Our Team

Ai Oikawa, Ph.D.

CEO/CSO

Ai Oikawa, Ph.D. is the founder and CEO/CSO of AFINGEN® Astalake Biosystems, Inc. and has been developing new plant biotechnology platforms for sustainable food, feed, fiber, and fuel production. Her research has been awarded by Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to improve global food security and environmental sustainability. After receiving a Ph.D. in Agricultural Bioprocess Engineering, she spent a year at Yale University as a visiting scholar for Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and completed postdoctoral training at the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley)/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) for Biochemistry and Computational System Biology. She also joined the Harvard Business School Agribusiness Executive Program and the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) School of Law, Intellectual Property & Technology Transfer Education Program, for Technology Integration and Commercialization.

Crunchbase: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/ai-oikawa#section-overview
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ai-oikawa/

Carolyn Fritz, M.B.A

Biotech-Business Consultant
Carolyn Fritz, M.B.A. has over twenty years of experience in successfully building industrial biotechnology businesses. From 2004-2014, she built Allylix from a startup, raising $34 million in venture financing, creating a pipeline of products for the flavor & fragrance and insect control markets, establishing key strategic partnerships, and scaling up and commercializing the first two products, to the successful sale of the company to a European biotechnology company, Evolva, in 2014. From 1999 to 2004, at Dow Chemical, she built a renewable chemical business and a biopharmaceutical contract manufacturing business. From 1993 to 1999, at Cargill, she built a plant biotechnology business focused on developing new food ingredients and industrial products from canola oil. As part of the Afingen team, she places particular emphasis on strategy and commercialization plans to penetrate the markets and build the company.

Kenneth Davenport, Ph.D.

AgTech-Strategy Consultant
Kenneth Davenport, Ph.D. is an agricultural industry veteran, having served in leadership and executive capacities as Vice President of Strategy & CTO of Chromatin, Inc., Director of New Business Ventures with Bayer CropScience, GmbH, and CEO of ArborGen, LLC. Ken has held numerous leadership and executive roles focused on strategy and its implementation at the leading edge of novel technology and unique commercial opportunities ranging from chemistry and biotechnology to biopharma and agricultural (e.g., cotton, forestry, specialty crops) industries. Prior to entry into the ag-biotech, seed, and related industries, he served as Director of Central Research for Hoechst Celanese. As part of the Afingen team, he places particular emphasis on Afingen’s product development; regulatory, intellectual property and out-licensing strategies; and approaches to third-party leaders in the ag-biotech, planting seed, and related industries.