Inspiring Women of Seattle: Lindsay Pino of Talus Bio

Lindsay K. Pino, PhD
Co-Founder and CTO, Talus Bio

How did you come to co-found Talus Bio? 
I met my cofounder, Alex Federation, when we were both training at the University of Washington. He was a postdoc working on transcription factors, and I was working on my PhD in some pretty fundamental mass spectrometry proteomics. One day, he, more or less, walked into the lab and needed to measure a bunch of proteins in some tubes, which was pretty much the only thing I knew how to do! It turns out those proteins were from an assay he was developing, and together with my mass spectrometry readouts, the foundational technology that built Talus was born. 

What's your favorite part of your job? 
I think I thrive when I’m on the edge of complete chaos, so startup life is great for me. Every day I’m doing something different, and almost always it’s something that I actually don’t know how to do, so I have to constantly be learning, reaching out for help from mentors, and teaching myself new things. 

What role has mentorship played in your career? 
Throughout my career, I’ve benefited greatly from amazing mentors. While the specific individuals have evolved and changed over time, each was pivotal in that specific stage of my life and career.  I've come to appreciate that mentorship is a two-way street. It's not only a mentor reaching out to provide advice—or failing to do so—but effective mentorship relationships require that the mentee is reaching back out to the mentor and specifically asking for the type of mentor-mentee interaction that they need. Without that two-way communication in the relationship, a mentor is limited in how they show up for a mentee.

What are some of the advantages of the Seattle biotech ecosystem for starting and building a company? 
The proximity to amazing science and trainees is a huge draw for Seattle, especially our particular approach which relies on strong mass spectrometry proteomics and biological machine learning. I think Seattle is an underappreciated powerhouse in both of those specialties, so building here gives us access to those fantastic scientists and communities. 

What emerging AI trends or innovations do you think have the potential to transform the biotech industry? 
This might be a controversial answer, but I think most “AI-for-biotech” focus on pharmaceutical outcomes, but drug development timelines are such a long tail that we won’t have any idea if emerging AI trends or innovations are even worthwhile until the 2030s. The places where AI might help in the more immediate future are more in lab automation, data quality control, and operational efficiency, like using AI to prioritize large-scale experiments or run “lights out” protocols.