Inside Biotech Lab Automation - Luis Villa of Bay Area Lab Automators

Luis Villa co-founded Bay Area Lab Automators, and is a Senior Automation engineer at cell therapy manufacturing startup Cellares. See below for episode links, chapters, our socials, and how to send us feedback. Want to dig deeper? Check out our newsletter. Thanks for watching 🙏🤙

Episode Links:

• Bay Area Lab Automators
• Luis' LinkedIn
• Luis' BlueSky
• SF Hardware Meetup
• Cellares
• Carnegie Mellon MS in Automated Science
• PyLabRobot
• Drug Development Process (Draft)

Chapters:

• (00:00) - Preview & Introduction
• (04:28) - Choosing Lab Automation Engineering as a Career
• (08:19) - Day in the Life of an Automation Engineer
• (13:41) - Where Automation Engineers Sit Within an Org
• (15:28) - Culture of Lab Automation Community
• (20:16) - Pro Tips for Networking
• (22:46) - How to Advance the Biotech Industry
• (24:20) - Segmenting the Lab Automation Market
• (28:28) - Estimating the Size of the Lab Automation Market
• (30:49) - Building a Business in Lab Automation
• (34:17) - Closed vs. Open Systems
• (39:55) - Accelerating the Drug Discovery Process
• (44:55) - Challenges of Manufacturing Cell Therapies
• (51:26) - Rise of Autonomous/Closed-Loop Labs for Science
• (56:53) - Onshoring for National Security
• (1:03:23) - Evaluating Startup Pitches in Lab Automation
• (1:09:20) - Resources for Lab Automation
• (1:10:34) - Getting Involved with Lab Automators

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• Twitter
• Bluesky
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
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