Entrepreneurial researcher gives back to future entrepreneurs of Aarhus University

Postdoc Marcela Mendoza Suárez from the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics will lend her new bioreactor to entrepreneurial researchers and students – and teach them how to use it. The DKK 200,000 for the reactor came from AU Launch, a grant to help strengthen the commercial aspect of potential spinouts from Aarhus University.

The hunt for a bioreactor

“Sometimes things come together – and they really did in this case. I am so happy that the AU School of Engineering from the Faculty of Technical Sciences gave me access to their bioreactors. Now that I have my own, I will be lending mine to students or researchers who have a project they need to test. It is all about giving back.”

So says Marcela Mendoza Suárez, founder of SymbioMatch. A soon to be spinout which aims to produce customized biofertilizers to increase yield and profits in high-protein crops.

In the fall of 2022, she was in desperate need of a bioreactor. She says:

“I must have sent more than 20 emails to people I knew had access to a bioreactor – some replied, others did not. I was getting worried I might not succeed. If I did not get access to one, I would not be able to move forward. So when my business developer from The Kitchen at Aarhus University, Lisa Mejlvang Lindgaard, said there might be an opening at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, I jumped at it!”

The opening allowed Marcela Mendoza Suárez to use AU Engineering’s six bioreactors when they were not used for teaching bachelor’s degree students. This enabled the entrepreneurial researcher to produce the first prototypes of her customized fertilizers.

AU Launch gives a helping hand

In 2022, Marcela Mendoza Suárez had the opportunity to apply for funding to obtain her very own bioreactor.

The money came from AU Launch, a grant to help startups at Aarhus University develop their commercial potential. And she got DKK 200,000. She says:

“The AU Launch money was crucial to SymbioMatch. Many grants cannot be used for equipment, but AU Launch could. And of course, the bioreactor should be available of other researchers and students who are on an entrepreneurial journey. It makes so much sense.”

SymbioMatch is currently running field trials with crops in Germany to test their customized biofertilizers in the facilities of the plant breeding company NPZ. The founder team – which also includes professor Stig Uggerhøj Andersen and assistant professor Marcin Nadzieja – hope to spin out of Aarhus University by 2024.

Teaching

Besides giving entrepreneurial minded peers access to a bioreactor, Marcela Mendoza Suárez is also committed to teaching junior researchers how to scale up their lab research.

“At the end of May, I hosted a joint workshop with the company that sells the reactors. We taught postdocs and PhD students how to use a bioreactor, with the hope that they would recognize its potential not only to fuel their own entrepreneurial ideas but also to learn how to scale up certain steps of their protocols in their own research, which can help them develop new research grant applications,” she concludes.

Marcela Mendoza Suárez is a Biotechnology Engineer with a Master’s degree in Environmental Sciences, and she holds a PhD focused on plant interactions with beneficial root-associated microorganisms. She joined the the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Aarhus University in 2019 to work on ProFaba – an EU project with the aim to develop improved vicia faba breeding practices and varieties to drive domestic protein production in the European Union.