This is an unusual story. A
software engineer decides
to leave his career midway
and take up an unusual
cause. Meet Ujjwal
Thaakar whose passion
for biohacking runs
beyond the boundaries
of possibilities. Yet he
sees this as an important
cultural shift because
he thinks we must
move towards a future
where citizens are more
involved in biotechnology
and it’s a part of our
daily conversation.
Likewise, Kesar Biotech,
the company founded
by Ujjwal, is at the
intersection of computer
science, biology and
design. Its mission is to
create the world where
revolutionary bioproducts
are designed with focus
and care towards solving
some of the biggest
problems of our world
like making cheap and
effective drugs, healing
the planet, and feeding
the next billion. Kesar
is reimagining modern
biotech equipment into
beautiful, simple to use
and affordable tools
that anyone can use to
explore biotechnology.
Given his training into
the software, he says, he
understands the term
“hacking” in its truest and
purest sense. “Hacking
means fiddling with
systems and exploring
them by tinkering. And
it is in this sense that I
view biohacking. Simply
put biohacking to me
means fiddling with
biology and exploring and
understanding it better.
As a species, we have been
doing this for thousands
of years with agriculture
and domestication of
wolves but now we’re
at an interesting point
in time where we have
the knowledge and cost
effective tools to tinker
with the molecules of life
particularly DNA.”
“Biology is a broad term
and so is biohacking.
Mostly what I’m
interested in personally
is synthetic biology -
engineering biology to
develop novel useful
systems,” he adds.
The transformation
The story of Kesar Biotech
goes four years back
when Ujjwal Thaakar got
introduced to Synthetic
Kesar
Biotech is
reimagining
modern biotech
equipment into
beautiful, simple
to use and
affordable tools
that anyone can
use to explore
biotechnology.
Things were
normal and he
was working
as the head
of Innovation
Labs at Walt
Disney India
in 2015 when
Ujjwal finally
decided that he
wanted to do
something at
the intersection
of software,
hardware
and synthetic
biology.
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