In 2020, in a nondescript office building in Durham, North Carolina, a team of scientists used cells to recreate sugar and protein found in breast milk.

The seemingly niche development could years later change the way infant nutrition is understood and distributed in America.

Biomilq, the company behind the breakthrough, had been working for nearly a decade to replicate the process of making human milk — but outside of the body. Its advancement was made possible by hundreds of volunteers, who donated samples of their milk so the company could build a large enough cell bank to launch its process for replicating milk at scale.

Just two years after Biomilq’s lightbulb moment, the invention’s potential benefits came into focus when several major baby formula brands were recalled, sending the entire industry into a tailspin, jacking up prices and putting new parents in a desperate bind.

The formula shortage has laid bare the frailty of the infant-nutrition supply, which only underscored the importance of Biomilq’s vision and its potential to fill a need, according to its co-founder and CEO Leila Strickland.

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