In this episode of The Chain, Brandon DeKosky, Associate Professor at MIT, speaks with Adrian Bot, Founding Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of R&D at Capstan Therapeutics, about his experiences in leadership roles, his scientific journey, and how he started work on immunotherapy for cancer. Bot also shares what it's like to be a “serial scientific entrepreneur” and the importance of networking to assemble a team that shares mutual interests, as well as how to motivate young scientists and researchers coming into the biotech industry. Finally, he discusses why he finds flat organizational structures with smaller teams more effective and what he does to maintain innovation.

GUEST BIO

Adrian Bot, Founding Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of R&D, Capstan Therapeutics 
Adrian Bot, M.D., Ph.D., is Capstan’s founding Chief Scientific Officer, leading the research and development activities. Adrian has 25 years of experience in biopharmaceutical industry, was formerly the first Chief Scientific Officer of Kite Pharma and more recently, Global Head and Vice President of Translational Medicine and Santa Monica Research Site Head at Kite, a Gilead Company.

MODERATOR BIO

Brandon DeKosky, Associate Professor, MIT 
Brandon J. DeKosky joined the Department of Chemical Engineering as an assistant professor in a newly introduced joint faculty position between the department and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard in September 2021. He received his BS in chemical engineering from University of Kansas, and his PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. He then did postdoctoral research at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases. In 2017, Brandon launched his independent academic career as an assistant professor at the University of Kansas in a joint position with the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. He was also a member of the bioengineering graduate program. His research program focuses on developing and applying a suite of new high-throughput experimental and computational platforms for molecular analysis of adaptive immune responses, and to accelerate precision drug discovery. He has received several notable recognitions, which include receipt of the NIH K99 Path to Independence and NIH DP5 Early Independence Award, the Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Rising Star Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the Career Development Award from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program’s Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program.