Tech Tuesday: 42Bio

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - Happy Tech Tuesday. I’m Melanie Moron here at UF Innovate. And today I am joined by Dr. Shannon Fedenko, a VP from 42Bio. Dr. Shannon, thanks so much for joining us today. My pleasure.

So tell us, what is 42Bio?

42 Bio is a biotech company that spun out of the University of Florida. We have two separate technologies that came from biomedical engineering. At a high level, they’re very different technologies, but actually we’re developing both right now to use birth tissues to make impacts in both medicine and medical research.

And explain to us your placenta technology.

Our placenta technology is really cool. If you think about what a placenta does, it grows an entire organism from nothing, to a full organism, and it protects it during that stage. And so we are developing ways to get the materials out that are responsible for those effects and applying them to adults. So we are using it for a variety of wound healing, for example, bone regeneration.

And how is that technology used?

So far, we have mostly been using this for veterinarian healing. We’ve had a number of patients from UF Vet Hospital who have had bone failures, surgical failures, skin wounds, and so we’ve been working with them to help save the lives and save the limbs of those animals.

And what goes on in this lab?

This lab has a little of everything. What it looks like on a surface level is a biochemistry lab, wet lab like you might have seen in school. We also do cell culture and microbio. Mostly what we’re doing is improving our methods to get those molecules out and get them perfected, and then we study how they impact cells and impact tissues.

And what inspired 42Bio to start to journey here at UF Innovate?

UF Innovate was the perfect place for us to start. It’s created for us, a community. We are surrounded by like-minded individuals that support us on our scientific journey, and UF Innovate itself has programs that have helped us as a company and helped our employees with professional development. I’m really glad that this is we start.

Well, Dr. Shannon, thanks so much for joining us today. And that’s it for today, Tech Tuesday episode. We’ll catch you next week.

RELATED: Tech Tuesday: Friendship Force

Click here to subscribe to our newsletter.

Copyright 2022 WCJB. All rights reserved.