It has equally surprised those - including Smith himself - who were expecting the prime candidates to come from high-echelons of the business world.

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Duffy never took an operating role, but he came up with the idea, put up seed money and hired the team, including Smith as vice president of sales.

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On the one side are a handful of renegade researchers including Mark Smith from Case Western Reserve University and Jie Shen from Harvard.

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