Alexandra Elata

Working with biologics companies in the Immune & Inflammation and Metabolic spaces bring assets to market. Working closely with R&D teams, CMC, and Nonclinical/Translational teams to bring assets from lead stage through nonclinical and toxicology studies, CMC manufacturing and into the clinic. Gaining experience with cross-functional team building regulatory packages to enable these biologics to reach the clinic. Also working with BD team to refine timelines and budgets for identified assets and what would be required to advance these assets into clinic.

Worked with Immune Therapeutics Discovery and Biotherapeutics discovery teams to develop project plans, execute contracts, and enable scientific leadership team to execute on discovery work. Created dashboards and monthly reporting, held a few long range planning exercises, organized team offsites and scientific advisory meetings. Worked with finance to create budgets that were revised quarterly.

Managing IT projects to bring in new software across the organization and improve internal processes including procurement and onboarding/offboarding. Developing new skillset around vendor selection, contract negotiation and management. Key subject matter expert in project management software and key role in Diversity and Inclusion council initiatives and guiding portfolio management tool use.

Responsible for managing multiple projects from product concept to commercialization. Collaborated with colleagues from science through breeding through commercial/sales to build Stage Gate commercialization process. Helped define milestones and organize timelines into new project management software and G Suite tools. Led onboarding of new project management software at Inari in 2020 and helped consultant customize setup for groups ranging from Science platform to Product portfolio to investor relations.

Track projects spanning the science organization and present monthly updates to the science leadership team. Work with science leadership team to manage science portfolio through portfolio management concepts including risk management. Participated in coordination of project management training for project leads, and introduced new tools for project leads and for onboarding new hires.

Competitive 12-week summer program to actively participate in Flagship VentureLabs’ process for company conception, innovation and entrepreneurship. I participated in the exploration phase of new company formation and worked with current partners and associates at Flagship.

Thesis project investigating role of nonsense-mediated RNA decay (NMD) in protection from arsenic toxicity. Utilized techniques including qPCR, RNA-seq analysis, western blotting, FACS, dissection of embryonic mouse cortical cells, maintenance of pluripotent stem cells, and differentiation of stem cells, neural precursor cells, and P19 cells. Graduation date is set for March 2018. Working on first author publication about arsenic's effect on gene expression in neural cells. Published first author review, and third author paper.

Investigated whether Sonic Hedgehog(Shh) could activate Wnt-planar cell polarity (PCP) genes in mouse spinal cord to direct axon guidance. Learned to dissect embryonic mouse spinal cords, learned western blotting and immunohistochemistry, and learned basic mouse husbandry. Ultimately changed labs because of incompatibilities both with project and with lab environment.

Investigated spatial memory in awake, behaving rats. Participated in study on an Alzheimer’s disease rat model under a former graduate student in the lab, and used this research as the basis for a senior honors thesis. I also helped to establish a new immunohistochemical staining protocol for the laboratory, and participated in the Amgen Scholars summer program in summer 2010.

Circadian rhythms in Neurospora crassa. Brody S, Oelhafen K, Schneider K, Perrino S, Goetz A, Wang C, English C. Circadian rhythms in Neurospora crassa: Downstream effectors. Fungal Genet Biol. 2010 Feb;47(2):159-68.