Professor Simon Reed: Breaking New Ground in Genomics
BSc Genetics 1991.
PhD 1995
The Origins
When Professor Simon Reed speaks about DNA, he does so with the calm authority of a man who has spent a lifetime studying life’s most fundamental code. But when he talks about Broken String Biosciences, the company he co-founded, there’s also the unmistakable energy of an entrepreneur who knows he’s standing at the edge of something transformative.
At first hearing, the company name, Broken String, feels metaphorical. In fact, Simon explains, it’s literal. “It is a reflection of the literal thing that we do” he says. “We measure breaks in the genome… so the idea of a broken string tries to reflect both the biological and computational sides of the work, the breaks in DNA, and the ‘strings’ of information we use to analyse them.” The name, however, wasn’t universally loved. “It seems to divide people, a Marmite name,” he laughs. “One of our early German investors said, ‘Change your name or we won’t invest,’ because no company with ‘broken’ in its title could be successful. Needless to say, we didn’t change it, and they still invested.”
Broken String’s mission is ambitious in scope: to make gene editing safer by identifying where edits in DNA might have unintended consequences elsewhere in the genome. The company’s INDUCE-seq platform helps gene-editing innovators, pharma developers, clinicians, and researchers, measure exactly where genetic cuts and joins occur. Simon explains it like he’s describing the inner workings of a clock: “There are about 3.2 billion base pairs in our genomes, and in any one cell there might be only 10 breaks happening at a time,” he says. “What we do is tag those breaks while the cell is alive, label them, capture them, and then sequence just those fragments. That’s how we get this incredibly clean signal of where in the genome those breaks really are.”
In short, Broken String doesn’t perform genetic editing, it measures its precision. “We allow therapy developers and doctors to determine the risk-benefit calculus of new gene therapies,” Simon says. “We show them where their edits hit and where they shouldn’t have.”
The Aha! Moment
When asked if there was a single ‘Eureka’ moment that sparked the company’s creation, Simon smiles. “There are two parts to innovation; serendipity and design,” he says. “Some discoveries happen by chance. Others you build from the ground up. My work’s always been more of the latter.”
That grounding in applied research traces back to his early fascination with medicine. “I wanted to be a doctor,” he recalls. “I went to medical school but got ill and couldn’t continue. So, I turned toward understanding the molecular side of disease, how DNA damage and repair fit into that picture.”
That detour led Simon to Swansea University, where he found a mentor in Professor Ray Waters. “Ray said, ‘Come and spend a day in the lab here, we’re working on DNA repair,’” Simon remembers. “It was clear immediately, that’s what I wanted to do.” In that Swansea lab in the 1990s, Simon began exploring the mechanisms that keep our DNA stable and what happens when those mechanisms fail. “I realised then that to do meaningful science, it had to have purpose,” he says. “We weren’t doing this just for fun; there had to be benefit in understanding it.”
That drive, combining fundamental biology with real-world application shaped everything that followed. Simon became a bridge between academia and industry, eventually collaborating with pharmaceutical giants like AstraZeneca and Unilever. But it was one particular conversation with AstraZeneca that sparked the leap from academic project to full-blown spin-out. “They said, gene editing is going to transform medicine, but we’ve got a big problem with off-target effects,” Reed recalls. “That’s when we realised: okay, this is a big enough question and we could solve it.” Together with his PhD student Felix Dobbs, Simon started building from scratch. “We sat down and said, ‘Why are we fixing someone else’s mess?’ Let’s design what industry actually needs,” he says. That design would become INDUCE-seq, the technology at the core of Broken String Biosciences today.
The Swansea Foundations
Although Broken String now works with global partners, Simon insists that Swansea was fundamental to its DNA. “I was really lucky,” he says. “I did my undergrad and PhD at Swansea, and it gave me everything, the academic grounding, the network, the confidence to go out into the world.”. He also learned resilience there. After his illness forced him to abandon medicine, Swansea gave him both recovery and direction, and even a touch of rugby camaraderie. “Ray was treasurer of the rugby club.” Reed laughs. “It kept me grounded, science during the day, rugby in the evenings.”
Swansea also provided the international gateway that would shape his scientific worldview. “Ray introduced me to Professor Errol Friedberg in Dallas,” Simon recalls. “He was a tyrant, a tiny man, but ferociously serious about science. Those years taught me what it means to truly commit to your research.” That time in the U.S. also exposed him to invention at scale. “I got to work with Stephen Johnston, who invented the Bio-Rad Gene Gun, one of the first tools in genetic engineering,” he says. “Seeing how American labs linked technology, automation, and industry completely shaped how I thought about doing science back in Swansea.”
When Simon returned to the UK as an MRC-funded fellow, he carried that mindset with him. “The American approach was build it so it can be used,” he says. “That mindset never left me.”
The Spin-Out Journey
Despite his long history of industrial collaborations, Simon didn’t seriously consider founding a company until his 50s. “I was always the academic guy discovering DNA repair mechanisms,” he says. “But eventually I realised if I wanted to see something significant happen, I’d have to do it myself, because waiting for someone else to pick it up never works.”
That transition from yeast genetics to commercial biotechnology wasn’t sudden, it was catalysed. “AstraZeneca laid out exactly what was needed. Gene editing needed a way to measure where those off-target cuts were happening,” Simon says. “We saw the problem clearly, even if we didn’t yet know the solution.”
Then came the race to join the Illumina Accelerator, a turning point that almost didn’t happen. “Felix emailed me at 8pm one night, the deadline was midnight. I wrote the entire application in four hours,” Reed laughs. “Somehow, we got shortlisted. We didn’t make the first cut, but we got in the next round, during lockdown, of all times.” That six-month accelerator provided more than expert mentoring; it brought serious investors to the table. “Illumina realised what we had was the missing piece in their puzzle,” he explains. “They could sequence entire genomes, but they couldn’t map the positions of features like DNA breaks across the whole thing. We could.”
As the company scaled, industry veterans followed. “We managed to recruit Vince Smith, the man who built Illumina’s sequencing chemistry,” Simon says. “Vince helped us build our product and showed how it fit right into that sequencing ecosystem.”
The road, however, hasn’t been smooth. “It’s been brutal,” Simon admits. “We’ve cancelled holidays, survived the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, even been hauled in to see lawyers about solvency. But you must believe in it. It has to be a conviction.” That conviction has paid off. Broken String is now a rising player in precision genomics, backed by international investors and working beside world-leading sequencing firms.
Legacy and Advice
When asked where he sees Broken String’s technology going next, Reed’s response is both visionary and grounded. “Gene editing is just the start,” he says. “We’ll get to the point where genomic patterns can be monitored like any other health measure, from birth, throughout life.”
He sketches a future that sounds almost sci-fi: “Maybe you’ll brush your teeth and take a swab weekly, send it to the cloud, and if something looks off, an AI flags your doctor,” he says. “That’s where genomics is going, from reactive medicine to predictive health.” But realizing that future depends on accessibility. “We need to democratise genomic data,” he argues. “It should belong to individuals, not governments or corporations. It’s your genome; you should decide what happens to it.”
With AI transforming biology as rapidly as sequencing once did, Simon sees vast potential ahead. “We’re at the end of version one of genomics,” he says. “The new models, agentic AIs will change how every scientist works. The barriers won’t be technical anymore; they’ll be about imagination.”
For current Swansea researchers hoping to follow in his footsteps, Simon’s message is clear. “Believe in yourself,” he says. “Cultivate conviction and then find your team.”
And the most practical advice? “If you think your idea has legs, protect it,” he warns “File the patent before you tell anyone. Get the business specialist, find the right people for the right phase, and don’t be afraid of the commercial world it’s where change really happens.”
As the conversation ends, Simon is already glancing at the clock, another call is waiting. The academic, the entrepreneur, the Swansea scientist in global biotech mode.
His final words could serve as the company’s mantra:
“Change is here. It’s hard. But there are fantastic opportunities, you just have to fight for them.”
