Andrew Goldsborough:
globetrotter, researcher and entrepreneur

In November 2011, a new visiting scientist joined the IECB: Andrew Goldsborough. Within the past 15 years, this British biologist submitted over 30 patent applications and created 3 biotech companies. Specialized in RNA stabilization techniques, he is currently developing new ideas within the team “Small RNAs and Aptamers” led by Jean-Jacques Toulmé (U869).

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes” wrote Marcel Proust in In Search of Lost Time. In the case of Andrew Goldsborough, traveling the world was rather a prerequisite for creative research. In 1986, soon after he was awarded a degree in molecular biology, Andrew Goldsborough undertook a one-year trip through India, Asia, Africa, Australia and South-America. "It was whilst traveling through Singapore that I received an unexpected telephone call from my student friend and later business partner Malcolm Bates, giving me the good news that I had been accepted for a PhD at the Cancer Research Institute in London. The vacation had now come to an end..." Upon completion of his PhD, he joined in 1991 the Tom Kornberg lab as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in San Francisco. There, besides his work on new RNA techniques for developmental biology, he designed a robotic device for lab use dedicated to the analysis of DNA. With this device, Andrew Goldsborough initiated in 1994 a series of more than 30 patent applications.

MRT, a technique to stabilize RNA in whole blood

In 1995, he settled in France for a second post-doc and soon started a company called Cyclops Genome Sciences. This UK-based biotech company, which is still running, was created to serve as a vehicle for Andrew Goldsborough’s intellectual property. Over 1998 and 1999, the molecular biologist, who did some of his experimental work in his garage in Nîmes, submitted 5 patents applications dealing with what he called Modified RNA Technology (MRT). This new technique to stabilize RNA in whole blood was sold in 2004 to a German company.

RNAworks, a biotech company bought by the industry in 2007

In 1999, Andrew Goldsborough moved to Montpellier to work at the Institut de Biologie Humaine. There, he created in 2003 his second company: RNAworks. During 3 years, the start-up company sold RNA purification kits all over the world, before being acquired by the industry in 2007. At this point, the successful entrepreneur turned back into a researcher. Andrew Goldsbourough moved to Washington DC in 2008 and worked at the National Cancer Institute (NIH) on multi-drug resistant cancer. In 2009, at the occasion of a meeting with Guillaume Plane from Mitoprod (Pessac), he visited Bordeaux and “fell in love with the town”. Following the advice of Armelle Judde from the Regional Council of Aquitaine, he contacted Jean-Jacques Toulmé, the IECB director, in 2011 : “Our discussion went very well and he was kind enough to invite me to work in his lab at the IECB. A convention d’accueil was signed in October 2011, and I started to work at IECB in November. The IECB hosts several team with strong expertise in RNA, it is a very stimulating work environment for me. Hopefully, I will be able to start a small company about RNA diagnostic in 2012 or 2013”.