Hello Tri-I Community!

Happy spooky season! The Tri-institutional startup venture group (SVG) invites you to our next fireside chat on Wednesday, October 25 at 5:30 pm at the Bioventure eLab (1157 York Ave). We will be hosting Dr. Richard Boyer, Chief Medical Officer & Cofounder at HoopCare, his most recent company, as well as co-founder of VoluMetrix, for a discussion about his experience with entrepreneurship and the Runway Startup Postdoc Program. Please sign up to attend HERE. Every month we host someone with experience as a founder, employee of a startup, or venture capitalist. If you would like us to host someone in these fields living in NYC, please reach out to Nick Bartelo at nib4003@med.cornell.edu and we will schedule an interview between them and the club.

We have planned numerous upcoming events. We are collaborating on an event with IndieBio, the CUNY Postdoc Association, and the Columbia University Postdoc Association on Thursday, October 26, to host an event titled "NYC Academic Synergy: Accelerating Scientific Innovation at IndieBio" which will include a panel from IndieBio alums, a networking session between the institutions, and a tour of the IndieBio lab space (RSVP HERE). On Wednesday, November 1st, we are co-hosting a panel with the tri-institutional consulting club featuring a panel of consultants and founders in biotech followed by a mixer between the clubs (RSVP HERE). Most of our events have a certain capacity, so if you are interested, please join our slack channel by filling out this form to get the best chance of reserving a spot. 

We are always looking for more entrepreneurship opportunities to participate in and share with our community. If you want to be involved further with the Startup Venture Group (and we would love to have you), please email Nick Bartelo at nib4003@med.cornell.edu or fill out the this form and specify your interest in getting involved. You can also find us on Twitter (@StartupWCM) and at our website, https://www.trii-svg.com/.

Sincerely,

Nick Bartelo
President, Startup Venture Group
PhD Candidate
Weill Cornell Medicine

For this newsletter’s Faculty Feature, Yangjingyi Ruan (SVG Social Media/Event Planning Leader), Yanyang Chen (Club Newsletter Leader), and Nick Bartelo (SVG President) had the opportunity to sit down with Tamatha Fenster and Marc Schiffman. Dr. Fenster received her MD degree from The State University of New York (SUNY) Health Science Center at Syracuse and completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Beth Israel Medical Center. She is now an Assistant Professor of Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell. Dr. Schiffman received his MD degree from the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse and completed his radiology residency training in Diagnostic Radiology at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. He is now an Assistant Professor of Clinical Radiology at Weill Cornell. Dr. Fenster and Dr. Schiffman are co-founders of VoiceLove, a company built on improving patient outcomes through keeping patients connected to their family and friends. Dr. Fenster and Dr. Schiffman are revolutionizing the healthcare industry by providing efficient communication between patients and their families, demonstrating how the power of socialization can positively benefit patient outcomes.

SVG: How did you two meet and how was VoiceLove developed? 

Dr. Fenster: We met at medical school many years ago and have been collaborating since my first day at Weill. Fast forward to April of COVID, hospitals were overrun with patients and needed more healthcare workers. I noticed there was no practical means of communication between patients and their families and wanted to create a group to tell patients’ families how they were. Marc was the first person I called and he immediately agreed to join. As we spoke with families, everyone kept saying “please just let us talk to them.” This was the problem we knew we had to solve.
Dr. Schiffman: As Tamatha said, hospital communication is inefficient. One night I went to Target and bought a few speakers that connect to an app so families could talk. Everyone was grateful and meaningful messages were able to be sent. We reached out to the toy company and they agreed to donate for all of NY Presbyterian's ventilated patients. After some press, we had families around the country reach out to us, and we donated the toys to them. We examined every type of ward from babies to elderly to learn their needs. Unfortunately, in the Christmas of 2020, my mother was infected with covid and passed after a long ICU stay. My family could not be there and it was incredibly challenging. This is when Tamatha and I decided we needed to lead the change.
 

SVG: VoiceLove not only connects Patients and Families, but also Doctors and Proxies, Healthcare Staff and Families, Doctors and Healthcare Staff, and Patients and Clergy. How did you discover that these additional functions could be served using VoiceLove?
 
Dr. Fenster and Dr. Schiffman: The COVID-19 pandemic revealed a critical gap in hospital systems: the absence of spiritual and emotional support for patients. Collaboration with clergy at Cornell highlighted an inability to offer crucial spiritual guidance and prayers to the dying. VoiceLove therefore extends beyond individuals, attempting to unite entire congregations.

As we deployed VoiceLove, we moved beyond NYC and discovered under-resourced and remote communities were severely lacking spiritual connection and communication. VoiceLove delivers emotional, spiritual, and even health benefits. Patients' responsiveness improved dramatically when they heard messages from their families, even in cases of coma. We received a $3 million grant from the NIA and are hopeful to get another grant soon. VoiceLove fulfills our mission as healthcare providers by offering vital connections during patients' most challenging moments.

SVG: What is the business model behind VoiceLove? 

Dr. Fenster and Dr. Schiffman: Working with hospitals, we have come far from the original design. We've learned that getting hardware into a hospital is an extremely difficult thing. On top of hardware, we needed to develop an app that can be downloaded and can be widely available to anyone. Almost all people have access to a smartphone, so we wanted to make an equitable solution. We then partnered with AT&T, and they sourced phones for us.

We have developed software with a secure system for HIPAA regulations. As the hospital would purchase the software with a license fee, there's an additional small charge for the number of channels. All the phones come with an AT&T 5G cellular subscription to avoid reception interruption or WI-FI problems. The phone for an ICU bed could be reused multiple times. We also have a proprietary biodegradable case which could be disposed between patients. Hospitals can give patients a channel to talk to their families, friends, church, and etc.

SVG: What advice would you have for graduate students and postdocs who are interested in creating a company?

Dr. Fenster: It's very important to not get discouraged by no's or failure. Take the failure and the criticism, and grow from it. Try to get as much as you can out of the negative, as well as the positive. To be successful, you can't give up. But that said, you can't be myopic and close-minded to feedback. 
Dr. Schiffman: Use your resources. Cornell is developing a very robust bioventure program with links to people that can help you learn about IP, patents, funding, etc. we have very limited exposure to. If you try to do things on your own, you may make crucial mistakes early on. Take advantage of the expertise at Cornell for making your business plans, developing your cap tables, and other financial necessities. They will help you grow and succeed!

Upcoming Events

Fellowships/Internships/Programs

Career Opportunities

Job Postings
Many great opportunities are available using IndieBio Talent Network. 
Also check out a variety of job posting with startups at BioLabs. 

StealthCo - Senior scientific leader in drug discovery
In search of a top-notch discovery scientist to join the founding team of a stealth biotech newco. Please reach out to jackson@hawktail.com if interested.
A group of entrepreneurs, backed by a top biotech VC---are combining deep model systems and company building experience (collectively raised >$1B)---to form a category-winning biotech focused on creating the future of translational discovery: a fully autonomous, human-centric platform that leverages novel, advanced experimental and computational techniques.
The StealthCo is seeking a senior scientific leader or rising star with demonstrated 
entrepreneurial, leadership, and technical traits to join our team as a founding team member,  responsible for our Discovery and Platform Biology. You will oversee the StealthCo’s R&D Leadership Team, establishing the StealthCo as the leader in the industry and leveraging our novel platform to develop first-in-class medicines and new modalities. You will lead the biology team towards fulfilling the broadest vision of the through state-of-the-art scientific innovation, strategy, and operations to continuously develop and expand the platform. The ideal candidate will have strong expertise in creating productive high throughput functional and biochemical screening platforms, experience in the creation of new chemical modalities, have led discovery and development of multiple drugs across a broad range of target classes, have implemented AI/ML throughout the drug discovery process, and experience partnering with biotech and pharma. The ideal candidate will have a proven track record across target identification, validation, and initiating new drug discovery programs across various disease areas.

Pheiron - Senior ML Engineer
Email join@pheiron.com directly if you think you’d be a good fit.
They use AI and clinical outcomes to connect biomedical data with disease – they are witnessing a Cambrian explosion of biomedical data, but this data is not linked to clinical outcomes, blocking the understanding of disease. They are deeply rooted in science, epidemiology, and medicine and are building a computational platform connecting deep information on disease pathology with real-world clinical outcomes at a population scale to guide drug development with actionable human-centered insights. Join them on the path into unchartered territory, building ML models that matter; you would be the first addition to the team, so lots of room to build cool things together and scale!”
Founders are in Berlin / EU, but very open to remote/hybrid for the right person. Pre-seed raise was led by Compound and Hummingbird VC with participation from a few angel investors. The founders Thore and Jakob are very commercial & GTM savvy and have scientific credibility with several papers published on the topic of deep phenotyping and personalized medicine in Nature Medicine / Lancet / et al, and already have some paid contracts. 

MantleBio - Founding Full Stack Engineer
Email info@mantlebio.com with your resume if interested
More information HERE
MantleBio's goal is to make the best data engineering technology accessible to all life science research. They have revenue, growth, funding, support from Y-Combinator, and experience in big-tech + biotech (Google, GRAIL, ArsenalBio, Zymergen, MIT, Broad Institute) -- and they are looking for an awesome engineer to join our founding team! As an early stage startup, this is an incredibly exciting time to join. 3-4 days a week in person in SF, office is on BART. Life science background is great to have but not required. They use Go; experience is nice to have but not required

KBFG Investment - Venture Capital Associate
APPLY HERE
KBFG Investment is a prominent healthcare investment firm with a steadfast commitment to providing capital support across all stages of a company's lifecycle. Our mission is to bridge the gap between scientific innovation and biomedical advancements that can significantly impact patient well-being. With a strong reputation as a long-term financial partner, with extensive scientific expertise and industry experience, we have a proven track record of nurturing world-class healthcare companies. KBFG Investment has a global presence, managing approximately $3 billion in assets, and is actively seeking a talented Healthcare Venture Capital Associate to join our team.

Nephrogen - Research Associate/Senior Research Associate, AAV Gene Therapy
Reach out to Demetri Maxim at dmaxim@nephrogenbiotech.com if interested
Nephrogen is a seed-stage biotech company developing curative gene therapies for kidney diseases. Our initial focus is on polycystic kidney disease (PKD), which affects 600,000 Americans and has no effective treatment or cure. Nephrogen was founded by Demetri Maxim, a PKD patient and scientist from Stanford University, Vivek Bhalla, and George Church. The ideal candidate will have previous hands-on experience in a wet lab setting, a strong work ethic, ability to work independently, attention to detail, and capable of juggling several different tasks and responsibilities concurrently.

Cellarity - Many job postings
APPLY HERE
As part of the Computation and Data Science department, you will be part of a ~20-person team of computational experts who collaborate with the biology, chemistry, and genomics teams throughout the company. They are generating massive amounts of data, mostly single-cell, across a number of diverse therapeutic areas. These positions run the gamut from blue-sky research projects, to applied ML modelling, to driving specific drug programs.

Atomwise - Openings
APPLY HERE
Atomwise is a technology-enabled pharmaceutical company leveraging the power of AI to revolutionize small molecule drug discovery. The Atomwise team invented the use of deep learning for structure-based drug design; this technology underpins Atomwise’s best-in-class AI discovery engine, which is differentiated by its ability to find and optimize novel chemical matter.
Atomwise has extensively validated its discovery engine, delivering success in over 185 projects to-date including a wide-variety of protein types and numerous “hard-to-drug” targets. Atomwise is building a wholly-owned pipeline of small-molecule drug candidates, with three programs in lead-optimization and over 30 programs in discovery.
The company has raised over $174 million from leading venture capital firms to advance its mission to make better medicines, faster.

LifeSci NYC
Look at opportunities HERE
The LifeSci NYC Internship Program has just launched for 2022-2023. Both academic year internships and full-time job opportunities posted. Summer internship opportunities will be posted in the next couple of months. All types of positions will continue to be posted on a rolling basis, as host companies are ready to begin their hiring process. At present, there are 64 roles listed at 38 different companies. Once a student creates an application, they may view job descriptions for all of these roles in our job portal, and may submit cover letters for those that interest them. Students who have not yet applied for our program may view all of our academic year and full-time roles at http://bit.ly/altopps, and may then submit a program application in order to apply for listed roles. Summer internships will only be shared with students who have submitted a program application, so students will need to apply in order to access those listings.

Dropoutclub Jobs
Many jobs are posted on the Dropoutclub and they release to this webpage their open positions. 

What We're Listening To (or Reading!)

Startup Cornell Podcast
Ever wonder how a young Cornell entrepreneur got their first idea? Or when they decided to just go after it? Wonder what they do first thing in the morning? Or if there’s a book they read that changed their life? Listen to Startup Cornell, the new podcast from Entrepreneurship at Cornell that explores the bold entrepreneurial ideas coming from our students, faculty, staff and young alumni.
In each segment, you’ll hear a Cornell entrepreneur tell their story of success, failure, wins and losses. They’ll also offer actionable advice for building and growing your own business.
Currently 26 episodes have been recorded: Listen Here

Shelby Newsad - investor at Compound - blog page
READ HERE
Shelby has written many interesting articles about various topics that are exciting reads!

Victoria Yampolsky - The Startup Station's Digest
READ HERE
Free resources on how to model and value startups and raise capital. Every Monday. Subscribe HERE.

Once a Scientist Podcast
The Once a Scientist podcast was launched in April 2020 by Nick Edwards, a neuroscience PhD who works at a San Diego-based biotech company. His goals for the show are simple: 1) Provide a resource for young scientists to learn about different careers; 2) Speak with scientists from a broad spectrum of backgrounds; 3) Make science cool again; 4) Have honest conversations. The latest episode is with Tari Suprapto, PhD, who is the Director of Search and Evaluation at Novo Nordisk and Board Chair at the San Diego Innovation Council. A super connector and opportunity scout, Tari talked about running toward things that drive you. Listen Here

Startup/Entrepreneurship resources in the Tri-I community: