#17: Ayse Asatekin - Tufts University, ZwitterCo

<p>Ayse Asatekin is an associate professor and the Steve and Kristen Remondi Faculty Fellow in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Tufts University. She is an entrepreneurial academic that keeps her home base in academia, but has been a founding scientist and inventor on two university spinouts in the water sector, the most recent of which, ZwitterCo, just raised $6M to continue commercializing their technology to use zwitterions to coat membranes that are resistant to fouling and can treat waste streams with fats, oils, grease and more.&nbsp;</p> <p>Ayse provided a ton of insight into conducting research with an eye towards scale and commercialization, including the importance of de-risking inventions at an early stage in anticipation of what investors and industry might ask. She spoke very candidly about her past experiences in spinning out technologies, what she has learned, what she would advise young inventors considering doing the same, the importance of the team, and much more. It's an encouraging episode for any listeners that want to invent for commercialization but still remain in academia, dedicated to research. Enjoy!&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>More about Ayse</strong></p> <p>Ayse Asatekin received her&nbsp;bachelor's degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in chemical engineering through the Program in Polymer Science and Technology (PPST) at MIT. She pursued her post-doctoral work with Prof. Karen K. Gleason, also at MIT. She co-founded Clean Membranes, Inc., a start-up company that commercialized the polyacrylonitrile-based membrane technology that she began developing during her doctoral research, and worked as its Principal Scientist before joining the Tufts faculty in 2012. Novel membrane technologies developed in her lab are currently being commercialized at ZwitterCo, Inc., where she serves as the Senior Scientific Advisor. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, Massachusetts