Teen Science Prodigy Grew Up to Create Maker of Biotech Lab Tools – The Wall Street Journal

As a teenager in Kannapolis, N.C., Roy T. Eddleman built a science lab in his family’s basement and was one of four high-school students invited to present prizewinning papers at Duke University. His paper was called “Quantitative and Qualitative Aspects of Plant Growth.”

He later dropped out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and moved to Los Angeles, where he found work selling laboratory equipment. Around age 30, he founded what became Spectrum Labs to make lab equipment, including a device he invented—the fleaker, a cross between a flask and a beaker. He told friends he got the idea while mixing Bloody Marys for brunch.