Lady Scientist Podcast

“Science can only progress if others are able to read and build off of what has been learned in the past.” Jessica Polka shares this insight and many more in this conversation with LSP about the current state of scientific publishing. As the executive director of ASAPbio, an organization battling the slowing of the sharing of scientific knowledge, she’s played a key role in catalyzing change when it comes to how and when scientific articles are shared. We dive into the White House memo calling for all scientific papers to be open access by 2025, what some of her key concerns are for the space, and that explosive eLife announcement about preprints. You won’t want to miss this great conversation! Links for Jessica: Twitter: https://twitter.com/jessicapolka LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicapolka/ ASAPbio: www.asapbio.org

Dr. Vega Shah was was like a gold miner during her undergraduate and graduate school studies, except instead of panning for gold, she was searching the metagenomes of ocean samples for new life and new metabolic functions. What she found was a new species of ocean bacteria, but she also realized that the software tools she relied on and the databases she used to answer her research questions were anything but solid. After grad school, she shifted her career to building software for biologists at Dotmatics, integrating tools such as Prism into electronic lab notebooks. Today she’s a program manager at Benchling working to integrate new functions and communicate these resources to scientists everywhere. It's a thoughtful conversation you won't want to miss. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts: https://rss.com/podcasts/ladyscientistpodcast/ Links for Vega Shah: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vegashah/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/dr_alphalyrae The Aliquot (her Substack): https://thealiquot.substack.com/ This episode is sponsored by LabDAO. Check out PLEX, an open source platform for running many of the latest and greatest new computational biology tools including DiffDock, RfDiffusion, and ColabFold. https://labdao.xyz/

Scientist & entrepreneur, Dr. Erandi De Silva, grew up in the small country of Botswana, where she lived through an HIV epidemic. Seeing scientists and epidemiologists having a direct translational impact on public health inspired her to pursue a career in science. She immigrated to the US to go to college, and went on to get her PhD and did an industry postdoc at Genentech before founding Forge Biologics. In this episode, we discuss what it's like running a company that has both a 'platform' in the sense that they are a CDMO - they make AAV products for other companies, and a 'product'; they also have a clinical product they are evaluating. Erandi De Silva on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erandi-de-silva-phd-08076222/ Forge Biologics: https://www.forgebiologics.com/ Leave us a comment if you enjoyed this episode. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

In this episode of Lady Scientist Podcast, Dr. Jocelynn Pearl hosts Emily McGinnis, Chief of Patient Advocacy at Taysha Gene Therapies, and Claire Aldridge, Chief Strategy Officer at Form Bio (spun out of Colossal Biosciences - the company that wants to de-extinct the dodo bird!) Together, we discuss challenges and advancements in gene therapy for rare diseases, emphasizing patient advocacy in drug development, and the need for optimization and scaling. Emily and Claire share their career journeys to the C Suite. They also recommend resources and organizations for patients seeking information on potential therapies. This episode provides valuable insights into gene therapy, patient advocacy, and the career journeys to the C Suite.

Dr. Madeleine Oudin knew she was interested in medicine and biology from a young age. She took a science track of courses in high school in France and went on to do her undergraduate studies at McGill University. Despite a lack of advising, she found that she loved research and continued on to get a Masters and PhD in neuroscience. She shifted gears in her postdoc, studying cancer and tumor biology, and was surprised to learn of some of the overlaps with studying neuroscience. These two fields merged to form her research niche when she founded her own lab at Tufts University. But her research focus would shift once again after she discovered the diagnosis of her daughter Margot, who suffers from a rare form of epilepsy caused by gene mutations in SCN8. Together with her husband, she now also studies these types of disorders in mice and is working towards a cure for her daughter. Join us on this episode of LSP to learn from Dr. Oudin's impressive career journey and her inspiring dedication to help her daughter. Guest links: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/madeleine-oudin-56769529/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MadeleineOudin Donate to Epilepsy Research: https://give.tufts.edu/campaigns/22193/donations/new?designation=scn8aepilepsyresearchfund Subscribe to our show wherever you listen to podcasts! Thank you for listening.

Today we’re joined by another awesome scientist, Dr. Christine Cucinotta. Christine studies gene regulation in yeast in her postdoctoral studies in the Tsukiyama Lab at the Fred Hutch. She also organizes Fragile Nucleosome, a Discord community of scientists and researchers that puts on a seminar series (available to watch on YouTube). We chat about the importance of community in science and what she considers to be groundbreaking work in the field of gene regulation in the last decade. We also get into how she felt about the recent eLife decision to publish preprints (hint - she’s a fan of change!) and the importance of open science! Christine’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrstn_e Fragile Nucleosome: https://twitter.com/FNucleosome Subscribe to LSP wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening!

In today’s episode of Lady Scientist Podcast, Jocelynn chats with Yolanda Hagar, Associate Director of Bioinformatics and Clare Paterson, Director of Clinical Research, both at SomaLogic. Somalogic was founded in 2000 with the goal of improving the well-being and quality of life of every individual by transforming how diseases were detected, diagnosed and managed. Built on decades of aptamer research, SomaLogic scientists developed a ground-breaking proteomics technology that overcomes the significant challenges of existing protein measurements. Clare and Yolanda share their career journeys and the unique working environment, a collaboration of minds and expertise! Learn more about Somalogic: https://somalogic.com/ Yolanda’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yolanda-hagar-9076b7137/ Clare’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clare-paterson-81627556/ Subscribe to Lady Scientist Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts!

Kathy Lee-Sepsick founded Femasys, a women’s health technology company, 18 years ago. Since then, she’s been the primary leader and inventor behind the company’s expansive patent portfolio and is dedicated to minimally invasive technology that can improve options for infertility. From the Femasys website, more than 9 million women contend with infertility in the US, and innovation in this medical area has been relatively stagnant for 30 years. We dive into Kathy’s career path, leadership style, and observations in the women’s health space over the course of her career. An inspiring conversation! Kathy’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathy-lee-sepsick-6b680b7/ Learn more about Femasys: https://femasys.com/ Subscribe to Lady Scientist Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts!

Research suggests that diabetes affects men and women quite differently! But did you know that the current standard treatment for type 2 diabetes is exactly the same for both men and women? Well, today’s guest Dr. Stacey Gorniak is on a mission to change that! Listen in as she dives into the key findings her research group has uncovered surrounding sex-based differences in diabetes. Plus, hear about her journey to becoming an associate professor and catch her best tips for early career researchers and postdocs who are considering a career in academia! You can connect with Stacey on Twitter @ProfGorniak. Episode Highlights: 8:23 Dr. Stacey chats about how her internship in the biomechanics lab at a children's hospital led her to fall in love with the field of biomechanics. 9:54 Dr. Stacey dives into the makeup of her current research team and the large collaborative research piece she is a part of that brings a lot of different techniques together to try to understand type 2 diabetes, which she considers to be a non-traditional movement disorder. 12:07 Dr. Stacey explains the sex-based differences associated with the presentation of type 2 diabetes. She explains how women were previously excluded from biomedical studies, which means that more research needs to be done in order to better understand the sex disparities and health outcomes. 15:20 Dr. Stacey discusses the tools such as treadmills and infrared cameras that she uses in her lab to collect data. 20:15 Dr. Stacey uncovers the essential, critical skills that she looks for when she is bringing someone on to her research team. 28:48 Dr. Stacey discusses her love for the academic environment that led her to ultimately decide to pursue a career in academic research. 30:51 Dr. Stacey opens up about her job search process in 2009, which was right after the 2008 crash. She explains how the timing was not ideal because there were not many jobs available in the years following the recession as most institutions had frozen hiring.

Meet Dr. Alina Chan, a molecular biologist and author of Viral, a book she co-wrote with renowned science writer Matt Ridley, where they go on the hunt for the origin of COVID-19. The book is educational and at times shocking, covering everything from pangolins and horseshoe bats to internet sleuths and misleading scientific papers. Alina is also a postdoc fellow at the Broad Institute, a biomedical and genomic research center that evolved from research collaborations among MIT and Harvard scientists. In this episode of the Lady Scientist Podcast, Alina shares her tumultuous journey as she wrote her debut book, her discoveries in the process, and the fascinating research that led to it. You can find Alina at https://twitter.com/Ayjchan. Support the podcast by subscribing to our channels, signing up for our newsletter, and leaving a review or comment. Thank you for listening! To purchase a copy of Viral: Harper Collins https://t.co/IsBR0oGJud?amp=1 Amazon https://t.co/0MVf2PeN6V?amp=1 Support our podcast through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ladyscientistpodcast

Today, we’re sitting down with Ryan Brown, a psychology Ph.D. student from Rice University. She studies how relationships help people navigate stress during and after pregnancy and has published a study entitled “Anything He Can Do, She Can Do Better: Children's Attitudes About Gender And Occupations” on gendered media messages and their implications. She also shares her love and passion for science communication on her Youtube channel, Ryan’s Science, where she posts educational videos, her Sci-Tea series with fellow women in science, and other great primers explaining research in psychology! In this episode of Lady Scientist Podcast, Ryan reveals her inspiration behind her passion for content creation on Youtube, all about her Ph.D. program, and her own fascinating research! You can find Ryan at ryanlinnbrown.com. Support the podcast by subscribing to our channels, signing up for our newsletter, and leaving a review or comment. Thank you for listening! Episode Highlights: [6:00] Ryan talks about how she got started uploading content on Youtube, her original goals with the channel, and how it helped her reignite her excitement about her work. [16:12] Ryan breaks down the components of her Ph.D. program, such as exams, teaching requirements, duration, and processes. [20:06] Ryan reveals her reason for pursuing a Ph.D. and how she chose her desired area of research, including the woman who inspired her. [23:48] Ryan talks about her learnings over the years, and how her thoughts about the field of research have evolved since. [25:47] Ryan shares her goals regarding her Youtube channel, its purpose, and her career plans moving forward. [31:06] Ryan discusses her research paper and findings on longitudinal changes in HRV, across pregnancy and postpartum, and how relationships affect navigating stress and seeking support. [35:50] Ryan explains how past stress affects future stress reactivity during pregnancy and how current and past relationships shape our response to stress. [50:15] Ryan talks about her published research study called “Anything He Can Do, She Can Do Better: Children's Attitudes About Gender And Occupations,” and her collaboration with Dr. Nancy Weinberger. [57:45] Ryan shares her experience designing and conducting her own study, including the use of statistical power and her recruitment methodologies. [1:03:29] Ryan reveals her next move and career plans.

Meet Dr. Kiana Aran – recent winner of Nature's Award for Inspiring Women in Science and the brain behind The CRISPR-Chip™, also known as the DNA Search Engine as it can search through whole genomes in minutes, with no cost of expensive lab reagents and no amplification errors. Kiana is also an Associate Professor at KGI where she runs her academic research lab www.aranlab.org. On this episode of Lady Scientist Podcast, Kiana uncovers her path to biomedical engineering, how the idea for The CRISPR-Chip™ came to her and what her personal invention process typically looks like, and the behind-the-scenes aspect of running a lab in the biomedical engineering space. You can find Kiana on https://cardeabio.com/crispr-chip/. Learn about her new program Aran Nebula Foundation here: https://www.arannebula.org/ Support the podcast by subscribing to our channels, signing up for our newsletter, and leaving a review or comment. Thank you for listening! Support our podcast through Patreon and get #LSP swag: https://www.patreon.com/ladyscientist… Episode highlights: 1:20 Kiana discusses what it was like when she was awarded the 2021 Nature Research Award for Inspiring Women In Science. 9:23 Kiana dives into her mission to promote leadership roles for women and her thoughts around the focus on drawing women into STEM fields 11:30 Kiana recently announced that she is launching Aran Nebula. She’s discussing the meaning behind that name and how it ties into her mission to promote leadership roles for women. 14:24 Kiana uncovers the story of CRISPR-Chip and how the idea for it came to her. 23:30 Kiana discusses the long-term vision she has for the CRISPR-Chip 35:50 Kiana discusses her participation in the World CRISPR day event that brought together a panel of women leaders. Kiana chats about what it was like to collaborate with fellow panelists.

Meet Celine Halioua, founder and CEO of Loyal, a biotech startup developing drugs to extend dog lifespan. In this episode of Lady Scientist Podcast, Celine reveals how a single cold email landed her an internship and then later a full-time job with the Longevity Fund, a venture capital firm based in San Francisco. This was the career shift that launched her into the biotech space where she later founded Loyal, which has raised $27 million and has already completed its first clinical study! You can find Celine at https://www.loyalfordogs.com/. Support the podcast by subscribing to our channels, signing up for our newsletter, and leaving a review or comment. Thank you for listening! Support our podcast through Patreon and get #LSP swag: https://www.patreon.com/ladyscientist... Episode Highlights: 3:18 Celine made the difficult decision to leave Oxford, where she was previously a graduate student studying neuroscience and went all-in with Longevity. 8:05 Celine speaks to the significance of Loyal’s first clinical study and summarizes the learnings. 10:08 Celine breaks down the term ‘consumer-facing study’ and Loyal’s effort to both socialize the aging thesis and cultivate a consumer-focused pharma company 18:06 Celine breaks down the basic thesis of Loyal - “The basic thesis of Loyal is that there is a pharmaceutical product out there that inevitably extends dog lifespan and healthspan safely and also has the variables to be a viable consumer product and the job of Loyal is to find that drug and bring it to market successfully.” 18:10 Celine discusses the pros and cons of relying heavily on CROs for the experiments her company carries out. 27:00 Celine opens up about what it was like fundraising for series A and shares tips for biotech founders going through that process. 35:27 Celine talks about the negative impact she believes Theranos and Holmes trial has had on the current state of founder- led biotech. She chats about the role she feels sexism plays in media coverage on the biotech industry specifically. 45:10 Celine discusses the work that goes into being transparent as a startup company 49:00 Celine opens up about the challenging aspect of starting a company and what inspired her to get started and continues to inspire her to push forward with Loyal.

Five years ago, Lindsay could not have predicted she would one day found a biotech. Fast forward to today where she's cofounded Talus Bio and is leading technology development as CTO. We get into the nitty gritty of cold-emailing investors, fundraising over zoom, and founder relationships in this interview. Links for Lindsay: https://www.talus.bio/ https://twitter.com/lkpino https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaykpino/ This episode is sponsored by Kendall Investor Relations. Check out their open positions here: https://www.kendallinvestorrelations.com/careers Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/ladyscientistpodcast All links: www.ladyscientistpodcast.com

In this special episode of LSP, we sit down with not one but two women from the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies - Public Benefit Corporation (MAPS PBC), where they study the use of MDMA and psilocybin to treat mental health disorders. Allison Coker, PhD is trained in neuroscience and is the regulatory affairs manager. She shares the intricacies of their latest, groundbreaking results from a Phase 3 trial studying the use of MDMA-assisted therapy for the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, a study that resulted in 67% of participants no longer qualifying for a PTSD diagnosis. Alia Lilienstein, MD, is the Medical Director of MAPS PBC and shares her career journey from public health, to practicing physician to something unexpected. We think you will learn a lot from these two amazing women! Special thank you to my colleague, Alex Croft, who inspired me to do this interview and guest starred in it as well. Thank you Alex for your curiosity and inspiration! Links for the episode: Learn more about MAPS PBC here: https://mapspublicbenefit.com/ Allison’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisoncoker/ Alia’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alia-lilienstein-b4926a97/ This episode is sponsored by Kendall Investor Relations. Check out their open positions here: https://www.kendallinvestorrelations.com/careers Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/ladyscientistpodcast All links: https://www.ladyscientistpodcast.com

Kanaka Rajan, Ph.D. is a Computational Neuroscientist and Assistant Professor at the Friedman Brain Institute at Mount Sinai in New York. Her research seeks to understand how the brain functions; how it learns or makes decisions. We dive into Dr. Rajan's approaches these brain 'themes' in this interview. She also walks us through the contrasts between the fields of neurobiology and artificial intelligence, and opens our minds to how our understanding of the brain has advanced over time. We learned so much and we hope you do too! Links for Kanaka: Wikipedia profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanaka_... Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/rajankdr https://www.rajanlab.com This episode is sponsored by Kendall Investor Relations: https://www.kendallinvestorrelations.com HDSA Team Hope Walk: https://washington.hdsa.org/ Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/ladyscientist... Buy Us a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LSPodcast All links + merch: https://www.ladyscientistpodcast.com

Shon joined the cancer therapy field a little later than most. She was older than her graduate school peers, where she studied the dynamics of cancer in mouse models with Dr. Martin McMahon. After getting her PhD, she felt an urgency to dive into industry and apply her knowledge to something that could have a real impact on the lives of cancer patients. But her first application to the company she wanted to work for was met with rejection. Shon didn’t let that stop her - she got advice from friends on how to revise her CV. She attended a talk by the CEO of the company she wanted to work for, asked good questions, and introduced herself. It was through a newfound love for good networking that she landed the job she wanted at Eureka Therapeutics. We get into this and other stories in this conversation with Shon Green who is now a senior director of translational research at Umoja Biopharma. We hope you enjoy Shon’s candor and advice in this latest Lady Scientist Podcast Interview. Thanks for listening! Links for Shon: https://www.umoja-biopharma.com/ Women in Bio: https://www.womeninbio.org/ WINGS for Growth: https://wingsforgrowth.org/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/shon-green-7a76909/ This episode is sponsored by Kendall Investor Relations: https://www.kendallinvestorrelations.com Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/ladyscientistpodcast All links + merch: www.ladyscientistpodcast.com

Lexi Walls set out to investigate coronaviruses back in 2015 when little was known about these large viruses and the spike protein that they use to gain entry into host cells. She was among the first to solve the structure of the spike protein using a technique called cryo electron microscopy. She defended her thesis (in which she predicted that coronaviruses had the potential to cause a pandemic) on the eve of the outbreak in December of 2019. Then the world changed. She dove in to looking at the sequences of SARS-CoV2 and analyzing them. Then she pivoted to working on therapeutics and vaccines to treat COVID-19. We talk about her experience living and working through a pandemic on a topic that she's one of the world's experts in. It hasn't been easy but we think you'll find Lexi's upbeat attitude quite refreshing. Links for Lexi: Twitter: @coronalexington https://www.grad.uw.edu/lexi-walls/ This episode is sponsored by Kendall Investor Relations: www.kendallinvestorrelations.com Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/ladyscientistpodcast All links + merch: www.ladyscientistpodcast.com

Nikhita Singh has had a fascinating career thus far. She once led product design at Palantir and demo'd robots as part of her research at MIT Media Lab, experience that led to her co-founding and leading product development at new startup Artificial Inc. In this episode we get into some of the interesting side projects she's worked on along the way (city boxes? and have you seen her notebooks?). We also go on a little bit of a reality show tangent (hint: she's actually not that into sci fi!) but trust us, its worth it to learn how Nikhita's brain relates story telling with pitching a company that is striving to improve automation for life science labs everywhere. Links for Nikhita: https://www.nikhitasingh.com/ https://www.artificial.com/ This episode is sponsored by Kendall Investor Relations: https://www.kendallinvestorrelations.com/ www.ladyscientistpodcast.com Follow us on: Twitter: @LadyScientistP1 Instagram: @ladyscientistpodcast Support the podcast: patreon.com/ladyscientistpodcast

Christina was named Endpoints 20 under 40 for 2021 (article link: https://endpts.com/the-201-under-40-i...​). She's a serial biotech entrepreneur who has been a driving force behind the creation of several new companies in the biotech space over the last few years. She studied at Copenhagen University and UC Berkeley before using her adept networking skills and 'Stay Hungry' attitude to break into the venture capital space. In this interview we talk about her process and what the basic building blocks of a biotechnology company are (hint: it costs money). Join us for an in depth interview with this lady boss and biotech superstar. Subscribe, like and share. This episode is sponsored by Kendall Investor Relations: https://www.kendallinvestorrelations....​ Reach out to Carlo and his team for help with strategic planning and investor interactions for your biotech company. www.ladyscientistpodcast.com Follow us on: Twitter: @LadyScientistP1 Instagram: @ladyscientistpodcast Support the podcast: patreon.com/ladyscientistpodcast