As we continue to celebrate Dewpoint’s 5-year anniversary, some of our most tenured employees shared their memories of the beginning of the journey to transform biomolecular condensates into life-changing, revolutionary medicine and their thoughts on the company’s continued growth and success. Every day, Dewpoint team members are inspired about the scientific strides the company is making and the unique and collaborative culture that drives the entire team to succeed.

Why Dewpoint

What is now a thriving biotech started as a small, innovative startup with a novel idea and vision about the potential for biomolecular condensates. To bring this vision to life, Dewpoint needed an agile, motivated team dedicated to extraordinary science and building a unique culture. Bea Ferreira Gomes, Marie Hanabusa and Violeta Yu are three of these earliest employees who have helped shape Dewpoint into the company it is today.

Bea, Principal Scientist-Data Science, knew from the beginning that Dewpoint was a company with great people she knew she could trust doing great science. She built her expertise in biomolecular condensates with Dewpoint founder Tony Hyman as her PhD supervisor, and she wanted to apply this knowledge to making medicine for diseases.

In her search for a company with a supportive, curious, energetic, collaborative and fun environment that had the potential to truly help patients, Violeta, Head of Neurological & Rare Disease Biology, found her home at Dewpoint. She was excited to learn from experts in the emerging field of condensate biology and make an impact on the company’s evolution.

Marie, R&D Strategic Planning and Operations Lead, discovered Dewpoint while she was at a career crossroads. While working at a large corporation as a program manager, she felt a calling to be a part of something smaller and more meaningful. As she puts it, she wanted to be “be in a Rebel Base instead of the Empire in Star Wars.” And after exploring different companies and industries, Dewpoint became that “Rebel Base,” – a new, exciting and different type of company that had the potential to help patients in need.

Advancing our Science

What started as a new idea and a hypothesis in the beginning now has yielded results. Over the last five years, the company has been focusing much more on specific disease areas, evolving from a drug discovery company to getting closer to the clinic and making life-changing medicines for patients.  Data gathered has demonstrated and validated that potentially every disease investigated through the years has abnormal condensates at the source that can be modulated.

“By focusing on those condensates, we have found compounds that work in disease relevant models, in vitro and in vivo, with more success and efficiency than traditional drug discovery,” says Violeta.

Building our Team

Marie recalls the early days when she was the single person taking on all the G&A roles and responsibilities to support the then nine-person company – administrative, human resources, finance. “That was an amazing experience,” she says. Fast forward five years, her focus is on project management and the company has grown exponentially in size and location, with sites in Boston, Massachusetts and Dresden and Frankfurt, Germany.

But even with this growth and the geographical differences, the Dewpoint team still connects and learns from each other. “It’s extraordinary the spirit that we still have between the different sites,” Bea says. “I’m extremely impressed with that.”

Along with the scientific advances, Violeta has also seen Dewpoint thrive as a place that fosters professional development, “I am very proud of seeing the growth in my colleagues,” she says. “That growth enables our success, makes us stronger, and enables us to evolve.”

People and Science – Inspiration Everyday

Working with a passionate, committed, extraordinary team of people all driven to the same goal – helping patients suffering with incurable diseases – is rewarding for Bea, Marie and Violeta every day.  

“What inspires me is what brought me here in the first place,” says Violeta. “The people are number one, followed by amazing science, and now our own groundbreaking results that solidify our company’s visionary premise.”

Bea also appreciates the motivation and approachability of the entire team. “I love the way we communicate with each other” she says. “We all have a voice, despite our titles or roles, and I think that is unique.”

A Bright Future Ahead  

A bright future for Dewpoint means fuller, healthier lives for patients with previously incurable diseases because of Dewpoint c-mods. It also means a strong culture where people continue to teach and mentor each other.

Bea is excited to explore the potential of artificial intelligence in changing the way the company approaches disease targeting. “I am thrilled to keep developing our digital platform, where our proprietary condensate data will enable us to make predictions and improve the drug discovery pipeline, ultimately translating condensate biology knowledge into medicine.” she says. 

Marie looks forward to continuing the Dewpoint journey and seeing how the team will work together to solve problems and overcome roadblocks as they work together toward a shared purpose. “Dewpoint is different, she says. “There’s a level of fearless excitement. I’m just very honored to be a part of it.”