Opinion: Welcome to the bioengineering culture clash
Bioengineering, once viewed primarily as an academic discipline, is growing up.
Our ability to engineer biology is on the verge of changing the landscape of health and health care. Tools and treatments that are engineered, not discovered — CAR-T therapies for cancer, CRISPR for gene editing, stem cell therapies, and more — are now making their way not just into new startups but into established industry. Just look at the first-generation CAR-T companies that have been acquired by major biopharma companies, like Bristol-Myers Squibb/Celgene acquiring Juno or Gilead acquiring Kite.
The acquirers, massive organizations built on the foundations of discovery, are now ingesting companies built with engineering DNA. These are two extremely different mindsets. For decades,
