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It's an old adage that studying fruit fly models in health is simply the first step in a long process that includes animal models, human trials, and eventually, with a combination of money and luck, a commercial product. But for Dr. Matt Anderson-Baron (PhD 2018), the fly is the only step to his success. 

The fruit fly, Drosophila, may be the key to mass production of proteins
at low cost and environmental impact (Credit: Wikipedia)

After graduating from the º£½ÇÉçÇø* under the supervision of Dr. Andrew Simmonds, Dr. Anderson-Baron developed an entirely novel platform to be able to create proteins from fruit flies, also known as Drosophila. Using the techniques known as the EntoEngine^TM and Instar Biofactory, Anderson-Baron formed the company, Future Fields. 

Future Fields Co-Founders, Matt and Jalene Anderson-Baron (Credit: Future Fields)

Now in its seventh year, the protein biomanufacturing just announced that is has secured USD$8 million in capital investments from some of the most well-known companies including Amplify Capital, Business Development Bank of Canada, Climate Tech Fund, and R7 partners.

As the list of investors demonstrates, the reason behind Future Fields' success happens to be the massive impact of being able to mass-produce proteins including difficult-to-express proteins, at both a low cost and low climate impact. The hope is to increase production of not only proteins but also medicines, particularly those that tend to succumb to shortages.

The Future Fields Team (Credit: Future Fields)

While the next few years will truly tell how successful Dr. Anderson-Baron's doctoral experience will become, thanks to this new injection of support and confidence in Future Fields, he will be able to open his presentations by saying...

The Fly's The Limit. 

*Dr. Anderson-Baron's thesis with Dr. Simmonds is entitled, Peroxisomal Components Function to Regulate Lipolysis at the Lipid Droplet Surface