Have you considered starting your own company? After years of research experience, you may want to transform your ideas and passion into life-changing innovations and transformative therapeutics. Join AWIS-Boston for meeting Dr. Minmin Yen (CEO & Co-Founder at PhagePro) and Dr. Dominique Verhelle (Co-founder, President, and CEO at NextRNA Therapeutics). Hear about how they launched their own businesses, what inspired them to develop the scientific concepts, and the obstacles they had to overcome as women scientists.

Panelist bios

Minmin Yen, Ph.D., MPH (she/her)

Dr. Yen is passionate about using innovative solutions to reduce global health inequities. As the CEO and co-founder of the early-stage biotech startup PhagePro, she is dedicated to reducing antimicrobial resistance in resource-limited settings, with a focus on cholera. She strives to center the voices of the most marginalized in both biotech and global health communities.  For her work with PhagePro, Dr. Yen has been
awarded multiple honors and fellowships including MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35, Boston Business Journal Women Who Mean Business Award, and the Henri Termeer Legacy Program. She has also co-founded the volunteer-based community Scientists In Solidarity, a group dedicated to supporting early-stage BIPOC professionals in the life sciences.

Dominique Verhelle, PhD, MBA (she/her)

Dominique Verhelle, PhD, MBA, is Co-Founder, CEO, and CSO of NextRNA Therapeutics. Dominique was formerly the Senior Director, Head of Academic Innovation, CEI at Takeda, where she was responsible for initiating and developing research alliances with Academic Institutes and accelerated innovation by building partnerships with investigators. Before her Takeda appointment, Dominique was a Principal at Third Rock Ventures, where she helped launch several successful pharmaceutical companies.
Dominique has more than 20 years of R&D experience, principally in oncology, and was a Director Epigenetics at Pfizer in the Oncology Research Unit. She holds a PhD in Life Sciences from the University of Nice-Sophia-Antipolis, France, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from the Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego. NextRNA Therapeutics is a biotechnology company unlocking the potential of non-coding RNAs to develop novel and transformative therapeutics for multiple diseases. The company is leveraging its
proprietary technology platform to identify non-coding RNAs and their interacting proteins responsible
for disease, and to develop small molecules to disrupt these interactions.