Serving Customers’ Needs
This profile is part of a series called In It Together, which shines a light on members of the PROGEN team and their contribution to the gene therapy community. The PROGEN team consists of life science and adeno-associated virus (AAV) experts who deliver high quality antibody and exclusive AAV products in order to solve research challenges within academia, biotech, and pharma.
When Jesse Kay was working on his doctorate in gene therapy in the early 2000s, the field was in its infancy. Back then, his investigation into using adeno-associated viruses (AAVs) to treat arthritis showed him how powerful a tool AAVs could be, although using them to cure people of diseases was still many years away.
Now, as Business Development Manager at PROGEN, Jesse is grateful to be able to use his scientific expertise along with experience in sales, tech support, and application support to assist customers in using AAVs and other gene therapy products.
“Here it is, all these years later – AAV gene therapy is working,” said Jesse. “Rare genetic diseases are actually getting cured like we saw was possible 20 years ago in the lab!”
Based in Arkansas, Jesse is well positioned to help US-based customers during US business hours, either by email or on the phone, as well as by visiting customers’ labs in person. From helping people understand the subtle differences between the AAV antibodies and to aiding them in identifying the ideal product for their specific research question, Jesse listens to customers’ needs in order to best serve them.
“Recently, a new customer requested a quote for antibodies targeting an AAV VP protein that’s great for if you have denatured proteins and are doing Western blots,” he said. “But the customer wanted to detect the assembled virus, which the antibodies he’d chosen couldn´t do. However, we have AAV antibodies that are specific for detecting the three-dimensional viruses. So once I learned the customer’s intended application, I was able to recommend another product that would work even better for him.”
Jesse is also available to help customers when they are still in the early phase of a project. For example, someone planning out a new viral manufacturing process might want to know which steps PROGEN products could best be used.
“I could tell them at which steps certain products would be most useful,” he said.
“If they are starting a new manufacturing process and need results relatively quickly, we have a unique product that can give customers a kind of ballpark detection where they don’t even have to purify their virus before running our assay. I was in touch with customer recently who's using that product. She was telling me how excited she was about it, which is gratifying to hear,” he continued.
Jesse also loves to support customers in establishing automation solutions for PROGEN products, applying his extensive experience in automating assays. Years of work with both PCR and NGS library prep automation has let him see first hand how automation can be an advantage to the lab. “Nobody likes repetitive pipetting, but it’s the perfect job for a robot. Automation can take over the boring work in a lab and let people focus on more interesting tasks.”
“I’m so grateful to be in this position where all my experience comes together to enable me to help people solve their problems,” he said.
“I'm here and I’m ready to lend a hand.”
Looking to connect with Jesse? Feel free to contact him.
Mail: Jesse.kay@progen.com
Cell: 1-479-616-7106
Interested in learning more about the PROGEN Team?
Supporting the gene therapy community
Meet Katja Betts, co-CEO of PROGEN and find out why supporting the gene therapy community in developing new therapies is her everyday motivation.