Farnaz Bakhshi is the Tufts Launchpad | Biolabs (TLB) Liaison, Tufts Launchpad | Accelerator (TLA) Manager, and an Assistant Director in the office of Technology Transfer. Farnaz represents Tufts University at interfacing with Biolabs in the management of the TLB in addition to managing the TLA program. Prior to joining Tufts, Farnaz worked in licensing, start-up formation, and patenting roles at Partners HealthCare, Caltech and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to these roles, Farnaz helped form and worked at a start-up company investigating cures for neurological disorders, Brain Chemistry Labs. Farnaz holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology.

Anita Ballesteros joined the Business Development team at Intellia Therapeutics in July 2018, where she works closely with the leadership team, the program leaders, and in-house scientists to proactively facilitate academic collaborations, as well as identify new external opportunities for enhancing Intellia’s scientific initiatives. Prior to joining Intellia, Anita spent a dozen years in technology transfer, at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and at UMass Medical School, where she worked on all types of agreements, including complex master agreements with industry, start-up licensing, and shaping collaborations involving the use of patient samples, as well as overseeing and managing intellectual property portfolios. Before joining the tech transfer community, Anita spent five years as a scientific editor at Cancer Cell at Cell Press. She holds a PhD in Molecular Oncology from NYU and a BS in Chemistry from SUNY College at Purchase.

A scientist by training, Jennifer’s career has focused on realizing the value and impact of scientific advances. She has worked in private, public, and nonprofit sectors to drive innovations across all life science sectors. In her current role at the MLSC, she develops and executes the state’s investment strategy for strengthening the life sciences industry and ecosystem in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This includes direct investments in early stage companies, R&D infrastructure, and partnerships between companies and research institutions. Prior to joining the MLSC, Jennifer was a strategy consultant for the industry advising on a variety of matters including R&D prioritization, partnering and M&A opportunities, life cycle management, and liquidity planning for venture-backed companies. She began her career in technology licensing at MIT’s Technology Licensing Office where she worked alongside faculty, researchers, investors, and entrepreneurs to commercialize early-stage life science technologies. Jennifer is a proud Massachusetts native having received degrees from both UMass Amherst (BS, Microbiology) and UMass Medical School (Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences).

Brian Mullen is an entrepreneur, design engineer, and researcher with a passion for designing innovative medical products and assistive technologies. Brian holds a B.S.M.E., M.S.M.E and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. Brian’s background covers many disciplines, from clinical research exploring the safety and effectiveness of treatments for people with mental illness to human centered design, universal design, design for commercial viability, and teaching new product development. Brian’s work has led to clinical publications, awards, and presentations in multiple fields as well as pending patents. Brian is currently an Innovation Strategy Manager at the Brigham Digital Innovation Hub. He leads the effort to support internal innovation and move ideas to commercial viability. Previous to joining iHub Brian founded an early stage medical device company, Therapeutic Systems. The mission of the company was to help people across the life spans who are struggling with brain disorders such as autism, ADHD, PTSD and anxiety-based disorders by providing evidence based and insurance reimbursable medical technologies.

Imran is an intrapreneur driving external innovation with entrepreneurs. He possesses 25 years of business development & licensing, strategy, economic development, and technology transfer experience. Currently, Imran is Vice President and Head of Collaborate to Cure Hub-US within Business Development & Licensing at Bayer Pharmaceuticals; he is responsible for forging new business relationships with academia, biotech and venture capital for early & late stage access to technologies and assets. Prior to Bayer, Imran worked for Boehringer Ingelheim in BD&L leading scouting and evaluation primarily in Boston & San Diego. Imran received Boehringer Ingelheim’s distinguished President’s Award within two years of joining BI. Imran possesses extensive experience covering strategy, business development, alliance management, partnering and licensing in diagnostics, personalized medicine, therapeutics, and technology platforms. He holds a proven track record at other blue-chip organizations like Genzyme Genetics (now LabCorp), Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Takeda), Dana Farber Cancer Center and Mayo Clinic. In the diversity of his experiences, Imran was also the Chief Business Officer for Massbio, where he led the successful turn-around of Massbio, making it the most successful biotechnology state trade-association in the country; at Massbio, he launched several ground breaking mentoring and partnering programs that were later adopted by other state trade associations. Imran is passionate about ecosystem development and new company creation; towards that, he founded many innovative programs centered on life-science mentoring and partnering starting at Massbio, followed by Boehringer Ingelheim and now at Bayer. Through his various programs, Imran has coached over 300 early-stage companies over the past decade.

Vinit Nijhawan is a strategic visionary who has conceived and built several technology organizations that have been acquired by companies such as Boeing, Motorola and Qualcomm. He is an admired leader and mentor who has built or inherited and then effectively managed several high-performance teams. He has worked in many industries: computing, aerospace, logistics, supply chain, manufacturing, telecommunications, medical devices, biopharma, synthetic biology, advanced materials, etc. Vinit is an empathetic and collaborative team member and stays connected with all his past supervisors, mentors and many of his former employees and students. In 2008, Vinit intentionally pivoted his career from technology entrepreneur and CEO, to helping other entrepreneurs with a special focus on academia. He began teaching Entrepreneurship at Boston University and subsequently led the Office of Technology Development from 2010-2016 (he published a peer reviewed paper on that experience: Maximize Collisions, Minimize Friction). In this role, Vinit participated in several BU committees and organizations, such as the BUildLab, Faculty Innovation Network, Conflict of Interest Committee, Coulter Translational Program, Fraunhofer Grants, CTSI and on the board of the National Academy of Inventors. Additionally, he has represented BU on several boards and business plan/grant review panels. Subsequently, Vinit took the OTD experience and launched a national academic IP monetization program with 40 institutions engaged, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. He launched Waterloo Alumni Angels at his alma mater. Most recently, Vinit is the Managing Director of MassVentures. Steeped in respect for diversity and with a deep passion for exploration and adventure, Vinit is strong in his commitment to family, friends and colleagues.