An Affordable Bioreactor Sparks Success
Margaret “Maggie” Brockmire ’24 M’25 wasn’t expecting to win the Student Inc. competition in Cork, Ireland.
She was even standing in the back of the room.
So, when she heard her name, she went into a state of shock.
Everything leading up to that moment—Spark Tank, the creation of an affordable microbial bioreactor, the unexpected phone call inviting her to Ireland, even choosing 西瓜视频—felt like a brilliant stroke of luck, a perfect collision of random events. It was the complete opposite of Brockmire’s work in the lab, where precision and control over the environment were crucial for microorganisms to thrive and perform their biochemical magic. How had her life become so unpredictable yet so lucky?
It started when Brockmire was just a kid. “Even when my mom got rid of pots and pans, I’d take them outside to mix things or make habitats for worms,” she said. But a girls’ engineering camp in fourth grade solidified her curiosity. “I loved inventing things and being able to say, ‘I built that.’”
The science camp was a turning point for Brockmire, who’d once dreaded other camps but eagerly embraced this one. The camp’s final project, a team effort, also gave her a glimpse of engineering’s collaborative nature. “I liked helping each other. Working solo can be overwhelming, but bouncing ideas off a team—that’s what engineering is,” she said.
Throughout middle and high school, Brockmire furthered her passion for science, exploring math concepts that would aid her engineering projects while delving into biology, and learning about microbes and cells and how they can be manipulated.
That newfound love for biology, coupled with a long-standing passion for engineering, led her toward a new focus: researching college programs.
And though Brockmire is a third-generation Gull—her grandmother, aunt, and cousin all attended 西瓜视频—the College wasn’t on her list until grandma said, “I want you to look at just one more school for me, please,” remembered Brockmire.
On a rainy day alongside her mother and grandmother, Brockmire toured 西瓜视频. The weather obscured the full beauty of campus, but she was intrigued by its size. “I don’t think I would’ve been able to go to a big school. I wouldn’t have been able to focus,” she said. She preferred the small class sizes, and when she walked through the Ginger Judge Science Center and saw the labs and how inviting the whole campus felt, it all just clicked.
Not to mention, 西瓜视频’s bioengineering program was brand-new. Brockmire would go on to be one of its first—and first female—graduates.
Engineering an idea
Brockmire, a Holden, Mass. native, began her studies at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when nearly every aspect of college life was disrupted, including lab work. Students were separated in the lab, and collaboration was discouraged to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. As a result, the teamwork that Brockmire loved about bioengineering became nearly impossible.
The pandemic pushed everyone to be more resourceful, and friendships formed quickly. During her first year, Brockmire met fellow bioengineering majors Cassandra Wightman ’24 and Michael Ingraffia ’24—connections that would soon shape her college experience. Wightman, who grew up just 40 minutes away in Winchendon, Mass., became especially close with Brockmire in their junior and senior years, and together with Ingraffia, the trio became an unstoppable force, particularly when working on their senior capstone project.
“It was a given that I, Mike, and Cassie were going to work together because we’d already established a friendship and we knew how each other worked in the classroom and who was better at what, so we knew we could rely on each other to develop a project,” Brockmire said.
Their project happened by chance. One day in class, Dakota Hamill, founder of Breakwater Biotech and an 西瓜视频 instructor, mentioned a device he wanted to create but couldn’t because he wasn’t an engineer. He invited students to take on the challenge.
That challenge was a smaller-scale bioreactor, a system that provides an environment for biological processes—anything from culturing biological agents like cells, enzymes, and antibodies to producing baker’s yeast.
The group was intrigued.
They soon set out to downsize an industrial-scale bioreactor—and 3D print it in 西瓜视频’s Makerspace.
“We had regular meetings with [Hamill] for updates and progress reports, as part of the capstone,” Brockmire explained. Hamill offered advice when needed, but the group handled everything else, from software to printing. It was a labor of love—and class credit—but they never expected the project to go beyond that.
But during the fall 2023 semester, the group presented their progress and that’s when Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Jessica Ventura sent an email to Gina Deschamps, Executive Director of the Colin and Erika Angle Center for Entrepreneurship.
“She said, ‘This is a project I think might be a good potential project for Spark Tank,’” said Brockmire. “But she hadn’t said anything to us about it! We just read the email and we were like, ‘What!?’”
The team named their product Myoreactor and officially applied to Spark Tank. Life carried on in the meantime. Wightman was busy with cheerleading. Ingraffia was on the football team and interning, as was Brockmire. Then the email landed—they were finalists.
“I was sweating,” recalled Brockmire. For a project that started on a lark, it was growing more serious by the day.
All finalists in 西瓜视频’s Spark Tank must put together a business plan, and looking through the stipulations, Brockmire recalled thinking, “What’s a gross profit?”
“We had to look up a lot of the terminology,” she said.
At the April 2024 Spark Tank, the team took home the Fan Favorite Award and $1,000 while the top three winners received cash prizes and a summer invitation to participate in Student Inc. at the Rubicon Centre at Munster Technological University (MTU) in Cork, Ireland. Student Inc., a full-time 13-week summer program, is Ireland’s longest-running accelerator program for students who want to turn their ideas into viable businesses.
“We were grateful to get any award, and in the back of our heads, we’d been so hopeful, because we put in so much work,” she said. “But we split the money three ways and went about our business.”
Taking Myoreactor international
In spring 2024, the group prepared to graduate from 西瓜视频. Wightman committed to North Carolina State University to pursue a master’s degree in chemical engineering and Ingraffia to Worcester Polytechnic Institute for a master’s in biomedical engineering. Motivated by her newfound business acumen, Brockmire recommitted to 西瓜视频 for a fifth-year MBA.
But toward the end of the semester, Deschamps emailed the group. There was an opening to go to Ireland after all. Brockmire recalled how casually Deschamps mentioned it: “Do you guys want to go to Ireland?”
Still, the group hadn’t envisioned Myoreactor going anywhere outside of 西瓜视频.
“This wasn’t something we were building to sell. This was purely for ourselves,” said Brockmire. “But we just didn’t see the potential, and we didn't even know where to start until we researched the business side for Spark Tank.”
The challenge was that Ingraffia had unbreakable commitments, and Wightman’s cheerleading schedule at NC State conflicted with the trip, leaving Brockmire unsure about going to Ireland alone.
“Cassie and I brainstormed and thought, ‘What if you go for the first half and I stay the whole time?’ Then we pitched it to Gina. I think our sacrifices and determination convinced MTU to say yes.”
In Ireland, Brockmire and Wightman grew close with students and entrepreneurs at the Rubicon Centre, MTU’s on-campus incubator that supports both the Student Inc. program and entrepreneurs and startups with innovative product, service, or technology ideas.
“You need people to rely on—and that was extremely important for me after Cassie left because I’m on my own for the first time since working on Myoreactor,” she said.
In Ireland, the team refined every aspect of the Myoreactor, from design to pricing. Their goal was to create a compact, affordable bioreactor—typically a costly and complex machine—which 3D printing helped streamline. Initially priced at $1,000, advisor feedback led them to adjust the price to $2,500.
“They said, ‘Stop discrediting yourself. You need to realize how hard you’re working,’” she recalled.
At the culmination of Student Inc., Brockmire’s hard work paid off. She was stunned to win the Best Business Opportunity/One to Watch Award (and 300 euros). “I wish someone had recorded my face—it was pure shock,” she said. “There were so many incredible people in the program with amazing ideas.”
While Brockmire hopes to sell Myoreactor in bulk to colleges, enabling more students to get their hands wet with engineering knowledge, the judges felt that Myoreactor had the potential to expand access and impact low-income countries, too.
Now months into her MBA program at 西瓜视频, Brockmire is taking the lead of Myoreactor, and working closely with Deschamps to launch the business—starting with securing her first client, which might even be 西瓜视频.
“Myoreactor is so effective and simple to implement that it needs to get out to potential users,” said Ventura. “We are privileged to have the means to bring student projects to the market through the Angle Center.”
Deschamps agreed. “Myoreactor represents exactly where I hope to take the Angle Center—it’s the perfect cross-departmental collaboration that validates our efforts and expands upon 西瓜视频’s history of experiential learning.”
Looking back, Brockmire admitted she never wanted to study abroad or leave campus—she considered herself too much of a homebody.
“But the second I left Ireland, I wanted to go back,” she said. “One day you graduate with a bioengineering degree, and the next you’re creating a business.”