Michael's background and early love for science
Michael grew up in a poor part of South London with his sister and mother who was a single hard-working parent. Michael remembers that despite the challenges in making ends meet, his mother taught him that 'things are never as bad as they seem' and the importance to 'keep forging ahead and things will work out.' Michael believes that her positive attitude is what helped inspire him to carve out a career in science. What Michael also treasures about his mother was the fact that she always encouraged both him and his sister to follow what made them happy without putting too much pressure on them.
One of the strongest memories Michael has from his childhood was spending hours in the bath mixing different shampoos and other items to see what came out. Another is of some experiments he did at school to find a way of purifying water. This involved putting certain materials inside a bottle and then pouring dirty water through it to see how well they could act as a filter. The experiments gave him the first insights into the way in which science works. Importantly it highlighted how to test out ideas.
Supported by his mother and through achieving high grades in a state school, Michael managed to gain a scholarship to King's College School Wimbledon, a highly prestigious fee-paying school. Loving both biology and chemistry, Michael decided to study biochemistry at Queen's Mary's University of London (QMUL). What attracted Michael to the degree was the fact that it gave him a chance to combine two of his favourite scientific subjects in depth and also to learn more about the body and disease. Having lost an aunt to breast cancer when he was 13 years old, Michael was particularly keen to understand more about cancer. What Michael really enjoyed about the degree was that it was multidisciplinary, which he saw as important for gaining insights into the complexity of cancer and the challenges this posed in terms of treating it.
Entering the world of research
Awarded a first-class award for his biochemistry degree, Michael says that the course encouraged him to do a doctorate. The high marks he had gained for his undergraduate degree meant that he could go straight into a doctorate without first doing a master's degree. Michael managed to secure a UK Medical Research Council scholarship to pursue a PhD in Molecular Virology and Molecular Toxicology at the University of Surrey. This gave him the opportunity to work with researchers involved in two different discipline areas which he saw as important for taking on the challenge of dealing with complex diseases.
During his doctorate Michael was particularly interested in understanding how cells metabolise which is key to their growth, survival, reproduction and ability to respond to the environment. Cellular metabolism relies on a complex series of connected biochemical reactions known as metabolic pathways. Such reactions underpin the generation of energy from nutrients which is needed to run cellular processes. This includes being able to build new biological compounds like proteins, lipids, nucleic acids and carbohydrates. It is also instrumental to the elimination of metabolic waste which cannot be used by the organism and can be toxic.
For his doctorate, Michael focused on the process of cell metabolism within the context of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), which is a severe, long-term, debilitating medical condition. Estimated to affect over a quarter of million people in the UK, CFS can cause persistent exhaustion as well as pain, brain fog and sensory overload making it difficult for people to function. Suspected to be triggered by a virus, Michael's research concentrated on investigating how viruses affect cellular metabolism in human cells. In particular he looked at how Coxsackievirus B4 (CVB4), a type of RNA virus associated with different diseases, can prevent programmed cell death, a process known as apoptosis. This mechanism helps to eliminate cells that are no longer required or have become potentially dangerous to an organism due to mutation, as happens in the case of cancer, or because of viral infection.
Uncovering how a virus can stop cell death to keep replicating spurred on Michael's interest in doing research into understanding the complex process of cancer. In 2006 he joined Barts Cancer Institute, which is attached to QMUL, as a postdoctoral research fellow where he worked together with cancer immunologists and virologists. His research was funded by the Helen Harris Memorial Trust (now known as Ovarian Cancer Action), a foundation set up to support advances in research into ovarian cancer, the sixth most common cancer in women in the UK.
Remaining at the Institute for four and a half years, Michael spent this time helping to develop a gene therapy to treat ovarian cancer. This involved genetically modifying viruses to deliver genetic material (RNA interference) designed to inhibit inflammation associated with the development of cancer. A lot of this work was done using mouse models. As part of his research Michael got an opportunity to speak with women who had ovarian cancer and their families. He found this invaluable in terms of learning how to communicate with non-scientists.
Turning scientific discoveries into clinical products
While Michael enjoyed working in academia, by the time he finished his postdoctoral research he was ready to move into the field of drug development to benefit patients. Part of this was inspired by the fact that at Barts he worked alongside Professors Frances Balkwill and Iain McNeish who were especially interested in translating basic cancer research into clinical applications and who had a lot of contact with the commercial world.
In 2010, Michael took up a position as principal scientist at Cancer Research Technology (CRT), a specialist commercialisation and development company, then based at University College London (now based at the Francis Crick Institute). It was set up to facilitate the translation of breakthroughs made by researchers funded by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) into effective treatments for cancer patients. CRUK is a charity that funds basic scientific research into cancer. It also has the capacity to run clinical trials, which it does in collaboration with sites in the UK National Health Service. CRUK also has facilities to manufacture drugs. Overall CRT aims to fill the gap of helping to take forward promising ideas which have not yet got to the sufficient point that pharmaceutical companies would be willing to take them on to the next level of development.
Describing CRT as very similar to a biotechnology company, Michael says a lot of its effort is directed towards establishing partnerships with pharmaceutical companies and venture capital backed companies to support the next stage of development needed to bring a product into the clinic. This includes both new drug candidates as well as products deprioritised for internal reasons that have the potential to maximise patient benefit. One of the first partnerships Michael got involved with at CRT was with AstraZeneca. This gave him his first glimpse into how big pharmaceutical companies operate. In 2014 Michael moved over to working in business development, new ventures and transactions at CRUK.
What Michael liked about working with both CRT and CRUK was it gave him the opportunity to continue to draw on his scientific expertise, which he used to help identify suitable drug targets, and to branch out into the business side of drug discovery. Importantly it gave him the chance to learn about alliance management and marketing as well as clinical trials and intellectual property. He also got experience in seed investment and helping to build new spin-out cancer companies based on promising discoveries made by researchers both within CRUK and elsewhere. During this process he also undertook a Master's in Business Administration (MBA) to strengthen his knowledge of the commercial side of science.
Moving into the investment world and entrepreneurship
While working with CRUK Michael became increasingly interested in venture capital, which was not something he knew much about before. It is a type of financing that private investors provide to promising startup companies in exchange for an equity stake in the company. Such capital allows early-stage companies to get their operations off the ground. This led Michael to take up a secondment in late 2019 with Start Codon, a venture capital fund and venture builder set up in Cambridge to support early-stage companies and academics to establish spin-out companies based on their work. After just over a year of working part-time on secondment, Michael took up a full-time position with Start Codon in 2021. A lot of his time is spent reading scientific papers, attending conferences and speaking to key opinion leaders and industry to spot academic breakthroughs with commercial potential to form a company. In addition he sits on a number of company boards as a Non-Executive Director and chairs and takes part in panel discussions related to the field of investments and entrepreneurship.
What Michael treasures about his work is that 'no two days are the same' and that he gets to 'meet amazing scientists every day'. He also enjoys the fact that 'every day I'm learning something new'. Two of the skills he believes are invaluable to his work for the company - his deep understanding of the science and the commercial side. As he points out 'you know you are going to burn through cash before you yield something. So you've got to make sure you pick something where the science is sound and the potential to yield something at the end is high.'
Science is a huge melting pot
When asked what tips Michael would give to others following in his footsteps, he strongly recommends to 'go with where your heart and your gut instinct leads' because 'then you're making the right decisions'. As he points out, 'if you try and go against what your real core feeling is, you will probably go down a certain path that you are not happy with.' The key thing he stresses is to 'keep an open mind because you never know where things are going to take you.' He also emphasises that 'it's not frowned upon to move every few years' and even if 'they go down the wrong alley the first time ultimately they come to where their true passion is'. For him it is important to not get stuck in a position where there is no longer room to learn any more.
In Michael's own case he was lucky enough to have his mother's example to always forge ahead whatever the challenge. Growing up in London, where people come from a range of ethnic and religious backgrounds, he also believes gave him the confidence to never be daunted when he is the only black person in a room, which was the norm when he did his PhD and then his post-doctoral research. What Michael especially likes about having a scientific career is the variety of people it attracts from different cultures and backgrounds. As he says 'science is a huge melting pot.' Getting involved with science he says has given him a chance to learn about different customs and cultures (from fellow researchers who joined from countries from all over the world) and lots of other things besides science.
Michael points out that in some cases being the only black person in a room means that people are often more likely to come up to him after he gives a presentation because they remember him. In many ways he believes the fact that he had his hair in braids during his postdoctoral research encouraged people to ask him lots of questions when he stood up to give a talk.
Going forward Michael is very optimistic about the future of the life science sector where there are now exciting ventures opening up through the partnership between technology and biology. From his perspective, this future is dependent on the coming together of multidisciplinary thinking and multidisciplinary teams. For him mixing together people with a diversity of skills, whether it be biology, engineering or physics, as well as a range of backgrounds is key to being able to solve the big challenges in healthcare. Bringing such people together he argues is key to unlocking creativity and accelerating scientific progress to maximise patient benefit.
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This article was written by Dr Lara Marks based on an interview she conducted with Dr Michael Salako on 9th October 2023.