Positive People - Melissa Netwal

How long have you been with SPT Labtech?

I joined SPT Labtech in December 2022, originally as a Field Application Scientist. Since then, I’ve transitioned into a broader role that allows me to work more strategically across partnerships, product development, and customer success—each day offers something new and energizing.

What do you do and main responsibilities, and a typical day like for you?

What’s something about your job that people might not realize?

The days start way earlier than my internal clock natively allows – morning people vs night owls are real – it's science. But getting up enables me to connect with teams and partners across multiple time zones.

What drives you in your role and is the most rewarding part of your job?

Learning about emerging technologies and supporting the scientists bringing them to fruition. There’s something incredibly exciting about being at the intersection of innovation and implementation—where novel science becomes a real-world application. And in terms of rewarding part of my role - that is undoubtedly the relationships I’ve built with my internal and external work besties.

How does your work impact your colleagues and/or customers?

In my previous role as an FAS, it was execution and support whenever and wherever possible. In this new role, I’m working far more cross-functionally to bring our remote, internal and field applications team together. I'm confident the impact will be felt is in the months to come as we establish more partnerships and enable our commercial team to more effectively collaborate.

What’s been your proudest moment at SPT Labtech?

This is getting existential. I think recognizing the synergy between firefly’s liquid handling technologies and the various combinatorial indexing methods that have come to market in recent years, then chasing the leaders in the space to establish formal partnerships (Scale Biosciences & Parse Biosciences). Seeing those conversations turn into tangible collaborations, ones that our customers are excited about, felt like a real milestone.

Which of the Strategic Pillars / Goals do you think you impact the most and why?

Building dynamic commercial capabilities, specifically through working to build strategic partnerships while continuing to support our commercial team by helping to translate customer needs into actionable strategies and by advocating internally for what matters most to the scientists we serve.

How does your team or role contribute to the company’s success?

First, SPT’s applications team really differentiate us from other liquid handling companies in the space. I’ve often joked that SPT is lucky in that it managed to hire talented scientists who not only know how to help our customers, but also understands how to engage with them.

The applications team also doesn’t stop at training, we develop real relationships with our customers and continue to provide support after they’re up and running, anywhere from helping them through an on-deck crash to helping them develop new methods.

How does your background or culture influence the way you work?

What’s something outside of work that you’re passionate about?

I’m passionate about sustainability through synthetic biology. I pivoted from ecology to molecular biology during undergrad because of it’s potential to innovate and create materials and medicines through more sustainable means, because the practical applications were more inspiring to me than policy.

The move I made to a commercial organization was not one I made by choice. Demetrix, a Keasling spin-off, abruptly folded in 2022, not because we weren’t making significant progress and hitting targets, but because it wasn’t commercially viable, like countless other failed startups in the space. Nearly every health or technological advance has been subsidized in a meaningful way by the government - energy, agriculture, drug discovery.

Every advance we’ve seen has grown because of significant support through tax dollars. Synthetic biology can continue to innovate in those sectors and beyond with investment to drive down the cost and make it cost-competitive with the traditional means of petroleum-based production. 

I’m also passionate about wine and dogs.

What excites you about the future of your role?

Impact. It can be overwhelming to transition from focusing on a single discipline to supporting scientists across the life sciences in automating their workflows, but rather than supporting a single project, we’re supporting thousands of projects and scientists and their breakthroughs.

If you could give one piece of advice to someone looking to join SPT Labtech, what would it be?

Listen and you’ll learn. We’re surrounded by amazing colleagues, but also the amazing scientists and engineers we support.