Joe Runge is a registered patent lawyer and a published scientist. He earned his degrees jointly from the University of Iowa where he conducted research on the origins of life in the Carver Center for Comparative Genomics. After graduation, Joe worked in the office of general counsel at Integrated DNA Technologies, one of the world’s largest manufacturer of oligonucleotides. Afterwards, he joined UNeMed, the technology transfer office for the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the University of Nebraska Omaha. In that capacity, Joe worked to protect inventions and find partners to bring them to market. In 2017, Joe co-founded the UNeTech Institute which served to create the startups to further inspire innovation from Omaha’s universities.