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An MD&DI June 1999 Column
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Benefitting Mankind:
An executive's motivation stays true to an old school motto
Jennifer M. Sakurai
Jose de la Torre-Bueno, vice president of R&D at ChromaVision Medical Systems Inc. (San Juan Capistrano, CA), always wanted to be a scientist of some kind. He received a BS in biology and experimental psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and a PhD in physiology, behavior, and genetics with an emphasis in instrument design from Rockefeller University in New York City. The latter institution is exclusively for graduate students, and Torre-Bueno thrived in the environment of a 1:5 student-to-faculty ratio and oft-stated mission to bring science to the service of medicine.
Jose de la Torre-Bueno
The atmosphere proved to be a better preparation for business than might be expected. "The classes were like seminars," he says. "We'd meet once a week and were always expected to present something. After five years of that, you develop an ability to stand up and extemporize on anything even remotely related to your field of study. You learn to think on your feet."
Torre-Bueno completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University and served there as a medical research assistant professor. He discovered a new skill in his 10 years at Duke—writing grants that brought the university millions of dollars in research funding.
His grant-writing skill is what eventually convinced Torre-Bueno to found his own company, American Innovision, in 1982. The biomedical image-analysis company designed software and hardware, and configured application systems. He quickly learned that running a start-up business was filled with uncertainty. "It's like climbing cliffs with no safety system," he explains. "It looks pretty impressive to anybody watching, but it's scary and painful to be the one doing it. I doubt I would have done it if I had understood it better; I wouldn't have had the courage."
American Innovision never had any investors and was thus severely undercapitalized. Torre-Bueno moved the company to San Diego and changed its focus from pure research to product development. The company began to design boards for its first color-image analyzer.
At that time, the most sensitive cameras viewed black-and-white images, but Torre-Bueno knew that a more-sensitive unit would be needed for jobs such as locating single molecules. An imaging system can also relieve technicians of tedious tasks such as reading hundreds of slides in search of abnormalities that may not be there. "Finding significant results can be nearly impossible depending on what you're looking for," says Torre-Bueno. "People can't sit all day long and do this kind of work without missing positive (abnormal) results. An automated microscope can load, examine, and analyze without losing vigilance."
In 1995, Torre-Bueno sold the company to Oncor (Gaithersburg, MD), a manufacturer of DNA probes, and thought he had found his pot of gold. However, Oncor fell on hard times, the next generation Innovision product never went to market, and Oncor eventually moved the division to the East coast. Torre-Bueno stayed behind in San Diego with nothing but a three-year contract and disappointment.
As always, he sees the bright side of things: "I sold my Oncor stock before the total crash," he says. Last July, Torre-Bueno received a call from ChromaVision, the manufacturer of a proprietary automated cellular imaging system. "I wasn't sure if I ever wanted another management position, but what they offered me was basically a design job, so I took it." In November, Torre-Bueno was promoted to vice president of R&D. "Doug Harrington, the president at ChromaVision, knew what I wanted better than I did," he says.
Torre-Bueno takes the concept of diversity he learned in graduate school to heart in his approach to technology: Learn different ways to do the same thing. "People only want to use the tools they're familiar with," he says. "They say, 'Do it this way using this technique.' But people need to be familiar with other techniques in order to judge the work and whether it's been done in the best way. If you want something done right, you have to be able to do it a little bit yourself in order to recognize those workers who can do it best.
"ChromaVision is by far the most exciting thing I have ever done. We are working on a system that potentially represents a breakthrough in the diagnosis of cancer, HIV, and other important diseases. There's a lot to be said about working in a job when you know you can really do something for the benefit of mankind," says Torre-Bueno. "That's a funny, subconscious thing I just said—for the benefit of mankind. That's the Rockefeller U. motto: Pro bono humani generis."
Jennifer M. Sakurai is managing editor of MD&DI.
