Angelika Fretzen is the Wyss Institute’s Technology Translation Director and COO, applying product and entrepreneurial business development experience to the Institute’s mission of taking impactful technologies in healthcare and sustainability from the lab into their real world application. She leads a team at the Wyss that is dedicated to building a unique model of innovation, technology development and commercialization, in a community of strong collaborators within an extensive ecosystem of universities, hospitals and external business partners.

She earned her Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and gained postdoctoral experience in the laboratory of Professor Gregory Verdine at Harvard University. Following her academic training, Angelika pursued her M.B.A. at Suffolk University, Boston, and subsequently held leadership positions at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and most recently at Catabasis Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, MA, where she was Senior Vice President of Product Development. Her industry experience enabled her to gain a deep understanding of the processes involved in developing and de-risking therapeutic products from pre-clinical stages to the clinical market, including the regulatory approval process. For more than 10 years, she also served on the Board of Directors of Bridgewell, a health and human services non-profit organization serving a wide range of constituents in day programs, residential housing and clinical services.

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) 

Shaan Gandhi is a Director @ Northpond Ventures and leads the firm’s work in biotechnologies. Shaan is a board director at Aro Biotherapeutics; CAMP4 Therapeutics; Candel Therapeutics; DiCE Molecules; StrideBio, Inc.; Triumvira Immunologics, Inc.; and Vigil Neuroscience. Previously, Shaan was a Principal at the Longwood Fund, where he created and invested in life sciences companies, including Pyxis Oncology, a cancer immunotherapy company focused on novel modulators of the tumor microenvironment, which he co-founded and served as President. Prior to Longwood, he was an attending hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he also did his residency in internal medicine.

He holds an MD from Harvard Medical School; an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar; a D.Phil. in medical oncology from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a B.S. with honors in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University. Shaan is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Suffolk District Medical Society, the professional medical society of Boston, and a Trustee of the Boston Medical Library.

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) 

Jared Friedman is a Managing Director @ Y Combinator, where he works with YC's bio companies. Y Combinator has funded over 400 healthcare and bio companies across all sectors. YC currently funds more healthcare/bio companies per year than any other investor in the world.

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) 

Cain McClary is Founder & Managing Partner @ KdT Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on supporting startups re-architecting the world at a molecular level.

Cain is a Physician/Scientist and Venture Capitalist, leveraging technical scientific and medical knowledge/experience as well as an extensive network of scientists, clinicians, entrepreneurs, and funders to guide and invest in young companies at the intersection of computation and science. His experiences on both sides of the table offers unique strategic insights and network opportunities to innovators and investors in these verticals. What he likes to call "translational entrepreneurship".

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) 

Shahram Seyedin-Noor is Founder & General Partner @ Civilization Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on supporting cutting edge innovations in health tech and biology.

Prior to founding Civilization Ventures, Shahram was a life sciences entrepreneur and angel investor for more than a decade. Shahram was the founding CEO and later Executive Chairman of Rgenix, a biotech company with multiple first-in-class therapeutics for cancer now in Phase 1b clinical trials. Prior to Rgenix, he was founding CFO and VP of Corporate Development at NextBio, a genomics pioneer acquired by Illumina. Shahram sits on the boards of Foresight Diagnostics and Rewrite and has been one of the first checks into frontier tech companies such as Omada Health, CatalogDNA, Evonetix, BilliontoOne, Lemonaid Health, Avantome (acquired by Illumina), Bina (acquired by Roche), Rocket Pharma (IPO), and Counsyl (acquired by Myriad).

Shahram began his career in Silicon Valley over twenty years ago at Wilson Sonsini and went on to advise some of the world’s preeminent technology leaders while at Goldman Sachs. He earned his JD from Harvard Law School, where he led 175 editors as Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard International Law Journal, and obtained a BA in Economics from Pomona College. Shahram founded CV in 2017 to support innovations that could – with some luck and perseverance – improve human health, preserve the world’s natural resources, and further our shared civilization.

Ron Weiss is one of the pioneers of synthetic biology. He has been engaged in synthetic biology research since 1996 when he was a graduate student at MIT and where he helped set up a wet-lab in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. After completion of his PhD, Weiss joined the faculty at Princeton University, and recently returned to MIT to take on a tenured faculty position in the Department of Biological Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

W/ Special Guest Host: Jake Becraft

Jake Becraft is a synthetic biologist and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Strand Therapeutics, and serves on its Board of Directors. Together with colleagues at MIT’s renowned Synthetic Biology Center, he led the development of the world’s first synthetic biology programming language for mRNA. Jake has been featured in Fierce Biotech, Bloomberg, the Boston Business Journal, and BioCentury, among others, for his vision and mission at Strand of applying this unique platform for real world disease applications. He has also been the recipient of prestigious national and international awards for his scientific and entrepreneurial achievements, including the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Award, the Andrew Viterbi Fellowship of MIT, Amgen Fellowship, and the Bristol-Myers Squibb 2018 Golden Ticket for recognition of Strand as an innovative startup. Beyond his work at Strand, Jake’s broader interests span synthetic biology, biologically engineered organism-machine interfaces, and the intersection of tech and biotech methodologies. He is an advocate among the life science entrepreneurial ecosystem for supporting young founders in biotech entrepreneurship. Currently, he serves on the advisory board of Starlight Ventures, an early stage venture firm, and also serves on the Executive Board of Public Health United, a non-profit focused on helping scientists better communicate their research for maximum impact. He is also a Termeer Fellow. Previously, he served as a Science and Technology advisor to legislators in the Massachusetts State Legislature. Jake received his Ph.D. in Biological Engineering and Synthetic Biology from MIT and his B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating Magna cum Laude with distinction. He is an author or inventor on numerous high profile publications, patents and white papers, including in top tier journals such as Nature Chemical Biology and PNAS.

George Church leads Synthetic Biology at the Wyss Institute, where he oversees the directed evolution of molecules, polymers, and whole genomes to create new tools with applications in regenerative medicine and bio-production of chemicals. Among his recent work at the Wyss is development of a technology for synthesizing whole genes, and engineering whole genomes, far faster, more accurate, and less costly than current methods. George is widely recognized for his innovative contributions to genomic science and his many pioneering contributions to chemistry and biomedicine. In 1984, he developed the first direct genomic sequencing method, which resulted in the first genome sequence (the human pathogen, H. pylori). He helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 and the Personal Genome Project in 2005. George invented the broadly applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods, and array DNA synthesizers. His many innovations have been the basis for a number of companies including Editas (Gene therapy); Gen9bio (Synthetic DNA); and Veritas Genetics (full human genome sequencing).

George is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Technology Center and Director of the National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomic Science. He has received numerous awards including the 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science from the Franklin Institute and election to the National Academy of Sciences and Engineering.

w/ Special Guest Host: Alexander Titus

Alexander Titus is a genomic data scientist and technologist with a background spanning industry, government, and academia. He is the founder and CEO of Bioeconomy.XYZ, a biotechnology publication about great tech and the people making it happen. He's also a strategic business executive at Google Cloud, and previously he was the head of biotechnology at the Department of Defense.

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)

Bob Langer is one of 12 Institute Professors at MIT; being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member.  Dr. Langer has written more than 1,500 articles.  He also has over 1,400 issued and pending patents worldwide.  Dr. Langer’s patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400  pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies.  He is the most cited engineer in history (h-index 289 with over 345,000 citations according to Google Scholar).

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Michael Langer is Senior Manager and Head of Search, Evaluation & In-licensing for all new technology and products at Pear Therapeutics. Michael also runs point on platform deals, as well as competitive intelligence at Pear. In addition, he works closely with the Pear fundraising team to build and maintain relationships with prospective investors primarily with sovereign wealth funds and family offices. Michael reports directly to Pear's Founder, CEO and President Dr. Corey McCann.

Michael is an investor, advisor and mentor to startups. Michael is the founding partner at Old Silver VC which is a family-associated investment firm that invests in startups in Healthcare (Biotech and DigitalHealth) and Deep Tech with a focus on materials. 

Michael is an active philanthropist. He co-founded the Young Coder's Society which teaches children how to code using Raspberry Pi's. He is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a Young Leader at the Milken Institute. He serves on The Leadership Board at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, The Discoverers Committee at the Museum of Science and is the Senior Advisor of Special Projects at the Galenus Foundation.

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)

Zavain Dar invests at the intersection and union of cutting-edge biotech and software. He has led Lux’s investments in Primer, a machine intelligence startup; Clarifai, which democratizes cutting edge deep neural networks; Auransa, which is developing novel medicines based on computational insight applied to genomic data; Recursion which uses automation and deep learning to develop drugs for rare diseases; Tempo Automation, which applies software and automation to electronics manufacturing; Rigetti Computing, which is fabricating some of the fastest quantum chips in the world; Braid, which is bringing AI to medical diagnostics; Visor, which aims to simplify tax preparation; Computable Labs, which is building a decentralized data marketplace; Cryptonumerics, a data control company acquired by Snowflake Computing; The Stacks Foundation, which is making Bitcoin programmable; Runway, which is putting machine learning tools into the hands of creators; LabGenius, a protein drug discovery company; Anagenex, a drug discovery company leveraging DNA encoded libraries; Hugging Face, an open-source company democratizing Natural Language Processing; Dyno Therapeutics, an AI-powered gene therapy company; and Thrive Earlier Detection, an early cancer detection company that Exact Sciences agreed to acquire for $2.15 billion in 2020.

Arvind Gupta is a Partner @ Mayfield Fund where he co-leads the Engineering Biology practice. He was the first investor in several breakout biology companies including Geltor, Prellis, Synthex, and Memphis Meats. Prior to joining Mayfield, Arvind was a founder of Indie Bio, the world’s leading biotech accelerator. At IndieBio, he was fundamental to the growth of the accelerator, building a $3.2B portfolio and investing in over 136 companies over five years. He is particularly passionate about conscious capitalism and continues to serve as a Venture Advisor at IndieBio.

Topics:

• Career journey from design to biotech investing

• Personal mission statements

• Synthetic biology guiding the biotech revolution

• Conscious capital and engineering biology

• What to expect for the future of TechBio

• How VC will evolve with new capital structures in biotech

• Advice for life sciences founders

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)

8VC is a Silicon-Valley based technology investment firm investing in visionary teams and backing industry-transforming companies, currently managing $3.5bn in AUM. About one third of their current fund is dedicated towards the BioIT space. 8VC’s portfolio represents a large early crop of now next gen biotech unicorns including but not limited to Orca Bio, Synthego, Resilience, and Lyell Immunopharma which have generated playbooks for others startups to follow.

Francisco Giminez and David Moskowitz are two integral members of the 8VC team which developed the Bio-IT investment thesis.

Francisco is a Partner @ 8VC focusing on Bio-IT investments and Enterprise AI. He received a PhD from Stanford in Biomedical Informatics. During this time, he also worked as a Resident Data Scientist at Formation8 Partners where he helped startups to strategize, prototype, and recruit for data products. He also is the founder of Catenus Science, a data science consulting and recruiting firm that used an apprenticeship model to help early stage companies build data science teams.

David is a Principal @ 8VC who also received his PhD at Stanford as part of the Biomedical Informatics Program. At Stanford, his work was focused on applying statistical and machine learning approaches to regulatory genomics, epigenetics, and pipeline development for analysis of high throughput sequencing data. Prior to his time at Stanford, David was a Bioinformatic Analyst at Einstein College of Medicine where he worked on the genetics of aging and human disease.

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)

Adam Seabrook is a Principal in B Capital’s Los Angeles office, where he makes investments in Healthcare and Digital Health. Adam serves as Board Member/Board Observer to Evidation Health, SilverCloud Health, Bright.md, Notable Labs and Atomwise. Prior to joining B Capital, Adam worked at Hyde Park Angels, one of the largest angel networks in the US, while pursuing his MBA at the University of Chicago.

Before earning his MBA, Adam was an early employee at Imaging Advantage, a teleradiology startup that was recently acquired by Envision Healthcare. In his role, Adam managed teleradiology implementations at hospitals around the United States, led teleradiology workflow optimization efforts, and helped acquire physician practices as part of a rollup strategy. Adam also co-wrote a proposal to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, from which the company was awarded $6 million to develop a decision support tool for physicians.

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)

Mark Pulido is a 5 time CEO & industry veteran with 4+ decades of leadership experience spanning Health IT, Health Services, Big Pharma, Diagnostics, Private Equity, & Venture Back Startups.

He is the former President & CEO @ ABILITY, a national leader in cloud-based solutions for the healthcare provider marketplace acquired for $1.2B by Inovalon in 2018 - where he currently serves on The Board of Directors. Prior to his role at ABILITY, Mark focused on private equity and investing initiatives as an industry executive at Freeman Spogli. Previously he served as President & Chief Executive Officer @ BenefitPoint, an early stage Sequoia capital-backed employee benefits technology company.

Prior to that, he led several of the most prominent healthcare and information technology companies in the world. Mark served as President & CEO @ McKesson Corporation, a Fortune 10 healthcare services and information technology company; President & Chief Executive Officer @ Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, USA (formerly Sandoz), a research-based pharmaceutical manufacturer; and Chairman, President & CEO @ Red Line Healthcare Corporation, a specialty long-term care distribution and medical billing company. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors @ Quidel, a manufacturer of diagnostic testing solutions and as a Board Member of several healthcare and technology companies, including Sunrise Medical, a medical equipment manufacturer; Smile Brands Group, a dental practice management company; Charles Schwab, a financial services company; and Imation, a technology company.

Outside of work, you can find Mark pursuing his passion for wine making at Pulido~Walker Cellars and supporting the community through Pulido~Walker Foundation focusing on education for youth at risk.

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)

Mark Pulido is a 5 time CEO & industry veteran with 4+ decades of leadership experience spanning Health IT, Health Services, Big Pharma, Diagnostics, Private Equity, & Venture Back Startups.

He is the former President & CEO @ ABILITY, a national leader in cloud-based solutions for the healthcare provider marketplace acquired for $1.2B by Inovalon in 2018 - where he currently serves on The Board of Directors. Prior to his role at ABILITY, Mark focused on private equity and investing initiatives as an industry executive at Freeman Spogli. Previously he served as President & Chief Executive Officer @ BenefitPoint, an early stage Sequoia capital-backed employee benefits technology company.

Prior to that, he led several of the most prominent healthcare and information technology companies in the world. Mark served as President & CEO @ McKesson Corporation, a Fortune 10 healthcare services and information technology company; President & Chief Executive Officer @ Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, USA (formerly Sandoz), a research-based pharmaceutical manufacturer; and Chairman, President & CEO @ Red Line Healthcare Corporation, a specialty long-term care distribution and medical billing company. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors @ Quidel, a manufacturer of diagnostic testing solutions and as a Board Member of several healthcare and technology companies, including Sunrise Medical, a medical equipment manufacturer; Smile Brands Group, a dental practice management company; Charles Schwab, a financial services company; and Imation, a technology company.

Outside of work, you can find Mark pursuing his passion for wine making at Pulido~Walker Cellars and supporting the community through Pulido~Walker Foundation focusing on education for youth at risk.

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)

Vasudev Bailey, PhD, is Senior Partner @ ARTIS Ventures where he focuses on investing in novel and breakthrough health and life sciences companies. He is an investor in companies including Eko, Unnatural Products, Aether, IDbyDNA, Freenome, Climax Foods, Lemonaid Health, and board member at Association for Women in Sciences (AWIS), Johns Hopkins Biomedical Engineering, and The Trevor Project. He is the founder of the ARTIS Ventures Healthcare Pioneers, which brings together some of the world’s brightest minds to accelerate and incubate life-changing ideas in healthcare. He received his PhD at Johns Hopkins where he studied personalized chemotherapy and early cancer detection.

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)

Seth Bannon is a Founding Partner @ Fifty Years, a seed fund that backs entrepreneurs solving the world's biggest problems with technology. Seth has seeded a range of startups shaping the world for the better — companies like Memphis Meats (culturing meat to eat), Solugen (engineering enzymes to produce industrial chemicals sustainably), and Astranis (small satellites to cover the earth with Internet). Seth is also the co-founder of impact.tech, a community of entrepreneurs combining purpose with profit, and was previously the founder & CEO of startup Amicus. A graduate of Y Combinator, Seth was named twice to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Social Entrepreneurship.

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.

Adam D’Augelli is a Partner @ True Ventures, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm founded in 2005 that invests in early-stage technology startups. At True, Adam has led the firm’s investments in Pendulum Therapeutics, Deep Genomics, InterVenn Biosciences, and more.

Prior to True, Adam ran Perfect Wave Records, a small donation-based record label in the Southeast and taught “Digital Frontiers,” a course at the University of Florida exploring how the Internet and Technology are changing the global business landscape.

In this podcast, Adam discusses his investing mentality when it comes to startups representing a range of markets from food, to cancer therapeutics, to security. Through his diverse interests and unique perspective, Adam has cultivated a tried and true model for investing which favors founders who are uniquely positioned to capture nascent markets and build consumer-facing solutions.

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)