I get to meet the most interesting people. In late November, Rachel Haurwitz contacted me needing a headshot and fast. She had been nominated by Forbes Magazine for the 30 Under 30 Award in the Science category. Rachel is the co-founder of Caribou Biosciences. She’ s recent CAL grad and a very vibrant, interesting young woman. I cannot profess to understand what Caribou Biosciences actually does but it’s cool and will revolutionize medical development and bioengineering. Here’s what they say on the web site:
Caribou Bio is a startup biotechnology company that specializes in the research and development of tools and technologies for cellular engineering and analysis. Caribou Bio’s technologies are based on the unique capabilities of Cas enzymes from the CRISPR prokaryotic immune system. Caribou Bio’s lead technology is the Cas9 enzyme, a highly efficient and easy to use genome editing platform that does not require unique protein development. Cas9-based editing permits multiplex genome engineering by targeting multiple genomic sites in a single experimental step. Caribou Bio’s research tools and technologies will provide transformative capabilities to basic and applied research and development in the drug development, agricultural biotechnology, and industrial biosciences fields.
Our current portfolio relies on the unique properties of proteins and short RNAs from the recently discovered prokaryotic immune system called CRISPR. CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) is a nucleic-acid based immune system that protects bacteria and archaea from invading selfish genetic elements such as bacteriophage, archaeal viruses, and plasmids.
Well, the good news is, Rachel Haurwitz did win a spot among the 30 Under 30 and she has a beautiful photo to go along with it. I think it’s pretty cool that I am published in Forbes!