Who is Synapses?

Hi, I'm Jamie Love, the founder of Synapses.

I was born in the USA but moved to Scotland in 1990 to do a post-doc. I saw commercial potential in my research so, over the next two years in my spare time, I earned an MBA and wrote business plans, but, sadly, it never got off the ground.
If only I had known then, what I know now.

About a month after the university awarded me a permanent post, my British wife was offered an exciting job at a start-up near San Francisco! I resigned from the university and returned to the States where I discovered that my MBA and PhD fit well in Intellectual Property.

I worked with world class biotech patent lawyers to submit our patent applications to the USPTO, respond to Office Actions and represent our company during infringement proceedings.

I gained enough knowledge about the process that I submitted a patent application "pro se" (without a layer, as a co-inventor) and studied to become a USPTO certified patent agent.

A large patent law firm hired me to conduct Prior Art searches and write opinions on patentability for WIPO applications (outsourced from the USPTO).

In 2008 I returned to Scotland and co-founded a biotech company. As Managing Director, I negotiated our IP portfolio and wrote a business plan that encouraged an investor to provide some seed money - then nearly doubled that money with grants. With the interesting work done, I handed over the reigns to a CEO. As Chief Operations Officer I continued to manage the IP and grants for the company, but my reduced responsibilities allowed me time to help other start-ups.

My most recent post was at the University of Edinburgh, where I helped Masters and PhD students from local universities to start up their own companies. It was a great job - I helped an endless stream of energetic, creative and brilliant young inventors to protect their IP, write their business plans and turn their ideas into start-ups. Unfortunately, my Parkinson's Disease (diagnosed in 2007) caught up with me. The frenetic pace, commitments and long commute were too much so I retired in 2016. However, I have not retired my brain. I keep in touch with several of my "favorite student startups", providing advice and assistance pro bono, and also help others start ups who compensate me with cash or shares.

    Start-ups I'm helping or recently helped include:
  • a therapeutics company preparing for clincal trials for its potent, wound-healing molecules which have a novel and unique mode of action and that are protected by patents in Germany, France and the UK (until 2025), the US (until 2031) and Japan (until 2032).
  • another therapeutics company with novel immune-regulatory proteins, protected by a US patent until 2026, which can be used to prevent and fight infections, as well as treat autoimmune diseases and cancer.
  • a drug discovery company that uses traditional Indian medicines (Ayurveda) to provide lead compounds which are analysed in silico using state-of-the-art bioinformatics and molecular modeling, then validated in tissue culture, and finally redesigned to optimize them (making them patentable).
  • a manufacturing company that uses engineered plant cells to provide drugs and fine chemicals that are currently made by labour-intensive and land-intensive methods which deliver low and inconsistent yields.
  • a wave energy company that uses a hinged raft with innovative geometry to provide low-cost, single-point mooring that allows the machine to yaw (like a weather vane) so it naturally faces the direction from which most wave energy arrives, giving it good survivability and more power per size.

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(© Dr Jamie Love 2017)