International Women’s Day 2022: an interview with Nabiha Saklayen and Marinna Madrid
As part of our International Women’s Day feature, we talk to Nabiha Saklayen (NS) and Marinna Madrid (MM), co-founders of Cellino (MA, USA), a venture capital-backed biotech combining artificial intelligence and laser technology to automate cell therapy manufacturing. With an unexpected journey to entrepreneurship, the two former Harvard lab partners are pioneering a rapidly expanding team with huge funding success in a complex and constantly evolving industry.
In this interview, Nabiha and Marinna give us an insight into a day in their lives, touching on the busy nature of the industry, work-life balance and the female scientists that inspired them to be the women they are today.
What time does your alarm go off?
NS: I am a light sleeper. I tend to wake up naturally at around 5:00am and get my day started. I read the news, take my dog for a walk, work out and have breakfast before starting my day at around 8:00am.
MM: I tend to wake up at around 6:00am, have breakfast, get some movement in, such as weightlifting or jogging or yoga, and take my dog out before starting work.
What is your typical day?
NS: My typical day involves lots and lots of meetings, from 8:00am until 8:00pm on some days. I meet with my team, our partners, our board members and potential candidates for jobs at Cellino. Nowadays most of my meetings happen on Zoom, so my days are more packed than ever. I constantly find myself making many important decisions in a short amount of time, and I do my best to stay focused and have the right information in front of me as I make those decisions.
MM: It varies so much from day to day. Product management is very much at the interface between the internal and external facing worlds, so I often have several meetings. Some are with key technical leads at our company to make sure our product development is on the right track. Others are with key opinion leaders or experts in the industry, to learn from them and make sure that the product-related decisions I’m making are in alignment with the needs of the industry we’re serving. My meetings are also typically via Zoom, although occasionally I’ll meet with members of my team in person. The days I enjoy most are the days when I have time to catch up on literature reviews, which are important to staying up-to-date on the most recent science.
What is the best part of your job?
NS: Is seeing the external and internal excitement around our mission to democratize cell therapies and seeing my team build an out-of-this-world platform to scale manufacturing.
MM: Learning new things – especially in the field we’re in, the landscape and the science are constantly evolving.
What is the worst part of your job?
NS: Never having enough time to spend with my growing team. When we started the company I was able to spend more time with our scientists and engineers, but as the company is growing, I have less and less time to do so. We try to have more social events and game nights so I can spend time with these amazing humans who make our company possible.
MM: Limited time and team bandwidth. We’re all curious scientists and would love to be able to pursue every interesting idea that we come across, but as a company we need to prioritize our time and resources.
How do you unwind after work?
NS: I like to play with my dog and spend time with my family.
MM: I spend time with my friends, my partner or my dog. I’ve started to appreciate cooking as well.
How did you get into this industry?
NS: I invented the original laser-based technologies that inspired Cellino’s platform – that was my unexpected journey into entrepreneurship.
MM: I co-invented the original laser-based technology with Nabiha. Neither of us ever anticipated becoming entrepreneurs – our career path really started with developing the technology and realizing that it could have an important impact on biology and medicine.
Is there a female scientist who inspired you?
NS: Marie Curie is a historical scientist I looked up to a lot as a middle schooler. My current inspiration is Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna!
MM: I had a physics professor at UCLA, Dr. Dolores Bozovic, who I always found super impressive – she was brilliant and had a great sense of humor. I love that combination!
We continue the conversation with Nabiha and Marinna in our partner journal Regenerative Medicine.
“It’s worth mentioning that Marinna and I never had any intentions of becoming entrepreneurs, but our story is an example of deep and tough technologies emerging in the most unexpected places.” – Nabiha Saklayen, CEO and Co-Founder of Cellino.
Read more about their journey to entrepreneurship, which has seen them secure US$80 million in Series A financing and drive innovation and AI in the cell and gene therapy industry.
Find the full interview here on Regenerative Medicine: Making personalized, autologous cell therapies accessible: interview with Nabiha Saklayen and Marinna Madrid of Cellino Biotech Inc.