Tag: Heather Decker

Ronawk lauds departing chief science officer as she launches her own biotech startup

By Tommy Felts / November 4, 2025

Kansas City’s life sciences ecosystem continues to expand, the founders of Ronawk said Monday, celebrating plans for the Overland Park biotech company’s chief scientific officer to launch her own venture — returning to her roots in diagnostics and drug development, and growing the region’s culture of innovation. Dr. Amy Manning-Boğ is transitioning from her role…

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New collaboration will help OP startup 3D bioprint, scale its next-gen biotech solution

By Tommy Felts / June 12, 2024

A Kansas biotech startup’s new manufacturing partner will boost efforts to automate and mass produce Ronawk’s headline-grabbing Bio-Block technology — a platform that has already accelerated medical advancements in tissue therapy. “Collaboration is critical for turning research advances into commercial therapies rapidly. The complexity and diversity of modalities is so big that nobody can do…

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WATCH: Small biz struggles didn’t begin with pandemic pinch, says Rep. Davids; solutions go beyond COVID relief

By Tommy Felts / February 24, 2022

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exaggerated pain points that small business owners were already facing before the global health crisis, said U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids. “I really think that what the pandemic did was, in some ways, highlighted the things that we should have been focusing on. … I know a lot…

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Scott Leigh, Tom Jantsch, Heather Decker and A.J. Mellott, Ronawk

Ronawk accelerates its growth with exec hires, creation of expansive ‘Bio-Block Universe’

By Tommy Felts / January 21, 2022

Synergy and chemistry are just as important as expertise when hiring strategic, high-level positions within a startup, said A.J. Mellott. “Ronawk has gone from this startup with its organized chaos, to having structured pathways that have emerged because we are better informed. That in itself has been really exciting and stimulating. We are more of…

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Professor Ranan Aktas, Maltepe University

Ronawk using stem cell tech developed at Olathe lab to advance liver cancer research in Turkey

By Tommy Felts / October 5, 2021

A Kansas City-based biomanufacturing startup announced its first international customer Tuesday: a university team in Istanbul that was among the first to beta test Ronawk’s lauded T-Blocks. The maker of 3D cell culture products said the collaboration with Professor Ranan Aktas and the Cancer and Stem Cell Research Center at Maltepe University in Turkey will…

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