Women in Bio: Rebecca Vaught Launches Van Heron Labs

Rebecca Vaught never set out to become an entrepreneur, but that’s exactly what happened when she launched Van Heron Labs earlier this year with a goal of reframing the understanding of organismal and cellular performance. 

The startup, which recently found a home at Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology in Alabama, created a novel pipeline that uses genetic analysis to design a customized procedure for optimizing metabolism for a particular organism or cell, maximizing growth and product output. 

Vaught, an Alabama native, was struck with the idea for her company during a seminar she attended for her Ph.D. program in Australia. As an undergrad at Auburn University, she studied microbiology, but became fascinated with evolutionary genetics and how that impacts aging and longevity. During the seminar, Vaught said she was struck with an idea that mixed her passions and had the potential to bring microbiology into the future – an idea that she said could prove to be an industry disruptor. The allure of her idea was so strong, Vaught said she thought of dropping out of graduate school to found her company but stuck with her studies and completed her degree.

Vaught returned to the United States and her small company, founded with some friends and colleagues, found a home in an accelerator in Houston that had been recommended by Houston-based friends in the life sciences industry.

“I knew my idea was important to pursue outside of academia,” Vaught said in an interview with BioSpace. “I didn’t think I could validate it properly within the academic setting, so I had to do it this way. I’m less of an entrepreneur and more obsessed with how far I can take this.”

The goal for Van Heron Labs, which was named after James Van Heron, a mentor of Vaught’s who died before the company was born, is to create a metabolic profile of an organism to understand the nutrient substrates needed for it to grow as optimally as possible. Van Heron Labs aims to enhance standard media with their customized formulas that robustly increase a cell’s capabilities and therefore the quality of high-value cellular products. 

Since the company’s founding in February, Vaught and her team have already forged a relationship with Foresight Biosciences, a company focused on glycoscience and enzymatic assay development. Van Heron intends to use Foresight’s technology to better grow recombinant strains of e-coli. Vaught said the burgeoning relationship will prove to be a springboard for Van Heron’s technology.  The company is working with microbes and Vaught said they are seeing positive results which are “striking.” The company has been in operation for only a few months and Vaught said the data they have managed to generate has given her the motivation to move forward.

So far, Van Heron has been a boot-strapped company, relying on funding that Vaught referred to as “fiancée financing.” The e-coli and other media they are working with are inexpensive. Also, Vaught said the widow of James Van Heron, her mentor, provided the startup with his lab equipment, which also kept costs down. Currently, Van Heron is not looking for outside financing beyond a grant from the National Institutes of Health she intends to seek.

When she does opt for some funding, Vaught said she’s aware that her gender could create some additional hurdles. When she first began working on her research as founder of Van Heron Labs, she became aware of micro-aggressions that were related to her newness to the industry, her rural upbringing and the fact she is female.

“This is a real thing that people are facing. I’m in the early stage of the game and we will see how this progresses. This experience has helped me realize that disadvantage is a real thing,” Vaught said.

There is another concern that faces Vaught in regards to future financing from venture capitalists – her appearance. She bears a striking resemblance to Elizabeth Holmes, the disgraced founder of Theranos who faces federal fraud charges. She said that as long as she is transparent about what she’s doing, she hopes that people won’t look at her as if she’s another Holmes.

“Unlike Holmes, I have a Ph.D. and I didn’t drop out of college. At the end of the day, I am a scientist,” Vaught said.

Vaught added that she hopes other women take the leap and become founders of their own companies in order to pursue their scientific dreams.

“Once there are more female founders, there will be more female companies,” she said.