Good Chemistry

Thanks to a merger, a poultry and produce wash is helping the oil industry extract resources more effectively

In 2008, Vic Keasler was performing molecular biology tests at a pharma, biotech, and academic research company.  Keasler had studied hepatitis B and C's effect on liver cancer in graduate school; his career had primarily focused on human disease.  However, after a friend in the oil and gas industry mentioned one day that water treatment company Nalco Champion wanted to expand its basic microbial program, Keasler bid illness study adieu.

"I didn't even know at that point that there was such a thing as bacteria in oil fields," he says.  "But it was an opportunity to take the research I'd learned on the medical side and build something from the ground up."