RENT a BENCH Biotech Incubators Such As Labcentral Are Lowering Barriers to Entrepreneurship by Trisha Gura, in Cambridge, Massachusetts
NEWS | FEATURES | ENTREPRENEURSHIP GOT A STARTUP? RENT A BENCH Biotech incubators such as LabCentral are lowering barriers to entrepreneurship By Trisha Gura, in Cambridge, Massachusetts ith its cookie-cutter windows and square-meter facility, now owned by the boxy brick exterior, the build- Massachusetts Institute of Technology ing here on Main Street could be (MIT) and leased to LabCentral, functions just another former 19th century as a life science “incubator” that helps bud- W warehouse or factory. It’s no sur- ding biotech firms combat the soaring costs prise to learn that passenger rail- of lab space and equipment in the red-hot road cars were once built in its spacious Boston-Cambridge region. Any scientist on June 11, 2015 interior. Yet the Cambridge landmark has with an idea and ambition can rent a bench a history not just of production, but also and an office, sharing space, services, and of innovation. In 1876, it housed the office high-cost tools with others pursuing their of Thomas Watson, assistant to Alexander own entrepreneurial dreams. “It is very ex- Graham Bell, when the pair made the first citing because we are there at the nascent two-way long-distance phone call, to Bos- moment of many really, really cool com- ton. In the 20th century, it was home to Po- panies,” says molecular biologist Johannes laroid and the lab of Edwin Land when he Fruehauf, a LabCentral founder. invented the instant camera. It’s also the nascent moment for facili- www.sciencemag.org Today, a nonprofit organization called ties like LabCentral.
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