Leverage UC Resources to Launch Your Biotech Company: Panel & Networking Event
Did you know that there are programs at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz that support Santa Cruz entrepreneurs looking to launch biotech startups? This event is open to faculty, post docs and graduate students.
To learn more, join us November 13 for a panel and networking event co-hosted by QB3-Central, QB3-UC Santa Cruz, Bakar Bio Labs, & the UC Santa Cruz Innovation & Business Engagement Hub!
During this event, you'll hear from panelists ranging from investors to founders, like Open Culture and Unnatural Products, two inspiring Santa Cruz biotechnology spinouts, and gain insights into how they leveraged these resources. The session will include:
An introduction to the supportive programming available to UC Santa Cruz researchers interested in entrepreneurship.
A conversation with UC founders and investors as they share firsthand their journeys from lab to startup.
Open Q&A with the audience, providing an opportunity to ask questions.
An opportunity to network with panelists and colleagues.
Don't miss this opportunity to learn about the support available to you from your colleagues in the UC system!
Meet Our Panelists:
Spencer Seiler (Open Culture)
Spencer Seiler is the CEO and Co-Founder of Open Culture Science, Inc. and a Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Santa Cruz, where he leads research on automated microfluidics for neural tissue models. He has developed multiple generations of automated culture platforms that integrate fluidics, sensors, cameras, and high-density electrophysiology for longitudinal studies of brain organoids. Dr. Seiler was a 2025 participant in the NSF I-Corps program, conducting over 100 customer discovery interviews to validate market need and guide commercialization strategy. He is a biotech startup veteran, having grown Berkeley Lights, Ultima Genomics, Miroculus, and co-founding Organomics and Open Culture Science. He is passionate about making advanced cell culture technologies more reproducible, scalable, and accessible to researchers worldwide.
Mircea Teodorescu (UC Santa Cruz)
Mircea Teodorescu is an Associate Professor in Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biomolecular Engineering, and serves as Director of Bioelectrical Engineering at the Genomics Institute. His lab develops scalable in vitro platforms for neuroscience by integrating microsystems engineering, real-time biological data acquisition, and neural tissue modeling. Combining principles from mechanical, electrical, and computer engineering, his team addresses challenges in biomolecular engineering, biomechanics, and assistive technology through mathematical modeling, embedded systems, rapid manufacturing, and advanced sensing. Alumni from his lab have created technology startups inspired by their research, including Immergo Labs and Open Culture Science.
Kateryna Voitiuk (Open Culture)
Kateryna Voitiuk is the CTO and Co-Founder of Open Culture Science, Inc. and a Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Santa Cruz. With a background spanning computer hardware, software, and biology, she develops integrated platforms for laboratory automation that bring together IoT, microfluidics, imaging, and electrophysiology to study 3D brain organoid models. During her Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at UC Santa Cruz, she contributed to pending patents and multiple publications on neural interfaces, optogenetics, and fluidic devices. She has also led initiatives to expand access to advanced neuroscience tools, mentoring students in projects such as a silent-speech interface that won first place at the 2021 NeuroTechX competition. Dr. Voitiuk was a Koret Scholar and NIH NHGRI T32 Trainee, and a 2025 participant in the NSF I-Corps program, conducting extensive customer discovery to bridge academic innovation with commercial impact. She is passionate about building reproducible, scalable technologies that connect biological discovery with digital systems to accelerate neuroscience research worldwide.
Widya Mulyasasmita (BEVC)
Widya Mulyasasmita, PhD is a Co-Founder and Managing Partner at BEVC, an early stage VC firm investing in the intersection of science, engineering, and computation. Before BEVC, Widya led life science investing at B Capital group. Earlier, Widya was the founding Chief Business Officer at InterVenn Biosciences and was Director of New Ventures at Johnson & Johnson Innovation. Widya has served on the boards of multiple healthcare companies across preclinical, clinical, and commercial stages. She started her career at McKinsey & Company. Widya received her B.S. in Materials Science and Bioengineering UC Berkeley and her Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Stanford University.
Cameron Pye (Unnatural Products)
Cameron Pye is the CEO and Co-Founder of Unnatural Products, a biotechnology platform advancing macrocyclic peptide therapeutics. He earned his undergraduate degree from Whittier College and a PhD in organic chemistry from UC Santa Cruz, where he conducted research in Prof. Scott Lokey’s lab on the structure-property relationships of natural and synthetic cyclic peptides, often in collaboration with pharmaceutical partners.
In Prof. Lokey’s lab, Cameron met his co-founder, Joshua Schwochert, and together they founded Unnatural Products with a mission to make macrocyclic peptide medicinal chemistry scalable and repeatable through parallel chemistry and machine learning. Under his leadership, the company has raised over $38 million in equity financing and secured partnerships with major companies, including BridgeBio, Merck, and Argenx, representing over $2 billion in aggregate deal value.
Ed Green (UC Santa Cruz) - Moderator
Richard E. Green was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated from the University of Georgia (B.Sc. Genetics). Before graduate school, Ed was in Peace Corps (Barentu, Eritrea) and was a lab tech at Emory University. Ed studied with Prof. Steven Brenner at the University of California, Berkeley where he got his PhD in 2005 on computational algorithms for sequence analysis and alternative splicing. As an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab of Prof. Svante Paabo at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Ed pioneered the use of high-throughput sequencing in ancient DNA. He was first author of the paper in Science describing the Neanderthal genome which won the Newcombe-Cleveland prize. As Professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Ed co-directs the UC Santa Cruz Paleogenomics lab and is Scientific Director of QB3 at UC Santa Cruz. His research focuses on comparative genomics, population genetics, and DNA-based forensics. Ed is Co-Founder of Dovetail Genomics, Claret Biosciences, and Astrea Forensics. He is a Kavli Scholar, a Searle Scholar and a Sloan Scholar, author of over 100 research manuscripts and 17 US patents.