Entrepreneur Workshop
Christina Boville
CEO, Aralez Bio
Aralez Bio is the developer of noncanonical amino acids designed to make valuable products in a sustainable way. They have invented an enzymatic method for synthesizing noncanonical amino acids (NCAA) also called noncanonical or unnatural amino acids and the proprietary approach enables NCAA to be synthesized with enantiopurity in just a single step, enabling clients to access amino acids that are needed for innovations in pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and functional materials.
Tina Boville is the co-founder and CEO of Aralez Bio, a startup using directed evolution to unlock noncanonical amino acids. She has been recognized as one of MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35, an Activate Fellow, and a Biotech Founder to Watch. Boville received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Colorado and then conducted her postdoctoral research at Caltech as a Resnick Prize Postdoctoral Fellow, where she co-developed the tryptophan synthase platform that Aralez Bio uses today. Boville founded Aralez Bio in 2019 alongside Dr. David Romney and Prof. Frances Arnold, and since then the company has raised venture funding, won prizes from the Rothenberg Innovation Initiative and Caltech Rocket Fund, and counts top 10 pharmaceutical companies among its customers.