{"id":16302,"date":"2019-11-20T16:00:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-20T16:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/?p=16302"},"modified":"2023-06-08T18:27:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:27:20","slug":"alumni-matthew-scholz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uwb.edu\/news\/2019\/11\/20\/alumni-matthew-scholz","title":{"rendered":"CEO says \u2018Hell Night\u2019 helped launch career"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Matthew
Matthew Scholz \/ Marc Studer photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Douglas Esser
\nIt was a Pitch Night for students, but the University of Washington Bothell course called it \u201cHell Night\u201d for good reason. They had to pitch a business plan to outsiders who were invited to class to give their frank opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cold slap of reality left some students in tears, recalls Matthew Scholz, a 2003 graduate in Computing & Software Systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He loved it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Business beginnings<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Scholz started his first company from that class. It was a fleet-logistics service that helped route construction, service and delivery vehicles. He sold the company five years later and went on to launch a series of startups that would apply computer science to the field of biology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholz founded Immusoft<\/a> and was CEO from 2009 to 2017 and remains on the board. The Seattle company has built a platform for genetically programming a person\u2019s immune system to produce its own medicine. He now leads Oisin Biotechnologies<\/a> and its spinoff OncoSenX<\/a>, two companies designing gene therapies to treat age-related diseases and cancers, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a biotech CEO who hasn\u2019t had a biology class since junior high school, Scholz has faced intense questioning from skeptics and investors. He has also heard objections ranging from \u201cthe anti-GMO crowd on the left to whether you’re playing God on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2019Hell Night\u2019 was the first time I had to get on a stage and defend a pitch,\u201d he said, \u201cbut real investor presentations can be far more challenging. If you\u2019re not forced to address the issues they raise, then your plan probably isn\u2019t going to change the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life-altering course<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Born in Kent, Washington, Scholz grew up in Vancouver, Washington. He started writing code when he was 8 years old and attended Clark College as a Running Start student. Scholz transferred to the University of Washington in Seattle to major in computer science. He then switched to UW Bothell so that he could have a job and take classes at night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because he needed the credits and it fit his schedule, he took a business class about new technologies and future markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was one of the best classes I’ve taken,\u201d Scholz said. \u201cThat strange sequence of events really altered the course of my life quite a bit in that I met a professor there, Alan Leong.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholz took another course taught by Leong about software entrepreneurship. It featured \u201cHell Night.\u201d Scholz had planned to find a job writing code. He never planned to start a company until he found himself in Leong\u2019s courses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt altered the trajectory of my life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From tech to biotech<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Beyond his fleet logistics company, Scholz also worked in computer security, web infrastructure and mobile app development. About a decade ago, his experience in programming and background in technology led Scholz to the insight that \u201cinformation is the essence of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Immusoft<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When life and disease are viewed through the lens of information, the solutions naturally gravitate toward the manipulation of information \u2014 rewriting DNA \u2014 through gene therapy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reason that you’re you is information,\u201d Scholz said. \u201cInformation is really what defines life, so why don’t we treat diseases with information instead of chemistry? My plan at the time was to build an app store for the human body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That idea led to Immusoft and Immune System Programming. It\u2019s been tested in mice, and the company is asking the Food and Drug Administration for approval to start human trials to treat a rare genetic disease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oisin, which is developing transient gene therapy to remove degenerative \u201czombie cells,\u201d is even more audacious. \u201cIt\u2019s a fundamental shift in the way we deal with medicine,\u201d Scholz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of the lab<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Scholz\u2019s long-term goal with Oisin is to make the technology accessible to everybody and to improve the quality of life for people as they age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"OncoSenX<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Oisin<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTake our mice, for example. They still die, but they live 20% to 25% longer,\u201d he said. \u201cThey don’t progressively get sick and frail; they are healthy and then die rather abruptly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scholz also co-founded Sigma Genetics, which is developing a tool to deliver DNA into cells that he hopes will enable new kinds of gene therapies. As a biotech entrepreneur, what he loves to do is to \u201ctake ideas out of the lab and into the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leong, the instructor, said Scholz was one of the first of several disruptive innovators he saw as students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMatt is quirky, outrageous, funny and has an unorthodox way of viewing the world. I learned to never write off a quirky student,\u201d said Leong, who is putting together a podcast with alumni such as Scholz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pitch Night returns<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Leong, who taught at UW Bothell from 1997 to 2010, said the first \u201cHell Night\u201d was held in 2001, and \u201cit was much more raw. Critics were harsher.\u201d Yet the experience launched real businesses. By the time the last one was held in 2010 there were 500 guests in the North Creek Events Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leong has been teaching at the UW\u2019s Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship since 2011. He\u2019ll also be teaching at UW Bothell in spring 2020 and bringing back Pitch Night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leong said UW Bothell gives undergraduates \u201cmore room to be scrappy,\u201d which perhaps makes it a good place for students such as Scholz who see things differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs it hubris or truly brilliant? It turns out he\u2019s both,\u201d Leong said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Matthew Scholz (Computing & Software Systems ’03) expected a career as a coder, but a pitch night for a business class launched a career as a biotech entrepreneur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_is_archived":false,"_archived_contact_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[209,202,200],"tags":[],"school":[417,421],"class_list":["post-16302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alumni","category-campus-news","category-profiles","school-school-of-business","school-school-of-stem"],"acf":{"related_links":{"toggle_visibility":false,"link_1":null,"link_2":null,"link_3":null,"link_4":null,"link_5":null},"highlight_box":{"toggle_visibility":false,"title":"","content":"","button":null,"button_style":"angled-purple-button","button_screen_reader_text":""},"contact_type_1":{"toggle_visibility":true,"contact_title":"","email":"","phone":"","box":"","address_line_1":"","address_line_2":"","location":""},"contact_type_2":{"toggle_visibility":false,"contact_title":"","email":"","phone":"","box":"","address_line_1":"","address_line_2":"","location":""},"social_media":{"toggle_visibility":false,"facebook_url":"","instagram_url":"","linkedin_url":"","twitter_url":"","youtube_url":""},"blog_archive_sidebar_visibility":false},"yoast_head":"\nCEO says \u2018Hell Night\u2019 helped launch career - 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