April 29, 2023

A.J. Mellott - CE0 Ronawk Inc.

A.J. Mellott is the CEO of a startup biotechnology company Ronawk Inc. Ronawk Inc’s technology involves growing cells in a tissue mimetic substrate called bio blocks. The cells grow in 3D and form their own micro tissues, which can be used to...

Show Notes
Guest Profile

A.J. Mellott is the CEO of a startup biotechnology company Ronawk Inc.
Ronawk Inc’s technology involves growing cells in a tissue mimetic substrate called bio blocks.
The cells grow in 3D and form their own micro tissues, which can be used to manufacture new therapies.
Roanoke's technology has potential applications in tissue engineering and scaling the production of biological factors.
The biggest challenges Roanoke is currently facing are building a new lab and getting people to understand the new technology.
A.J. Mellott is inspired by people who serve others, concerned about our ability to connect in a digital world, and excited by people tackling big challenges.

Please check out our Life Science Success Resources. You will find tools that will support growing companies and books for authors I have interviewed.

A.J. Mellott

Co-Founder and CEO

A.J. Mellott, Ph.D.
CEO and Co-Founder, Ronawk
He/Him/His

Dr. A.J. Mellott has always found solving problems in life science stimulating and rewarding because those solutions have the potential to help patients. Yet, all biology starts with cells, and anyone that has cultivated human, animal, or plant cells knows that the process is laborious, exhausting, painful, and prone to problems. Dr. Mellott first became aware of these challenges during his doctoral work where he cultivated billions of stem cells to regenerate mechanosensory cells for hearing loss.
The way we grow cells in the lab is not how cells grow within our bodies. Producing cells for discovery research, physiological modeling, and developing new medical treatments requires enormous resources, space, and labor. The slightest disruption or introduction of a contaminant into a cell culture can wipe out weeks of work and resources, which is a contribution to why the development of new therapies is so expensive and takes so long.

These challenges are well known amongst scientists working in biosciences. Ronawk was founded by Dr. Mellott and Heather Decker to alleviate these challenges by simplifying biological processes to accelerate research for scientists to enable next-generation therapies to be developed faster. Ronawk’s Bio-Block Universe™ accelerates time to result by eliminating the need for sub-culture in cell production which subsequently decreases contamination risks and increases cell yield. Ronawk’s Bio-Block Universe transforms what was once tedious into effortless by sim… Read More