A Look Inside Silicon Valley’s Wild Biotech Accelerator IndieBio

Silicon Valley breeds the kind of people that create computers that fit in the palm of our hands, electric cars that can go hundreds of miles on a single charge and plans to launch tiny satellites across the globe to bring everyone in the world Internet access.

Biotechnology is now taking shape alongside those other big ideas, thanks to reduced costs in robotics, machine learning and some innovative Silicon Valley thinkers. Investors poured more than $3.9 billion into U.S. life sciences in 2014, and there are a growing number of startups in the field.

IndieBio is a part of that movement as the first biotech accelerator to focus on things like 3D printed animal parts, gut microbes that make essential enzymes, and artificial skin from a yeast.

Backed by SOS Ventures, Indiebio provides each startup in the accelerator with $250,000, lab space, and mentors in the field such as 23andMe co-founder Linda Avey and father of the Human Genome Project George Church.

We went to check out the space and see what’s next for IndieBio.