First Rounders

First Rounders

Nature Biotechnology's First Rounders podcast is a series of conversations with founders, financers and developers from biotech's past, present and future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episodes

May 4, 2022 4 mins
Brady Huggett signs off.

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Jay Keasling is a professor in the College of Chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, where he runs the Keasling lab. He’s also the CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute, and has been involved in several startups. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers growing up on the family farm in Nebraska, how Genentech led him into biotech, and the future of biofuels.

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February 1, 2022 63 mins
Ingmar Hoerr is a co-founder and former CEO of CureVac. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers his initial discovery with RNA while in his PhD program, the struggle to find venture financing for CureVac, and how a brain aneurysm changed his view on life. 

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December 1, 2021 52 mins
Lita Nelsen is the former long-time director of the Technology Licensing Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Her talk with Nature Biotechnology covers her father’s life designing television antennas, what drove her to the chemical engineering program at MIT, and the ingredients required to create an entrepreneurial environment on campus (and beyond).

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September 8, 2021 33 mins
Stan Crooke is born ⬩ A tenuous existence ⬩ Life with his mother ⬩ The Tech Corner ⬩ Arsenal Tech High School ⬩ Nancy ⬩ Hoodlum ways ⬩ Off to Purdue

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September 1, 2021 66 mins
Anthony Atala is the director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University. He is also a co-founder of Precise Bio. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers implanting the first tissue-engineered bladder into a patient, Wake Forest’s plans for fostering entrepreneurship, and how he was coerced into a research career by a mentor.

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July 1, 2021 67 mins
Nancy Simonian is president and CEO of Syros Pharmaceuticals. Her conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers going against the advice of her mentor to take a job at Biogen; the long, winding path to approval for the multiple myeloma drug Velcade; and assisting her father in the operating room as a girl.

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June 1, 2021 65 mins
Carl June is a co-founder of Tmunity Therapeutics, and a professor in immunotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also runs the June Lab. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology includes how a boyhood fractured arm led him to his first scientific experiment, his years of service with the Navy, and his groundbreaking work with CAR T-cells.

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May 1, 2021 72 mins
Craig Mello is co-founder of Atalanta Therapeutics and a professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where he runs the Mello Lab. He is also a Nobel Laureate. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers the lure of conspiracy theorists, the state of RNA therapeutics, and getting that call from the Nobel committee. 

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March 1, 2021 61 mins
Neil Kumar is a co-founder and CEO of BridgeBio Pharma. He discussed with Nature Biotechnology his youth in the Midwest, the founding principles behind BridgeBio, and understanding where your strengths lie.

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January 2, 2021 63 mins
Grace Colón is president and CEO of InCarda Therapeutics. Her conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers growing up in San Juan, Puerto Rico; her love of musical theater; and how grad school at MIT guided her toward a career in entrepreneurship.  

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November 1, 2020 72 mins

Tillman Gerngross is the CEO and co-founder of Adimab, and a professor of bioengineering at Dartmouth College. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers his years at GlycoFi, the nature of problem solving in entrepreneurship, and Adimab’s paper last year challenging the work of MIT researcher Ram Sasisekharan. 


Editor's note: Ram Sasisekharan has since been cleared of these charges. Please see https://www.statnews.c...

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September 1, 2020 67 mins
Noubar Afeyan is the founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers his family fleeing the Lebanese Civil War when he was a boy, how a chance encounter at a scientific meeting opened his mind to entrepreneurism, and why immigrants (and entrepreneurs) benefit from having a “paranoid optimist” mindset. 

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July 1, 2020 68 mins
Katrine Bosley is former CEO of Editas Medicines and Avila Therapeutics. She discusses growing up in Ohio, her first job in biotech (as an administrative assistant) and why her five years at CRISPR company Editas felt more like 1,000. This episode is part of Nature Biotechnology's focus issue on translating the CRISPR technology.

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June 22, 2020 82 mins
Ted Love is the president and CEO of Global Blood Therapeutics. In his conversation with Nature Biotechnology, he discusses why his time at Haverford College was transformative, why he views Global Blood Therapeutics as a social justice company, and what might be gained from the “racial catharsis” happening in America after the police killing of George Floyd.

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May 1, 2020 65 mins
Alexis Borisy is CEO and Chairman of EQRx, and a long-time biotech builder with Third Rock Ventures. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers growing up as a “faculty brat” in Wisconsin, dropping out of his PhD program at Harvard and why, even as an investor, biotech cannot be all about the money. 

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April 22, 2020 46 mins
A conversation with Jeremy Levin, chairman of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization and CEO of Ovid Therapeutics, about industry versus government responses to covid19, the split within biotech on how to address charges of high prices, and why the biopharma industry is so disliked. 

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March 2, 2020 63 mins
Bassil Dahiyat is co-founder, president and CEO of Xencor. His conversation with Nature Biotechnology covers his parents emigrating from Jordan, how Xencor has survived (and changed) over the past 22 years, and when it’s necessary for a CEO to speak out.

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January 14, 2020 22 mins
Senior Editor Irene Jarchum talks to Stefan Schneeberger about the significance of a recent Nature Biotechnology paper describing a sophisticated perfusion machine to keep human livers alive for a week. The work was carried out by Pierre-Alain Clavien and colleagues from ETH Zurich. Read the paper here.

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January 2, 2020 73 mins
Greg Verdine is a professor at Harvard University, and CEO and president of FogPharma and LifeMine Therapeutics. He is co-founder of more than 10 companies. His talk with Nature Biotechnology covers growing up in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, the importance of excelling in the lab versus the classroom, and drugging the undruggable. 

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