From Biotech CEO to Art: Nora Lacey’s Gilgamesh and Assyrian Culture Revival

Our Bay Area Innovator today is Nora Lacey, a biotech entrepreneur who built and sold a cancer diagnostics company, then turned her focus to something deeply personal, preserving Assyrian heritage through art. Now, she's producing a world premiere opera based on the epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest known story in human history. In this episode, Nora shares how science led her to the arts, why legacy matters, and what it means to keep an ancient civilization alive on the modern stage. We will also talk about the Morgan Estate that she owns right here in Los Altos Hills. This is Bay Area Innovators and I'm your host, Steve Vispas. Nora, welcome to our program. Thank you very much, Steve. Thank you for having me. Well, thank you so much for inviting us to your home. We are here in Los Altos Hills in the Morgan Estate. It's a beautiful, amazing estate that you have. First, I want to ask you, you were in science for a long time. You did very well with your company, Cellmark, and then you moved. You moved to focus more on art. Tell us about what made that change in your life to switch from science to art. I made the change when I sold my business in 2014 and retired at age 55. At that time, I decided to do philanthropy and try to help my stateless nation. Did one year of gap analysis and see where the gap is and how I can help my people. I decided that art is where I need to be focused at. I switched from being a scientist to somebody that created an art organization and running it like a science company, scientific company, but it is an art organization. Also, I always loved art. My hobby was art. I used to sing. Before I had a business, I used to sing, paint, and do stained glass, but then running a biotechnology company is very time-consuming, so I put my hobbies on a back burner until I started my art organization that is called Assyrian Arts Institute. You are Assyrian. I am. That is your culture, Assyrian. Yes. I know you're now working on creating an opera. Your organization is creating this opera, Gilgamesh. I have to tell you, when I was a little kid, it might have been the first story I read, the first real bigger story, not just a kid's story. I was very impressed because it's about the oldest human form, the oldest story that there is in human history. True. It is considered the oldest, the first written story in human history, epic of Gilgamesh, the first hero and inspired other heroes from other cultures like Hercules, like Tarzan. Gilgamesh is a demigod, very powerful, very interesting person in search of immortality due to his experiences in basically finding meaning for life, facing challenges like grief, death of a friend, love, passion, cruelty. That basically is the story of Gilgamesh. And it was written around 2900 BC, so about 5,000 years ago. Yeah, almost 5,000. Tell us more about the story. So he's a demigod and he's searching for immortality. He was in the city of Uruk, right, which is Sumer, the Sumerian location, which all of this is part of Mesopotamia. Exactly. Tell us more about that. It's very fascinating. This Bay Area Innovators episode is sponsored by Peter Cassara Clothiers, an Italian menswear store that brings timeless European style with a modern edge to Sunnyvale and the Bay Area for over 50 years. From top Italian suits and shoes, the exclusive Tami Bahama line, they've got your look covered. Check out their website at petercassaraclothiers.com to find out more. And now, back to our interview. Gilgamesh was born of a goddess, Ninsun, and a king of Uruk. Uruk was a city in Sumer, one of the very first cities in human history, where the name Iraq is taken from Uruk. So his father was king of Uruk, and when Gilgamesh was born from his mother that was a goddess, all the gods gave Gilgamesh gifts. Gifts of beauty, gifts of power, gifts of smarts, gifts of... Any gift you can imagine was given to this child. So he grew as the only child of his parents, and eventually he became a king after his father passed. And initially he was a very cruel and spoiled king, and he did a lot of cruelty to his people because he was very smart, very driven. He expected that from his citizens, and the regular people could not meet his expectation, and it was frustrating for him and for citizens of Uruk. So citizens of Uruk prayed to the god for them to relieve him of this burden of Gilgamesh. So gods ordered the goddess of beauty and fertility and war, named Ishtar, to create a friend for Gilgamesh, or somebody of his level, because he grew up... Lonely. Lonely, yes, and thought that the whole world was revolving around him. So they did, Ishtar did, created a friend or a person that grew up in cedar forest among animals, and his name was Enkidu. And when it was time, Ishtar ordered one of her maidens to go and basically humanize him, humanize Enkidu, and bring him into the community, and that's what she did. In a war between Gilgamesh and Enkidu, during one of the times that Gilgamesh was very mean, which was claiming a bride that was married to her husband to be with him on the first night, Enkidu protested that, and Gilgamesh and Enkidu basically got into a fight that lasted seven days, and yeah, they're both equally matched, so none of them won until they decided that they're not going to fight, they're going to become best friends. So they did, and Enkidu had a very positive effect on Gilgamesh to bring him the values that are important to respect, to respect people, to respect his citizen, to have compassion. Friendship that grew out of all these good values and morals made Gilgamesh a very nice person, and at that time, the goddess Ishtar fell in love with Gilgamesh, and Gilgamesh decided to refuse her marriage proposal, and Ishtar got very upset and tried to destroy Gilgamesh and his kingdom. But Gilgamesh and Enkidu, they were very strong, and they overcame the challenges, and in that process, gods decided that Enkidu is going to die. Enkidu dies, and that basically was a pivotal moment for Gilgamesh, wondering because he is a demigod, is he mortal or immortal? Is he like his father or his goddess mother? That took him on a journey to find the only person that gods have given immortality to, and that is our biblical Nova or in the story called Utnapishtim. Utnapishtim advised that he was given immortality because gods asked him to build an ark and save couples of animals in the world and people and stuff like that, so he did exactly what gods asked him to do, so he was granted immortality, and he's the only one that has been granted mortality. He taught him that it's not the immortality and staying alive physically that matters. What really matters is the legacy you leave behind. If you leave a legacy that people will remember you positively and kindly, then you stay alive as Gilgamesh is right now. That's why we are bringing him to life on stage. Yes, after four to five thousand years of silence. That's an amazing story. I really wish more people would be familiar with this story as it goes back so long and it has a very meaningful story that happened. Yes, I agree with that. Please tell us about Assyrian people. You're Assyrian. Please tell us some of the things that probably most people would not know about the culture. Assyria was cradle of civilization and now is a stateless nation and our people, most of them live in diaspora in US, in Australia, in Europe, away from their homeland that is Iraq, Syria, south of Turkey, west of Iran. The empire spread all the way to Egypt when it was in their most powerful time. There was Mesopotamia, right? Yes. Assyrians, most of them were in Mesopotamia, north part of Mesopotamia. They controlled Sumer, Babylon, all the way to Phoenician, Egyptians and all those tribes and cultures for a very, very long time in the ancient time. Then they lost their empire to Persians and then Persians to Alexander the Great. We've never been able to establish a country of our own since then. Please tell us how important and why is it important for you to bring back, to raise awareness of your culture, especially through this opera, this very significant piece of history? I think the story of the Epic of Gilgamesh is important in history, academically speaking, historically speaking, to all the global citizens of the world because it's the very first story ever written that has been discovered. In that sense, it's very important. Also, it's important to me as an Assyrian and to people of my culture because it reflects a lot of our values and beliefs that our ancestors have instilled in us and we continually carried to modern day time. It is important in that sense because when you're a stateless nation, sometimes you're invisible and you don't have a voice. I believe that through universal language of art, we can have a voice. This opera is an example that is going to demonstrate our culture, our ancestors' belief and stories in a way that appeals to modern day audience. From what I understand, it's going to premiere in next year, 2026 in Los Angeles. March 28, 2026 in Cerritos Center for Performing Art in Cerritos, next to Los Angeles in California. I want to talk about your biology background. It looks like a different life now for you. It's been a while. You focus on art, but tell us about how you built a company that was very successful. Tell us how did you make that happen? What were some of the main elements that made it successful and what did you do to make it? I've always been interested in science and wanted to be in the cutting edge of science research. The field was molecular biology and very exciting. I worked in the field and then I started my own business. It was very exciting until I realized that this is even bigger than just science because the products we were producing were meant to detect cancer. From there, it was not only science but also saving lives that mattered to me. I was very, very fulfilled, still very proud of my experience in biotechnology with Cellmark. I'm so excited that the company has continued under new ownership. I heard the employees are thriving. What were your biggest challenges in the tech world? I just wonder if you miss those times. I would say the biggest challenge was I was the president, CEO, a female in a male-dominated industry. All my executives were male until I hired the first and only female executives before I sold my business. That probably was one of the biggest challenges because I like to have both male and female in the team. They all bring their skill set and mindset to the table. For some reason, the company was mostly male. I can relate to that. I went to school in engineering in San Jose State. Out of 200, 300 students, there were maybe five ladies and the rest were boys. It's very disappointing for us, but that's how it was. That's the reality. I want to ask you about faith and science. You've been so involved with science in your company, but also now through your opera, through your culture, you look at all these faith-related issues, including the gods and Noah. Tell us, how do you see faith and science, the connection or the relationship? As an Assyrian, I am a Christian. Most Assyrians are. As a scientist, I believe that there is a higher power to put all this beautiful earth, people, bodies, all in a perfect harmony with each other. They don't happen out of nowhere. There must be something that puts it all together so perfectly. Definitely, I do believe in a higher power. Through your work of bringing this opera to life and the culture to life, what do you hope that that's going to make as a change to society? How is that going to change society? What's going to do is going to shed a little light on ancient religion, where ancient people believed in different gods for each element on earth, like wind, like earth, like water, this and that. They all have gods that ancient people pray to, to hope for best outcome. These gods can control these elements and make a prosperous life for ancient people. This is where they started, we started. Then we grew to become Christians and believe in Christ. We were actually known to be one of the first cultures that switched to Christianity. When Jonah was spit out of the whale's mouth into Nineveh, Nineveh was the capital city of Assyria. They basically became Christians through that experience. I do believe that people evolve, they become more sophisticated, and we are evolving right now. Things are changing. AI is changing everything nowadays for us. I look forward to see how we are going to grow as human beings, more sophisticated as ever. There is that human element that always stays the same, the human values. From the time of Gilgamesh to today, Gilgamesh himself dealt with grief, death of Enkidu. He dealt with love that Ishtar had toward him. She even proposed that he marry her. There is a lot that we are still humans and we value. That's fascinating for me. The story of Gilgamesh is going to connect the ancient to modern day. Modern day people like us will see that ancient people were just very similar to us in so many ways. In your company, in your Selmar company, what would you say was some significant change or significant program that you did that had an impact later on in your company? I always believe a program that I created, and I'm sure other companies probably do the same, we called it Suggestion for Improvement, where employees were empowered and encouraged to make suggestions for improvement. Those suggestions were read by me, every one of them. That's how I got to know the employees of the company from every level. Their manager read the suggestions, of course, and it made the employees feel visible and gave them a voice and also helped the management to decide how employees' mindset works and if they have potential to do more. It was a very good program, in my opinion. It basically resulted in a lot of improvement that the company implemented. As basic as it may sound, I think it's an amazing thing to do with employees. How many of those suggestions for improvement were you able to implement? Actually, as many as possible, because they were the process owners and they were intimately familiar with what they were doing more than me as the president. I took every suggestion to heart and considered it. If it was feasible, affordable, then we did implement it. The result of that, usually, it's very positive because if they see a positive improvement being listened to, they're going to come up with more. They're going to be more motivated to do more. I'd like to change gears and talk about your estate here, where we are right now. It's an amazing house, an amazing mansion. Please tell us, how did you think about acquiring this and what were the steps? Why did you get this mansion here? Well, I look at this mansion as a big art piece, art of architecture. I am passionate about art. Every part of it is artistic. It took a lot of artisans to put together this house. Of course, with the vision of the first owner who built the house, Percy Morgan. I am just very fortunate to not just only own the place, but be the steward of this beautiful historic home. I take pride in it. When was it built? 1914. What would you say are some of the more fascinating aspects of this estate? In the history, the age of it and how smart the house is, architecturally speaking, the way it flows, the way it allows me to entertain and tour the house. The rooms are in perfect places. They all flow well together. There's not that many rooms, but every room is pretty spacious. It's easy to navigate the house, even though it's big, but it's easy to navigate because the rooms are limited, but they're spacious. Of course, there's a ballroom in this estate that has been a venue for Estonian Art Institute's artistic performances, as well as we allow other nonprofit organizations to do events here. Lately, we have been having weddings. My daughter got married. In the ballroom, there is a ceiling that is 500 years old from Venice, where the Pope of that time conducted the wedding. There is significance about getting married under that ceiling. We were very excited that my daughter got a chance to do that. What is it something about this estate that you absolutely love, something that surprised you when you moved in? Everything about the estate. It's just a beautiful place to be. I try to share it with as many people as possible. It seems like people enjoy being here. There is something about this house. It has a very good spirit. There's something right behind us, like a secret passage to a bar, right? Is that something you want to talk about? I don't drink, but it is fascinating for me that in the library, one of the sections, the bookshelves, it's a door to the bar. It seems like at that time, people did not want to drink. Was it the prohibition? It was, yes. I think it's just very interesting to have that. There's a swimming pool. There's a lot of surrounding areas. It reminds me in some way of some chateau in Paris or in France. Actually, the house is a Tudor house, English Tudor. It has that European flair. The gardens are European, rose gardens. Landscape, architecturally speaking, has that European landscaping design. It's an interesting place. Nora, thank you so much for your time. Any concluding thoughts? Anything that you would like to leave as your legacy of what you're doing with arts and everything else? Well, thank you for asking that question. Yes, I would like to, of course, leave a legacy that basically helps my people to be visible, more visible than they are right now. I'm doing it through art. I have an amazing team of creative team behind Gilgamesh Opera. We have a composer that is simply amazing in every sense of the way. He was picked when we had 85 inquiries to be picked for composer. 52 people formally applied. Maestro Derek Skye, who is a Grammy nominated person in 2024, basically was hired for the position. This is going to be Gilgamesh by Derek Skye, the name of the opera. The librettist is a half Assyrian young lady, very talented with language. Her name is Diana Farrell. She's also founder of Lyric Opera of Orange County, a very strong soprano herself. At the same time, her writing, her libretto is just outstanding. Just imagine bringing a very complicated story from ancient time and writing a libretto that can be performed on live stage in a couple hours. It's really, really tough. She has done an amazing job with the libretto as well. These two are the stars. We also have ethnomusicologist Dr. Eve Sada that works in Harvard right now. Her job is to make sure that the production is authentic as much as possible within two hour window that they are going to have to do a live show. The team is amazing. The show is going to be beautiful. The costumes are going to be breathtaking. I invite you and your team and anybody that likes opera to attend this opera because it's supposed to be very nice. Is this the first time there's an opera made on the epic of Gilgamesh? No, actually it's not. Actually, composers have been fascinated by the story from mid-1900 after the World War II. There has been some music written for Gilgamesh and even performed. I attended one in Sydney, Australia in October of 2024. Recently, there was a Gilgamesh opera in Istanbul. We are just very excited to see that this story is getting this much attention. It is the first time Assyrians are doing this story. Mesopotamian people are doing this story. For us, authenticity is the key. We are putting a lot of emphasis on our traditions and cultures that were shared in time of Gilgamesh. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for doing what you're doing to bring culture alive and maintain the Assyrian culture alive. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for watching another episode of Bay Area Innovators. If you enjoyed this episode and you know someone who should be on our show, please send us an email at sfbay.epoctimes.com. We would love to hear from you. Thank you and see you next week.