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Justin Zhang (Editor's note: Justin Zhang is a high school student from the Class of 2025 at The Canyon Crest Academy. Justin is a recipient of 2024 API Internship in Journalism. ) SAN DIEGO — GeneGoCell is a biotechnology start-up company based in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Bernardo, which specializes in genome editing verification for cell gene therapy field. They provide tests to ensure the quality, precision and safety of genome editing products. The company aims to detect genotoxicity, or the ability of substances to damage cell DNA, in their clients’ products, ensuring safety to consumers. Elizabeth Zhang-Chen founded GeneGoCell in November 2020. Her husband, Aaron Zhang-Chen, serves alongside her as Chief Technology Officer. “What’s kind of unique in our situation is that we’re husband and wife running a company, and that’s probably the biggest challenge—balancing our roles,” Elizabeth said in an interview. As the Chief Executive Officer, Elizabeth is responsible for the vision of the future of the company. It certainly helps, then, that she holds an MBA from UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management alongside a PhD in immunology from the University of Kansas Medical Center.
According to Elizabeth and Aaron, compared to other competing companies in this niche market, GeneGoCell thrives thanks to their fast turnaround time and high quality services for the quality assurance process, meaning they can expedite the process for drugs that have not yet been approved for general use by the Food and Drug Administration, known as Investigational New Drugs (IND), to be approved. “Without our help, if they go to other competitors, it might take six months, nine months, sometimes even longer, to build a customized assay in order to run the testing they need and to file for IND. We can shorten that time to three or four months,” Aaron said. Speeding up the testing process isn’t their only strength, Aaron explained. “Because of the high quality that we produce, the FDA really likes the data we generate, so most of our clients get favorable decisions from the FDA,” he added. “That’s why we don’t need to do a whole lot of marketing. Our clients just naturally come to us through word of mouth.” GeneGoCell originated from humble-rooted founders, who initially had no choice but to immigrate, for the sake of their own futures, “sometimes no choice is the best choice. You only have one path. Either you go through, or you fail. When you’re faced with this type of challenge, you learn through life that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. There’s only one way to go–that can be a real blessing,” said Aaron. Aaron and Elizabeth immigrated to the United States from Nanjing, China in 2005 to pursue their graduate education. They eventually obtained their PhDs, with the original plan being to enter academia, before later on realizing that the academic path wasn’t the best fit for them. In 2017, Aaron founded his first company, which was focused mostly on technology development. They had identified a critical gap in the market: the demand for rapid, high-quality genotoxicity testing services in the cell and gene therapy industry. By focusing on speed and precision in their genotoxicity testing offerings, GeneGoCell says it has become a key player in expediting the advancement of cutting-edge therapeutic technologies. Elizabeth and Aaron both believe a significant part of their success can be attributed to the combination of their differing traits in managing a business. “When making decisions, I emphasize on the future of GeneGoCell. When running a company, sometimes we shall stick to the company policy,” Elizabeth said. “People’s relationships are more important to Aaron. So, sometimes if I directly deliver a message, it might be too harsh even if it’s good for the company in the long run. Aaron always has a magic power to express it from a different perspective that’s easier to be received and accepted.” “She’s very sharp. She can see through the surface and see the essence of a problem, so we’re very quick about solving problems. This is a necessary skill to have, or you will spend way too much time on unnecessary details,” Aaron said. “Running a business is extremely difficult. There will be a lot of times most people like to quit…. You face challenges almost every day. you’ll be faced with challenges you’ve never seen before. You have to have the mentality that, ‘I can do this, and I’ll be able to make it.’” As the joint owners of a company, the couple experience both benefits and challenges through their partnership. “We have the same objective. We analyze things and we see what we can achieve,” Aaron said. “But how to achieve it is different. So, typically, we can reach the same objective. We both want this to happen, but I want to go this way, she wants to go that way, and that creates conflict.” “It’s a blessing but also a challenge. We look at things from different perspectives. It’s good when we align with each other,” Elizabeth said. “[But] we have to have that aggressiveness. That’s why we’re the leaders of the company.” Elizabeth and Aaron recognize that entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone. But if someone is looking to get into starting a business, they have some advice. “Really understand why you want to start a business. If you start a business for the wrong reasons, you are not going to be able to do it because very quickly you are going to realize that running a business is very different from what you imagined,” Aaron said. “You have to know yourself. You have to know the things you’re naturally interested in.” And don’t go it alone. “It’s extremely rare for one person to be able to do everything to run a successful business,” Aaron said. But what’s most important of all, according to Aaron, “Always stay positive. Always believe that you can do it.”
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