About this site (and me):
Hi & welcome!
Recently, a good friend of mine, who’s a full time career coach, suggested I create this website as one centralized place to link my writing, research, and other relevant internet-located hyperlinks. (At first, I put them on Google Docs, but the same friend advised that it looked a little too… not visually appealing… to serve the purpose I hoped it would, so this website was my second choice. Clearly, I am lucky to have this friend. ) I took her advice and this website is the result.
My hope is that it will be a starting point to connect with others with similar interests. I love meeting and learning from new people, so please reach out if you would like to chat! (wisner.stephanie.a@gmail.com)
A little about myself – I love all things science and entrepreneurship, and particularly when the two are able to be combined. My hope is to use my career to help bring new medicines to the patients who need them through biotech entrepreneurship. I also enjoy writing and reading (usually multiple books, in parallel, somehow adding more to the stack on my nightstand faster than I can finish them).
I currently serve as Chief Business Officer at Centivax (My bio here), which I co-founded in 2020. Before that, I founded BioVenture Advising LLC, which was a biotech consulting business I ran for several years. I also am a science writer (writing at the interface of science and business) with my first book that came out in March 2022 (Building Backwards to Biotech), which was #1 new release on Amazon in the category of biotechnology.
Book: Building Backwards to Biotech: The Power of Entrepreneurship to Drive Cutting-Edge Science to Market
My first book, Building Backwards to Biotech, was #1 new release on Amazon in the category of biotechnology. It sold ~1000 copies in its first 5 months of release with minimal marketing, in 13 countries.
- The book is currently taught as part of entrepreneurial programming in multiple institutions, including Dartmouth, Cornell, UMBC, and others.
- I have been an invited speaker at University of Chicago (PhD Department, The Deep Tech Accelerator Conference, the MD/PhD student curriculum seminar, Booth School of Business in multiple entrepreneurship and life sciences courses, including Lab to Launch, New Venture Strategy), Cornell University (Entrepreneurship for Scientists and Engineers, Entrepreneurship for Chemistry Majors, STEM Women in Entrepreneurship, Society of Women Engineers, amongst others), University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and others.
- Executive Women in Bio session I taught called “The Business of Science– Building Strong Scientific Biotech Companies.”
- Cornell lecture I gave for Entrepreneurship for Scientists and Engineers
- An interview I gave about the book to Witches Magazine here (pg 38)
Forbes 30 Under 30 2022, Healthcare
Other Writing/Publications
Scientific Publications
- Nature Communications, “GOT1 inhibition promotes pancreatic cancer cell death by ferroptosis”
- Elife, “SIRT2 and lysine fatty acylation regulate the transforming activity of K-Ras4a”, second authorship.
- Upcoming (Currently available as a pre-publication), “Hyaluronic Acid Fuels Pancreatic Cancer Growth”
Freelance/Science & Business Writing
- Visualizing the Future: Spatialomics Transforms Study of Gene Expression – SynBioBeta
- Q1 Shatters Previous Synthetic Biology Investment Record – Signals Projected 2021 Investment of up to $36B – SynBioBeta (covers biotech investment trends in Q1 2021)
- My article on financing in synthetic biology was cited in the New York Times – Biology Starts to Get a Technological Makeover
- Synthetic Biology Investment Reached a New Record of Nearly $8 Billion in 2020 — What Does This Mean for 2021? – SynBioBeta (covers private and public market financing trends in biotech in 2020)
- Patients Praise Price Transparency, Though Few Use It – The Heartland Institute
- Patients Slowly Gain Access to Bacteria-Fighting Phage Therapy – The Heartland Institute
- I served as Editor-in-Chief of Cornell’s Science and Society publication, The Triple Helix – this is one of my articles – A Mind Under Attack: The Emerging Connection Between Inflammation and Psychiatric Illness
Media
Read more >> (see Page 38)
Listen here >>
Biotech Entrepreneurship
(Please note this is a sample of recent projects that have a public hyperlink associated with them)
- My bio for the company I co-founded in 2020, Centivax
- Press release for Centivax’s launch that I authored
- The Chicago Women in Bio panel I moderated, “A Toolkit for Female Entrepreneurs”
- Centivax received $1.46M in financing from the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium (part of Department of Defense) as well as Prototype of the Year Award (I co-authored the grant and oversaw the financing of the project)
- The press release I authored for Centivax, announcing our clinical trial collaboration with the U.S. Navy and the $4.2M in non-dilutive capital we received
- The press release I authored announcing Centivax’s licensing agreement with Thermo Fisher, where Thermo Fisher licensed some of our anti-COVID-19 antibodies for diagnostic use
- Centivax was profiled in Forbes, here
- Seurat Therapeutics was a finalist in the New Venture Challenge incubator (previous finalists included Simple Mills, Grubhub, and Braintree)
- I also serve as a mentor for Nucleate and Cornell NYC’s Bioentrepreneurship ELab
Stephanie Wisner 