Melissa McCracken is a partner at Nextech Invest, a leading oncology-focused venture capital firm. She is a board member for multiple private and public biotech companies. Melissa is a scientist by training from UCLA with her research on engineered immunity for cancer. She also completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University where she expanded her research in the field of immuno-oncology. Prior to Nextech, Melissa was a senior associate at Third Rock Ventures and helped build and launch Celsius Therapeutics, which is now part of AbbVie.

In this episode,

* Melissa traces her career path: from interning at Amgen in high school and college to pursuing a PhD at UCLA and a postdoc at Stanford working on cancer immunology before making the jump to venture capital.

* She discusses her experience building companies as a senior associate at Third Rock Ventures, where she helped create Celsius Therapeutics, a company focused on discovering therapeutics for oncology and autoimmune disease.

* Melissa shares her experience working in the biotech ecosystem in Europe, when she moved to Switzerland to first work at Nextech Invest as a principal.

* She discusses her role in opening Nextech’s Boston office as a partner and some of the recent advancements in cancer therapeutics that she’s most excited about.

* Melissa talks about her favorite things to do outside of work, such as spending time with her kids and doing yoga.

Co-Hosts: Yossef Baidi and Fang Xie

Planning: Yossef Baidi and Fang Xie

Post-Production: Yossef Baidi, Fang Xie, and Rui Li

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