Ending a 100-Year quest to replace toxic Hexavalent Chromium without sacrificing cost, speed, or performance
Release Date: 07/14/2026
Ending a 100-Year quest to replace toxic Hexavalent Chromium without sacrificing cost, speed, or performance
Lab to Startup
Mehdi Kargar, Ph.D., is the CEO and Cofounder of Maxterial. They arecommercializing an affordable metallic coating to protect surfaces against extreme environments and to reduce the use of hexavalent chrome, and cyanides, known to cause cancers. This is the story about how Maxterial cracked the code to replacing Hexavalent Chromium without sacrificing cost, speed, or performance, and the decade of near-deaths, grit, and serendipity it took to build a deep tech revolution. Maxterial received seed-stage funds from Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs, then backed by the Corporate Venture arms of...
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Biotech's New Rules: Tight Capital, Hard Science, AI, and Survival in 2026
Lab to Startup
Doug Crawford, Ph.D., is the founder of MBC BioLabs and also a Managing General Partner of Mission BioCapital. Doug’s goal is to help entrepreneurial scientists create successful startups. His dream is that every entrepreneurial scientist with a dream be given a chance. Since its founding, this program has helped launch 500 companies and helped raise over $20 billion in capital. Robert Blazej, Ph.D., is a Partner at Mission BioCapital and Director at MBC BioLabs. He is a passionate biotechnologist with a diverse skillset spanning business, life science, engineering and intellectual...
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Cold Plasma Meets Machine Learning: The SirenOpt Story of Solving Manufacturing's Nanoscale Blind Spot
Lab to Startup
Jared O'Leary, Ph.D., is the co-founder and CEO of SirenOpt, and Ali Mesbah, Ph.D. is his cofounder and also his former PhD advisor. Ali is a Professor of Chemical Engineering at UC Berkeley. SirenOpt is a Berkeley spin-out that is solving one of manufacturing's biggest blind spots. Their PlasmaSens platform uses cold atmospheric plasma and AI to non-destructively inspect thin films and nanomaterials in real-time—catching defects and inconsistencies that traditional methods miss entirely. They're helping manufacturers of batteries, semiconductors, and aerospace components accelerate...
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Designing the Future of Drug Delivery: How AI is Solving RNA's Biggest Challenge
Lab to Startup
Yogev Debbi and Prof Avi Schroeder (Technion Israel Institute of Technology), co-founded Mana bio along with Dr. and Roy Nevo. They are leveraging data, machine learning and high throughput screening to design novel Lipid NanoParticles for targeted extrahepatic delivery of nucleic acid therapeutics and vaccines. Lipid nanoparticles are microscopic fatty bubbles that deliver genetic medicines into your cells—think of them as the FedEx trucks of molecular biology. Remember the mRNA vaccines that saved millions during COVID? They used lipid nano particles as the delivery vehicle.. The little...
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Solving the CRISPR delivery problem using a proprietary peptide-based platform
Lab to Startup
Dana Foss and Ross Wilson are the cofounders of Editpep, a biotech startup focused on developing CRISPR-based therapeutics. They are using a proprietary peptide-based delivery platform that enables targeted delivery to specific cell types, particularly for hard-to-reach areas like the brain. While Dana Foss is the CEO, Ross Wilson is also an Assistant Adjunct Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and also the Director of Therapeutic Delivery at the Innovative Genomics Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. He is one of those very few academics that co-founded a startup and is...
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Altitude Lab Fund- Supporting healthcare founders in challenging times
Lab to Startup
Chandana Haque is the Executive Director of Altitude Lab, a healthcare startup accelerator building a community of diverse entrepreneurs in Utah. Altitude Lab was cofounded in 2020 by Chandana and Chris Gibson, the co-founder & CEO of Recursion in Salt Lake City. They recently announced the launch of a pre-seed venture fund aimed at supporting early-stage biotech startups impacted by recent federal funding policy shifts. This pre-seed venture fund is dedicated to funding the highest impact ideas transitioning from basic research to industry. In partnership with Altitude Lab, they...
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Partnering to accelerate therapeutics: A primer on forming alliances and their management
Lab to Startup
Monica Rosoff, the founder and CEO of LBBAL™ Alianza. Prior to launching Alianza, Monica was a partnering executive with roles of increasing seniority at Genentech, Gilead, Kite and Exelixis. Over the course of over two decades, she had the opportunity to lead and participate in a wide diversity of deals, negotiations, diligence exercises, alliances, technology transfers, M&A integrations, dispute resolution negotiations, amendments and terminations–at all stages of the drug development and commercialization lifecycle and in multiple therapeutic areas. Dr. Rosoff earned a doctorate in...
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From Pitches to Stories: Transforming Complex Ideas into Engaging Narratives
Lab to Startup
Zack Shildhorn is an investing Partner at venture firm Lux Capital. He played multiple key roles that helped the firm scale from less than $100M to more than $4B in assets under management. After witnessing thousands of pitches, he saw that even the most disruptive startups often struggled to develop effective narratives. Having worked closely with leading technology companies as an investor and Board member, he brings a unique ability to connect with key stakeholders and distill complex ideas into engaging and relatable presentations. In order to help founders beyond Lux, He launched a firm...
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Turning great science into impactful medicine: Lessons from Corey Goodman, Pioneer in Science and Venture Capital
Lab to Startup
Corey Goodman, Ph.D., is the managing partner of venBio, a venture capital firm he cofounded in 2011. venBio already has 7 FDA approved drugs on the market, saving and improving lives. Corey spent 25 years as Professor of Biology at Stanford University and Evan Rauch Chair of Neurobiology at U.C. Berkeley, where he was a HHMI Investigator, Head of the Neurobiology Division, and co-founder and Director of the Wills Neuroscience Institute. Corey co-founded seven biotechnology companies, and led one of them (Renovis) as President and CEO from a private to public company until its acquisition by...
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Pushing Boundaries: Abhishek Tripathi’s Experience with NASA, SpaceX, UC Berkeley and Startups
Lab to Startup
Abhishek Tripathi, is the Director of Mission operations of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Abhi is also the Chair of the Air and Space track startups at Skydeck, which is UC Berkeley's startup accelerator program. For over two decades, Abhi has been at the forefront of human and robotic space exploration. At SpaceX, he spearheaded the certification of both the cargo and crew Dragon programs, a pivotal achievement in commercial spaceflight. His expertise was further showcased as Dragon Mission Director, where he orchestrated a dozen critical cargo...
info_outlineMehdi Kargar, Ph.D., is the CEO and Cofounder of Maxterial. They arecommercializing an affordable metallic coating to protect surfaces against extreme environments and to reduce the use of hexavalent chrome, and cyanides, known to cause cancers. This is the story about how Maxterial cracked the code to replacing Hexavalent Chromium without sacrificing cost, speed, or performance, and the decade of near-deaths, grit, and serendipity it took to build a deep tech revolution.
Maxterial received seed-stage funds from Peter Thiel’s Breakout Labs, then backed by the Corporate Venture arms of Saint Gobain and Anglo American; the NSF, and now the U.S. Department of Defense’. In a major development, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee has approved a bill to provide $5M in 2027 for the further evaluation and adoption of their technology, MaxShield.
Shownotes
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Problems with hexavalent chromium (also known as chromium-6) and why it has been difficult to
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Product ecosystem fit: Founder is basically having to create a whole ecosystem for the product while developing good ROI for everyone involved.
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Solution: Nickel & Molybdenum alloy
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Listen to customers! They might be looking at a different use for your technology
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Evolution of technology: From grad school (Virginia Tech) to startup- pivot from focusing on publications to patents
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Serendipity: Scanning Electron Microscopy image that lead to bigger use cases
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As a founder, be less rigid!
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Pitch to Peter Thiel’s investment arm https://breakout.vc/ that won them over by saying: “Good entrepreneurs are like a superbug (MRSA). I am going to build this startup successfully!”
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Move from Blacksburg, VA (Virginia Tech) to Silicon Valley: Why moving to better startup ecosystems was important
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For startups/aspiring founders, trade shows are a better place to understand industry needs
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Evolution of customers
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A “No” from anyone during the journey can change into Yes by persistence- always work towards it
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Invest in relations: People invest in people
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Kindness of strangers
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Working with the government: “Applying for SBIR and getting money is not working with the government!”
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Understanding the ecosystem: Working with DoD, lobbyists, retired personnel from armed forces
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Maxterial’s MaxShield aims to replace hard chrome in cylinder use