The Biotech Startups Podcast 🧬 From Raw Data to Better Drugs: Deep Sequencing Antibodies | Jake Glanville Re-Release (2/4)
Dec 18, 2025
30:54
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"Find the thing that gets you excited, that fascinates you, and then have the thing you love be something else."
"Find the thing that gets you excited, that fascinates you, and then have the thing you love be something else."
We’re revisiting some of our previous episodes over the holidays this year. Our next re-release is this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, in which Jacob Glanville discusses his transformative years at Pfizer's Rinat site and his transition to Stanford. He describes how an open, collaborative culture allowed him to roam across teams, trading his coding skills for scientific mentorship while building critical bioinformatics infrastructure for antibody discovery.
Jacob shares how he converted a corporate laptop into antibody.pfizer.com, creating an internal web server that centralized analysis tools and enabled scientists to rapidly interrogate antibody libraries. Early access to deep sequencing let him dissect repertoires before and after selection, iteratively design better synthetic libraries, and publish influential papers—ultimately being promoted four times to Principal Scientist with only a BA. Despite this success, his burning idea for a universal vaccine drove him to leave Pfizer, pursue a PhD at Stanford, and simultaneously launch Distributed Bio.
At Stanford, Jacob explains how he "separated church and state," keeping therapeutic antibody work in his company while focusing academic research on T-cell receptors and cytokine analysis. He reflects on navigating Stanford's tech transfer process and contrasts the priorities of academia versus industry, emphasizing the value of finding work that fascinates you.
Key topics covered:
- Antibody Engineering at Pfizer: Building phage display analysis tools and turning a laptop into antibody.pfizer.com
- Deep Sequencing and Library Design: Using high-throughput sequencing to iteratively improve antibody discovery libraries
- Leaving Big Pharma: Walking away from Principal Scientist to pursue a universal vaccine concept and PhD
- Stanford and Distributed Bio: Balancing academic research, company building, and clean IP boundaries
- Career Strategy: Industry vs. academia, early exposure, and finding work that fascinates you
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Subscribe to the Podcast:
Find Our Guest, Jacob Glanville, at these links:
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee
Learn more about Excedr:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/
Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:
Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:
Hidden Markov Models https://www.nature.com/articles/nbt1004-1315
Technology Transfer 101 https://www.excedr.com/blog/what-is-tech-transfer
Spinning Out of Academia & Into a Startup https://www.excedr.com/resources/how-to-spin-out-of-academia-and-into-a-startup
Companies, Universities, & People mentioned:
Pfizer: https://www.pfizer.com​
Stanford University: https://www.stanford.edu​
UC Berkeley (University of California, Berkeley): https://www.berkeley.edu
Arvind Rajpal https://www.linkedin.com/in/arvind-rajpal/
Andrea Rossi https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrearossisf/
Javier Chaparro-Riggers https://www.linkedin.com/in/javier-chaparro-riggers-0415093/
Sawsan Youssef https://www.linkedin.com/in/sawsan-youssef-b274b010/
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
01:25 Landing a Job at Pfizer and First Days in Industry
03:47 Building Bioinformatics Tools and the Antibody.Pfizer.com Server
08:10 Creating a Web Server and Collecting Antibody Data
10:59 Deep Sequencing Antibodies and Building Better Libraries
13:45 Why Leave Pfizer for Stanford
17:16 Going Behind Enemy Lines: From Berkeley to Stanford
18:46 Advice on Industry Experience vs. PhD Programs
20:44 Starting Distributed Bio Before Stanford
24:34 Finding What Fascinates You vs. What You Love
27:33 Navigating Stanford's Tech Transfer and Keeping Church and State Separate
29:44 Outro
The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.