Each month, Thomas will recognize the accomplishments of the next generation of industrial leaders through the NextGen for Industry award. Nominated by their peers or managers, these young professionals are driving industry into the future with innovative new ideas, exceptional thought leadership, and meaningful contributions to their area of business.
Thomas has chosen Rachel Pacheco, Senior Manager of Manufacturing at Genomatica, a biotechnology company focused on developing processes to create sustainable chemicals, as the newest NextGen for Industry.
Focusing on Solutions
With a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, Rachel Pacheco has always been passionate about science.
“I like to challenge myself to find solutions to problems that haven’t been solved yet,” she explains.
After landing a role as a fermentation associate at Genomatica almost nine years ago, she was initially responsible for “setting up experiments in the lab and running them week to week, washing tanks, [and doing] lots of physical activity,” she says.
Her diverse roles throughout her years at the company have afforded her “the opportunity to learn, move, and grow throughout the process.”
Since starting at Genomatica, Pacheco has overseen a number of substantial projects and worked her way up through the company to her current role as Senior Manager of Manufacturing.
Developing New Approaches
In one of her most significant projects to date, Pacheco recently managed a manufacturing campaign on site with nine fermentation and process engineers in rural Italy. Tasked with producing butylene glycol, a chemical commonly used in personal care products including skin cream and sunscreen, the group oversaw Genomatica’s unique production process that produces lower carbon emissions and a reduced environmental impact compared to existing processes.
“We’ve created a technology that produces the same chemical using sugar as a feedstock to our microorganisms as opposed to starting with harsh chemicals such as acetaldehyde,” she says.
Over the course of the five-week campaign, “we produced over 600 tons of bio-based butylene glycol, the most that has been made to date,” Pacheco explains. “[The project was] the world’s first commercial-scale production of this bio-based chemical.”
Pivoting Back to Look Forward
The most rewarding part of her job, Pacheco explains, is seeing the final results from each stage of the production process.
“I really enjoy being at the pivot point, where I can look back and see how all of our scientists and engineers have worked for the last few years developing this microorganism, developing this technology, making sure it’s going to work — and then I’m part of the team that actually gets to take it to scale and see [how it performs],” she explains.
While the role certainly comes with increased pressure, “it’s also very exciting to see the culmination of everyone’s teamwork and hard work over the years actually physically make a product,” she says.
Because product development begins with “this intangible idea as a concept for a process, being able to see it physically manifest itself as a product is probably the most rewarding part,” Pacheco notes.
Advising the Next Generation of Biotechnologists
For those interested in pursuing a future career in the biotechnology space, Pacheco explains the field is ideal if you “like to challenge yourself to find solutions to problems that haven’t been solved yet.”
It’s also key, Pacheco says, “to really be motivated by the mission of the field and of [the] particular company [you’re interested in joining].”
Because the majority of the companies in the biotechnology space are quite small, “a lot of us aren’t doing what we’re doing for big paychecks,” she explains. “We’re doing it because it’s something we’re really passionate about and it’s a cause that we believe in.”
And finally, to be successful in a biotechnology role – or virtually any role across any discipline – it’s important to know how to work collaboratively and effectively with colleagues.
“Communication is the center of everything,” Pacheco notes. “That’s understanding how much to communicate, when to communicate, [and] in what format to communicate.”
“On top of communication, it’s about building strong relationships,” she adds. “Especially because we work in such a multidisciplinary field, having a strong relationship with mutual respect, openness, honesty, and transparency are absolutely essential.
"So then if something challenging comes up, you have that personal capital to draw on and say, ‘We’re working toward the same goal here, let’s figure out a solution that’s going to benefit everyone’ to figure out the best path forward.”
Advancing Biotechnology
Pacheco believes that the future of biotechnology is bright. With every product that is successfully commercialized, tools improve, research teams learn, and processes continue to enhance. These improvements make it easier to develop process technologies to make additional target chemicals at a faster pace, allowing for more widespread deployment and use of those technologies to make more sustainable chemicals, materials, and everyday products.
“We’re entering a point where the amount of time and R&D required to make these organisms effectively is decreasing rapidly,” she says. “As biotechnology continues to improve, creating these processes and products becomes cheaper and faster, can be done more easily, and can be demonstrated at a smaller scale.
Over the next few years, the biotechnology space is going to grow quite rapidly.”