Lisa Starr earned her B.A. in Chemistry/Biochemistry from the University of California at San Diego Revelle College in 1982. Over the next five years, she became expert in molecular and cell biology as she helped build a veterinary virology research program at the startup biotech firm Syntro (which was later spun off into Protein Polymer Technologies). During this time, Lisa invented the cDNA cloning kit and the mRNA isolation kit that launched Invitrogen (now part of Life Technologies). She left Syntro to launch a molecular biology division for a veterinary vaccine company (Synbiotics, later acquired by Pfizer Animal Health), and then spent seven years at The Scripps Research Institute investigating integrin isoform expression in development and cancer metastasis and training postdoctoral candidates. She was recruited to start up the biotech firm Ixsys/Applied Molecular Evolution (later acquired by Lilly) and to establish proof-of-concept for combinatorial library construction as well as antibody randomization/humanization at the fledgling firm. Prior to joining the Starr franchise, she was recruited to start up Desmos, another biotech firm, that was later spun off into Cythera/Novocell/ViaCyte. Since 1997, Lisa has been responsible for the incredible art in the Starr biology textbooks, and began authoring the books in 2004.
