On this episode of Good Starts, David talks to Stephen Trowell, Founder and Managing Director of PPB Technology, about how his passion for seeing science through to impact took him from field to founder.

The research behind the Parts Per Billion technology was created by a multidisciplinary team of chemists, biochemists, molecular biologists, physicists, engineers and mathematicians with Stephen at the helm. Stephen and the team created technology using smarter detectors to identify specific chemicals.  Their efforts then focussed on detecting security threats, monitoring food quality and safety and developing non-invasive breath-based diagnostics for diseases such as malaria and lung cancer. This research led to the formation of his spinout, with Stephen leaving CSIRO after 20 years to chase his Founder dream.

Starting his career at the University of Cambridge to obtain an Honours Degree in biochemistry, Stephen then took a Masters in neurobiology at the University of Manchester and was awarded his Ph.D. in sensory neurobiology by the Australian National University in 1987. He joined CSIRO in 1989 on an ARC National Research Fellowship.

Stephen has well over 100 publications and is an inventor on 14 patent families. He continues to serve on the Editorial Board of Bioinspiration and Biomimetics and in 2013 received a Newton-Turner Award. Stephen was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of NSW in 2018. 

Host: David Burt 

Producer and Editor: Sarah Frazer