Dr. Delos Santos is the Co-founder and CEO of Biofect Innovations—a Toronto-based biotechnology startup that leverages microbial fermentation to create real animal ingredients without any use or input of animals. During his graduate studies, Christian developed his skills as a researcher and was inspired to apply his scientific training to real-world problems, co-founding Biofect in 2017. He obtained his Ph.D. in 2018 and soon worked in the industry as a genetic consultant at Lifelabs Genetics, providing technical support for novel genetic testing products. In 2020, Christian committed full-time work to Biofect Innovations and currently manages its day-to-day operations and overall growth.

Vivian completed her graduate degree at the University of Toronto in the Department of Molecular Genetics with a focus on epigenetics and gene regulation. She continued to grow her translational research and management capabilities in the Department of Biochemistry, managing several labs and briefly joining an early stage venture that would later become one of H2i’s mentored companies, Micromensio. Vivian returns to the University of Toronto from the rich entrepreneurial ecosystem of Kitchener-Waterloo. Having helped to create the University of Waterloo’s Science Innovation Hub, Vivian is no stranger to guiding the next generation of innovators in transforming their ideas to address the needs of today and tomorrow. She is excited and grateful to be able to bring her dedication to creating equitable, diverse programming and her experience in research management to the H2i team.