On Thursday June 18th, BCLA hosted SpeakBio seminar, its first event in collaboration with Scismic, a job-matching platform for scientists. The event featured four mentors, who were all trained as scientists and now hold diverse positions in biotech industry. This virtual event began with introductions to BCLA and Scismic, by BCLA Vice-President, Hammond Sun and Scismic Vice-President of Business Development, Helen Vong, respectively. Each of the mentors shared their career journeys and advice for young scientists during the hour-long seminar.

Each of our four mentors have had very unique career paths. Dr. Tariq Warsi is currently the Vice President of Research & Development at Capricor Therapeutics. After completing his PhD in 2009 during the Great Recession, he accepted a postdoc position. He landed his first industry position at Aurora Algea, and then went on to Stanford, Amgen, and Capricor Therapeutics where he works now.

Dr. Aiva Ievins is a Senior Portfolio Manager at Millipore Si...

On June 6th, BCLA hosted another exciting virtual event showcasing entrepreneurs from Los Angeles.  The event entitled “Patterns in the pandemic: Entrepreneurs experiences and what you can learn from them” featured Dr. Priyanka Mathur, Founder & CEO of MediPocket, Dr. Joe Dunham, Co-Founder and CSO of SeqOne LLC, and Dr. Hilan Kaplan, Founder & CEO of Epoch Innovations, LLC. The webinar was moderated by Scott Witt, Entrepreneur-in-residence at West Coast CTIP. The panel discussed how entrepreneurs have adapted to the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. The event was a great success with more than 60 attendees, as well as  support from our long-term partner Biocom! 

Many have described COVID-19 as an accelerator for science and biotech, leading to large amounts of funding, and papers being published faster than ever. For entrepreneurs, this means identifying patterns and rapidly adapting. Dr. Mathur realized that MediPocket, an app that manages personal health for the ent...

BCLA held its 5th Healthcare Symposium focused on Cell & Gene Therapy: Past, Present and Future on May 28th 2020 via Zoom. With over 140 attendees, the event was a great success!  Our panelists included three researchers as well as two cancer survivors, now patient advocates, who have firsthand experience receiving cell therapies as part of their treatment regimen.

The event kicked off with an introduction to BCLA and a history of the healthcare symposium by Adhi Sikand, BCLA President, and short presentations by the event sponsors: ThermoFisher Scientific, Stem Cell technology, UCLA Easton Technology Management Center and GWIS Los Angeles Chapter. We would like to thank our sponsors for their continued support of our mission and for helping us deliver innovative events to our community!

The keynote speaker for the event was Melinda Bachini, a mother of six who was diagnosed with a rare bile duct cancer called Cholangiocarcinoma over a decade ago. Surgery was the only option at the time...

Now well into our 6th week working from home for many Californians, BCLA hosted a virtual networking happy hour to provide an opportunity to make new connections in this socially distanced time. Over 60 attendees joined 4 amazing panelists over Zoom on May 30th to share how their work and life has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The panelists were Llewellyn Cox, general partner at MarsBio and BCLA advisory board member, Kristen Slawinski, CEO of Biofluent Communications, Pavel Ryzhv, recent graduate and author of Biofilms News, and Nisha Sherma, business development manager for Neta Scientific.

The event began with Adhi Sikand, president of BCLA asking the panelists how their life, work and businesses have changed and how they are staying motivated and healthy during this time. All panelist agreed that while these are challenging times which require flexibility and adaptation, it is also a time for new opportunities. Llewellyn Cox shared how MarsBio, a biotech venture firm, has...

On April 17th, 2020, BCLA hosted another successful webinar on the topic “Adapting your job search to the COVID-19 pandemic”. We were thrilled to bring Lauren Celano, Founder and CEO of Propel Careers, to support our bioscience community. Lauren suggested that job seekers adapt their job search to the continuously evolving job market. With more than 30% of jobs filled through LinkedIn, Lauren focused on this platform.

First and foremost, crafting an impressionable online presence and showcasing your experience, skills, and interests are the key! According to Lauren, this empowers the recruiter to make a confident decision about you as a prospective hire. She highlighted that you can make your profile stand out by effectively conveying your passion.  LinkedIn is also helpful for conducting effective informational interviews. Lauren recommended very helpful tips for virtual interviews such as informing your household to avoid interruption. Finally, Lauren recommended using this time to ge...