mAcademia - Science, More than Just Academia.

Dr. Yaniv Erlich is the co-founder and CEO of Eleven Therapeutics. Prior, he was the CSO of MyHeritage, a consumer genomics company (acquired by Francisco Partners), an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University and a Principal Investigator at the Whitehead Institute, MIT. 

We talked with Yaniv about his unique career that led him to leave academia and focus his efforts on building exciting biotech companies. Yaniv shared his insights into academic and non academic career development pathways for scientists, delved into the advantages of building a company in the UK as well as shed some light on how research is done at Eleven Therapeutics. 

Tune in and join the discussion in our 'mAcademia podcast' group on Facebook. 

Music

Funkorama Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Dov Moran, Managing Partner of Grove Ventures, is one of the most prominent Israeli hi-tech leaders in the world. Dov is an investor, inventor, and entrepreneur, who is best known as the inventor of the USB flash drive. He founded M-Systems, acquired by SanDisk for $US 1.6 billion in 2006. He also served as the chairman of Tower Semiconductors, a developer and manufacturer of semiconductors and integrated circuits, in which he led a massive overhaul. Under Moran’s guidance, the company achieved a notable turnaround and became an enormous success. It was acquired by Intel in 2022 for 5.4 billion. 

We talked about innovation, entrepreneurship, out of the box thinking and much more. We also mentioned Dov's first book ‘100 Doors - An Introduction to Entrepreneurship’ that was published in 2016 and included insights from his untraditional path.

Music:

Funkorama Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Over two years have past since we started this podcast. We learned a lot! We also applied some key take home messages to our own lives and careers. Today we share our progress with you! 

Corrie Painter is the Deputy Director of Count Me In and is a research scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.  A trained cancer researcher with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, she completed her postdoctoral work in cancer immunology, focusing on melanoma. In 2010, Painter was diagnosed with angiosarcoma. She has combined her cancer advocacy and scientific background to engage with patients in order to build and carry out patient-partnered genomics studies. She is also the co-founder of Angiosarcoma Awareness Inc.

We talked with Corrie about her brave and determined journey, about how scientists can lead work of impact and change, about personal strengths, determination and appreciation of life. This is an inspirational conversation, demonstrating how much good can come out of adversity, how much impact can be achieved, when nothing else seems acceptable. Don't miss this conversation.

Music:

Funkorama Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Running a team of diverse skills, and having them talk, learn, innovate and grow together while driving scientific breakthroughs? This is exactly what happens at the Satchi-Fainaro laboratory. 

Ronit Satchi-Fainaro is a full Professor at Tel Aviv University, where she is head of the Cancer Research & Nanomedicine Laboratory, Director of Tel Aviv University Cancer Biology Research Center, Director of the TAU Kahn 3D BioPrinting Initiative, and holds the Kurt and Herman Lion Chair in Nanosciences and Nanotechnologies. She serves on the Board of Directors of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and the Board of Governors of Tel Aviv University, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of the Blavatnik Center for Drug Discovery, the Israel Cancer Association, the University of Lisbon, the Hospital Universitari Vall d'Hebron - Institut de Recerca (VHIR), The Rothschild and Fulbright Fellowships Committees, several VCs, and editorial boards of scientific journals.

Her multidisciplinary research laboratory focuses on basic research elucidating the mechanisms underlying the switch from cancer dormancy leading to the discovery of new molecular targets to interrupt tumor-host interactions. Her approach is followed by the design of highly selective targeting molecules integrating biology, chemistry, medicine, data science, engineering and nanotechnology to selectively guide drugs into pathological sites. Throughout, she has maintained an interest in understanding the biological rationale for the design of nanomedicines suitable for transfer into clinical testing. She has published more than 150 manuscripts, 13 book chapters, edited two books, is named inventor on 60 patents, some of which were licensed to Pharmaceutical and Biotech companies, and has delivered over 500 lectures worldwide. She founded three spin-off companies and is actively engaged in translational research with several industry partners and in science outreach.

Music - Funkorama Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Joe Brew is a data scientist with a background in public health. Joe has worked in infectious disease control surveillance, monitoring, and case-finding in places ranging from Nepal to Mozambique to Florida, USA (where he is from).

He now focuses on building Hyfe, an artificial intelligence company which aims to improve respiratory health, remote patient monitoring, and diagnostics by detecting and quantifying cough from ambient noise.

We talked about transdisciplinary research,  science entrepreneurship, dedication and enthusiasm, impact and goals. Don't miss this!

Hyfe - Hyfe Cough Tracker | Stay on top of your health by tracking your cough (hyfeapp.com)

Music credits:

Funkorama Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Dr. Gil Blander is internationally recognized for his research in the basic biology of aging and translating research discoveries into new ways of detecting and preventing age-related conditions. He leads a team of biology, nutrition & exercise physiology experts, and data scientists at InsideTracker, and has been featured in CNN Money, The New York Times, Forbes, Financial Times, The Boston Globe to name a few.

We talked about how he founded InsideTracker, who helped him along the way, how to innovate, why he founded ScienceAbroad and much more.

InsideTracker - Optimize wellness and performance through blood tests, nutrition and science. (insidetracker.com)

Music credits:

Or Ordentlich, PhD is an associate professor at the School of Computer Science and Engineering in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is also an Algorithms Architect at Weka.io. His research is mostly focused on information theory, and its applications to modern problems in communication, compression and data science. Omri Palmon, PhD is the founder and COO of Weka.io, with a PhD in computer science from Stanford.

We talked about innovation, product development, the difference between solving problems for research and product development and so much more!

Want to continue the conversation? Join our mAcademia Group on facebook. Music credits: Funkorama Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/