Academia or industry? This is a question any PhD candidate in life sciences has had to face. Will they join a university, collaborating to answer science’s pressing questions, or work in private industry, bringing health innovations to market? While they used to be viewed as mutually exclusive fields, the lines between industry and academia are blurring. It’s becoming increasingly accepted that the two are not separate; they’re married. This is certainly true for PhD candidate and CEO Justin Hayes.

Currently pursuing his PhD in Chemical Engineering, Hayes has a collaborative research project shared between two labs at Northeastern University: the Koppes Lab and the Woolston Lab. He investigates hydrogen sulfide (H2S), a gas produced by bacteria in the gut, to answer a big question: Can H2S be harmful to gut health?

This question has plagued health scientists for many years because of a persisting problem: the amount of H2S in the gut cannot be reliably measured. Or rather, it couldn’t, until Hayes went to work. By bioengineering variants of E. coli to produce precise levels of H2S, Hayes tests the effects of the gas concentration in a model gut developed in the Koppes Lab. His data shows that H2S reduced inflammation at low levels, but did the opposite at high levels, bringing an integral piece of the gut-health puzzle to the table.

Q: What drew you to your current, niche research topic: metabolites of the gut microbiome?

A: Coming into grad school, I thought I was going to do water treatment. It was really my driving factor, motivating factor is like, save human lives, reduce human suffering . . . I really liked the idea of the project that Dr. Koppes and Woolston put together. So in human health, you can actually impact probably more people with all the tools that are available now in medicine.

With a background in chemical engineering, Hayes was able to address this biological problem from a unique point of view. His understanding of principles like heat, reaction kinetics, and thermodynamics allowed him to attack the problem in a new way and develop it further into a product.

Q: Was there a point that your research shifted from "interesting basic science" to "this could actually be a therapy"? What was that transition like?

A: We had sort of always known there was the potential to make uh, you know, a microbial drug or a microbial product out of what we were doing . . . Once we demonstrated we could manipulate different molecules in the gut in animals . . . that was really a really big inflection point for us where it's like, okay, not only can we do this in a lab setting, we can do this in a living being. That was pretty exciting.

Hayes founded Concordance Therapeutics in 2024 to bring discoveries of the gut microbiome from the lab to the market. His scientific advisors supported his mission, and allowed him to adapt his research in the lab to coincide with his entrepreneurial goals. Additionally, he sought advice from industry professionals with their own start-up or managing experience.

Q: How did you prepare to start your company? Did you have any important supporters or mentors that helped you?

A: The first thing I did was the NSF I-Corps program sponsored at MIT. You basically come with an idea and they teach you some lean methodologies in the startup world. And the real focus of the program is just to go out and talk to people who may use your products or stakeholders within that realm . . . How do you prepare yourself to become CEO of a biotech company, raise millions of dollars, manage people — all that's an undertaking. And then there's probably dozens of people in my network that have given me advice, guided me over time. So if people are interested in doing this, it's having a great network of people that are just willing to help.

Since its founding, Concordance Therapeutics has grown rapidly, taking first place in the Boston Shark Night competition and moving operations into The Engine labs in Cambridge. Hayes’ success has depended on his ability to balance the two worlds of graduate school and biotech industry.

Q: Now you're juggling being both a PhD student and running your company. What does that balance look like?

A:Fortunately for me, the science that I'm doing for my thesis is very aligned with the company. So in that sense, somewhat two birds, one stone. But I try to plan my research very efficiently . . . And then for the startup, it's a lot of phone calls, talking to people, working on small business grants or talking to investors or accelerator programs or whatever, learning, doing something, building out our data room. So it's just a lot of computer work. So that actually makes it a little bit more flexible.

For Hayes, his role as CEO will become a full-time job after graduation. With the company taking off, investments climbing, and his products coming closer to market, it’s easy to forget the moments when the stars didn’t align — when an experiment failed, when funding fell short, or when doubt crept in.

Q: Was there ever a moment when you thought "I'm not cut out for this" or "it's not going to work"? What happened?

A:There's a lot of imposter syndrome. People experience that all the time, whether it's in research or in the startup world. So it's something you've got to deal with. There's so much uncertainty. Sometimes you're uncertain about yourself. Sometimes you're uncertain about the market, the research, or whatever . . . As long as you stay alive as the company, you just wait for that golden egg to appear and save the day . . . I think there's a phrase ‘default alive’ — as long as you can stay alive, as the founder you just kind of have to have that mentality. It's like no matter how bad today is, just stay alive until the next one and just keep going.

Staying both persistent with current ideas and flexible enough to pivot is a delicate balance that defines both research and entrepreneurship. It's a lesson learned through trial and error; the kind of hard-won insight that can't be taught in a classroom. When asked what advice he'd give to students hoping to follow in his footsteps, Hayes’ answer was characteristically practical.

Q: What's something you wish you knew before you started your company?

A: Talk to as many people as you can . . . Reach out to those people who in your mind are like superstars and you'd think they'd never talk to you. But they will. Go talk to those people. Go talk to the former CEO who exited for billions of dollars . . . There's just so much to know. I mean, there's so much I don't know right now. And I'm going to learn more today and tomorrow.

Q: Do you have any advice for students who want to pursue both the research and entrepreneurship paths?

A:Find people who have done it before. Talk to them. Give yourself time too . . . Think about it maybe in your second or third year. Not necessarily that you need to have everything figured out, but like, ‘Hey, I'm interested in just exploring the idea.’

The recurring theme of learning from others reflects the truth that great accomplishments cannot be achieved alone. Some of the greatest medicinal discoveries came from collaboration; COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were developed at the University of Pennsylvania and brought to patients with the help of Pfizer, Jennifer Doudna developed CRISP-Cas9 gene editing at UC Berkeley and co-founded multiple companies to market her innovations as genetic therapies. Yet, bridging the gap between academic discovery and mainstream medicine remains a challenge.

“I personally think that scientists should take some of that burden on themselves and think like, ‘Hey, not only do I have to do the science, but I actually have to go the next step and go bring this to market.’ Because I think there's so many ideas that die in academia. Scientists — we always say we're going to change the world — but I think there's a lot of solutions that could change the world that have died, are dying, or will die because people just won't make the effort to translate that,” said Hayes.

It’s impossible to know how many great ideas never made it off the lab bench. But scientists and entrepreneurs like Hayes are taking the burden upon themselves, now more than ever, to fulfill the true purpose of science: developing novel discoveries to benefit others.