From Science To CEO: Advice For First-Time Founders

By Kevin Parker

As many academic researchers can attest, a life in the lab is noble, interesting, and important; but for some, it also can become unfulfilling if the insights we work so hard to uncover don’t translate into the “real” world in ways that actually help people. At least it was for me. That’s why I decided to leave academia after completing graduate research at Stanford University intent on creating a business that would both advance science and also successfully bring those advances to patients in need of new and better medicines.