Healthcare Leadership Series: A Panel Discussion with Four Founders
Tatyana Dobreva, CEO/Co-Founder- ImYoo; Ashley Zehnder, co-founder/CEO of Fauna Bio; Dr. Xiaoxi Wei, founder of X-Therma Inc.
At this event, the four female founders will discuss their entrepreneurial journey, their challenges, and how they succeeded despite all odds.
Panelists:
Tatyana Dobreva
Tatyana Dobreva (CEO/Co-Founder) has started ImYoo as part of her PhD work at Caltech. Prior to that, she was an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Tatyana has worked at NASA on small satellites that went to Mars and robots that navigate through challenging environments. Tatyana went back to graduate school to study medical engineering to enable research that brings control to patients to track and understand their biology. She published in the fields of neuroprosthesis, worked on engineering delivery vehicles for gene therapy, and developed single-cell sequencing tools for immune response monitoring. Tatyana is a strong proponent of citizen science and believes that bridging research tools and patient-led research will enable the full realization of personalized medicine.
Ashley Zehnder
Ashley Zehnder is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fauna Bio. Ashley has been recognized for her work by the SF Business Times Women Who Lead in Life Sciences, an Emerging Woman Founder in Bio by the Wave Summit, as well as representing Fauna Bio for the Fortune AI Minute. She has spoken at numerous events promoting the use of AI and novel genomics in drug discovery and mentors early stage founders through her work with On Deck Longevity Biotech and Nucleate Bio. She is a boarded avian veterinarian and her prior research focused on translational science, earning a PhD in Cancer Biology from Stanford. Her research works span >20 peer-reviewed publications, including Cell, Nature and Nature Medicine.
Xiaoxi Wei, Ph.D.
Dr. Xiaoxi Wei is an award-winning American entrepreneur and inventor renowned for her groundbreaking work in biomimetic nanoscience and biopreservation. Driven by a vision to enable "on-demand" organs, tissues, and cell products, she completed her Ph.D. in Biomimetic Chemistry at SUNY Buffalo, where she successfully managed $8 million in engineering projects.
In 2014, Dr. Wei founded X-Therma Inc., a venture-backed biotech company in the San Francisco Bay Area, to translate laboratory innovations into patient care for accessing on-demand regenerative medicines. Her pioneering inventions have led to over 20 issued global patents in biomimetic materials and devices for subzero, ice-preventing preservation, earning an FDA Breakthrough Device designation in human kidney transplantation in 2022.
Dr. Wei has served as Principal Investigator (PI) or co-PI on 12 national and international innovation research grants, securing over $14 million from prestigious organizations such as the DoD, NSF, NIH, CIRM, and the EU. She is a healthcare advisor for the UC Regents working group on innovation transfer and entrepreneurship, a scientific advisor for the Life Extension Foundation, and has held leadership roles within the American Chemical Society (ACS), including Vice Chair of the Younger Chemists Committee and member of the Cal ACS Executive Committee. Currently, she is a distinguished member of the RULEBREAKER Society in Germany.
Moderator:
Niki Santo
Niki is the CEO and co-founder of Swaza, nanotechnology oxygen therapeutics company whose first product is a breathing aid designed to treat low blood oxygen in emergencies. Trained at Harvard, MIT, and Cambridge, her career spans over 20 years in executive leadership across academia, business, and deep tech. She serves on the boards of Resource Global and the Harvard Club of Silicon Valley and is a mentor-advisor to emerging entrepreneurs.
April 23, 2025
5:30 - 7:30pm PT
TPG
345 California Street
San Francisco, CA 94104
HCSF Members: $25
Non Members: $35 Not a member? Register here for membership!
The event is organized in collaboration with Female Founders Edge.
Click here to register
Registration deadline: April 21, 2025
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If you are showing COVID-19 or Flu symptoms, please stay home. This is critical to the health and safety of our staff and communities.
Organizer:
Anupam Agarwal, MPH ‘05
anupam_agarwal@post.harvard.edu