Bakar Labs, a startup incubator at UC Berkeley, is set to launch a climate technology incubator on west campus: Bakar Climate Labs.
Bakar Labs is powered by California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences, or QB3, a “multi-UC entity” funded from Sacramento, and it opened its first branch Bakar Bio Labs in November 2021, said David Schaffer, professor of chemical and biomedical engineering, bioengineering and molecular and cell biology and director of QB3 and Bakar Labs. The technology developed in Bakar Bio Labs was originally targeted toward health care and hopes to expand its scope to climate health and technology, Schaffer added.
“Our goal is to take technologies from academia that have the potential to be transformative and to lower barriers to getting those technologies from an academic lab into a company that can scale it into a solution for a challenge that our society is facing,” Schaffer said.
The plan for Bakar Climate Labs was approved by the UC Board of Regents in May, and the new building, Bakar ClimatEnginuity Hub, is set to launch February of 2028 according to Schaffer.
The facility is set to be 145,000 square feet, making it the largest incubator for climate technologies, Schaffer said. It will be installed with solar panels, backup batteries and operable windows to minimize extra energy use, he added.
“We’re going to be practicing what we preach, meaning that the building is going to be very energy-efficient,” Schaffer said. “This building’s architecture itself is going to symbolize what all the companies’ research inside of it are trying to accomplish.”
Although the building is not yet finished, Bakar Climate Labs has already launched its pilot program, currently working with five companies and actively recruiting for more. When fully launched, Schaffer estimated the lab could incubate about 50 to 60 companies.
One reason to start the pilot program now, according to Schaffer, is to help the lab “gain momentum” until the building is finished.
“The second reason is that the planet is getting warmer every day, so we don’t want to wait four years. We want to really start making progress now,” Schaffer said.
Bakar Climate Labs’ first tenant FutureBio was a part of the pilot program, developing “durable and highly recyclable plastic,” said Zilong Wang, FutureBio co-founder and CEO.
Wang said he previously worked in campus faculty Jay D. Keasling’s lab, studying ways to synthesize molecules and broadening those applications to recyclable plastic, which motivated him to start FutureBio with co-founder and chief technology officer Seokjung Cheong.
Although the composition of the plastic is not a new discovery, Wang said this plastic was previously difficult to recycle as it requires an organic solvent that is toxic and inaccessible. However, the discovery in Keasling’s lab introduces an acid solution to break down plastic polymers, he explained.
“We find that with biomanufacturing, we are able to decrease the cost significantly, and also now (the plastic) can be easily depolymerized with a simple acid solution,” Wang said. “It makes the recycling simpler and cheaper.”
Schaffer said Bakar Climate Labs will be open to student involvement, at both the undergraduate and graduate level, using these “incubators as classrooms to continue student education.”