Usually when you hear about meat’s connection to methane, it’s about all the methane that cows are emitting into the atmosphere, accelerating climate change. What if, however, you could capture methane before it goes into the atmosphere, and feed it to microbes which in turn convert it into protein-packed ingredients to make alt-meat?

Sounds like magic, but it’s not magic, it’s science! And it’s a science that Dr. Ezhil Subbian and her team at String Bio are advancing right now.

The India-based company in 2022 closed its $20 million Series B round and is now scaling up to commercialize its microbial protein ingredients.

In this interview, Dr. Subbian and I talk about how she started the company, why she moved it from Silicon Valley to Bangalore, India, where they get the methane to feed their microbes, and much more.

It’s a fun conversation with someone passionate about fermentation and seeking to scale it in a part of the world where it’s desperately needed—where meat demand is rising the fastest: Asia.

So enjoy this conversation with a real pioneer in the microbial fermentation space as she tells you her story of going from biotech researcher to startup CEO.

Discussed in this episode

• Our past episode with Zero Acre Farms.
• Ezhil recommends Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 
• Paul’s favorite quote from Meditations: “Everything that happens is either endurable or not. If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining. If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well.”
• Ezhil recommends The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee 
• Finally, Ezhil recommends Good to Great by Jim Collins

More about Ezhil Subbian, PhD

Ezhil is a scientist, innovator, thinker, hiking enthusiast and a citizen of the world. Ezhil is driven by a passion to leverage the power of biology to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions. Her experience in biobased product development over the last 20 years helps her bring deep technical expertise to the work at String. Ezhil’s work was most recently recognized with the Women Transforming India Award 2018 from United Nations/NITI Aayog.

Ezhil completed her degree in Industrial and Biotech engineering from Anna University, Chennai, and then went on to do a PhD in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. She then worked for over 12 years in Silicon Valley’s Bay area as part of the biotechnology industry. She worked as a scientist and technical lead across multiple companies before becoming a consultant and then starting up.

Ezhil is a scientist, innovator, thinker, hiking enthusiast and a citizen of the world. Ezhil is driven by a passion to leverage the power of biology to deliver sustainable and cost-effective solutions. Her experience in biobased product development over the last 20 years helps her bring deep technical expertise to the work at String. Ezhil’s work was most recently recognized with the Women Transforming India Award 2018 from United Nations/NITI Aayog.