AMES, Iowa – Subhanwit Roy, working in the back corner of the rear lab of Skroot Laboratory Inc., connected one of the company’s electronics boards to a test receiver.
Roy’s to-do list on a recent morning at Skroot’s lab in the Iowa State University Research Park was making sure a wireless reader board the company has developed is ready to be shipped out for electromagnetic compatibility certification.
Roy was testing the board for electronic interference that could disrupt other equipment or devices. The Federal Communications Commission has strict requirements for such emissions.
Roy, the director of engineering and research for Skroot, a startup founded by Iowa State faculty member Nigel Reuel, has an Iowa State doctorate in electrical engineering. His doctoral work was devoted, in part, to developing the electronics Skroot uses to wirelessly read the sensors it markets to monitor cell growth for biomanufacturing, including growing cells for cancer immunotherapies.
But Roy doesn’t have a Ph.D. in emissions certification.
And so, an electronics compliance expert from another company at the research park was going to stop by Skroot’s lab and offer some help.
That’s just one reason the research park is a good place to grow a faculty startup, said Reuel, the Stanley Chair in Interdisciplinary Engineering in the department of chemical and biological engineering who currently has two companies based at the park.
“The research park has a lot of companies that are here for each other,” said Reuel, who liked what he saw of Iowa State startup support when he visited campus years ago as a corporate technology scout. “In this ecosystem, everybody is ‘Iowa nice.’ It’s like borrowing a cup of sugar from your neighbor. It’s invaluable.”
Starting with faculty startups
There are, of course, many other reasons for faculty startups to consider doing business in the research park: Convenience to campus. An educated, skilled workforce. Built-in infrastructure for labs and research equipment. Affordable enough for faculty founders. Options from incubator spaces to small offices with labs to bigger spaces with bigger labs and even company buildings.
Rick Sanders, the president and director of the research park, said the park’s early days were all about working with faculty innovators.
“The research park started 38 years ago explicitly for faculty startups,” he said. “It was created so intellectual property created on campus had an opportunity to see the light of day.”
The park started with two buildings – Research Park 1 and Research Park 2 – on 40 acres. It has added acres, buildings and partners since, including the state’s 2013 appropriation of $12 million for the research park’s 42,000-square-foot Economic Development Core Facility.
These days, “We’re exploding,” Sanders said. “We’ve had 30% of the research park’s total growth in the last five years.”
There are now 21 buildings, twelve of them owned and operated by the research park and the others by private companies. There’s one million square feet of space on 550 acres. There are more than 2,400 employees working for the park’s tenants. And Sanders hints there will be announcements about more growth ahead.
At any one time, Sanders said there are 10 to 20 faculty startups among the 145 companies at the research park. Some of the larger companies at the research park – Workiva, for example, which helps companies manage and report data – launched as startups in the research park and have founders who were Iowa State faculty members or students.
All the history and activity led the Association of University Research Parks to name the ISU Research Park its “Distinguished Community of Innovation of the Year” last November.
The award recognizes a research park for its “substantial contribution to the region by nurturing a dynamic environment that promotes innovation, entrepreneurship and (research-to-business) translation,” according to the association.
Even with the growth and size of the research park, Sanders said the research park isn’t forgetting about faculty founders who are starting small.
“Our first question is, ‘What do you need?’” he said. “And we’ll figure that out. We meet them where they are.”
“The research park started 38 years ago explicitly for faculty startups. It was created so intellectual property created on campus had an opportunity to see the light of day.”
Rick Sanders, the president and director of the Iowa State University Research Park
A desk and an address
Brent Shanks is the chief technical officer for Pyrone Systems Inc. (Pyrones are ring-structured, carbon-oxygen compounds that can’t be easily made from petroleum.)
And he’ll happily tell you all about the molecule the company is testing as a biopesticide. It’s one that occurs in some plants. And it could improve public health by controlling disease-carrying insects and boost crop production by controlling plant-eating insects.
Its promise as a pesticide was discovered by Adam Okerlund, a former translational research manager at the Center for Biorenewable Chemicals (CBiRC) based at Iowa State. He was studying the molecule as a potential anti-microbial agent and happened to notice a short reference in a scientific journal about the molecule’s potential as a “larvicide.”
That led to some testing and the realization it was an effective pesticide, not only against larvae, but also adult insects. And, as a bonus, the molecule has a different structure than existing pesticides and therefore insects haven’t developed resistance to it.
(Researchers found a fly at a dump in Ohio that had developed pesticide resistance, Shanks said. “Our molecule took it out.”)
Shanks is an Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering, the Mike and Jean Steffenson Chair in chemical and biological engineering, the director of CBiRC, a board member at the research park and the recent winner of the Iowa Biotechnology Association’s 2026 Biotech Leader Award.
“Brent exemplifies the type of dedicated biotech leader, researcher, and entrepreneur, who has worked diligently and successfully in our Iowa biotechnology ecosystem for many years,” said Jessica Hyland, the association’s executive director.
For now, Shanks said Pyrone Systems’ biotech efforts are mostly virtual.
The company contracts with labs and manufacturers to make products for testing and regulatory approvals. Its four-person team is spread across the country, from California to Iowa to Florida.
So, it doesn’t need lab space. But it does need an Iowa base to build relationships in the agricultural industry and access ag-related support and investment. So, it can use a desk at the research park as part of the Ag Startup Engine.
That’s what it needs for now.
Sanders said that’s OK. The research park can accommodate different needs. And one day the company’s need for facilities could grow.
That’s something Shanks appreciates. “What’s clear to me as a member of the board of the research park,” he said, “is its sheer flexibility.”
If your company needs lab space, there’s room for you. If your company needs a Midwest presence in the AgTech world, there’s room for you. And if your company has grown and needs to build its own campus, there’s room for you.
There’s another thing Shanks is happy to talk about: “I can see a very clear path forward for Pyrone Systems. I like to think that if Pyrone Systems is successful, the research park and the state of Iowa will have some sense of ownership.”
‘Ready to go’
Nigel Reuel pulled a plastic vessel from the top of a desk shelf in the Skroot front offices and started explaining. He held what’s, basically, a clear plastic jar and lid with tubes out the top and threaded along the side. It’s designed to grow 50 million cells to as many as 4 billion cells in about 10 days.
It was a “SMART G-Rex” vessel for cell and gene therapy production developed in partnership with Wilson Wolf Manufacturing, a Minnesota-based company that manufactures cell culture technologies. Its “G-Rex” series of vessels is designed to increase the quantity and quality of immune cell production for cell and gene therapies.
Near the bottom of the vessel, stuck to the inside, was a coiled Skroot sensor. Put the vessel and sensor up to a wireless, benchtop reader – “Powered by Skroot,” says the device’s faceplate – and cell growth is displayed, including the proper time to harvest cells.
It’s quick and clean. No need to open the vessel and take samples. It used to be a laborious task Reuel remembers from his graduate school days. It took time. And it took care, so cell cultures weren’t contaminated.
The need for that shortcut has allowed Skroot to grow as a business. (Skroot? That’s Polish for shortcut.)
Skroot’s neighbor in the research park’s Building 1, Zymosense, another company Reuel has co-founded and is helping to lead, is earlier in its development as a business. Reuel and his former doctoral student, Nathaniel Kallmyer, have developed biosensors that measure the activity of the enzymes that accelerate chemical reactions.
For both companies, “The ultimate goal is to make impact,” Reuel said. “We’ve done this research on campus, how can we actually get it to the world?”
A typical trajectory starts with lab research supported by federal agencies such as the U.S. National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health.
Successful discoveries could lead to business development programs or courses, including Entrepreneurship/Engineering 6250, “Deep Technology Venture Creation,” a course Reuel co-teaches with Mike Howard, the Hilsinger-Janson Professor in the department of management and entrepreneurship. That can lead to college-based Start Something entrepreneurial programs or the ISU Startup Factory. And that can lead to federal seed grants or private investment.
To get Skroot off the ground, Reuel started in the Roy J. Carver Co-Laboratory on campus where the startup could benefit from basic university services such as waste management. Continued growth led to the research park, where there was existing lab space with built-in safety infrastructure such as fume hoods.
“It’s great space,” Reuel said. And, like an Iowa State faculty entrepreneur, it’s “ready to go.”