I Met CELLINK’s Erik Gatenholm Totally by Chance and It Was INKredible

Those who followed my articles on 3DPI might remember the weird set of incredible coincidences that seemed to follow me in my travels around the work of 3D printing. It seemed the weirdness was slowing down lately instead things just got much, much stranger as I have just run into Erik Gatenholm, Co-Founder and CEO of 3D bioprinting startup CELLINK in the most INKredible of ways. To make a long story a bit shorter, I was staying in Copenhagen to visit my cousin (and the 3D Printhuset 3D print shop, see photos below). I had arrived in Copenhagen after a trip halfway across Europe, from the In3Dustry show in Barcelona and passing through the AM Europe show in Amsterdam. My plan was to rent a car and drive up to Goteborg, Sweden, to meet try to visit companies such as Arcam Metals and CELLINK.

However both Magnus René, Arcam’s CEO and Erik were away, as – apparently – are most Swedes during the month of July. So I changed my plans. I did not want to go straight back to Milan – most Milanese try to get away in July as well – so I looked for a new destination. Lately I had been speaking with designer Igor Knezevic – who is Croatian – so I thought of going there. I contacted a friend of mine from Milan (whom I had not seen in almost 30 years) who now lives on the island of Solta and had invited me to visit him in the past. He said I was welcome to visit. So I looked for a ticket and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the SAS ticket to Split and then on to Milan (on the 14th) with EasyJet costed less than the Ryanair ticket  straight to Milan. I left Copenhagen for Split at 6am on July 7th. I got to Split, went to work at the beach for an hour and then I embarked on the 11.45 Ferry to Solta Island. One ferry to one of thousands of Croatian Islands, one among hundreds of attractive Southern European summer vacation destinations. Erik Gatenholm, the person that I wanted to meet 2.800 Km north of where I was, was on that same boat, on that same day, and he he was walking up to the deck at the same time as me. I try to find a logical explanation as to why something like this is likley to happen and I cannot. I did, however, take this opportunity to speak with Erik about his recent successes with the CELLINK materials for bioprinters and with the INKredible (never name was more appropriate) low-cost bioprinter. The sector is incredibly fascinating and we are going to have a lot more stories on them very soon. If today’s coincidence is any indication, there are some more INKredible news on the way.