A Conversation with Jennifer Holmgren,PhD

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INDUSTRIAL BIOTECHNOLOGY: Dr. Holmgren, congratulations on receiving the 2015 BIO Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology. As a leader of LanzaTech, a company pioneering the development and commercialization of gas-to-liquid technology for producing low-carbon chemicals and fuels from industrial waste gases, and your earlier work in driving the production of aviation biofuels, your career and commitment to the field certainly embody the spirit of Rosalind Franklin. This award recognizes the accomplishments and contributions of women in the field of industrial biotechnology. How would you describe your reactions on learning that you had been chosen to receive the award?

Jennifer Holmgren: I was actually very surprised. When I stepped back and got over the initial shock–I didn't even know I was nominated for the award–I was very pleased. We all know who Rosalind Franklin was and we know that she never got credit for her work. I had two initial reactions to receiving an award given in her honor: one being that it's pretty neat that we are using her name during a time when women don't necessarily suffer some of the problems that she faced; and the second, learning that I was receiving an award in honor of a physical chemist. This made me smile because my husband is a physicist, so I teased him about my receiving this award. That's a personal joke, but it is interesting that Rosalind Franklin came from a non-bio field to be recognized for her work in biology. My background is also not in biology, it is in inorganic chemistry, so I find that crossover interesting. All in all, it is fair to say I was surprised, but it was a good surprise!

IB: As you have risen through leadership positions and watched the industry grow and evolve during your career, how have you seen the opportunities for and representation of women change at the level of the bench scientist up through management, and their ability to advance their careers and take on leadership positions?

Jennifer Holmgren: It's funny, but I don't think of myself as a woman in science. It's very rare that I take notice of that, and really only now that I'm in management am I more conscious of it, and only because I recognize that it's important for younger women to see me in this leadership role. I went to an undergraduate college where less than 10% of my engineering graduating class was female. I didn't think of myself as being a female science student, but as just one of the students.

I have noticed more and more women working at the bench, and since receiving this award I pulled out the statistics for women working at our company. Nearly 30% of the employees at LanzaTech are female; more than 40% of the management are female, as are 33% of the scientists and 22% of the engineers. Our company has 112 employees from 25 different countries, so we are a very diverse group.

I was initially hired into a company where Dr. Mary Good was the vice president. So there have always been these pockets of successful women, and you are now seeing more of them. However, there are some companies with few women, and there are few female CEOs and few women leading technology start-up companies.

IB: How important is it to have women as role models and mentors for young female scientists?

Jennifer Holmgren: I think it is important for women not to be mentored by women. I don't think women should hang out with other women or seek out female mentors at work. I learned that from my parents. When my family came to the United States we spoke Spanish, and my parents made it a point not to hang out with people who spoke Spanish and instead to make a focus on learning the new language. I think it's really important that women are seen as independent and as part of the broader community.

IB: What is the biggest change you would like to see in this regard and what are the current challenges to overcome?

My biggest concern now is that enough people do not go into the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). We need more people in this field, and that means more men and more women. We need to encourage young women to become scientists and engineers–we should encourage everyone to become scientists and engineers. I was having this conversation with a female engineer and we were looking at a picture from 1927 in which a group of physicists were meeting. Madame Curie was in the picture, with many of the great male scientists of the time, including Einstein and Bohr. My colleague commented that Madame Curie was awesome. The only person to have ever received two Nobel prizes in two different science disciplines. In the picture, she was wearing a long dress and a hat. And my friend then said, “Jennifer, she's far more inspiring than any celebrity movie star or athlete. I like that she can be a badass and not need to wear hot pants and sports bras in her photos.” That got me thinking, and we went on to have a discussion about science and engineering and how we can encourage young people to pursue these fields.

So it's not just an issue about women. We have to look at it more broadly and think about how we can get the best people to go into science, technology, and engineering.

IB: What factors do you feel have contributed most to your success?

Jennifer Holmgren: Everybody has contributed to my success. I learn from everybody, and I think I mostly have a positive attitude.

IB: LanzaTech has recently announced substantial global partnerships, for example with China Steel Corporation and with steel producer ArcelorMittal and Primetals Technologies. How important is it at the current stage of development of the bioeconomy for a company to establish a worldwide network of collaborations to leverage its proprietary technology and realize the value of its innovations at commercial scale?

Jennifer Holmgren: I don't think you can do it without that. I believe in diversity. If all you do is choose from a little pool, you will not be successful. For example, the largest steel companies in the world are in China–50% of the world's steel is made in China. We have a technology that fits into this market, so we had to go to China. That's where the field is growing. You need to find someone who is willing to take the risk. Developing this is all about taking risk, and not just risk related to the technology. Imagine telling these companies you are going to take their waste gas stream and add microbes. “What are these microbes going to do, will they hurt my process and affect how much metal I put out?” These are important questions and scary possibilities for the CEO of a steel-producing company. You have to find potential partners who are motivated and aligned with your way of thinking and willing to take some risk. Even in a world of endless money, we could not succeed without risk takers.

IB: Do these partnerships help to foster further innovation within your company?

Jennifer Holmgren: Absolutely, and it goes back to diversity and diversity of thought. If you go into a steel mill, those guys think completely differently, and the types of questions they ask–such as how the technology might fit and questions related to scale-up, you have to be able to convince them that something is irrelevant, or is manageable, but sometimes it is something you might not have thought about and now you need to deal with. The constant feedback and flow of information is essential.

IB: In your view, how can we shift the conversation on industrial biobased products from an emphasis on economics to a focus on overall footprint?

Jennifer Holmgren: I know it's old and no one likes to talk about it anymore, but 20 years ago we always used to talk about the three pillars of sustainability, and that's what we should still be talking about, sustainability–environmental, economic, and social sustainability. How do we shift the conversation? To be honest, I think we shift the conversation by having the people in the industry stop talking about sustainability as if it were only about environmental and social goals. Everybody talks about how their life cycle is better than everyone else's, but no one gets up and talks about the economics. Which means the questions that get asked are about the economics, because nobody is providing those answers. The minute we shift our dialogue to include everything, then everything will be accepted, but when we don't include the economics in the discussion, then it will continue to be challenged.

I don't know how many discussions you have sat through, but I challenge you to recall one in which somebody talked about the economics. When asked about it, people tend to say, “That's proprietary information, or confidential.” Well it's not proprietary or confidential. It's no more confidential than life cycle data, we just choose not to talk about it. And for people who don't believe that it can make economic sense, that becomes the focus of the conversation–will the technology be cost-effective? We need to talk about it. We may not have all the answers, and we don't want to be overly optimistic, but we need to be realistic.

IB: Do you believe that life cycle analysis will be common practice for future biobased products? If so, do the current approaches to LCA require more standardization?

Jennifer Holmgren: I don't believe anything should be discussed without a life cycle analysis. I think it is essential for moving a technology forward. Standardization is really important, and we need to standardize LCA in a way that is technology-neutral. I find that when a new technology has been developed it should be on a level playing field with established technologies.

I tend to get really nervous when I hear the word standardization. Global standards are needed, but with a certain amount of flexibility to account for different kinds of technologies and methodologies, because rigid standards can bias the results of LCA, particularly for a new technology or start-up. This is a very complicated topic and I am certainly not an expert in this area.

IB: What advice or guidance would you give young women pursuing or considering a career in the sciences and particularly those fields relevant to industrial biotechnology?

Jennifer Holmgren: Follow your passion. If you love science, follow your passion, take advantage of every opportunity, and don't let anything stop you.

Editor's Note: The following text is excerpted from remarks delivered by Jennifer Holmgren on receiving the Rosalind Franklin award from the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) at the BIO World Congress, July 22, 2015, in Montreal, Canada.

Thank you very, very much, I really appreciate it. I can only stand here and receive this award because so many people, from my mother, who is here today, to my teachers, professors, and colleagues have guided (and kicked me periodically) so I could learn from them. Unlike Rosalind Franklin, who did not receive credit for her work, I have received credit for a lot of your work, including the aviation team at UOP and the teams at Boeing and CAAFI, many of whom are here today, and Sean Simpson, co-founder of LanzaTech.

I was asked to deliver some remarks about the importance of biotechnology, and I would like to start with a quote from Rosalind Franklin who said, “Technology is about making the world a better place.” Indeed, I would remind you that what we do matters; what we do every day changes the world, and that is really important.

I'm going to ask you to do a little math. Please calculate how old you will be in 2050. I want to talk about the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has challenged us to stay no more than 2^o above pre-industrial era temperatures by the year 2050. And everyone who talks about climate change talks about it as if it is something that will affect our grandchildren. I will be 90 in 2050 and I intend to be around. This is a problem for us, it challenges us, and it is a problem that we must solve. Why is 2^o magical, or is it magical? We are currently on a course for 4^o. The IPCC report describes 4^o as “adaptation highly questionable.” It is not referring to polar bears, it's talking about us and our ability to live everywhere in this world.

I am Colombian, and it is amazing to me to think that by 2050 Colombia may not be a coffee-growing country. How is that possible? This is a future that I will not accept. This is a future we cannot accept, and we cannot accept it because we can walk a different path–because of you and because of biotechnology. We can shape the course of the future, and we can make a difference. I believe that this is the century of industrial biotechnology. All of the funding being spent on medicine and pharma is enabling the development of tools that will also help industrial biotechnology. We can use those tools and make a difference.

What does it mean to stay within 2^o? We have already used up 65% of the 2^o budget in terms of carbon emissions. That means we need to leave as much carbon as we can in the ground, not bring it up and put it in the air. And if we put in the air, then we need to learn how to recycle it. We need to change our attitude and to start to believe that every molecule of carbon matters.

For biofuels, staying within the 2^o means that 30% of all fuels need to be alternative, low-carbon fuels. Today we're at 2%. To get to 30% by 2050 we would need to build 350 billion gallons of capacity. That is 1,500 new 200 million gallons/year facilities. That's a lot! Even if you argue that 50% of this need for alternative fuels will be satisfied by electric vehicles, then we still need to build 700 new 200 million gallons/year facilities in the next 35 years.

What we still face as an industry is how to cross the proverbial “valley of death.” LanzaTech is 10 years old this year. Think about what it takes to put steel in the ground: every time you build something it takes 2–3 years. If you build a pilot plant it takes 2 years, another 2 years for a demo plant, and 3 years to build a commercial facility–that's 7 years without doing any technology development. We need to get really good at doing this quickly, and doing it over and over again. And we have to put many more new technologies into the pipeline, and I don't mean into the first part of the pipeline, I mean all the way through the process. And because this all costs more and more as you scale, it means we have to take bigger and bigger risks and put more and more money on the table. We have to be smarter than the problem, and we are.

We need to become bigger risk takers and not worry so much about the people who criticize us and constantly say that what we're doing is wrong. Instead, remember that anybody who tries to do something different, from the days of Aristotle, has been told that maybe it's better just to sit on the couch and do nothing. Consider instead places in the world today where it's not just about greenhouse gases but rather the combustion of carbon that result in a sky that children do not even color with a crayon that is blue.

These are our calls to action, the things that should motivate us to change the world. I know it's possible, because I grew up in Los Angeles at a time when the sky wasn't blue in September. Yet with innovation we can now make high octane gasoline without lead. With all of us taking risk and with the proper regulation we can change everything. And I know it can happen globally. All we need is to change our point of view and recognize that every molecule of carbon matters.

I believe that carbon is what will define our generation, all our generations. We will be defined by how we treat carbon, how we find it, and how we deal with it. And I would argue that all of you wonderful scientists in biotechnology will be the super heroes of our generation, because we will be the ones who will make a difference. Thank you.