be applied in so manydifferent ways and it's kind of
like a Cambrian explosion forplasma treated.
Speaker 3 (48:24):
Yeah, so it's a
fantastic explanation.
Maybe we avoid the wordexplosion and plasma facilities.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
We're trying to
really dispel that um you know
there's.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
There's now a kind of
understanding that evolution
can go in simple steps, but alsothat there's periods where
there's huge jumps.
Functions yeah, exactly, and Ithink we are a bit of a step
function right now for surfaces,and that surface can be some
plastic for the lab, or it couldbe a seed, or it could be
(48:59):
electrical wiring to attachinsulation better.
Or we're interested in talkingto some of the co-labs members
for all of the different amazingproducts that they're making
that we could maybe help out puton natural dyes or those kind
of molecules and that's yeah, somany things.
Speaker 1 (49:15):
That's exactly what I
was going to say.
Like you're starting in oneplace, right, but to your point
before.
Like the like, I can seeinstantly environmental
remediation, something like adendra systems that people who
go out and use drones to plantseeds, like you're well, we're
coming up with ways to do reallysimple carbon measurement in
soil.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
Because you know the
whole carbon credit thing it's
based on how much carbon is inyour soil and those tests are
really complicated.
You have to send off tons ofcore samples to labs.
They spend about six monthsanalysing the carbon and then
you get some data back.
It might cost the farmer$150,000.
We're coming up with just asimple plate-based assay.
There's a portable plate reader.
(49:58):
It's about as big as a disc man.
Speaker 1 (50:03):
Come on, man.
How old do you reckon I am?
I'm sorry, a what it's about.
Speaker 4 (50:08):
as big as an iPad
mini for those.
An iPad mini, thank you.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
I'm aged, I guess we
should say it's about as big as
two iPhones next to each otherthat a farmer could have.
We work on apps that the farmercan then interpret what the
results mean and that couldreplace an industry.
That's.
I mean, it's been okay, butit's the same chemical assay
(50:32):
since 1971 when I was born.
So that's how old I amwondering with the disc man
reference that's great.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
But again to your
point, like it could be used,
like I can already see, like youknow, new year bio, other
people looking at doing like biodyes or more sustainable ways
of doing that without having touse chemical linkers.
It's not just you don't need anychemical linkers, it's just the
carbon is the linker exactly soyou can get rid of it in the
petrochemical plastics as wellas all these other places.
So it's going to be reallyinteresting seeing, like, where
(51:09):
you get the funding and supportfor and your whole point about
these subsidiaries like I cansee that, this being a platform
tech, you know you could spinout and license very niched down
sort of projects in verycertain areas and build teams
around them.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah, and in fact
that's what we're really
starting to do, because we canbe accused of being too diffuse
and covering, trying to covertoo many things, when actually
we're super focused.
We're just making the bestsurfaces.
It's just that there might be asurface on a seed or a surface
in a plate or on a boat orsomething, but taking that
(51:44):
surface further and thencommercializing it into
something that's being usedimmediately to solve people's
problems is what we're reallyinterested in and what probably
the subsidiaries that we'regoing to spin off kind of focus
on.
and culture, and we'll juststick with its strong technology
development and then they'recollaborating with others to
kind of create with experts yeah, and and and, with people who
(52:08):
know exactly what they'retalking about but don't realize
that they can make life easierfor themselves just through our
surfaces.
Yeah, so we, we, really.
What we're really finding iswe're getting companies from
around the world that makeamazing things, that want them
stuck onto surfaces better, andwe're proving to be the best in
(52:31):
the world for that right now.
So we we're getting a hugeamount of interest from europe,
in particular, a bunch ofamazing biotech companies that
we really love working with.
Yeah, so exciting times.
And then bailey's job is to doall the commercialization.
Yeah, and ball it over theyears.
Speaker 4 (52:48):
It's very, it's very
big job.
I think one of the powerfulthings is, every time we pitch,
we're not, you know, not just toinvestors, but pitching to
people we want to work with orwith.
We see a new technology, like,oh, maybe this could work for
that.
We explain the technology if weexplain it well enough, like we
do now.
We probably didn't do it verywell at the start yeah but now
(53:08):
we've got so adept at explainingit that a light bulb moment
just goes off in the head andthey're like, oh, can you do
this, can you treat this thing,and then we'll solve this
problem.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
I'm like, yeah, yep,
and what we hear all the time
when we really know we gotpeople.
It's like I needed this fiveyears ago you know, I wish I had
that during my phd.
You know that kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (53:31):
I was like, yeah,
well, your students can have it
now for their PhD, so they cryless it's a tear alleviation so,
if I'm hearing it right, thenarrative storytelling element
is something that you've beenworking on refining to really
ensure that you're getting thatstory across and helping people
(53:53):
be able to understand what it isthat the tech does and why do
you find that?
Yeah, like people are startingto resonate more and more and
more as you get more of thosereps in yeah, I think one of the
powerful things is it dependswho you're talking to.
Speaker 4 (54:09):
So if we're talking
to someone who is in a
completely different space, likethey're in blue tech, then we
talk about like biofouling andhow we can help with that.
Or if we're talking to researchlabs, then we talk about ELISA
assays, and in ELISA assays youcan use our plates instead of a
(54:30):
12, 24, 48-hour incubation.
We can do it in two hours,little as 15 minutes.
And it's just hitting thosekind of points that makes a lot
of sense to them and where theysee that immediate benefit.
Then they're like oh my god,this makes so much more sense
and this is going to be reallypowerful for us but what
bailey's really great at isactually finding the language to
(54:54):
connect to people with.
Speaker 3 (54:55):
So I'm too deep in it
.
So when I design slides andshow it to the rest of Coltrane
they just roll their eyes andthey go oh, another great
background.
And then Bailey does the sameslide with a different
background and slightlydifferent words that are just
friendlier to humans and therest of the team like, yep, that
one, that one, and I just sulka little bit.
Speaker 1 (55:16):
I mean, your slides
weren't horrible when we saw
them.
Speaker 3 (55:21):
Just said you just oh
, thanks, but they're far better
now.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Yeah, I think this is
a really important point that
I'm assuming that you must havegot through that the masters of
biotech potentially, or maybeit's just through getting the
reps in but that figuring outthe overton window for people,
like what's within the realm ofpossibility and understanding,
and meeting people where they'reat with appropriate language
(55:47):
for that discipline like that is, I feel like, such an important
part um when trying to come upwith an innovation and help
people see how it can be usedand imagine it in a context.
So it's exciting to hear thatthat's something that you guys
have done well and feeling likethat's coming together because I
think it's an key thing that somany people transitioning from
(56:09):
research to innovation might notbe able to nail.
They would just want to giveall the information, all the
details, into the smallestamount of slides, yeah, and and
if?
Speaker 3 (56:17):
when it was just me
alone, it was like but the
science is amazing, don't youget it?
Speaker 4 (56:22):
and now bailey's like
no I think because early on I
said I think we were producingnew slides and we're producing
new decks and graphics toexplain it to people and I said
all right, I understand thescience, stewart understands the
science.
Let's dumb it down for all theother people.
And that's wrong.
You're not actually dumbing itdown, you're explaining,
(56:43):
smartening it up so that you canactually hit these different
directions and explain it topeople in a way that is actually
understandable from theirperspective yeah, you never dumb
down, no, you explain up.
Speaker 3 (56:56):
Are you smart enough?
Yeah, and.
And once we clicked on that,then we I mean, I've had that
for a long time as a an academic, but once we really fitted that
into how we're trying toexplain our products to people,
then things started to click.
But also we got someinteresting feedback from our
(57:18):
website, which is all prettycolors, but what can I buy and
how, and we realized we weren'tactually showing people what we
were buying, so what they wouldcould buy.
Speaker 4 (57:28):
So we just started
making slides that had exactly
what it is that we do, andthat's when that intellectual
hurdle became easier to get overand it's probably it's a
blessing and a curse being aplatform technology, because you
can either explain the onething that you're really good at
straight away, but that onlyappeals to, you know, a certain
(57:52):
audience, or we explain theoverarching concept, which is
plasma technology and coatings,but that doesn't explain what
your actual product is and whatyou're going to sell.
Speaker 3 (58:02):
Yeah, because we can
sell things from new diagnostics
through to you know how to growsomething that will stop
someone's cancer spreading, andwe have to be able to target our
pitch to those differentaudiences and that they are very
different and then againinvestors look at it and go, oh,
you're very diverse and we'relike no, we're not, we are spot
(58:25):
on, we're the same thing all thetime.
Speaker 1 (58:27):
It can just be
applied in different directions,
and so that's why we're workingwith individuals and companies
that are really good at takingit to the next step, but they
could only take it the next stepwith our tech no, it makes
sense to me because I guess, ifI'm hearing you correctly and
let me know if not but it likesomething that we always talk
(58:51):
about is the the need to, Iguess, see things as like a
dynamic network of relationshipsand like focusing on
collaboration and all of thissort of stuff, and like what we
were talking about before.
I'm really curious just to loopback to that for a second and
(59:11):
say, like, are there anyexamples of collaborative
partnerships that we can talkabout here?
Yeah, I'd love to be able tolike just go down into one of
those sort of niches if possiblejust just trying to think about
which ones we can talk about.
Speaker 3 (59:28):
Yep, you can you can?
Yeah, so we're working with a,a company in Cambridge in the UK
.
They're probably the world'sbest growth factor manufacturers
.
They it's all animal free, soit's perfect for things like
sell AG, stem cell research,those stem cell medicine, those
kind of thing.
So we're developing with theirbeautiful products.
(59:51):
We're currently very stronglyattaching them to our plates and
then we've been able to come upwith a whole slew of products,
new products that neither of ushad ever imagined, things that
people have come along and toldus oh, I'm tired of doing all of
these steps for something.
Can you just put all of theseonto the plate and then I can do
(01:00:12):
it all in one pot.
Basically, you know a one potsolution.
So that one's really emblematicof what we're doing about a
dozen times right now, and it'sjust problem-solving and it's
it's pushing the horizon, youknow.
Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
So suddenly we've got
a much broader horizon of oh,
and then we can actually extendthat to this and we can extend
it to this yes, it sounds like,if I'm interpreting what you're
saying, it's like through theprocess of co-design and helping
other people out, you're alsothen figuring out oh wow, we
didn't even know that that waspart of this adjacent possible,
yeah, and then that can be theseed, for it reminds me of, um,
(01:00:56):
you know, david Deutsch,beginning of infinity.
It's like every time there's anew discipline that starts,
that's the beginning of anotherversion of infinity where
there's another whole thing thatcan keep going.
It sounds like we're gettingfractal about it.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
I'm always happy to go therethere's a Mandelbrot.
Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
Yes, there's a
Mandelbrot this metal buds
everywhere.
Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
I forgot that.
You're a bit of a of afractally complexity science
nerd as well, like theaesthetics of the patterns and
stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Yeah, I mean, I very
much am on an amateur basis.
I wouldn't say that Iunderstand it, I just
acknowledge that that's part ofthe patterns of the universe.
But every time we develop onething, and this is happening.
This happened this morning withcollabs members.
(01:01:49):
We came along with one thingthat we'd done for one of your
new members and I think weinvented three or four different
three or four, I think, it wasabout 20 new directions from it.
That we could do was veryexciting and also it's quite
simple for us.
We do the coating onto amaterial and hand it over to the
(01:02:10):
expert, tell them how to puttheir molecules on a little bit
of biochem, and then they go forit and they try it under their
conditions, looking at theirparticular thing, and we there's
a huge benefit for that becausethe partner company trying to
develop something new is gettingdata.
You know, getting runs on theboard for them, but we're always
(01:02:33):
getting a better understandingof what we can do with our
surfaces.
So it's always a win-win, whichis a very kind of non business
concept in a way it is.
Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Maybe it's a
non-academic concept I love
those lights that you keepthrowing in there.
I know how burnt I'm not bitterbullshit, but this is this is
another key point that that wespeak about all the time.
I think we've spoken about thisoffline as well, but everything
that we do it Co labs is tryingto find win-win wins.
(01:03:07):
So that's a winner us, it's awin for whoever we're
collaborating with and it's awin for people in the planet.
And I think, the more that youcan strive to optimize multi win
situations that are benefitingnot just yourselves, not even
just the other person, but likeother people at large, those
feel like they are just morelikely to happen.
(01:03:28):
Like if you, if you create anenvironment like that, rather
than going out well, it has tobe a binary win-lose or
something like that.
When you create those things,like business is actually easier
, oh way easier.
Speaker 3 (01:03:40):
I mean, I don't want
to sound obnoxious about it, but
business has not been.
The transition from academiainto the commercialization world
has not been anywhere near astraumatic as I thought it would
be, because I really haveencountered the two things,
which is super interesting.
Not us, best of luck.
(01:04:01):
This is really interesting.
We want to talk more.
It hasn't been other things.
People in business don't havetime to invest in other
shenanigans.
Right, we're so time poor thatyou've got to do the thing that
your company needs you to do,and so that we're getting that,
(01:04:22):
that binary response, and we'regetting more and more towards
the this.
This can really help us, and assoon as they try their specific
things with our stuff, we getmore information about what we
can do, and then we can go toour investors and say, well,
look, we can not just themolecules we told you about, but
all these families as well, andput on and they are useful for
(01:04:44):
all of these things that wehaven't even told you about.
You know, nonstick cookware andall sorts of things now, that's
an interesting thing, is likePFAS pollution.
Yeah we think we've come up witha way to get rid of the need
for Teflon, and this one wecan't talk about much because
there's possible IP stress.
Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
I mean I will, I will
, I will hand you off air.
Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
But I was gonna say
another area of interest would
be like DWR, so water repellencyand stuff like that, or
clothing likes so we can veryeasily attach hydrophobic
molecules like oils, so we canput on cholesterol onto a plate
that we've treated, then wash itwith the strongest detergent we
know and the cholesterol stillthere.
And no other plastic can dothat, it's just without coatings
(01:05:33):
so I haven't one more follow-upquestion from that.
Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Hypothetically, could
you then like so you can
retreat again?
Let's say you've got a raincoatthat's been plasma coated and
then treated.
You could hypotheticallyretreat that garment.
Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
Yeah, like a dry as a
bone or something.
Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Yeah, yeah you know,
I'm just again like this, so I
can see so many adjacentpossibles with what could be
done with this tech, and it'sjust really interesting how it
could be used as a platform forcreating more what you call like
green chemistry solutions butso our chemistry is completely
green.
Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
It's just carbon and
the gases we use in the, in the
plasma treatment, it's nitrogen,argon and acetylene, which is
two carbons and two hydrogens.
That's totally green.
There's no toxic linkerchemistry here at all.
And then we can yeah, we canattach molecules that are
(01:06:29):
biologically safe and healthyand then use them for water
repulsion, for nonstick surfaces, for, yeah, a whole range of
things, and every day we'reexperiencing new ideas and
getting new inputs from peopleabout oh, can you go in this
direction?
And when we have a good thinkabout it, the answer has always
(01:06:52):
been yes so far, which is reallyexciting.
I love it.
Yeah, actually, I love it too.
I got to say I love Coltron.
Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Especially the
branding as well.
Like, um, like, I think wespoke earlier, you being a word
nerd a huge word nerd, it's justembarrassing absolute word,
yeah, yeah, I feel you the kindof person who like wins at word
all out of everyone that youwould know.
Talk me through the, the name,like the logo, all of that sort
of stuff, because I think it isa really nice direction that you
wanted to go in and I thinkit's definitely worth calling
(01:07:30):
out, yes, or?
Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
I was trying to come
up with all sorts of smart words
, wordplay, things to come upwith it, and it ended up being,
as usual, me out on a hike,where I spend the first three
hours grumbling about why onearth am I doing a hike and I
hate this, and blah, blah, blah.
And then an hour going oh it'spretty and then two hours
thinking about things as I'mwalking back to the train
(01:07:55):
station.
And so kultura means to grow in.
Greek and it was originallybecause we were trying to come
up with amazing surfaces forstem cells, which is what I've
spent my life on.
And then, if you put o n at theend of something, it means
particle, so ion, electron,proton, neutron, and so because
(01:08:17):
we're using ionized gas orplasma I just came up with a
term on a hike coming intoheathcote train station after
hiking through Royal NationalPark, and it's just like culture
on done.
Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
I love it for
multiple reasons.
One is the fact that itactually makes sense from a word
perspective.
Two, that you have figured thisout on a hike, because that
speaks to the importance ofdiffuse mode thinking, going out
in nature and not necessarilythinking about or focusing on
the thing, but allowing insightsto sort of happen in the
(01:08:51):
background as absolutely how mybrain works.
Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
No, I'm not an honest
on-the-spot person.
I can do it for the things I'mreally familiar with him really,
that's like competent with butmy brain likes to ponder on
things for a couple of days andthen it's when I'm out hiking.
I'm like oh, yeah, well, that'sit.
Speaker 1 (01:09:12):
Yeah, okay, that'll
do on the topic of hiking, I
know you're a bit of a bird.
Speaker 3 (01:09:18):
I am a bit of a bird
nerd.
Yeah, I'm not a super bird nerd, not quite twitcher, just like
a.
Yeah, just I just think they'rekind of amazing because they,
when people say, what do youlike birds?
I'm like, well, they can fly.
I would just like to fly.
That would be really cool.
Bailey can fly, so it requiresa an engine and such yeah like a
(01:09:39):
beautiful eye.
He doesn't.
He doesn't have several, hedoesn't.
He doesn't have wings, um, hedoesn't actually have a pilot's
license so he can fly that way.
Um, no, I like.
I like the evolutionary umselection that's led to their
streamlined design, theirability to have rather small
(01:10:00):
brains but do very complexthings.
And I love the australAustralian birds because they're
just weird as people don'trealize how we are they so weird
, but they were awesome, yeahthey're weird and I think like
the way that Australians arekind of weird but awesome.
You know we've.
When I was doing my postdoc inJapan, my boss was very Western
(01:10:21):
looking, which was, which wasawesome, and he loved Australia
because he said, yeah, you justgo and do things like randomly
by yourself on a large islandthat not many people notice,
like you'll drink the bacteriathat you think is causing a
stomach ulcer, and then you'llgive yourself antibiotics and
you'll discover that stomachulcers are not from stress,
(01:10:42):
they're from, you know, abacterium, and you win discover
that stomach ulcers are not fromstress, they're from you know a
bacterium, and you win thenobel prize for that.
And I think australians andaustralian birds are kind of
like yep, we've just over heredoing our thing and we've
probably got a bit weird in alittle bit of isolation, but
it's a good weird I, I canresonate with that.
Speaker 1 (01:11:03):
That just makes me
think of a kookaburra.
It's kind of got a little bitof a mullet, a little bit
aggressive, happy to eat a smallbird every now and then.
Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
Yeah, yeah or
someone's sandwich like mine
sitting at university of sydneyby an oval, I'll have that
something.
Something swooped in front ofme at great speed and then I
realized I didn't have mysandwich they're so fascinating.
Speaker 1 (01:11:23):
I was chatting with
someone, realized I didn't have
my sandwich.
They're so fascinating.
I was chatting with someone,maybe tuesday night, um so a
couple of days ago, about how,like some birds are just so
insanely like, they're beautifuland they're just like a
harbinger of death, like owlslike you.
Just they just take off, youdon't even hear them and then
they're just like and they stillhaven't figured out how that's
(01:11:43):
possible.
Speaker 4 (01:11:44):
Yeah, okay, you
cannot hear?
Speaker 3 (01:11:45):
an hour.
I think the funniest thing iswhen you stretch your nails legs
out and you see how skinny theyare.
You're like what's whathappened there?
Speaker 1 (01:11:51):
just this.
Yeah, those who can't seethat's a pinky thing, absolute
chicken legs yeah in front of akilling machine.
Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
Yeah, yeah, I.
I remember when I was hikingwhen I was a teenager in Fentry
Gully National Park and I hearda group of about four people
coming on the path, around thecorner on the gravel path, and
there was children talking andthere was parents talking and it
(01:12:18):
took ages for this family tocome around this little corner
and then out walk this.
I bird, that was just mimickingevery sound of a family of four
walking on a gravel path and Ithought your brain's tiny, how
are you doing that?
Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
they're so fast, like
yeah.
So I grew up like nothing, yeah, right I grew up around um, so
I was born in upper ventricle.
So like listening to lyrebirds,having wombats and echidnas in
my backyard, or wombat wombatsmy spirit animal.
Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
They're short, chunky
and they kill kill things with
their butt.
Speaker 1 (01:12:57):
Yeah, that's the best
thing really good at crushing
skulls with my butt.
Isn't that spectacular, such afascinating evolutionary
adaptation.
Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
And then you look at
a and the amazing thing you know
, a wombat's pouch.
It's the other way around.
Speaker 1 (01:13:13):
Yeah, so they don't
put dirt in it, so you don't get
dirt going into the yeah, howdid that evolve?
Speaker 3 (01:13:17):
That must have been
just one master gene that
flipped around and you suddenlyget a backwards facing pouch.
Or is the pouch in the samespot and it's just the skin flap
?
We should check.
But I think it's back to frontcompared to every other
marsupial, because if a koalahad that, because basically
wombats are koalas in the groundright, koalas are wombats up
(01:13:42):
trees they're very closelyrelated.
Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
All of them were they
.
They kind of feel the nichethat, um, that they, like
marsupials, are a strength.
Again to your point aroundaustralia being strange when you
get isolated on an island,weird things happen with
evolution, um.
But yeah, there's so many ofthem, they're all related and
you look at them and you wouldnot pick it from just looking at
(01:14:05):
them.
Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
Yeah, but they're
going around crushing foxes
heads against the, the roof oftheir tunnels with their, their
backsides or being mildly drunk.
Speaker 1 (01:14:14):
At all times you only
eat eucalyptus.
Oh, yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:14:21):
So yeah, I completely
agree with you about the
diffuse thinking thing it is.
For me, it's a critical element.
I need that time away fromeverything and I struggle with
constant online presence.
Yeah, interfering with that.
I'm glad you do thinking it's ahuge problem for me because
it's, you know, the littledopamine bursts, and I'll just
(01:14:42):
stay online a bit longer and,yeah, have a look at the New
York Times again.
Oh no, why did I do that?
Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
I, especially lately
I can.
I can really resonate with thislike for me.
I know that I actually workbetter if I have less time
working and that it's moreproductive and that I need those
diffuse moments in nature.
But our culture just it's likea tractor beam or vortex that
just pulls you into this basinof attraction that is very hard
to get out of, even though youknow it's relevant.
(01:15:11):
Other people around you knowthat you need that time.
It's just so hard because welive in this always on,
constantly getting pinged yeahthe other thing I love about
getting out and hiking isperspective.
Speaker 3 (01:15:25):
I am perfectly happy
with looking across a eucalyptus
forest and seeing that I'mirrelevant to the whole thing,
that it's just gonna keepexisting until some idiot tries
to drop it down paper yeah, tothat point.
Speaker 1 (01:15:43):
I think that's a.
Again, a really important pointis that, like, our thinking is
shaped by our environment, sothat's why we try and make our
spaces as nice as we possiblycan.
But when a human being's brainperceives the infinite of the
horizon or a forest wherethere's just so much going on
like, that actually doessomething to us.
It calms us down, it changesour way of thinking.
(01:16:04):
If you're up on a mountain, youget an elevated sense of
perspective.
Time actually goes quicker whenyou're looking at things from a
broader perspective than ifyou're focusing in on something
narrowly.
Time is passed out into smallerproportions.
Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
It's like all of that
shapes your thinking yeah, and
I think that's what I've beenlucky to have with Coltron is
that because I did time travelinto the future of the
possibilities and it was a verybroad horizon, and then I worked
out a way to come back to rightnow with it.
I think if I was just trying towork it out step by step
(01:16:41):
without having an idea or aconcept of what we can become,
then it wouldn't work for me.
I just find it overwhelming.
Yeah, I think business andscience are just enormously
creative.
You are bringing something intoexistence and you're shaping it
(01:17:02):
in the way that you want it tobe, and then there's some
external forces on it, of course.
But if those external forcesare for good, if we can make a
test for the next pandemicpathogen, that we can make in
the morning and start screeningsamples in the afternoon, which
we can we do instead of ittaking three months to build
(01:17:24):
something?
Speaker 1 (01:17:27):
I think that's a good
thing for for humans, yeah, and
that to bring in that artsthing again, or maybe a
philosophical concept, I think,like the good, the true, the
beautiful, all of that can bewoven into the way in which you
do business, because business isjust, in a way, like it's a way
of being and doing in the world.
(01:17:47):
So if you, if you bring thatperspective and you try and do
beautiful business and you tryand do it from a place of truth
and you try and make beautifulthings like I think.
Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
I think we are Bailey
.
We might have intended to bebeautiful, but I think we are in
a logo is beautiful the logo,which is a funny story.
I had to create a letterhead foran official document.
I remember this document and Iquite literally made it in, I
(01:18:19):
think, seven minutes and it'sjust the Coltrane, you know font
that I like, and then there's asuperscript, magenta solid dot,
over the end and that'schemical notation for radical
species and that's what we wehave on our surfaces.
And then we just went through abig branding exercise with our
(01:18:42):
fantastic brand officer and inthe end we came back to the one
I made in seven minutes.
I was happy to try other thingsand we did.
We came up with a few other ones, but it just didn't and we
showed them to like kind ofthird parties and they're like
no we had a similar experience.
Speaker 1 (01:19:03):
Working with our
friends made an amazing website
for us.
You know love your website.
It's beautiful.
We had our original logo wasmade by us for a friend who did
it with one of his designers onthe house, and then we went
through this whole designexercise exploring new brand
directions, and we're like we'regonna use that one so it is fun
(01:19:25):
, these things, these thingshappen but what we actually
learned going through the wholebranding exercise was who we are
actually as a company.
Speaker 3 (01:19:32):
It was unbelievably
valuable absolutely, yeah, I
think it's important andsomething I've never shirk away
from, something you know it was.
It was a, an investment, but itwas an investment that has
changed us to the core and evenif it's made us stronger yeah
and even if it is looping backto the same place, it's the same
place from new eyes, with ashared experience of the
(01:19:54):
direction.
Speaker 1 (01:19:54):
You can walk together
, right.
Yeah, that this is somethingthat Andrew and I were just
going for through between before, because, um, we obviously now
we have another site, we're notseeing each other every day and
it's so easy to to drift apartand not have those strategy
sessions like, okay, where arewe, where are we going, are we
in alignment?
so yeah, I guess, just echoingthat it's such an important
(01:20:17):
thing and it's not a thingthat's done once, it's a
constant iteration and having tocheck and see, and that allows
for that dynamic sort offlexible, adaptable way of being
in the world which you kind ofneed to have as a startup.
Speaker 3 (01:20:30):
So yeah, and it's
it's really exciting to actually
you know.
So we've created this thing,but then to actually explore
what it is mmm with the brandingexercise was really quite
remarkable.
Speaker 4 (01:20:43):
I loved it yeah, and
we kind of got to, I guess,
switch off from the science,from, yeah, the business part of
it for it, and just focus onwhat the company we want it to
look like, what the culture isand they've perceived as now
branding officer is just so goodat moderating the discussion
mmm that we it just turned intokind of a fun chat and a little
(01:21:07):
bit competitive between us andand trying different things and
the archetypes and all of thiskind of thing and it was, it was
, it was awesome oh, it's aserious play, right?
Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
you need to be able
to get into that state rather
than just focusing on being inthe like, let's get things on
left brain mode of mode ofthought.
So no, that checks out for me.
Speaker 3 (01:21:26):
Yeah, yeah, branding.
I think some people I thinkit's a bit of a waste of time no
, not at all.
Speaker 1 (01:21:35):
No, it's not, that's.
Speaker 3 (01:21:37):
I mean, maybe that
was my naive perspective.
I was like, oh okay, well, Iknow we need this, let's go
through it.
Speaker 1 (01:21:44):
But actually it was
just unbelievably helpful and I
think that's one of the biggestlearnings that quite a lot of
people from the science space,when they come in to the startup
world, they realize that, likealmost all of the most
successful companies not thebest have incredible branding
and know how to position it topeople to get the funding that
they need.
(01:22:04):
They might not even have thebest tech.
A lot of the time they actuallyprobably don't.
They don't but they have anamazing person who understands
psyche and how to position andhow to storytell.
So, yes, it can also be hard toget people embrace it, but I'm
glad that you've come to thatpoint where you're like, okay,
(01:22:25):
this is needed yeah, absolutelyso.
Speaker 3 (01:22:28):
I did my
undergraduate at Monash and then
I got a scholarship to do myPhD at the University of Hong
Kong in the early 90s, whenAustralia's was having a bit of
a recession, and I'd been thereabout a year and a really good
friend of mine from Melbournecame and visited me and she said
you know what?
I was just looking at you andyou're just now more you know,
(01:22:48):
which I thought was just areally, really complimentary
thing to say.
She said you haven't changed,you've just become more you.
And I think when we wentthrough that branding exercise,
we became more culture on we.
We suddenly understood why weexisted in a way that we hadn't
crystallized before.
Speaker 1 (01:23:06):
So yeah, it's, it's
really valuable hmm, and as well
as having that person who mightbe a part of the team but is
separate from, and thatadditional perspective, I think
really helps.
Speaker 3 (01:23:19):
oh yeah, he was.
Brian comes in with just somuch knowledge and and such a
very calm way of directing andmoderating the discussion you
hardly even notice.
You know he wasn't like firstwe're going to do this and then
we're going to do this.
No, he was just leading adiscussion and we did it.
He was really quitemanipulative In a good way In a
(01:23:44):
good way.
Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
Clever.
Yeah, it's a facilitating role,right?
Um, yeah, that the wholeconcept of like manipulation.
If it's in service to the good,it's like it wasn't.
Speaker 3 (01:23:57):
It wasn't emotional
manipulation, it was.
It was manipulation in terms ofthe, the etymology of the
original word, man.
I've been, you know, by hand,so, yeah, he directed it really
beautifully hmm, love it.
Speaker 1 (01:24:11):
Is there any other
final things we'd like to, to
include any, any excitingupdates that you know we might
not be able to say exactly like.
Is there any funding thingshappening on the horizon, any
exciting things that you'relooking forward to?
Speaker 3 (01:24:26):
yeah, we're, um,
we're actually looking at being
fully based in Victoria.
Hey, oh yeah, yo yo coming downfrom coming.
Yeah, I grew up here but livein Sydney and we're looking at
coming down where we're gettinga lot of support from the
Victorian government.
None from the New South Walesgovernment heads up.
(01:24:51):
I mean, that's why we're here aswell, yeah, yeah there's really
a different mindset in Victoria, so we're very keen to come
down, set up a big, bigmanufacturing base.
Employee Victorians in reallyskilled jobs export globally.
We do have companies all aroundthe world that want our
(01:25:13):
products.
We've got some companies thatwant to work with us so closely
that they've opened Australiansubsidiaries and want to be
co-located with us so we canjust wheel things across the
hallway.
So that's tremendously exciting, and so for that, we, we are on
our next investment journey,which is daunting but exciting
(01:25:36):
what would you call this one?
Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
so where?
Speaker 4 (01:25:39):
you, do you yeah.
I guess, series a series.
Yeah, I think we've been a bitdifferent.
There's all those labels forinvestment rounds.
I've never really believed inthem at all because I think
every company is completelydifferent and you've got
different ways that they'refounded.
So some of them will come outof uni and they'll have a uni
(01:26:02):
seed followed by a scale-up, andthen a bridging and then a
series A and whatever, and forus it was redundancy seeding and
then it was, I guess, kind ofcompany seeding, like we go from
idea and steward and then nowwe're a company, we've got
people working with us and we'vegot a product, and now we're
(01:26:25):
going this would be, I guess,kind of our capability funding
round.
And scale up and I've just comeup with that and I'm going to
use it Capability Capabilityround Catalytic funding.
Catalytic funding.
Speaker 3 (01:26:35):
Catalytic funding.
Yes, wow, that's impressive.
Speaker 4 (01:26:39):
Because we think
we're now at a point where we've
got products, we've proven thatthey work, and every day we
come up with a new one or a newsystem, and the only thing
that's holding us back is thatwe don't have the capability and
manufacture it ourselves weknow how to get there yeah, I
feel like that's been a veryclear thing for you guys.
Speaker 1 (01:27:00):
Most of the time it's
not being that it's been.
You have to go out and provethat there's demand and through
doing that then you can getenough interest from funders,
from the government, to be ableto back and support the I guess,
the infrastructure developmentsthat'll be needed.
So, yeah, we look forward toseeing how that goes.
You know, obviously we're doingour best in the background as
(01:27:21):
well to try and facilitate andsupport in a huge support from
the start yeah, so we lookforward to seeing how we can
continue to support in thefuture and, yeah, hopefully the
next time we get you guys downhere and onto a call there's a
big announcement or somethingamazing happening.
I feel like there's somethingin the works.
Speaker 3 (01:27:41):
Yeah, I think we're
right on the cusp of something
pretty great awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:27:46):
Well, any final words
from either of you oh, just
thanks to collapse.
Speaker 3 (01:27:52):
For for what you're
doing, it's a unique model in
Australia.
Yeah, no one else is doing it,urgently needed across the whole
country hmm, and and it's thewin-win concept is is
revolutionary actually in thiscountry, unfortunately, but it's
um, it's a great model andwe're we're super excited to see
(01:28:13):
your success and how you'vegrown.
The new facilities, amazing, um, and yeah, more power to you.
Speaker 1 (01:28:21):
Oh, stop it, thank
you I appreciate it put it on a
t-shirt and I'll wear it.
Speaker 4 (01:28:27):
Yes, the t-shirts
actually look great it's just
like amazing well, there's amerch store yeah exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
Oh yeah, I'll show
you what sorts.
I'm sure we've got a girl lyingaround, but yeah, thanks so
much for your time, lads, andfor making it work, even though
we only have two and a halfmicrophones.
Yeah, I feel like we managed toget that connected, which I'm
pretty stoked.
I think it was a nothing happyto be here.
Lovely, lovely addition.
So in there, how do I?
(01:29:01):
I'm gonna try and loop thisback to something.
I'm just trying to see how Ican word it in.
It was in the spirit of whatdid you say about the particles?
Something about radicals?
Now I've completely lost it.
Radical, now it's gone.
Speaker 4 (01:29:21):
Optimism Do.
A Leapers world tour startstonight.
Speaker 3 (01:29:29):
What a segue?
Probably the best segue ever.
Speaker 1 (01:29:31):
I'm I'm fine with
that.
Speaker 3 (01:29:32):
I'm fine with that
segue cultron is all about
radical optimism yeah, you'reboth looking at me like that is
brilliant yeah, we'll keep it.
Speaker 1 (01:29:41):
We'll keep it.
Um.
Well, thanks so much, thank you.
Thank you really appreciate it.
See you later.
Bye, thank you for tuning in toanother episode of the strange
attractor, uh, with the teamfrom culture on.
We hope you enjoyed it and, asalways, if you have any thoughts
, comments, feedback, if there'sanyone you'd like us to have a
(01:30:03):
chat with or anything you'd likeus, the collabs team, to have a
chat on the podcast about, uh,let us know.
Um, we're looking at getting acouple more episodes out that
we've had on the backlog for awhile now around, I guess,
biomaterials, and there'llprobably be a bit more of a
focus on, I guess, theregenerative bioeconomy as well
(01:30:26):
and exploring elements ofregenerative development and
design.
Yeah, as I said before,biomaterials, but just, I guess,
exploring, I guess a bit morebroader than just what's
happening within our lab, butwhat's happening and what is
needed to help bring about amore circular, bio-based and
regenerative, place-basedeconomies.
(01:30:48):
So there's going to be somework we're collaborating with
others on that will be comingout soon.
So if that's something ofinterest, or if you're someone
who wants to explorecomplexity-informed,
challenge-led bio design andinnovation, drop us a line.
We'd love to have a chat andfind out if we can support or
(01:31:10):
help in any way.
Yeah, adios amigos.
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