01.09.26 -- New Podcast Episodes: 2025 Retrospective Of Life Science Industry, Engineering B Cells, Turning Tumor Microenvironment Against Cancer

Check out the latest episodes from Better Biopharma, Cell & Gene: The Podcast, and Business of Biotech. As a member of the Life Science Connect community, you have access to content beyond our weekly newsletters, including our podcast series.

In this episode of “Better Biopharma,” host Tyler Menichiello is joined by Tinglong Dai, Ph.D., Bernard T. Ferrari Professor of Business at Johns Hopkins University, and Tugce Martagan, Ph.D., associate professor at Northeastern University, to talk about the potential advancements that can be made in biomanufacturing by combining AI with operations research (OR).

In this special edition of “Better Biopharma,” host Tyler Menichiello is joined by fellow chief editors from across the Life Science Connect ecosystem to reflect on the year and share their industry outlooks for 2026. 

Sean Ainsworth, CEO and Chairman at Immusoft, talks about transitioning from the research bench to entrepreneurship, his M&A experiences as a biotech founder, and why engineered B cell therapies offer a better, more patient-friendly administration for lysosomal storage diseases currently treated with enzyme replacement therapies.

On this week's episode, Bruce Culleton, M.D., CEO at ProKidney, talks about moving from academic research to industry and the role a key mentor played in his career path.

Jennifer Sheller, SVP and Head of Global Clinical Trial Operations at Merck talks about simplifying trial protocols and what she likes about Merck's hybrid functional service provider model for conducting trials in over 60 countries. 

Nick Manusos, CEO at Kenai Therapeutics, talks about his experiences building cell therapy spinouts from FujiFilm Cellular Dynamics, learning from big pharma decision-making processes, and dosing the first patient with Kenai's allogeneic neuron replacement cell therapy for Parkinson's disease.

Host Erin Harris talks to Alexander Cryer, Ph.D., Instructor in Medicine at Mass General Brigham, about a proof-of-concept strategy that reprograms tumor cells with mRNA lipid nanoparticles to overactivate the cGAS-STING pathway, forcing cancer cells to produce and export large amounts of the innate immune agonist cGAMP to stimulate surrounding immune cells and drive anti-tumor immunity.

In this episode, Host Erin Harris talks to Dr. Norman Putzki, Global Head Clinical Development, Novartis, about the FDA approval of Itvisma, now the only gene replacement therapy approved for children, adolescents, and adults with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).