An-Jou (Angela) Chen

Ph.D. candidate (2005 - Present)
Harvard Medical School
angela@thebiotechclub.org

Angela is currently a Ph.D. student at Harvard Medical School in Genetics/Medical Oncology. Her dissertation work at Dr. Ron Depinho's lab focuses on dissecting the biology of glioblastoma through mouse modeling and gene discovery. Angela is interested in accelerating translational research and facilitating drug discovery from bench to beside. She joined the Harvard Biotechnology Club to explore how basic research can be developed into a business venture through entrepreneurship in the biopharmaceutical industry, specifically in the areas of oncology, neurodegeneration, and personalized medicine. Angela is an international student from Taiwan and plans to return to Asia in the future to help raise the competitiveness of life-sciences industry in Asia. She graduated cum laude from Stanford University in 2005 with a major in Human Biology.

Shaila Rahman

Ph.D. candidate (2006 - Present)
Harvard Medical School
shaila@thebiotechclub.org

Shaila is a graduate student in the Virology Program at Harvard Medical School. Her doctoral research in the laboratory of Peter Howley focuses on understanding how host cell-virus interactions regulate HPV mediated carcinogenesis. Shaila joined the leadership of the biotechnology club to explore ways to transform scientific advances in the laboratory into novel anti-viral therapeutics and diagnostic technologies. She hopes to be involved in the intellectual property aspect of commercializing biological discoveries. Shaila graduated cum laude from Colgate University in 2004 with Honors in Molecular Biology. Prior to graduate school, she worked at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in the field of HIV pathogenesis employing biophysical methods such as X-ray crystallography. Her work has been published in Nature Structural Biology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), and Journal of Virology.

Piya Sircar

Ph.D. candidate (2006 - Present)
Harvard Medical School
piya@thebiotechclub.org

Piya is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in immunology at Harvard Medical School. She is carrying out her doctoral research in Dr. Norman Letvin's laboratory focusing on HIV vaccine development. The goal of her research project is to generate a functional mucosal immune response to HIV which is an essential feature of an effective HIV vaccine. With her involvement in the Harvard Biotech Club, she hopes to understand how successful business strategies can transform basic science discoveries into marketable therapies. In the future, she plans to be involved in entrepreneurial efforts related to the formulation of cost-effective healthcare products for developing countries. She graduated magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College in 2006 majoring in biochemistry with a minor in economics.

GSAS Harvard Biotechnology Club
Box 257
423 Brookline Ave.
Boston, MA 02215