Progress, Potential, and Possibilities Podcast / Show

Send us a textDr. Carolini Kaid, Ph.D. is the Co-Founder & CSO at Vyro Biotherapeutics (https://en.vyrobio.com/), a Brazilian biotechnology company focused on developing cancer-killing, or ‘oncolytic’ viruses (OVs) designed to target pediatric and adult brain cancer. Dr. Kaid is also a Postdoctoral Fellow at Center for Human Genome and Stem Cell Studies, at The University of São Paulo (USP), a public university in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, which is the largest Brazilian public university and the country's most prestigious educational institution (https://bv.fapesp.br/en/pesquisador/6...). Dr. Kaid has her Ph.D. in Cancer Genetics, a Master's degree in Cancer Biology, and an undergraduate degree in Genetics, all from USP. Dr. Kaid completed 10 years of experience in cancer biology research, including CNS tumor research, tumor stem cells, and advanced therapies. During her MsC, Dr. Kaid worked with miR-367 as a biomarker for aggressive pediatric cancer and potential therapeutic target, which led to the 2015 Award of Scientist and Entrepreneur of the Year, by Nanocell Institute. As a PhD student, under the mentorship of Dr. Oswaldo Keith Okamoto, she acquired a broad background in pre-clinical models, with specific training and expertise in cell culture, brain histology, molecular genetics, stereotaxic surgery, and stereology. Her PhD Thesis, was awarded with Brazil's Best PhD Thesis 2020, resulting in two patent applications and pre-clinical findings that opened opportunities for future translational studies to evaluate new putative biomarkers of aggressive stem-like tumor cells in refining diagnosis, patient stratification, and early detection of relapsed disease. Her work also revealed novel therapeutic approaches, using an miR-367 inhibitor and the oncolytic Zika virus, both targeting the stem-like tumor cells that could benefit patients affected by CNS tumors lacking effective treatment. Recently, as postdoctoral fellow at Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center, under Dr. Mayana Zatz supervision, she continues to investigate alternative immunotherapies with a focus on oncolytic viruses and is coordinating a veterinary clinical trial using the oncolytic Zika virus in dogs with advanced brain tumors.Support the show

Send us a text Dr. Matt Kaeberlein is Professor of Pathology, Adjunct Professor of Genome Sciences, and Adjunct Professor of Oral Health Sciences, at the University of Washington. Dr. Kaeberlein received his PhD from MIT in Biology, did his post-doc in the Department of Genome Sciences, University of Washington, and his research interests are focused on basic mechanisms of aging in order to facilitate translational interventions that promote healthspan and improve quality of life. Dr. Kaeberlein has published nearly 200 papers in top scientific journals and has been recognized by several prestigious awards, including a Breakthroughs in Gerontology Award, an Alzheimer’s Association Young Investigator Award, an Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award, a Murdock Trust Award, a Pioneer in Aging Award, and the Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star in Aging Research. Dr. Kaeberlein's contributions have also been recognized with Fellow status in the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Aging Association, and the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Kaeberlein is a past President of the American Aging Association and has served on their Executive Committee and Board of Directors since 2012. He has also served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology and is currently the Chair of the Biological Sciences Section of the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Kaeberlein serves on the editorial boards for several journals, including Science and eLife. Dr. Kaeberlein’s scientific discoveries have generated substantial public interest, with featured stories in major media outlets including appearing on the front page of the New York Times, the Today Show, CNN, the UK Telegraph, Popular Science, Time Magazine, Scientific American, NPR, USA Today, National Geographic, and many others. In addition to his primary appointments, Dr. Kaeberlein is the co-Director of the University of Washington Nathan Shock Center of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, the Founding Director of the Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute at the University of Washington, and Founder and Co-Director of the Dog Aging Project. Support the show

Send us a text Howard Leonhardt is the Founder of Leonhardt Ventures, the world’s first Innovation Accelerator focused on the convergence of bioelectrics & biologics for organ regeneration and tissue healing. Howard is an accomplished inventor and serial entrepreneur, with 21 U.S. patents, over 100 patent claims for products for treating cardiovascular disease, and has over 40 new patent claims pending. His TALENT (Taheri-Leonhardt) stent graft, developed in the early 1990′s, holds a leading world market share for repairing aortic aneurysms without surgery. Howard's inventions to date have been involved in treated over 500,000 patients in 60 countries Howard is co-leader of Startup California and Founder and Chairman of The California Stock Exchange TM (Cal-X) preparing to be the first social good impact stock exchange currently operating the Cal-X 30 Social Good Impact fund. He founded Cal-X Crowdfund Connect, a crowdfunding campaign management company, and Cal-X Stars Business Accelerator, Inc., a business incubator and accelerator focused on cardiovascular life sciences and social good impact innovations. There are 30 regenerative med-tech and regenerative economy startups in his current portfolio. His Leonhardt Ventures angels network has raised and put to work over US$145 million in 32 companies to date, including those developing the first implantable programmable and re-fillable stem cell pump, brain, eye, and aorta regeneration technologies, and number of other organ regeneration spin offs from his patented core technologies. Howard Leonhardt serves as state spokesperson in California for the JOBS ACT and Crowdfunding for Startup California and has given over 40 speeches on the subject. He has operated Leonhardt’s Launchpads NorCal at the University of Northern California Science & Technology Innovation Center in Rohnert Park, CA since 2008 and recently opened Leonhardt’s Launchpads Utah in Salt Lake City just off the campus of the University of Utah. He has served on the Board of Directors of the University of Northern California, a private biomedical engineering school, since 1999. Support the show

Send us a text Dr. Christopher Cifelli Ph.D. is Vice President of Nutrition Research at National Dairy Council where he oversees the Dairy and Public Health research platform, the goal of which is to provide scientific evidence that can be used to protect and promote dairy in public policy. Dr. Cifelli is responsible for the strategic planning, development, and management of dairy-centric research on chronic disease risk, childhood nutrition, CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey related research, and nutrition and sustainability. Dr. Cifelli obtained both his B.S. degree in Biology and his Ph.D. degree in Nutritional Sciences from Penn State University, where his graduate work focused on understanding how vitamin A status and inflammation affected retinoic acid metabolism, including mathematical modeling to study the effects of retinoic acid supplementation on whole-body vitamin A kinetics. During his post-doctorate work at Penn State, he examined vitamin A kinetics, storage and disposal rates in adults from different ethnic backgrounds. In his current role at the Dairy Research Institute, Dr. Cifelli is involved in the development, design, initiation, management and communication of research projects on the health benefits associated with adequate dairy consumption, including those studies examining the effects of vitamins and minerals found in dairy on bone density, weight maintenance, and metabolic health. Dr. Cifelli is active in several professional organizations. He currently serves as the chair of the Science and Translation Committee for the International Scientific Association for Probiotics and Prebiotics and is on the Board of Directors for the Yogurt in Nutrition Initiative. In addition he has authored or co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed research manuscripts, reviews and abstracts. Support the show

Send us a textDr. Maria Millan, MD, is the President and CEO of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM - https://www.cirm.ca.gov/), an organization that was created in 2004 when voters initially approved a state Proposition which allocated US$3 billion to fund this fascinating area of medicine, and which recently received an additional US$5.5 billion in renewed funding. Dr. Millan is a physician-scientist who has devoted her career to treating and developing innovative solutions for children and adults with debilitating and life-threatening conditions. After receiving her undergraduate degree from Duke University where she started her focus on immunology research, Dr. Millan obtained her MD degree and then went on to complete her surgical training and post-doctoral research at Harvard Medical School – Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. After a transplant surgery fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Millan began her academic career with a pediatric and adult transplant surgery practice. In parallel, she continued her bench research at Stanford and became associate professor and director of the Pediatric Organ Transplant Program. Dr. Millan served on multiple leadership teams including the Faculty Senate and the Dean’s faculty committee at Stanford University School of Medicine and served on the Children’s Hospital operations committee. She has published in the areas of cell biology, immunology and clinical organ transplantation. Dr. Millan also ventured into the private sector in 2006 to join StemCells, Inc., one of the earliest stem cell organizations and the first to enter into an FDA-regulated clinical trial with a stem cell treatment for children with a fatal neurodegenerative disease. Dr. Millan then joined CIRM in December 2012 where she led the formation of the Alpha Stem Cell Clinics Network, a network of California medical centers that specialize in rigorous and high-quality clinical trials and top-tier medical care for patients participating in these trials. This clinical network is successfully supporting over 45 clinical trials and was recently expanded to include 5 programs composed of 7 medical centers and their affiliated hospitals.Support the show

Send us a text Dr. Sakhrat Khizroev is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the College of Engineering of the University of Miami, with a secondary appointment at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Miller School of Medicine. Dr Khizroev's laboratory conducts research on nano-magnetics and spintronics applications ranging from energy-efficient information processing to precision medicine. From 2011 to 2018, he was a Professor (tenured) of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Florida International University, with a joint appointment at the College of Medicine, where he co-founded and spearheaded the university-wide initiative on personalized nanomedicine. From 2006 to 2011, Dr Khizroev was a Professor (tenured) of Electrical Engineering at the University of California, Riverside (UC-Riverside). Prior to joining academia, Dr Khizroev spent four years as a Research Staff Member with Seagate Research and one year as a Doctoral Intern with IBM Almaden Research Center. His team, in collaboration with Professor Ping Liang of UC-Riverside, has for the first time proposed and developed magnetoelectric nano-particles for medical applications including targeted drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier (BBB), high-specificity cancer treatment, HIV/AIDS, neuro-imaging, wireless neural network stimulation, and others. This team has also proposed and developed multilevel 3D magnetic memory devices and nanolasers for future information processing. In industry, he is most known for conducting groundbreaking experiments which resulted in the multi-billion-dollar data storage industry’s shift towards perpendicular magnetic recording. In 2012, Dr. Khizroev was elected a Fellow of National Academy of Inventors (NAI) in the inaugural year of the Academy. He has graduated over 22 PhD Graduate Students. Dr. Khizroev holds over 39 granted US patents. He has authored over 150 refereed papers, 6 books and book chapters in the field. He has presented over 100 talks including many invited seminars and colloquia at international conferences, and has acted as a guest science and technology commentator on television and radio programs across the globe. Dr. Khizroev received a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, a M.S. in Physics from the University of Miami in 1994, and B.S./M.S. degrees in Physics from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (Phystech) in 1992/1994. Support the show

Send us a text Scelta Mushrooms BV is an innovative food company, located in Venlo, Netherlands, which processes mushrooms to make a portfolio of mushroom, and mushroom derived products, that are fresh, frozen, or preserved, for distribution to the food industry, food suppliers, and food retailers around the world. Scelta has grown to a group of six production facilities, with products exported to over 80 countries worldwide, and is widely recognized as one of the world’s most innovative mushroom companies. Jan Klerken is the Founder of Scelta, whose family has been in the mushroom business for three generations, combining over 50 years worth of experience within the mushroom industry, and who has been focusing and pioneering the intersection of taste, health and sustainability for the last few decades. Mr. Klerken is also an Ambassador at Kokkerelli / The Kids University for Cooking, a non-profit initiative which intends to familiarize Dutch children with the wonderful world of food and food innovation. In 2008, Scelta opened up the Scelta Institute, a research and development laboratory for novel, value added opportunities, and a kitchen for chefs to test products and come up with new recipes. Support the show

Send us a text Dr. Anil Achyuta is an Investment Director and a Founding Member at TDK Ventures, which is a deep-tech corporate venture fund of TDK Corporation, the Japanese multinational electronics company that manufactures electronic materials, electronic components, and recording and data-storage media. Anil is passionate about energy and healthcare sectors as he believes these are the most impactful areas to building a sustainable future – a mission directly in line with TDK Ventures’ goal. At TDK Ventures, Anil has reviewed over 1,050 start-ups and invested in: 1) Autoflight - an electric vertical take-off and landing company, 2) Genetesis - a magnetic imaging-based cardiac diagnostics company, 3) Origin - 3D printing mass manufacturing company, 4) Exo - hand-held 3D ultrasound imaging company, 5) GenCell - ammonia-to-energy hydrogen fuel cell company, 6) Mojo Vision – augmented reality contact lens company, and 7) Battery Resourcers – a direct to cathode lithium ion battery recycling company. From his seven investments, Anil has secured two exits. GenCell IPO’d on Tel Aviv’s Stock Exchange, and Origin was acquired by the #1 3D Printing company in the world, Stratasys, for $100M. Anil was voted as one of the Rising Stars in 2021 by Venture Capital Journal and recently, Anil was ranked #2 Rising Star in 2021 out 20,000 corporate venturing managers globally. Prior to TDK Ventures, Anil held leadership roles at Fortune 500 companies including L'Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Draper. Anil has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University and has authored over 15 peer-reviewed journal publications and 5 US patents. Support the show

Send us a textDr. Lydia Kostopoulos is a Science and Emerging Technology advisor at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University, and previously served as Innovation Advisor for the USSOCOM J5 Donovan Group, where she analyzed strategic trends relevant to Special Operations in the context of emerging technologies. The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM or SOCOM) is the unified combatant command charged with overseeing the various special operations component commands of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force of the United States Armed Forces. The Joint Special Operations University (JSOU) is the designated agency within USSOCOM to conduct joint Special Operations Force (SOF) education. Dr. Kostopoulos’ work lies in the intersection of national security, strategy, and technology. She forecasts emerging threats around disruptive technologies, participates in the NATO Science for Peace Program, is on the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers -USA AI Policy Committee, and has been awarded the U.S. Presidential Service Award for her service to the cybersecurity community. Separate from her work at SOCOM, Dr. Kostopoulos is passionate about social tech awareness, has an art series about AI (#ArtAboutAI ) and released an open source game on technologies that affect humanity called Sapien 2.0. Dr. Kostopoulos is also the Founder of a fashion label called Empowering Workwear by Lydia, which has an agenda to promote awareness for change around women's issues and UN's sustainable development goals. Dr. Kostopoulos is also very focused on wellness and currently exploring epistemic wellness and human performance. Dr. Kostopoulos has a PhD in Political Science & Security Studies from University of Siena, Italy, an M.A. in Security & International Conflict from University of Innsbruck, Austria, and a B.A. in International Relations from American University Sharjah, UAE. Dr. Kostopoulos fluently speaks English, Spanish, Russian, Italian, and Greek.Support the show

Send us a text Dr. Natasha Bajema, is a subject matter expert in nuclear nonproliferation, cooperative threat reduction and WMD terrorism, and currently serves as Director of the Converging Risks Lab, at The Council on Strategic Risks, a nonprofit, non-partisan security policy institute devoted to anticipating, analyzing and addressing core systemic risks to security in the 21st century, with special examination of the ways in which these risks intersect and exacerbate one another. The Converging Risks Lab (CRL) is a research and policy development-oriented program designed to study converging, cross-sectoral risks in a rapidly-changing world, which brings together experts from multiple sectors of the security community, to ask forward-thinking questions about these converging risks, and to develop anticipatory solutions. Dr. Bajema is also Founder and CEO of Nuclear Spin Cycle, a publishing and production company specializing in national security, entertainment, and publishing. Prior to this, Dr. Bajema was at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University, serving as Director of the Program for Emerging Leaders (PEL), as well as serving long-term detail assignments serving in various capacities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Acquisitions, Technology and Logistics, Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs and in Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Prior to joining the Center, Dr. Bajema was a Research Associate at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, where she supported research staff of the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change established by the UN Secretary-General. She has also served as a Junior Political Officer in the Weapons of Mass Destruction Branch of the Department for Disarmament Affairs at the United Nations. Dr. Bajema's publications include two co-edited volumes entitled Terrorism and Counterterrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism, both of which were published by McGraw Hill. She has also published the novels Bionic Bug, Rescind Order, Genomic Data, and Project Gecko. Dr. Bajema holds an M.A. in international policy from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a PhD in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Support the show