Minimal cost. Minimal waste. Maximum science.
Minimal Bio helps early-stage biotech teams build capable laboratories and discovery platforms without unnecessary cost, complexity, or vendor dependence. The goal is simple: make high-quality science accessible by focusing on what is essential, eliminating what is not, and sharing practical knowledge openly.
Modern molecular biology is burdened by inflated tooling, opaque pricing, and fragmented know-how. Basic laboratory equipment is often sold at multiples far beyond its material and engineering cost. Protocols that should be standard are locked behind paywalls, proprietary kits, or scattered across supplementary materials.
This creates friction at every stage of R&D. New teams spend months recreating existing workflows. Limited budgets are consumed by capital equipment that adds little scientific value. The result is slower iteration, higher burn, and fewer opportunities to test promising ideas.
Over the past 4.5 years, I have built molecular biology platforms in resource-constrained environments—from bench-top assays to automated screening systems evaluating more than 1,000 variants. Working under lean budgets forced a consistent discipline: understand each system at the level of first principles and remove everything that is not strictly required.
The result is not just lower cost, but better understanding, faster troubleshooting, and more robust science.
My approach is grounded in reduction to essentials.
When a device is fundamentally magnets and acrylic, it should be priced and designed as such. When a protocol relies on a small number of chemical steps, those steps should be transparent and reproducible without vendor lock-in.
This is not about cutting corners. It is about:
Across automation (OT-2, Qpix), live-cell screening, protein production, and assay development, this approach has consistently produced systems that are cheaper, easier to maintain, and easier to improve.
Minimal Bio exists to reduce the cost and friction of experimental science.
Specifically, I work to:
The objective is not disruption for its own sake, but practical leverage: enabling more teams to test more ideas with fewer resources.
Whether supporting a new laboratory build, optimizing an assay, or designing a screening platform, the working method is consistent:
This approach has been applied in live-cell functional screening, automated protein engineering, and platform development for early discovery programs.
I document tools, protocols, and design decisions through tutorials and case studies, with the goal of raising the baseline technical literacy in the biotech community.
Even when we do not work together directly, these resources are intended to be immediately usable by working scientists and founders.
I am Michael Minson, PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado Boulder.
My experience spans academic research, diagnostics development, manufacturing analytics, and early-stage platform biotech. This breadth informs a practical view of what scales, what breaks, and what is worth building from scratch.
If you are building a biotech company under real budget constraints, or if you are looking to reduce the cost and complexity of an existing laboratory, I would be glad to discuss your specific challenges.
The focus is straightforward: maximize experimental throughput and reliability while minimizing unnecessary capital and operational expense.