New Haven, CT. July 1, 2020 - The Blavatnik Fellowship at Yale, made possible by a generous grant from the Blavatnik Family Foundation, is designed to identify promising scientists and businesspeople with a passion for biomedical entrepreneurship, to provide a hands-on experience for building their entrepreneurial skills, while simultaneously providing mentorship and professional development responsibilities. The fellowship engages four highly talented young professionals in new venture concepts being advanced across the life science spectrum at Yale University, working alongside a wide range of world-renowned scientists, investors, entrepreneurs, and other domain experts. This is a one-year fellowship.

This year’s candidates were selected from a large group of applicants after a rigorous interview process. They will work within Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research, and report to James G. Boyle, Ph.D., Executive Director, Faculty Entrepreneurship & Venture Development.

“We are excited to welcome this year’s Blavatnik Fellows. Although they will be working remotely like the rest of the OCR team, we will ensure their experience is robust and productive. Each Fellow was selected because of their dedication to the pursuit of entrepreneurship, and I am sure each of their unique and impressive backgrounds will be an asset to OCR and Yale faculty in general.” said Boyle.

This year’s Blavatnik Fellow are:

• Akansha Bhargava is a physician turned entrepreneur with experience in pharmaceutical development, biosecurity research, and healthcare quality improvement.  Akansha served as a medical director for a biotech company in the San Francisco Bay Area, Soleno Therapeutics where she provided strategic medical leadership for a rare disease clinical development program for patients with Prader-Willi Syndrome. She also gained meaningful experience at a preclinical biopharmaceutical startup, Switch Therapeutics, developing a novel cell specific siRNA therapy. Akansha is passionate about solving complex problems across multidisciplinary fields.  She has led policy research initiatives in the field of biosecurity including the completion of a series of case studies in Agricultural Biosecurity.  She has successfully implemented quality improvement projects in an in-patient setting to improve resource utilization and patient safety. She earned her BS in Genetics and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, her Masters from Johns Hopkins University in Biotechnology with a concentration in Biodefense and obtained her medical degree from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.  Outside of work, Akansha enjoys exploring the Northern California hiking trails, writing, glassworking and Ikebana.   
• Philip Kong joins the 2020 Blavatnik Fellowship cohort as an entrepreneur and a scientist. Philip is an expert in immunology and nanotechnology by training, and he developed a novel nanotechnology platform specifically designed to deliver active pharmaceutical drugs to target cells in an optimal sequence. As the chief inventor of the technology, he became the co-founder and the Chief Scientific Officer of Statera Therapeutics, a platform biotech spun out of Yale University focusing on treatment of autoimmune diseases, allergies, and cancer. In Statera Therapeutics, Philip oversees the pre-clinical development of nanotechnology and expands collaboration with leading academic faculties and CROs. Under Philip and the Statera management team, Statera has won several awards, including first place in NYU vs. Yale pitchoff competition and Connecticut Innovations Biopipeline program. Statera also secured significant financial support from the family office. In addition to entrepreneurship, Philip is a leading authority in immunology, publishing several papers in distinguished journals, such as Science, Cell Host & Microbes, and Journal of Clinical Investigation. His scientific excellence is also recognized by awards such as Fulbright scholarship, Amgen scholarship, and Intel STS. Philip also brings years of buy-side experience in a biotech hedge fund, consulting on publicly traded biotech companies. He received his B.S. in biology from California Institute of Technology, and PhD in immunobiology from Yale University.
• Colin Ng was previously the VP of Consumable and Process Development at IsoPlexis where he developed and launched a novel characterization technology that uncovered unique biological insights in cancer immunology, infectious disease and inflammation. He has expertise in developing assays in characterizing immune cell functionality and signal transduction. His department developed and patented new surface chemistries and applications in single-cell proteomics, metabolomics and transcriptomics that powered research over 50 academic and pharmaceutical institutions across the globe. Colin and his team investigated single cell functionality in a wide variety of applications including CAR-T, TCR-T, gene editing, bispecific antibodies, combination and checkpoint inhibitor therapies that led to publications and presentations in over 30 leading journals and conferences.”
• Timothy Siegert received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Tufts University in 2016, working under Dr. Joshua Kritzer. His work focused on computational identification of protein segments that mediate therapeutically relevant protein-protein interactions and subsequent design of macrocyclic peptide inhibitors for use as chemical probes. Upon completing his doctoral studies, Tim transitioned to Ra Pharmaceuticals in a research scientist role. Here, he gained experience leading a variety of early stage discovery projects in the field of peptides, small molecules and biologics. In 2018, he joined Yale as a member of the inaugural Blavatnik Fellowship class. While a Blavatnik Fellow, he assisted in the creation of multiple spinout companies from the university as well as assisting faculty in receiving funding from the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation for further startup incubation. Upon completion of his first Blavatnik Fellowship term, he was named Director of Business Development and Director of Preclinical at Allyx Therapeutics.