Acorn Biolabs is a healthcare technology company focused on giving every human being the best chance to experience more healthy years with its easy, affordable and non-invasive live cell collection, analysis, and cryopreservation service.
Acorn provides a live cell collection service and a subscription storage model that keeps consumer’s live cells cryopreserved as a healthcare resource for as long as they need it. Preserving live cells also unlocks a vast world of data and genetics on an ongoing basis so that consumers have in Acorn a healthcare partner for life. Acorn also offers live cell collection, cryopreservation and genetic analysis services.
Why Acorn Biolabs?
- Acorn Freezes the Clock On Your Cells.
The urgency around collecting, preserving and storing youthful cells for future use is real and freezing the clock on your cells today will ensure you can leverage them later when you need them most. Acorn preserves your youngest, best cells today to ready you for the future of regenerative medicine tomorrow.
- Acorn Unlocks the Future of Regenerative Medicine for Everyone.
Till now, stem cell collection has been expensive, invasive and painful through bone marrow harvesting, liposuction, blood draws and umbilical cord banking. More recent DNA home testing kits only captured dead cells from saliva that are unusable in cell therapy. Acorn gives a live cell collection that is accessible, affordable and viable for regenerative medicine through the simple non-invasive plucking of a few hairs from your head. This makes the future of regenerative medicine, genetics and powerful stem cell therapy accessible to everyone.
About the Passionate and Sporty Leader
Dr. Drew Taylor is the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Acorn Biolabs. Being a Biologist and a former professional athlete, Drew has charted his path across molecular cell biology, science and baseball with steadfast passion over his career. He completed an undergraduate degree in Biology at the University of Michigan and a Masters from the same school in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. He also holds a PhD with the University of Toronto in Biomedical Engineering. Drew has enjoyed a successful career in professional minor league baseball as a pitcher for both the Toronto Blue Jays and the Philadelphia Phillies, charting parallel paths across both professional sports and science.
Prior to joining Acorn, Drew spent several years as Chief Science Officer at Epic Capital Management working across the flourishing biotech start-up community. Also, prior to that he was a part of the Mount Sinai Hospital Bioengineering of Skeletal Tissues Team. He has been widely published across international medical journals with specific focus on tissue engineering and sports medicine.
Story behind the Inception
It all started when Dr. Drew met Steven Ten Holder and Patrick Pumputis, the other Co-founders of Acorn Biolabs, while Drew was the Chief Science Officer with Epic Capital. Prior to Epic Capital he had been involved with a medical team researching using cell therapy and regenerative medicine for orthopedics. Seeing first-hand how older cells were not as successful as younger cells in replacing cartilage led him to feel there had to be a solution. Meeting Patrick and Steven in many ways felt very much like serendipity as they compared notes. Together they quickly realized that Steven, who had been researching cell division and how technology could be leveraged in longevity; combined with Patrick’s research focus on cell nutrition and preservation; with Drew’s background in emerging health technologies and medical cell therapy. It was all together was a winning combination to create something that could truly change the way people thought about personal healthcare.
Major Challenges on the Road
The regenerative medicine space and all the advancements around CRISPR, iPSCs, genomics and cell and gene therapy is complicated. Also, consumers haven’t really gotten their head fully around the magnitude of the impact these advancements are going to have in their lifetime. Acorn is more concerned about the fast-evolving science which is moving faster than consumer understanding of the value of their cells. The company believes that one day science will have fully commercialized cell and gene therapy and there will be generations of consumers too old to benefit.
“Acorn has a significant role to play in educating on this space and preparing people for the future. No one thought that today we would be planning for self-driving cars, or travel to Mars – yet we are. And in that very same way we are educating consumers today about how they can better be prepared for medicine of the future,” says Dr. Drew.
Delivering Best-in-class Customer Satisfaction
One of the core fundamentals that Acorn is being built on is the need for consumers to feel trust and transparency in the services it provides. The company spends an inordinate amount of time as a leadership team ensuring that the services and processes are built with key fundamentals and keen attention to every detail; which is a part of an underlying cultural framework Acorn is building.
“What never gets tiring is the reaction that our clients have when they realize that with the simple plucking of a few hairs on their head – they can prepare themselves for the future of regenerative medicine. Consumers have widely come to adopt that their cells have value – with recent DNA home testing kits – consumers are more and more understanding the value that their cells can unlock. But, when we get them in one of our live cell collection events and we show them that literally plucking a few hairs on their head can unlock so much more value in live cells than dead cells from saliva – their reaction is always priceless,” expresses Dr. Drew.
Envisaging a Bright Future
Acorn Biolabs wishes to be a trusted healthcare partner for consumers globally one day. In the coming time, Acorn Lab’s services will be expanding to support more extensions of analysis such as whole genome sequencing and health reporting that is customized to a client’s unique profile. The company is more focused on delivering back actionable health information based on real science, genomics and developments in regenerative medicine that can have a material impact on clients health span.
It also believes that with the growing abilities, clients will naturally get benefit from opt-in data analysis through its expertise in big data and machine learning and the immense value that the data in cells can unlock. All of this will get wrapped together in health information updates and offers that go directly back to benefitting its existing clients.
Acorn has a vivid vision to building a cooperative of healthcare that its clients will experience and will get access to omics-based approaches to health data that will forever change the way they think about their personal healthcare.
