Meet The Innovator - Reginald Lamaute, Research & Development at Strella Biotechnology

In this edition of Meet the Innovator, we meet a member on the Strella Biotechnology team to share with us who they are and what's next for the Strella team. 

Strella Biotechnology provides the missing piece of data for produce supply chain optimization with patented maturity sensors. Over 1/3 of produce never reaches the consumer, creating massive loss and cost. Of the produce that does reach the consumer, much of it is not of the quality or ripeness that consumers want. Strella utilizes a ripeness indicator to monitor and predict the maturity of fresh foods. Check out Strella Biotech by visiting their website

Strella has experienced rapid growth after acquiring space in the Pennovation Center following award funding from the 2019 President’s Innovation Prize. Over the past two years, Strella outgrew two shared lab benches into a 250 sq. ft. dry lab space and now occupies over 800 sq. ft of inventor office and lab space in the Center. 

What is your current position at Strella and how long have you been with the company?

I currently work on the R&D side of things, focusing on electrochemistry and helping to scale production. I’ve been close friends with Katherine for a few years and worked with Strella from Spring 2018 to the Fall of 2019 before taking a break. I came back this past September!

What motivates you to do what you do? What keeps you going?

I enjoy building things and applying science to solve real world problems, and I’m also passionate about the environment. What keeps me going is getting to enjoy working in chemistry while knowing I’m helping to reduce global food waste.

What do you find to be most rewarding about your work? The most challenging?

The most challenging part of my work is re-doing and constantly changing the parameters of an experiment for several weeks to try and get good results. The most rewarding part of my work is when after several failures I get great, replicable results.

What comes next for Strella?

We’re working towards being more scalable, and adding the method to the madness!

Do you have any key mentors or people who have deeply influenced you?

I worked with Dr. Murray in the Penn Chemistry Department for a couple years, and he’s always super helpful. He’s definitely influenced me to be more persistent and also try to think outside of the box!

What’s a piece of advice you got that stayed with you?

Don’t think outside the box, think like there is no box. 

Lightning Round Questions:

- Favorite food

A medium-rare strip steak

- Favorite subject in school

Chemistry

- What music gets you through the tough days

Mozart's Requiem

- Early bird gets the worm or burning the midnight oil?

Burning the midnight oil.

- Place you would want to travel to the most

Pompeii