Abe is an entrepreneur and a scientist. He has a Ph.D. in Biology (Molecular Genetics) from Kansas University. He did post-doctoral work at the Noble Foundation, OK. He then worked as an Applications Scientist at Li-Cor, a scientific instrumentation company. After that, Abe co-founded GeneSeek, a high-throughput genotyping service lab, in 1998. Today, it is the world’s largest commercial agricultural genotyping facility. GeneSeek was acquired by Neogen in 2010. In 2014, Abe founded Materials and Machines Corporation (MatMaCorp), to address unmet needs from the service-lab model of genotyping and diagnostic testing.

Before coming to MatMaCorp, Phil served as the Executive Director of the Bio Nebraska Life Sciences Association. Prior to Bio Nebraska, Phil was vice-president of Business Development and strategy for an integrated marketing company serving a global clientele of life science companies. He has a BA from the University of Richmond and a MS from Indiana University.