It’s a classic late summer day in Connecticut’s Quiet Corner and Nicole Wagner is tending to her flock — three young children, nine chickens, three cats, two dogs, 40 tomato plants and a husband who just bought a tractor to till their new 6-acre plot.
So far, he’s not sold on her idea of adding a few alpaca.
It’s about the only deal Wagner hasn’t been able to close lately.
Her day job is as CEO of LambdaVision, a UConn spinoff that’s developing an artificial retina. The goal is to restore vision to a share of 11 million Americans afflicted with a variety of degenerative eye diseases including retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.
Her experimental manufacturing facility is about 250 miles from her Farmington research lab — overhead. It circles the globe about every 90 minutes aboard the International Space Station, making product samples in zero gravity.
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It’s an innovative product that offers an alternative to less-than-ideal gene therapy or device-based approaches. It’s also being made in an innovative way. And leading the effort is not at all what Wagner expected to be doing.
Growing up just across the Massachusetts line in Oxford, she was a self-described “science nerd” who wanted to go to medical school.
“I never had a doubt I could go the extra mile, do the hard work,” she says.
Good fortune
The first step took her to Florida State University where a combination of homesickness and culture shock convinced her to transfer to UConn.
Her grades were good but getting into med school meant checking some extra resume boxes, she explains. One of those involved getting research experience and that led her to a work-study opportunity in the laboratory of Dr. Robert Birge, UConn’s Harold S. Schwenk Sr. Distinguished Chair of the Departments of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology, and founder of LambdaVision.
After a slow start, it turned out to be a life-changing encounter for both parties.
Wagner recalls that first year as a lot of scutwork cleaning lab equipment. Birge recalls she was slow to get into the swing of research. But somewhere in her junior year, Wagner “blossomed” and what followed was “absolutely amazing,” Birge says.
The professor is a noted innovator in light-sensitive protein and envisioned an artificial retina but was facing some tough hurdles in moving from the lab to product. He credits Wagner with introducing the concept of “directed evolution” — a protein engineering technique — and helping to refine the use of bacteriorhodopsin in the experimental manufacturing process.
Bacteriorhodopsin is a highly stable, light-sensitive protein and is the key to LambdaVision’s artificial retina. With age or disease, the retina — the innermost layer of tissue in the eye — loses its ability to take in light and communicate information through the optic nerve to the brain.
LambdaVision’s concept is to use layers of bacteriorhodopsin to replace the retina and communicate light signals to the brain.
Birge says he’s confident the artificial retina will work. And the scientific community seems to agree. As early as 2014, the National Institutes of Health approved a grant to fund proof-of-concept testing on mice.
Still, there were hurdles. Plenty of them, both practical and regulatory.
The artificial retina uses 200 layers of bacteriorhodopsin built on a mesh scaffold. But in early experiments as each layer was added, gravity was working against a smooth, bubble-free result.
A zero-gravity environment could help, but how would cash-strapped LambdaVision accomplish that?
As Wagner tells it, good fortune intervened. She was commuting to Boston daily to represent LambdaVision in the 2016 Mass Challenge competition. She had an opening in her schedule and found NASA and Boeing were making a presentation down the hall. There, she found both a way to test production in a gravity-free environment and a way to pay for it.
It was the proverbial game-changer.
LambdaVision won the Boeing award in that Mass Challenge, providing cash and a relationship with Space Tango, a Kentucky-based expert in space operations and logistics. That all led to LambdaVision gaining a research spot aboard SpaceX 16 in late 2018.
Wagner is quick to credit her willingness to work hard and try new things. Birge sees something else: “She sees tie-ins where there were none.”
Either way, what followed were scientific and business successes. And a new role for Wagner.
Learning Curve
Back in 2013, she had completed her Ph.D., a landmark that coincided with LambdaVision’s move from Birge’s lab to a spot in UConn’s Technology Incubation Program in Farmington.
The new venture was still feeling its way but it was clear someone needed to take the lead on the business side. Wagner was willing. Birge recalls being dubious about naming a CEO with no business experience. But Mark Van Allen — then president of UConn Ventures, in charge of spinning off faculty research into new startups — eased Birge’s concerns and endorsed Wagner for the CEO role.
For her part, Wagner readily acknowledges a steep learning curve. She tells of Googling acronyms investors were using, even as she was pitching them via Zoom.
It’s worked, and she credits a host of mentors through Connecticut’s strong entrepreneurial infrastructure that includes Connecticut Innovations and CTNext.
In 2018, Connecticut Innovations invested $500,000. Two years later, NASA provided $5 million as a commercialization grant to explore the idea of manufacturing in space over a series of flights.
One of LambdaVision’s extraterrestrial experiments arrived back on earth in August, with more planned in the near future, explains Jordan Greco, the company’s chief science officer. With the return of each experiment from space, there’s progress in the layering of bacteriorhodopsin. No final decision has been made on committing to manufacturing in microgravity, but “we’re getting close,” he says.
Greco, who holds a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from UConn, joined LambdaVision in the fall of 2013. He met Wagner when she was a teaching assistant in a class he was taking. He points to “a good synergy” between her biology background and his chemistry background.
While Wagner has taken on the CEO role, he’s led the scientific effort, although Greco says she’s still integrally involved in the science. “We’re like a family.”
Birge agrees. The firm’s founder confirms he officiated at Wagner’s wedding. All it took was being named a justice of the peace.
He adds that Wagner insisted her salary and Greco’s would be equal. That’s very family-like but it also is good business. Both are indispensable to LambdaVision’s success, he says.
Industry recognition
Today, Wagner is on the hunt for an additional $20 million to $25 million in funding. And she’ll need to find even more after that.
She says it will likely take into the next decade before a commercial product is ready. Testing in animals lies ahead in 2023 with the multistage Food and Drug Administration approval process after that.
Birge is less diplomatic, expressing frustration that the FDA is demanding LambdaVision achieve approval both as a therapy and a device. That’s a long, expensive road that’s delaying treatment to millions, he says.
Still, Wagner is well positioned to make it happen.
Birge says Wagner’s blend of charm and good humor gives her a unique ability to say “no” while retaining a strong working relationship. He points to Axiom Space, a private flight operator based in Houston, as an example.
Axiom wanted to buy a share of LambdaVision but Wagner said “no” in such a way that Axiom remains interested. With Russia pulling out of the International Space Station, Axiom will fly the next stage of LambdaVision’s in-space manufacturing, Birge says.
Role model
The unique pace of LambdaVision’s research — launch it and wait — leaves Wagner some time to pay it forward.
She’s on the boards of CTNext, New England Women in Science Executives Club, and the Connecticut Tech Council; she has participated in the Accelerator for Biosciences in Connecticut, the Connecticut Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, and MassChallenge. She’s a subcommittee chair of the National Lab User Advisory Committee for the International Space Station and she was chosen as a panelist at Ascend, one of the most prestigious forums for the space industry.
And then there’s the mentoring. She’s both a high-energy advocate and role model for women in STEM education. She works with entrepreneurs and startups across the spectrum of support organizations in Connecticut and Massachusetts.
She has authored 19 scientific articles and holds two patents related to protein-based artificial retinas. Industry and public recognition has followed. She won the CT Technology Council’s Women of Innovation Award and the 2020 Women in Aerospace Achievement Award. Connecticut Magazine named her to their 40 under 40 list, and BioCT recognized her as the 2021 Rising Entrepreneur of the Year.
About the only thing missing from that resume is a herd of alpaca. Don’t bet against her closing that deal before spring.