🧬 From Expat Kid to Founder: Science, Curiosity & the Long Road to Conviction | Alex Telford (1/4)
June 1, 2026
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee sits down with Alex Telford, founder of Convoke, who raised $8.6 million to build the AI-native operating system for biopharma. Part one traces his path from an expat childhood across Switzerland, Germany, and Spain — shaped by international schools, disappearing friendships, and a New Scientist subscription — through biochemistry at Bristol and into a synthetic biology master's at UCL that promised biological engineering and delivered toggle switches.
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"We don't understand biology. It's so complex that it's not engineerable, really, in any useful way."
"We don't understand biology. It's so complex that it's not engineerable, really, in any useful way."
In this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast, Jon Chee sits down with Alex Telford, founder of Convoke, who raised $8.6 million to build the AI-native operating system for biopharma. Part one traces his path from an expat childhood across Switzerland, Germany, and Spain — shaped by international schools, disappearing friendships, and a New Scientist subscription — through biochemistry at Bristol and into a synthetic biology master's at UCL that promised biological engineering and delivered toggle switches.
Key Topics Covered:
- Expat Childhood and Comfort with Impermanence: Growing up in international schools where best friends disappeared with each relocation built a tolerance for instability that made leaving a stable consulting career feel manageable.
- Science as Self-Directed Curiosity: No scientists in the family — just New Scientist, National Geographic, and two teachers who steered him toward biochemistry.
- Choosing University on Personal, Not Academic, Grounds: Applied to Bristol because his mum had a friend there, York because his grandmother lived there. Got into Oxford. Went to Bristol.
- What Wet Lab Work Actually Feels Like: Three months of Western blots on red blood cell proteins — slow, hard to debug, and disconnected from application.
- Synthetic Biology's Gap Between Promise and Practice: The UCL master's offered biological robots and re-engineered supply chains. The actual work was genetic toggle switches that mutate within a few divisions.
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Links:
Subscribe to the Podcast:
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Find our guest, Alex Telford at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexander-telford/
Website: https://www.convoke.bio/
Find our host, Jon Chee, at these links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonchee/
Learn more about Excedr:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/excedr/
Website: https://www.excedr.com
Intro & Outro Songs Created by OkKyojin, Owned by Excedr:
Website: https://flow.page/kyojin
Resources & Articles:
Why Some Biotech Startups Struggle to Scale: https://www.excedr.com/resources/why-some-biotech-startups-struggle-to-scale
IB Diploma Programme: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IB_Diploma_Programme
MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology — History: https://mrclmb.ac.uk/about/history/
Genetic Circuits in Synthetic Biology: Broadening the Toolkit: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/synthetic-biology/articles/10.3389/fsybi.2025.1548572/full
Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery and Development: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7577280/
Companies, Universities, & People Mentioned:
Convoke: https://www.convoke.bio/
Dow Chemical: https://www.dow.com
University of Bristol: https://www.bristol.ac.uk
University College London (UCL): https://www.ucl.ac.uk
Kleiner Perkins: https://www.kleinerperkins.com
Dimension Capital: https://www.dimensioncap.com/
Leigh Marie Braswell (Partner, Kleiner Perkins): https://www.linkedin.com/in/leigh-marie-braswell
Nan Li (Managing Partner, Dimension Capital): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nanli
Qasar Younis (CEO, Applied Intuition): https://www.linkedin.com/in/qasar
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
05:24 A Childhood Built on New Scientist and Big Questions
07:50 Growing Up Across Europe: Switzerland, Germany, Spain
08:51 Expat Life, International Schools, and Impermanence
10:56 Choosing University on Entirely Personal Grounds
13:11 Getting into Oxford and Choosing Bristol Anyway
14:24 Wet Lab Reality: Three Months of Western Blots
16:47 An Email Blast That Led to a Synthetic Biology Master's
18:14 Synthetic Biology: Overpromised and Underdelivered
20:14 Why Living Systems Fight Back Against Engineers
The Biotech Startups Podcast gives you a front-row seat to the business and science of building a biotech. Hosted by Jon Chee, CEO of Excedr, the show features honest conversations with founders, execs, and investors about their work, their companies, and how they got there. From scientific breakthroughs to startup lessons, each episode explores what it really takes to grow a life science company—from pre-seed to IPO.