In this episode of The SoCal Edge, Art Dicker sits down with Robin Park, founder and CEO of Chaparral Labs, a San Diego bioinformatics company developing software and AI tools for proteomics research. Robin has spent his career at the intersection of computer science and biology. After working at UC San Diego, he spent more than 16 years at Scripps Research, where he worked with pioneering proteomics researcher Dr. John Yates, published more than 60 scientific papers, contributed to two book chapters, and filed three patents. During those years, Robin repeatedly encountered the same problem: researchers were generating enormous amounts of biological data, but turning that complex and noisy data into useful insights remained slow and difficult. Robin Park transcript That experience led Robin to entrepreneurship. His first company built commercial-grade bioinformatics software that ultimately attracted customers including major pharmaceutical companies, universities, and the NIH before being acquired by Bruker. But Robin also learned firsthand how different running a company is from doing great science. Technical expertise wasn't enough—he had to learn sales, marketing, hiring, business development, grants, and how to actually reach customers. Robin Park transcript Robin Park transcript Now Robin is applying those lessons to Chaparral Labs. The company is tackling one of drug development's fundamental challenges: extracting reliable biological insights from huge volumes of complex data. Rather than simply applying AI to already processed datasets, Chaparral starts with raw data, applies its own quality-control and analysis tools, and then layers AI on top—a distinction Robin describes through the simple principle of "garbage in, garbage out." Robin Park transcript Robin Park transcript Robin also explains why he's approaching his second startup differently. His first company was largely bootstrapped and took years to grow. Chaparral has already raised pre-seed capital, completed the first phase of its technology platform, and attracted paying industry and academic customers on annual subscriptions. The next step is accelerating development of its AI capabilities before scaling to larger biopharma customers. Robin Park transcript The conversation also explores San Diego's biotech ecosystem. Robin sees the region's research institutions, scientists, biotech companies, collaborators, and potential customers as enormous strengths, while identifying access to capital and experienced business leadership as areas where San Diego still has room to grow. Robin Park transcript Finally, Robin shares advice from having already built and exited one company: talk to customers before the technology is perfect, stay passionate about the problem you're solving, and recognize that founders have to become competent across far more than their original area of expertise. Robin Park transcript This episode is a great conversation about what happens when deep scientific expertise meets entrepreneurship—and what it takes to turn research into a scalable biotech business in San Diego. Find Robin on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-park-a4015b9/ Company Website: https://www.chaparral.ai/
