Little did Matthew Copeland know while working in a lab on synthetic biology that his frustration over the inadequate eight-well gel combs used for electrophoresis would lead him to a scientific innovation. 

Gel combs are used to make impressions in a mold, allowing scientists to pipette DNA strands into the impression spaces. The tubes typically used to perform reactions come in DNA increments of eight, which is problematic because an additional space is needed for the DNA standard.

Copeland, along with Ben Cox, created a prototype for a nine-well gel comb, which found success among scientists at Copeland’s lab in the University of Wisconsin Chemical Engineering department. The two then teamed up with Brandon Walker to launch Gel Combs LLC in September 2013.

“Our combs are designed, manufactured and sold by scientists with the end-user in mind,” Copeland said. “Our products won’t create a scientific breakthrough, but they’ll help streamline and simplify your workflow to enable you to do so.”

The combs have several specific features to assist laboratory scientists. This includes color-coding, engraved labels, compatibility with multi-channel pipettes and competitive pricing. Gel Combs also is in the process of designing unbreakable combs. For anything else that its customer needs, it can customize its offering.

“We engage with these customers via email to gather the necessary photos and dimensions to custom manufacture a unique gel comb to meet their needs,” Copeland said. “We’ve extended this custom capability into also building custom stage inserts for microscopy and stencils for researchers to draw patterns on their microbiology petri dishes.”

At the time of launch, Copeland was a post-doctoral researcher at UW, and now he is working at Procter and Gamble. Cox and Walker are both pursuing their PhD in Medical Physics at UW.

Each of the three manages a different area of the business. Copeland focuses on marketing and sales, Cox on hardware and design and Walker on finance and website development.

The three pooled together their personal funds to jump start the company and continue to put generated revenue into the company to sustain and grow it. Gel Combs has sold products to more than 40 different laboratories, both academic and industry, across the United States. The combs are designed to be compatible with the two leading gel electrophoresis equipment manufacturers, Bio-Rad and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Moving forward, Copeland, Cox and Walker are actively working on scaling up their operations to increase sales and serve a growing customer base. Although none of the three work full time at Gel Combs yet, they hope they can turn the enterprise into something that financially and creatively supports them.