25. Advancing Women's Health & Diversity In Biotech: Jennifer Friel Goldstein - Managing Partner @ SVB Capital

Guest: Jennifer Friel Goldstein - Managing Partner @ SVB Capital (@SVB_Financial)

Hosts: Chas Pulido (@AlixVentures), Nabiha Saklayen (@Nabsicle), & Jessica Chao (@JessicaChao)

Jennifer Friel Goldstein is the Managing Partner for Life Science & Healthcare Practice @ SVB Capital and is a founding member of Venture Forward, a nonprofit that provides resources and education toward developing a diverse, equitable and inclusive venture capital (VC) ecosystem.

She is also an advisory board member of Springboard Enterprises and the Women’s Health Innovation Coalition. Jennifer has more than 20 years of experience in the VC and startup market segments, including leading and building several teams over the past eight years at Silicon Valley Bank. Before that, she was a director on Pfizer’s VC team, where she helped lead or co-lead investments into several life sciences companies. She also led fund of funds investment decisions and independently managed Pfizer’s $250 million private equity (PE) portfolio. Jennifer served as a consultant on PE deals across Europe while at Bain & Company and held operational and research roles at Chiron, Genelabs, and Genencor. Jennifer graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in bioengineering and a master’s degree in biotechnology from the University of Pennsylvania. She holds an MBA from the Wharton School, where she was named a Joseph Wharton Fellow. She also serves as an independent director at Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. Jennifer lives in the Bay Area with her husband and their twin children.

W/ Special Guest Host: Nabiha Saklayen - Cofounder & CEO @ Cellino

Nabiha Saklayen is a bio-inspired physicist and Co-Founder & CEO @ Cellino. Nabiha launched Cellino to converge physics, biology, and machine learning to enable paradigm shifts in autologous regenerative medicine. Nabiha was recognized as a Pioneer in MIT Tech Review’s 35 Innovators under 35 list for her inventions in laser-based delivery methods and is on the 2019 Forbes under 30 List for Healthcare. She received her Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University as an HHMI International Fellow. She made significant scientific contributions to the field of pulsed-laser delivery to cells, with several peer-reviewed papers published, patents pending, and grants awarded. Nabiha grew up in Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh, Germany, and Sri Lanka and currently lives in Boston, MA.

Cellino is on a mission to make personalized, autologous cell therapies accessible for patients. Stem cell-derived regenerative medicines are poised to cure some of the most challenging diseases within this decade, including Parkinson’s, diabetes, and heart disease. Patient-specific cells provide the safest, most effective cures for these indications. However, current autologous processes are not scalable due to extensive manual handling, high variability, and expensive facility overhead. Cellino’s vision is to make personalized regenerative medicines viable at large scale for the first time. Cellino’s platform combines label-free imaging and high-speed laser editing with machine learning to automate cell reprogramming, expansion, and differentiation in a closed cassette format, enabling thousands of patient samples to be processed in parallel in a single facility.

Thank you for listening!

BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.

Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

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Alix Ventures, by way of BIOS Community, is providing this content for general information purposes only. Reference to any specific product or entity does not constitute an endorsement nor recommendation by Alix Ventures, BIOS Community, or its affiliates. The views & opinions expressed by guests are their own & their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them nor any entity they represent. Views & opinions expressed by Alix Ventures employees are those of the employees & do not necessarily reflect the view of Alix Ventures, BIOS Community, affiliates, nor its content sponsors.