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  • CAREER FEATURE

Nerdy and easy to pronounce: why we chose Apheros as the name for our technology start-up firm

With a grant deadline looming, and inspired by the classics, Julia Carpenter, the company’s chief executive and co-founder, put pen to paper to capture ideas.
By
  1. Jacqui Thornton

    1. Jacqui Thornton is a freelance writer based in Winchester, UK.

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In the last year of my PhD, I knew I was going to start a company, so I started thinking about a name. I worked on it, old-style, on a sheet of paper for maybe an hour a day for a couple of weeks. It had to be a fast process, because I needed a name to meet deadlines for my first grant applications.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-02653-0

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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