Harvard
innovation labs
innovation labs
Harvard’s biotech launchpad
The Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab is a 15,000-square-foot state-of-the-art wet laboratory and co-working space for high-potential biotech and life science ventures at Harvard. Companies in our intimate, highly curated community thrive with the support of the Harvard and LabCentral ecosystems.
Is your Harvard-affiliated biotech or life science company ready to level up?
Apply to be a part of our community
What you want is within reach
With a dedicated team focused on venture, resident, and scientific success and the backing of two deeply established scientific communities, Life Lab ventures have everything they need at their fingertips.
ULTRAMODERN LAB
15,000 Square Feet Dedicated to Discovery
FIRST FLOOR:
-Dedicated co-working office space for Life Lab members
-3 conference rooms
-4 phone booths
-Lockers and filing cabinets
SECOND FLOOR:
-30 benches in the open lab
-6 benches in the private suite
-Biosafety lab level 1 (BSL-1), with dedicated biosafety lab
level 2 (BSL-2) rooms
The space is supported by fume hood alcoves, tissue culture rooms, refrigeration, a microscopy room, and associated operational infrastructure.
Pricing for Entrepreneurs
We offer below-market rates to allow our entrepreneurs to focus their capital on pursuing groundbreaking science and building their ventures. Companies tailor their stay to fit their growth, and join on a month-to-month basis for up to two years.
Through June 2023, rates for the facility are:
-Membership fee for each resident: $300 per month
-Lab benches: $3,000 per month
Top Quality Lab Equipment
Members can reserve equipment through an online reservation tool.
-Glassware prep: autoclave, glass washer
-Formulation equipment: fume hoods, pH meters, type I and type II water
-Cold storage: refrigerators, -20C freezers, -80C freezer, cryo storage
-Basic equipment: centrifuges, vortexes, shakers, micropipettors, electrophoresis tanks, vacuum, gas supplies, ice machine
-Standard sample analysis tools: plate readers, PCRs, imaging stations, spectrophotometers
-Fully equipped BSL-2 labs for tissue culture, virology, and microbiology
COMPLIMENTARY SERVICES
A Clean and Safe Space
We take care of the lab so you can concentrate on science.
-EHS training and compliance for all lab users
-Permits for all laboratory operations
-Cleaning and waste removal
-Maintenance of equipment and technical support
-Centralized purchasing, in which pooled access reduces costs
FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES
While we offer no direct funding, our extensive connections in the field help us connect you to VCs and other support. Ventures can also participate in the annual Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge.
LABCENTRAL SUPPORT
As our operating partner, Life Lab participants have access to all of LabCentral’s resources, including events, sponsors, and community.
A community-supported journey
Life Lab ventures become part of a warm, extensive community of fellow teams, experts, mentors, and staff who help them pursue science while building a strong business. Much more than a comprehensive lab space, it’s a place to collaborate, connect, and grow.
COMMUNITY BUILDING
Leadership Forums
At these regular lunches, venture leaders share knowledge through guided and spontaneous discussions. Building a company is easier with mutual coaching and support from fellow founders!
Happy Hours
Frequent happy hours are a joyful part of the Life Lab experience! It’s an opportunity to relax with other community members, network with occasional guest speakers, and build lasting connections.
Venture Celebrations
We’re happiest when we’re celebrating venture milestones. It’s not only inspiring, it’s an opportunity to learn from each other’s success.
Venture Spotlights and New Venture Welcome Events
We’re proud to maintain a community of mutual support. Sharing goals and knowledge, whether a team has just joined the Life Lab or has been a member for months, encourages accountability and builds relationships.
Life After Life Lab
Former Life Lab ventures often return to share what they’ve learned and experienced since leaving our space, providing inspiration and invaluable information on how to navigate the current startup and science worlds.
LABORATORY TRAININGS
As you advance your science, we make sure that you have and know how to use the best equipment for your needs. We are always glad to train you on shared equipment provided by the Life Lab or an outside vendor. Life Lab ventures also learn best practices on laboratory tools.
PROGRAMMING & NETWORKING
Harvard Innovation Labs
As part of the Harvard Innovation Labs ecosystem, Life Lab members also gain access to diverse resources – from business-building and industry-specific programming in the Venture Program, to our extensive network of advisors and experts, to the prototyping and manufacturing tools in the Maker Studio. Ventures at the Life Lab led by Harvard alumni may also choose to apply for Launch Lab X GEO, a venture leadership program including founder talks, business-building workshops, leadership circles, and pitch feedback sessions.
LabCentral
Our partner, LabCentral, has vast resources open to Life Lab ventures, including office hours and webinars. Teams can meet with the LabCentral team to make critical connections with investors, experts, sponsors, and the biopharmaceutical industry.
Meet the companies currently
incubating in the Life Lab.
incubating in the Life Lab.
Aperture Biosystems, Inc.
Aperture Biosystems, Inc.
Commercializing highly multiplexed single cell analysis technology for serial tumor immunoprofiling.
Aperture is developing a platform to deliver more precise diagnoses for cancers such as breast cancer and lymphoma, allowing physicians to match patients with tailored treatments to each cancer’s molecular sub-type. Using deep learning and digital diffraction, Aperture is able to read the digital signature of immuno-stained cells that are sampled during biopsy and processes this information with a deep learning algorithm. The team’s research has been published in journals including Nature Biomedical Engineering, Theranostics, and PNAS.
BioDevek
BioDevek
Improving clinical outcomes following internal surgeries through degradable biomaterials.
BioDevek improves clinical outcomes following internal surgeries by leveraging materials science, biology, and medicine to develop the next generation of biomaterial-based surgical solutions. Our degradable biomaterials can be injected or sprayed onto biological tissues to protect and improve the healing of traditionally sutured or stapled wounds. By engineering the material to degrade at predetermined rates, drugs can be delivered locally over time, improving patient outcomes while eliminating the side effects associated with systemic drug delivery.
Email Contact
Website
Kern Systems
Kern Systems
Leveraging enzymes and cutting-edge software to store digital data in DNA at scale.
The exponential growth of digital data outpaces our ability to store that data with existing technologies. Given its superior density, stability, longevity, and energy efficiency, DNA is an attractive data storage medium. However, current DNA data storage costs are prohibitively high ($3500 per megabyte). Kern Systems is leveraging the power of enzymes and cutting-edge software to store digital data in DNA cheaper, faster, and at scale.
Email Contact
Website
Kestrel Therapeutics
Kestrel Therapeutics
Targeting therapy for intractable cancers, beginning with potent Inhibitors of oncogenic RAS.
Kestrel Therapeutics is aspiring to extend the methodologies and successes of this field to targeting RAS and to other significant targets. Exploiting oncogene addiction has been the foundation of extraordinarily fruitful efforts to precisely drug mutated cancer targets and eliminate the malignant cells that carry them. The prospect of patient benefit through these approaches is profound.
Email Contact
Promakhos Therapeutics
Promakhos Therapeutics
Focusing on local and controlled modulation of the immune system to restore homeostasis.
Promakhos Therapeutics is developing new drugs for inflammatory disorders. Current therapies for inflammatory disorders are immunosuppressive, do not work well, often require injection, and can cause significant side effects. Instead of immunosuppression, Promakhos Therapeutics focuses on local and controlled modulation of specific elements of the immune system to restore homeostasis. Our expertise in immunology, cell biology, bacteriology, and drug discovery has enabled us to develop oral immunomodulatory small molecules with limited side effects.
Email Contact
Website
Social
Stratagen Bio
Stratagen Bio
Transforming treatment planning in oncology with quantitative tissue oxygen monitoring.
Stratagen Bio is transforming treatment planning to ensure that each patient has personalized and optimized care. Our first product is the OxyTrack platform – a proprietary suite of tissue oxygen sensors and treatment planning software that enables clinicians to incorporate quantitative and absolute measurements of tissue oxygen in their treatment planning process. Our OxyTrack sensor is made completely of silicone, measured non-invasively using MRI, and remains in the tissue indefinitely to enable long-term monitoring of tissue oxygen before, during, and after treatment. Our OxyTrack platform can be used to personalize care and improve outcomes for patients with diseases and injuries including cancer, trauma, ischemic injuries, and vascular disorders.
Email Contact
Website
Stylus Medicine
Stylus Medicine
Creating best-in-class medicines for patients though next-generation genome engineering.
Stylus Medicine is using enzymes delivered via novel delivery methods to provide highly targeted gene editing in-vivo. Stylus was founded by world leaders in genome engineering and chromatin regulation, and are backed by world-class investors at RA Ventures and Khosla Ventures.
Email Contact
Ilios Therapeutics
Ilios Therapeutics
Deriving new chemical entities to drive APIs through the Blood-Brain Barrier.
The Ilios Therapeutics platform utilizes glutathione and poly-unsaturated fatty acids to drive therapeutic agents through the Blood-Brain Barrier to create a multi-functional effect upstream of the inflammatory and oxidative stress signaling pathways. The platform is optimized for multiple diseases through proprietary Machine Learning trained prediction. Their first program targets ALS, with future expansions to FTD, TBI, PD, and AD.
Email Contact
Website
Terascale
Terascale
Developing a new platform to mass-manufacture highly-efficient, inexpensive solar panels.
Motivated to address the pervasive threat posed by climate change, Terascale is developing a new platform to mass-manufacture highly-efficient, inexpensive solar panels. Solar energy is an abundant, equitable resource that must drive our collective effort to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. To meet this goal, the world will need to quadruple the total solar energy capacity installed over the last thirty years each year beginning around 2040. Terascale’s innovation in manufacturing and materials is primed to address this challenge by enabling the mass-production of inexpensive and highly-efficient solar panels. Terascale is a home for creative, collaborative people on a mission to make the world a better, more sustainable place.
Email Contact
The Life Lab Experience
Our ventures represent the breadth and diversity of Harvard University and highlight the cross-university demand for this space. Life Lab founders come from nine Harvard schools, 38% of the ventures have a female founder, and 70% have international founders. Every day, we’re proud to support great science and an incredible community.
WHO’S ELIGIBLE?
High-potential ventures founded and led by Harvard faculty, alumni, students, and postdoctoral scholars are invited to apply. The Harvard founder or Harvard team lead must be located on-site. Faculty and alumni ventures should have institutional funding (e.g., commercialization grants, angel or VC funding.) Teams must demonstrate that their enterprise supports the Harvard community and that they are willing to contribute to the Harvard Innovation Labs ecosystem.
ACCEPTANCE PROCESS
| 1. | If eligible, apply via the online application. |
| 2. | Our selection committee reviews applications 3-4 times each year to determine whether to invite your venture to pitch. |
| 3. | If invited, your venture pitches to our selection committee. |
| 4. | Selected ventures are invited to join our space! |
SELECTION COMMITTEE
Amitabh Chandra – Faculty Chair, Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab Selection Committee; Ethel Zimmerman Wiener Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School; Henry and Allison McCance Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Galit Alter – Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Emery Brown – Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and of Computational Neuroscience, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Professor of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital; Director, Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program, MIT; Associate Director, Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, MIT; Investigator, Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, MIT
Adam Cohen – Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, and of Physics, Harvard University
Alan Crane – Entrepreneur Partner at Polaris Partners
George Daley – Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Tom Eisenmann – Peter O. Crisp Faculty Chair, Harvard Innovation Labs; Howard H. Stevenson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Johannes Fruehauf – Co-founder and President, LabCentral
Paulina Hill – Biotech Investor, Omega Funds
Samir Mitragotri – Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
Mark Namchuk – Executive Director of Therapeutics Translation, Harvard Medical School
Amy Wagers – Forst Family Professor of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, Harvard University
Stacie Weninger – President, FBRI
ABOUT THE PAGLIUCA FAMILY
The Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab was made possible by the support and generosity of Judy and Stephen Pagliuca.
Originally from Chicago, Judy earned a BS of Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, and an MBA from Harvard Business School (MBA 1983). She is the managing partner of Pagsgroup, where she invests in startup companies in the Boston area, working with founders to help grow their businesses. Judy is involved in a large number of philanthropic endeavors focusing on children and education and is a founder of Step Up Your Game.
Steve received a BA from Duke University, an MBA from Harvard Business School (MBA 1982), and is a Certified Public Accountant. He is the Co-Chair of Bain Capital, a leading global private investment firm based in Boston. Steve is also a Managing General Partner and co-owner of the Boston Celtics, playing a leadership role in the development of basketball strategy and operations. Steve is the President of the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation and is active with several other non-profits. He is also active in political causes and believes in a “big tent” philosophy that works to find common ground among different public opinions.
At HBS, Judy and Steve have been active volunteers serving over the years as Co-Chairs of their respective MBA Class Reunion Campaigns. They are long-time members of the HBS Board of Dean’s Advisors. Additionally, Steve has served on the Health Care Initiative Advisory Board since 2006.
Commenting on the gift to the Life Lab in 2016, Steve noted, “We believe innovation in the life sciences is critically important to the future of our region from an economic standpoint and equally important to all of our futures in its potential to solve complex health problems.”
“We are thrilled to be able to contribute to the innovation movement at Harvard and we are excited at the potential of the ideas that will emerge from this new space,” Judy added.
Ready to apply to the
Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab?
Pagliuca Harvard Life Lab?
The Life Lab is proud to support all of Harvard’s high-potential ventures exploring science. We look forward to hearing about your venture and want to know how we can help you reach your full potential. We can’t wait to be a part of your entrepreneurial journey!