Martín Salinas is driving the development of food science, business, and regulation all at once. He’s a cofounder and the chief technology officer of Moolec Science, a spinout from Bioceres Group. Salinas and Moolec are leading the way in industrial molecular farming, a technology that can produce animal proteins in plants, and the young company is helping develop the budding sector’s regulatory landscape. Natalia Gorojovsky spoke with Salinas about his motivations for and challenges with founding a biotech company in Latin America.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
Vitals
Martín Salinas
▸ Hometown: San Pedro de Jujuy, Argentina
▸ Education: BS, chemical engineering, 2005, and PhD, biological science, 2010, National University of Tucumán
▸ Current position: Chief of technology and cofounder, Moolec Science
▸ Companies founded: Moolec Science and Phoenxt
▸ Best professional advice I’ve received: Be empathetic, and always remember people’s names.
▸ Memorable mentor: Nora Perotti, my PhD adviser, who taught me to merge chemical engineering principles with biology
▸ Favorite band: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
▸ I am: Argentino
Martín Salinas
HOMETOWN: San Pedro de Jujuy, Argentina
EDUCATION: BS, chemical engineering, 2005, and PhD, biological science, 2010, National University of Tucumán
CURRENT POSITION: Chief of technology and cofounder, Moolec Science
COMPANIES FOUNDED: Moolec Science and Phoenxt
BEST PROFESSIONAL ADVICE I'VE RECEIVED: Be empathetic, and always remember people's names.
MEMORABLE MENTOR: Nora Perotti, my PhD adviser, who taught me to merge chemical engineering principles with biology
FAVORITE BAND: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
I AM: Argentino
Image Credit: Courtesy of Martín Salinas
Natalia Gorojovsky: First, about Moolec: How do you pronounce it?
Martín Salinas: Moo-lec. It comes from molecular farming. And the moo is to mimic the sound of a cow, because we’re transforming plants so they intrinsically produce animal proteins, like those from pigs. If you look, our soybeans are slightly pink.
NG: I get it! So what is molecular farming?
MS: Molecular farming is using plants as bioreactors. You genetically transform a plant to produce a molecule of interest, whether that’s an enzyme or a protein. You use the plant as the host and the producer. It’s the plant-based approach to [microbial] fermentation. Whatever you put into the genome of the plant makes a product, which you recover and commercialize.
The upside of molecular farming is the use of the sun as the main source of energy and the use of carbon dioxide as the main source of carbon: photosynthesis is a highly efficient method to produce molecules. So just by intuition, you can see how efficient it is to make products using molecular farming. In fermentation, you need a fermenter with engines; you need to add culture media and air just to keep the microorganism growing.
NG: How would you use this technology to improve human food?
MS: People think that today’s plant-based food is healthy. But it needs to have so many ingredients and ultraprocessing, just for the sake of tasting like the real food. It is not that healthy at the end of the day.
Let’s say you are a company producing plant-based burgers. You need both the texturized vegetable protein (TVP) and all of the ingredients to mimic the taste of meat. Our idea is for that company to replace the TVP and many of those ingredients with just one product. That’s our unique approach.
Our technology is in the grain. The traditional crushing industry just switches one grain for ours. The final product will be boosted by our technology.
NG: How did you end up founding a company in this space?
MS: Back in 2011, the Latin American big [agricultural technology] holding Bioceres had its very first molecular farming project: to produce chymosin, an enzyme used in the cheese industry, in safflower seeds. They needed an engineer to scale up the products. And since I am a chemical engineer, have a PhD in biology, and had a background in biotech processing, the project was an ideal fit for me.
We got the very first approval to commercialize chymosin worldwide. It was a breakthrough for the industry. Basically, we also created, alongside regulators, the right rationale for approving this kind of product.
We started to think about what was next for our molecular farming platform. One of my first ideas was to see if we could produce growth factors for the cultured meat industry because cultured meat needs growth factors that come from bovine serum. It’s not ideal for a non-animal-based company to use an animal-sourced raw material to develop their product. I wanted to fix that and see if we can produce plant-based growth factors through molecular farming.
Discussing that, Gastón [Paladini, cofounder and CEO of Moolec,] proposed to directly make meat proteins in plants instead. Between him and Henk Hoogenkamp, who is our food-tech guy and cofounder, we created this corporate start-up, like a spinout. That’s how Moolec was born.
We’re transforming plants so they intrinsically produce animal proteins.
NG: I wanted to ask you about something related to my research: my PhD is about developing multienzymatic complexes for efficient cellulose degradation. I’ve cloned and expressed multiple cellulases. I found it challenging to select which enzymes to include in my systems. How did Moolec deal with choosing which proteins to express?
MS: It’s a key question. For deciding on the proteins, our approach was to find the low-hanging fruit—proteins that would be as functional as possible regardless of having the right fold or being denatured during production.
We did a lot. We spent almost a year selecting the right proteins, looking for a robust functionality and also which ones gave the right traits in terms of flavor, color, and sensorial experience.
NG: What specific proteins did you end up selecting to put into plants?
Vitals
Natalia Gorojovsky
▸ Hometown: Buenos Aires, Argentina
▸ Education: Biochemistry degree specializing in biotechnology, University of Buenos Aires, 2012
▸ Current position: PhD candidate, protein engineering, Patricio Craig’s laboratory, and university lecturer in genomics, biotechnology, and bioinformatics, Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, University of Buenos Aires
▸ Favorite Molecule: Polymerase. The copy-and-paste tech of life. Thanks to her errors, diversity exists.
▸ What reminds me of home: The smell of yerba mate mixed with orange peels
▸ Recent fun project: Diary of my daughter’s fantastic questions
▸ I am: Argentinian
MS: Porcine myoglobin is one. It gives color and improves the overall functionality of the soybean proteins, including nutrition profile. We’ve achieved high levels of expression—more than 20% total soluble protein.
So we started with something simple. Now that it’s patented and behaving correctly, we want to be more ambitious in what we express.
NG: What other challenges have you encountered while creating Moolec?
MS: Oh, wow! So many challenges. Markets over the last 2–3 years have not been very receptive to new technology like ours. So we had some challenges presenting the company, getting the funding. But we did it. We made Moolec a publicly traded company.
Now we need to balance out what our clients expect with what our shareholders do. Another challenge is the public perception and regulatory pathway of genetically transformed products for human consumption.
MS: It is. But we had another breakthrough: we got the very first molecular farming protein with this kind of green light from the [US Department of Agriculture in April].
We’ve been pioneering molecular farming. I remember when Bioceres was the only company working in the field. Now it’s kind of a hot space. Many new companies are trying to produce proteins in plants, with very ambitious scope, including dairy proteins, which are way more complex. We’re happy to see how the space is growing heavily.
NG: Do you think Latin America is a good place to start a company focusing on genetic modifications? Do we have more acceptance of genetically modified organisms (GMOs)?
MS: I’d agree with that. I would say Europe may be the most restrictive place for GMOs. The Americas in general, including the US, are way more receptive. The huge upside with Latin America is how efficient we are producing crops, mainly Argentina and Brazil.
Natalia Gorojovsky
HOMETOWN: Buenos Aires, Argentina
EDUCATION: Biochemistry degree specializing in biotechnology, University of Buenos Aires, 2012
CURRENT POSITION: PhD candidate, protein engineering, Patricio Craig's laboratory, and university lecturer in genomics, biotechnology, and bioinformatics, Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences, University of Buenos Aires
FAVORITE MOLECULE: Polymerase. The copy-and-paste tech of life. Thanks to her errors, diversity exists.
WHAT REMINDS ME OF HOME: The smell of yerba mate mixed with orange peels
RECENT FUN PROJECT: Diary of my daughter's fantastic questions
I AM: Argentinian
Natalia Gorojovsky’s work centers on developing artificial cellulosomes. She focuses on having a growth mindset and is the proud mom of Mila.
Image Credit: Courtesy of Natalia Gorojovsky
NG: I see that you also cofounded a start-up, Phoenxt, that recycles textiles. How do you think that being from Argentina influenced you to become an entrepreneur?
MS: We Latin Americans are used to dealing with hard conditions in the sense of challenging contexts. But that gives us that creativity to push forward projects that may seem hard or impossible to achieve.
Whenever someone gives us a hard task, we will try to figure that out with out-of-the-box reasoning. So I think that’s an upside, being an entrepreneur from Latin America.
NG: It’s funny that you’re trying to make vegetables more like meat, especially given Argentina’s tradition of asados. Is there a vegan philosophy behind it?
MS: Actually, our value proposal is not to compete directly with meat—rather, [we’re] trying to improve that ecological footprint a bit further.
We are at this stage of the world where environmental challenges are huge. Past generations can say they didn’t know that what they were doing would impact the environment. But thinking about my motivations, I have a 7-year-old boy. I can’t say to my son, “I didn’t know.”
His generation will face huge issues in terms of the environment. I would like to look at him and say, “I tried to do my best.”
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