Julian A. Zagalak, PhD

Julian joined Edinburgh Innovations (EI) in May 2025 as an Enterprise Executive, with a focus on life sciences. His role is to support entrepreneurs at the University of Edinburgh to create companies that have a lasting positive impact locally and globally. 

Julian spent 14 years working in molecular neuroscience, RNA biology and bioinformatics, unravelling some of the mysteries surrounding motor neuron disease and other complex ailments. Fluent in five languages, his academic career was conducted at Swiss, German and UK research hubs, including ETH Zurich, Max-Planck, UCL and the UK Dementia Research Institute.  

His expertise in biomolecular sciences, paired with hands-on experience in the startup industry, allows him to support University researchers to spin out. 

I’ve always been passionate about improving human health. It was during a postdoc at the Francis Crick Institute that I co-founded a spinout automating bio-magnetic separation workflows and caught the ‘startup bug’. Having experienced the hyper-competitive nature of other initiatives, I appreciate EI’s unique and nurturing approach to commercialisation. 

“To me, innovation is a personal investment strategy. Rather than moving forward with a suboptimal status quo, I purposefully decide to set time aside to improve things for a future benefit. Innovation can be anything from a blockbuster drug to rearranging your sock drawer.” 

Julian says the best advice he was given was 'Don’t do it, if you don’t believe in it' and 'But coffee first!' 

Asked to imagine himself in an alternate career, Julian imagines that working as a pastry chef could be incredibly rewarding, making so many people a little bit happier every day. Perhaps there are parallels with the care and attention Julian takes in supporting entrepreneurial researchers to benefit others.