In 1997, Michael Chambers (B.S. Biotechnology) and John Ballantyne (Ph.D. Pharmaceutical Sciences) graduated from NDSU; in 1998, the two built upon research forged in NDSU labs and founded Aldevron, a company that has become a leader in advancing biological sciences, headquartered in Fargo, North Dakota.

They remember the early days of Aldevron — the long nights and early mornings required to meet a delivery time and the trust researchers placed in them to deliver the crucial DNA needed to expand medicine. The company grew organically. They built a commercial infrastructure and focused on keeping costs down while providing exceptional products that would lead to scientific breakthroughs such as mRNA vaccines and personalized medicine.

“You understand that your job is to get stuff made so the next people in the chain can make the discoveries that make the drugs that save the lives,” John said. “You don’t set out for glory or anything like that, but it is absolutely a remarkable thing to look back on when you see something that showed up 14 years ago, 12 years ago, that’s a drug now, and you can go back to your database and look at the first time it arrived and you made it. There’re not many people in the world who get to experience that.”

Aldevron produces high-quality plasmid DNA, mRNA, proteins, enzymes, antibodies, and other biologicals to scientists around the world; all of the DNA that goes into the creation of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is made by Aldevron.

“Back when we started the company, you could sort of see some of these technologies coming,” Michael said. “But all these new gene therapies we have right now — the COVID vaccine, the oncology products that will save millions of lives — didn’t exist back in the day, but you could predict it.”

By providing large quantities of highly pure nucleic acids used universally in the advancement of gene therapy, Aldevron greatly accelerated scientific progress.