Experience. Insight. Innovation.

Our founding partners have a combined seven decades of industry R&D experience on enzymes that function in all aspects of molecular biology – from DNA to RNA to proteins and their modifications.

We have unique insights into industry trends and the know-how to integrate enzyme technologies into state-of-the-art instruments and innovative workflows.

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Partners

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Andrew Gardner, Ph.D.

Founding Partner

Before co-founding Active Site Partners, Andy was a Scientific Director at a leading enzyme reagent company. He led Research and Development teams in molecular enzymology with a focus on DNA replication and enzymes that act on DNA. His expertise extends to developing new innovative enzyme-based molecular workflows and technologies, resulting in numerous publications, patents, and successful commercial products. With nearly three decades of research industry experience, Andy has collaborated with early-stage and mature biotechnology companies, fostering scientific and commercial success through innovation. Andy's interests and technical expertise include enzyme tools, molecular diagnostics, next-generation sequencing, and synthetic biology.

Andy earned a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Boston University, an A.L.M. in Biology from Harvard University, and a B.A. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Middlebury College.

Christopher Taron, Ph.D.

Founding Partner

Christopher Taron is a highly experienced senior scientific leader with over 33 years of research experience and 18 years as an R&D director in the life science industry.

Chris has made numerous significant contributions to basic science in the areas of glycobiology, protein expression, and high-throughput enzyme discovery, with authorship in over 70 publications. His work has also advanced biotechnology through the discovery, application, and commercialization of novel analytical enzymes and inventorship on numerous patents.

Chris’ technical expertise widely spans important topics in protein science, including recombinant protein expression, host cell engineering, protein analysis, glycan analysis, glycoengineering, proteomics, glycomics, and enzyme discovery using functional metagenomics.

Chris is a big-picture strategic thinker who excels at designing and implementing R&D programs, collaborations, and partnerships. He has also served on both corporate and scientific advisory boards of biotech companies.

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G. Brett Robb, Ph.D.

Founding Partner

G. Brett Robb is a highly accomplished senior research and development (R&D) director. With over 16 years of life science industry experience, Brett's innovative and strategic approach has led to numerous contributions to basic science and resulted in the development, implementation, and commercialization of novel and enabling enzyme-based tools.

Brett's technical expertise spans mRNA synthesis, CRISPR-Cas, RNA biology, molecular biology, enzymes, genome editing, small RNA, post-transcriptional gene regulation, and mRNA stability.

Brett has built world-class teams focused on enzyme discovery, characterization, and technology development. He excels at fostering industry and academic partnerships and collaborations to advance R&D programs with a drive toward commercialization.

Subject Matter Experts

Active Site Partners takes a team-based approach that includes Founding Partners and Subject Matter Experts as needed to maximize client success.

Our team represents a broad range of subject matter expertise in:

  • Recombinant protein expression
  • Scaled protein purification
  • Host cell engineering
  • Protein engineering
  • Nucleic acid purification
  • High-throughput technologies
  • Bioinformatics.
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Collaborate with Active Site Partners

We believe in the power of partnership and collaboration to achieve excellent results in minimum time. Our scientific and business track records, strategic vision, and ability to foster collaboration uniquely position Active Site Partners to accelerate your research, development, and deployment.

We look forward to partnering with you on your journey toward success.