Maier Avendaño
Maier Avendaño is a senior associate at Flagship Pioneering, as well as the co-founder and head of innovation and technology at invaio sciences, one of the newest companies founded by Flagship Pioneering in the VentureLabs innovation foundry. As an entrepreneurial scientist with a multidisciplinary expertise across microbiology, bioengineering, biophysics, and math, Maier conducts scientific explorations to discover unexplored biological mechanisms and new biotechnologies. Maier develops the science, intellectual property and business strategy that form the foundation of the firm's breakthrough startups. Before joining Flagship, he received his Ph.D. from Harvard University and completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the Wyss Institute. Maier’s graduate work focused on the development of a novel quantitative multiplexing super-resolution approach based on programmable autonomous blinking of a nucleic acid probe. Because of this research, Maier was supported by several competitive fellowships including the prestigious Howard Hughes Medical Institute Pre-doctoral Fellowship. He has also received several recognitions including the Medal of Honor Alejandro Ángel Escobar en Ciencias Exactas and Físicas y Naturales from the Fundación Alejandro Ángel Escobar; and has been named to the "Latino 30 under 30" by El Mundo Boston and to the Technology Review's MIT TR35 of "Most Important Innovators under 35 in Colombia”. Maier is also passionate about education, In 2015 he founded Clubes de Ciencia Colombia, an educational program that expands access to high-quality STEM education for youth in Latin America. Maier has led this program since its founding, carrying out so far 4 editions in several cities in Colombia, impacting so far more than 5,000 students.
Harvard Affiliation / Current Practice
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Phd in Systems Biology, 2015
