On the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, celebrated on 11 February, we looked for women who are frontrunners on the European Innovation Council (EIC) road and bring together science and innovation. This year, we had the opportunity of talking with Maria Fátima Lucas, a Portuguese chemist who is leading a biotech company, ZYMVOL, in Barcelona, Spain. After several years of working as a research scientist, Maria Fátima decided to open the door to the entrepreneurial world and co-founded her company in 2017. Now, she is the CEO of ZYMVOL, an EIC-funded company specialised in silico enzyme engineering. Besides the excellence in her work, that has been recognised with an EU Prize for Women Innovators in 2020, Maria Fátima also thrives to promote gender equality in her work environment. Celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science with us and Maria Fátima Lucas by reading her interview below.
How did it start your passion for computational chemistry, and what is the most rewarding thing for you in working in this field?
To be totally honest, my reasoning for selecting computational chemistry as my area of expertise (in 1999) was that I felt that it meant learning a field that would necessarily be the future. By then we could only do very limited simulations (a few tens of atoms) and I thought that I had a lot to gain by working in a field that was just starting. And I was right! In the last 20 years, I have experienced the transition of the computational chemistry field from a few people doing some simulations to seeing the first Nobel prize for computational chemistry in 2013. We can now model biological systems with methods of great accuracy. I have no doubt that computational chemistry will become the first step when planning to develop new products, in particular biocatalysts.
I think the most rewarding part of working in this field, and more specifically, in the “business” side of it all, is being able to see your science having an impact on the world. With every project we finish, we’re able to see the results on a large scale.
You worked for many years as a researcher for different institutions, but, in 2017, the idea to create your own company came to life and you co-founded Zymvol Biomodeling. Tell us how was the process of bringing your innovative idea to reality.
Since obtaining my B.sc. in Chemistry and M.sc. and PhD in Computational Chemistry at University of Porto, I had always worked as a researcher and had no plans of creating my own company. However, in 2017 my last contract ended and I was having trouble finding a new job in Barcelona. It was either moving to another country or founding my own company. So that’s what I did. Along with Emanuele Monza and Victor Gil, with whom I had worked during my time doing research at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), we decided to join forces and apply computational techniques to the optimization of enzymes.
Can you explain in more detail what the innovation of Zymvol is about?
At ZYMVOL, our whole technology revolves around the discovery and optimization of enzymes through computational methods. Enzymes are biocatalysts; meaning they have the ability to speed up chemical reactions. This can be very useful to many industries, as they can apply enzymes to their production processes to improve their products (e.g the detergent industry has long used enzymes to make their products more efficient and consume less energy) and make the whole process more sustainable (since enzymes can work under mild reaction conditions).
However, it’s not always as easy as it sounds. Moving an enzyme from its natural environment to an industrial one, with different temperatures and pressures, can make the enzyme inactive. That’s why they must be engineered to be able to work in industrial settings.
At ZYMVOL we use computational methods to discover and optimize enzymes for very specific purposes in less time than by doing it with more traditional methods. This way, not only do we accelerate the enzyme development process, but since the process becomes more affordable, more companies can invest in them. This means more sustainable industries and a wider use of green chemistry.
In your description, you mention that your ambition is to help create stable jobs and promote gender equality. Can you tell us more about how you try to apply this mindset in your company?
When it comes to promoting gender equality in our company, not only does it show in our job application processes, where we always go for the best candidate, without discriminating by gender, but also in other company policies. For example, we promote remote-work and flexible hours to create a better work-life balance for our employees. This, of course, benefits all of us, but it is very much tied with gender equality policies, since many times women are the ones expected to work while at the same time raising their families. If they don’t have flexibility, they might choose to postpone their careers so as to not neglect their private life.
All of this is also a key part of retaining the best talent here. We want our team to be happy, and that means putting our best efforts in achieving a good work-life balance. Also, we offer our employees permanent contracts, as we believe providing stability and a good career development plan is also crucial.
I’m also proud to say that our ambition is translated into numbers, currently 82% of our team has a permanent contract and 64% are female. Even more impressive is the fact that this is possible in a deeptech company where 100% of the team has a university degree and 69% hold a PhD in a technical or scientific area.
Did you encounter any significant gender-related adversities during your career?
When I worked as a researcher, I never encountered any significant adversity or felt discriminated against for being a woman. Once I became CEO of my own company and entered the business world, I did start to notice more gender-related inequalities.
What's the most important thing you're working on right now, and how are you making it happen?
Right now we are getting ready to bring our first products to the market. This is an important milestone for us, since it means that we have successfully developed our own products and we will now be able to provide biocatalytic solutions to a wider number of customers.
Are you able to identify any female scientist / teacher / colleague that has inspired you to pursue your goals in your career? How important do you think it is to have these role models?
Of female scientists, I would say Frances Arnold. In 2018, she was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a lab process to accelerate natural evolution, what is normally called Directed Evolution. Thanks to her work, she has radically changed the way biocatalysis can be applied in industrial processes.
Having these types of role models is absolutely crucial. People need to see themselves represented, otherwise, they start to believe that what they do is not important or that their goals are impossible to achieve because they don’t fit a certain “standard”. Having female representation in male-dominated career fields can show younger women that they too can aspire to work in such areas.
What encouraging words would you share with young women thinking about a job in science or technology?
Just go for it!
DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.