Rabia Khan - Serna Bio: Unraveling the Genetics of AI-Driven Drug Discovery (Part 1/4)

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Intro - 00:00:49: Welcome to The Biotech Startups Podcast by Excedr. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and experienced investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup, from pre-seed to IPO, with your host, Jon Chee. 

Jon - 00:01:11: My guest today is Rabia Khan, founder and CEO of Serna Bio. Serna Bio is an AI-enabled drug discovery company developing small molecules that modulate translation and splicing for validated, challenging-to-drug targets to treat diseases with high unmet medical need. Serna Bio operates at the convergence of synthetic biology, machine learning, and massively multiplex screening to tackle the fundamental challenges of drugging the transcripto. Using a combination of in vitro assays and ML tools, Serna Bio has developed a unique understanding of RNA architecture, defining drugable functional RNA motifs by mapping structure, function, and context transcripts worldwide. They've also established the world's largest database of functional RNA structures and unique function-first chemical libraries, powering both internal programs and external collaborations. As for Rabia, she received her PhD in human genetics from McGill and her MBA from Concordia. Before founding Serna Bio, she was VP of commercial partnerships at Meta, Associate Director of Strategy and Planning at BenevolentAI, and Managing Director of Discovery science at Sensyne Health, where she established the scientific strategy, built the data science and discovery teams, and spearheaded pharma partnerships with Bayer, BMS, Roche, and Alexion. With deep expertise at the intersection of data science and drug discovery, Rabia offers invaluable insights listeners won't want to miss. Over the next four episodes, Rabia reflects on her unconventional path from academic science to biotech founder. The cultural shifts needed to integrate biology and engineering, and why questioning the status quo led her to launch Serna Bio. She also shares her experience scaling teams quickly, building platform and program functions in unison, and why she's committed to building a cash flow generating biotech company, not just one built for acquisition. Today, we're diving into Rabia's upbringing in Pakistan and the formative experiences that shaped her early curiosity about healthcare and human biology. She shares how her aunt's battle with schizophrenia left a lasting impact, why the sequencing of the human genome caught her attention as a teenager, and how a no-nonsense household laid the groundwork for her future in science. We'll also explore how she navigated life as an international student at McGill, her dual interest in biology and economics, and the moment she realized that discovering a single gene could change the course of a disease. Without further ado, let's dive into this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast. Rabia, so good to see you again. Thanks for coming on the podcast. 

Rabia- 00:03:18: Really excited to be here. 

Jon - 00:03:20: So as we were thinking about, you know, where to start the conversation, really wanted to turn back the hands of time and really just learn, like, what was your upbringing like? How did it, you know, influence your business philosophy, leadership style, and frankly, what got you into science? So really just like, tell us what it was like growing up. 

Rabia- 00:03:39: Yeah, I'm a geneticist, right? So trained PhD human genetics. And so I'm going to say, I'm going to blame it on my genetics, which is my mother is a doctor, and my father is an entrepreneur. And so if you cross those two things, you get me. But I was actually born and raised in a developing country, I was born and raised in Pakistan. And then we moved around with kids just in the Middle East, in Muscat, in Dubai. But the formative years right before I went to uni was in Lahore. And it's very interesting when you're born in a developing country. That's your world, right? That's all you know. I had a Pakistani passport, you can't travel that much on a Pakistani passport. So we didn't go anywhere as a family, we stayed very much in Lahore. And our parents were very focused on making sure we got a really great education. And so we were studying, everything was about you're going to become a doctor or an engineer. And those are your only two options in life. I went to my mother and I said, I want to do social work. And she said, no. 

Jon - 00:04:42: She was immediately like shut it down. 

Rabia- 00:04:43: He was like, no. Right. She's a very practical woman. There was just no room for negotiation on that one. And so we studied and at 17, you know, you applied to uni, you got in and you left. And so it was very much an academic household, but one grounded in you have to work really hard. I think this is the standard story of all developing countries, people that are from there. But one of the things that really shaped me, and I still remember this, there's actually three main incidents. One is that in the year 2000, they sequenced the human genome and dad would have, I think it was TIME Magazine, like the magazine would come and just get very excited. And I think it had the, you know, the human genome. And I was like, but I don't understand. Like, these are four letters. And I distinctly remember standing there. We had a tiny, tiny, tiny house. It was like this living room. And I was like, so everything in life is four letters. And so if I can learn to read the four letters, I can basically begin to understand everything in life. And I was like, what is this? It's genetics. And I was like, wait, well, I'm going to go study genetics. And like that was, I must have been 16. And then another two major incidents that shaped my life. One was that I watched schizophrenia manifest in my aunt who raised us. And watching something that you can't comprehend in place at the age of 15, someone whose reality is distorted, there's no treatment options available. It's causing everyone around them to have their lives kind of be pulled apart. Meant that I wanted to do something in healthcare. At a very basic level, I couldn't articulate it then, but I can articulate it now, is that I feel like no human should be put in a position where the infrastructure around them cannot support what they are going through. And so in Pakistan, as a woman, if you have schizophrenia, A, no one believes that it's a disease. B, there's no mental institutions. You put people in mental institutions, the women will get raped. And C, there are actually from our industry, not a lot of therapies available. And so I very early on had, oh, look, four letters, we can read them, do something there. Mental health disorder, like how do we stop this from happening? My aunt was very close to me. And then the third pillar was around just having a very practical mother. I once went to her and I said, Mom, my tooth fell out. Like, you know, can I put this under my pillow as a Tooth Fairy is going to come and give me some money. And she looked at me and she said, there's no such thing. It's really young. I must have been like six. And she's like, no. 

Jon - 00:07:27: There is no time for this. 

Rabia- 00:07:29: There's no time for this. And I was like... All right. 

Jon - 00:07:33: Yeah. 

Rabia- 00:07:34: And so it was just very practical, right? What is this nonsense? Just no. And for the people that know me now, if they hear that story, they'll be like, oh, yeah, that's right. She's like that, too, because I'm also very much like, no. To answer your question, our upbringing was very standard immigrant families, you know, like lower income countries, education focused. But personally, my love for health care came from my inability to do something for my aunt in that moment and society's inability to do anything. And no one's been able to do anything. She lives in the state up to today, mismanaged psychosis. And it's horrific. Schizophrenia is horrific. 

Jon - 00:08:15: Yeah, and I can only imagine like the personal toll it would have on a family. You know, not the same scenario, but I was doing a lot of caretaking a number of years ago and watching what an illness can do. It was a different illness, but the ripple effects are far and wide. And I still carry it with me to this day. You know, for me, it was also kind of a very eye-opening experience on one, not only the importance, but like the urgency. I appreciate the practicality of like, there's no time to waste here. Like, we should not be dilly-dallying. There are real, like real important issues that need to be addressed and solved right now. And any second that we waste is taken away from that. At least that's how I feel. So I totally appreciate that. And I can imagine it's also very formative. You know, you're like a teenager, right? Like 15 years old when this was a... 

Rabia- 00:09:03: Yes. 

Jon - 00:09:03: That's not only a formative, like standalone experience, but also as a teenager, those are formative years. You're just like soaking things up.  

Rabia- 00:09:11: You're putty, right? Like the world is shaping you and you're taking your opinions and your life belief structures and all of the baggage you're going to carry the rest of your life. But I think the most important thing that is when you witness health care challenges versus look at it in a dish, which is what we do now, it's so different, right? I've since then had people pass away with cancer. My father's been very sick. I've spent 10 years in and out of hospitals with him. And I think we frequently forget that health care delivery is about just, you know, making a person comfortable sometimes and understanding what their problems are. And my aunt, she was having trouble eating and we were feeding her through a tube over here. And so there's the practicality of feeding someone through their neck and watching that at the age of 15. Those things never leave your consciousness, right? They're always there. They shape everything you think about. They shape how you view your priorities in life. And there's no time to waste, right? Because if what you're thinking about is we should really not have a scenario where we can't do anything about patients, any disease, schizophrenia being one of them. And how do you build organizations that can begin to bring drugs to market faster? How do you change health care systems? Basically, all of all of that is, I think, what consumes your mind at some point. 

Jon - 00:10:35: Absolutely. I feel the exact same way. And before we hit record, we were talking about, you know, the nature of these conversations being very personal. And I think that is one of the reasons why I always like to start our conversations with going back as early as possible is because, at least I believe, is that a lot of the things that you kind of go through growing up, ultimately, like. Dictate where you end up in adulthood. And like, you know, there are things that you try to sequester and there are things, but like, it always comes back in some shape or form, or crystallizes and man and rears its head in different ways. I can absolutely see it on my side too. But like, you know, right, it sounds like this formative experience is like, you know, I'm going to imagine influence kind of the everything from that point forward. So, you know, and it sounds like you're in this household that is part science, part healthcare, part entrepreneurship. And when you're in school, from that point on, you're like, okay, anything that may be tangentially related to biology, genetics. That is what I'm doing. Like, did you have the academic kind of like opportunities to indulge in this curiosity and kind of interest? 

Rabia- 00:11:45: So we did the British education system, which is O-levels, A-levels. I mean, I wrote my SATs and APs and all of that stuff. But the education system is very focused on at grade 10, I think you get broken up into science and arts. And arts is not an option. It was my household. And so you're in science. There was five of us in that class. There were two women. I was one of them. And it was 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., every day. Right? And then every week you had three written exams and multiple choice exams. And so your weekends were studying. And so was I indulging in anything other than that? No. But what was interesting is that I loved the idea that you could read the book of life, and that everything around us, was a combination of four letters. Because that meant that my aunt who's sick had a combination that was different for me. And if I could understand that difference, I would be able to do something about it, right? And at a very basic level, that is what human genetics is, right? Population studies, GWAS, and all of that. But that's what I was thinking about. And there was a very distinct, separate part of me that was very good at economics. It was just the thing that I was naturally very good at. And I loved it. I loved this idea that you could break the world down into something very simple, which is like a supply and demand matrix. And that like, you want X, I want to sell you why it's worth the intersection of those two things. And because we had been broken down into science and arts, they had to make an exception in the school for me to do science across the board. So math, calculus, da, da, da. And then I had this random economics class happening over here, because I didn't want to let it go. It was just so much fun. I was naturally really good at it. I enjoyed it. Everything else was hard. That was easy. And so I just, I hung on for dear life. I was like, no, I'm not letting economics go. And I just kept it. And it just happened. 

Jon - 00:13:49: I love that. One, I didn't realize that you get tracked so early because like, at least from my high school experience, you barely got tracked. You're kind of like at all. 

Rabia- 00:13:58: Were you in the U.S.? 

Jon - 00:13:59: Yes. 

Rabia- 00:14:00: Yeah. 

Jon - 00:14:00: So barely got tracked and just like kind of like all over the place. Maybe that's just like, you know, a particularity of the school that I went to. But definitely there was like, I was like taking all sorts of classes that were unrelated to biology. I maybe had one econ class, maybe. I liked it, but wasn't that great at it. But that's, you know, that's an interesting experience. And so, I mean, one, first off, did you sleep at all? Like if you're like, you already have a full load of like biology and then you're just like dogpiling an additional kind of like econ course load. Like I can imagine that was like a lot. 

Rabia- 00:14:33: Do you know what? It's so interesting. I've never compromised sleep in my whole life. Other things go. 

Jon - 00:14:38: I appreciate that. 

Rabia- 00:14:39: It's not a choice. I can't. I will like fall asleep standing up. And so my brother, I have an older brother, and he's a smarter one in the family, right? And so the problem is that he was always having to work a third as hard as I was working and doing like four times better than me and everything in school. And so we did these things called O-levels, and then you would write your A-levels if you stayed, but both of us went to uni. And so he wrote 12 different subjects in his O-levels, right? And so I was like, I'm going to do 13. And obviously not. And so I did 11. But you have to pick your subjects quite early on. And because you are applying to international schools, you need a differentiator. And the differentiators just as everything in life, you need to stand out. One way to stand out is multidisciplinary education across a large number of domains and high grades, right? So basically, the school that I went to, what they did is they just prepped you really, really well to do your O-levels, SATs, APs, apply to international schools so you can go abroad and study. And so all you're doing 10, 11, and 12, these three grades, is you're just writing one exam system after another. And you're not doing anything else.  

Jon - 00:16:03: That is intense. Again, just such a different experience than what I was like. Let's just say I was doing a lot of skateboarding. And it was, you know, it's a very interesting, you know, experience. I always loved learning about that. And I think what you said about being able to stand out and just like being multidisciplinary, I think it's like, at least for me, I found that definitely I've seen it benefit massively by not just being completely siloed in one specific discipline. Because there's so many lessons that can be taken from different fields of study, different industries, like the marriage of like econ and like life sci. I'm going to imagine there's tons of lessons that you can take from both. And the experience that you have with your brother is funny because like, especially when I got to Berkeley, that's when I just like realized, I was like, oh, like I thought I was decently smart. And then I was like, oh, this is what really smart is like. I'm the type of person that would need to like. Sit down, spend a couple of weeks, just like be like head in a book and just like really just like grinding it out. And then like friends, you know, colleagues of mine just be like, wake up. They're like, yeah, maybe I'll like do a couple hours here. And then this like crush whatever exams in front of them. I was like. Like, how is this even possible? 

Rabia- 00:17:21: He would read a book and he's still the same, right? He would be like, oh yeah, I was reading Dante. And then he like quote Dante. And I'm like. 

Jon - 00:17:27: Oh my God. Just casually. Yeah. I was like, I'm just, you know, yeah, I'm just, you know, going through war and peace again. Like you're just like, what? It's like a tome. And the other thing that kind of like, you know, stood out to me about not sacrificing sleep. I think that's like a, something that I feel very strongly about too. And sometimes there's like, or at least maybe it was like, it used to be a thing where people would like beat their chest or like, I work on less sleep, you know, like whatever. I just, I can't. And also I just think, I just, I can't believe the work product is as good. Like if you're not getting adequate sleep and not to say that some people can like, like some people can operate on far less, but like generally speaking, I just don't believe it. And whenever I'm talking to folks, you know, who are entering the entrepreneurial journey, it's kind of this thing where you have to like work backwards. They're like, this is something that you like, you really can't sacrifice like sleep. Like, so you only have a finite amount of hours in the day to actually work on other things. Like when your eyes are open, and from there, that's like, you just have to work backwards from there because like, that is kind of the, there's no time to waste. It like really is that forcing function to focus. It's like, if you know to actually be a functioning human being within these waking hours, you can't sacrifice this. So you must get it. You know, you've got to be efficient here. So, because I think sometimes as a founder or entrepreneur, you're like, I can do it all. Like I can do it all without sacrifice. Like I can just do everything to boil the ocean. And it's not possible. Like it is frankly not possible just on the mirror of human biology, you need to sleep. And then you have other things that go on too. So anyways, I fully support getting the full eight hours. So that's my piece on that. 

Rabia- 00:19:08: I also think some people, by the way, are just very functional on five hours of sleep. And as much as I envy them, I envy you and I am so jealous. But one has to accept the realities, right? I always say like the world that we live in as opposed to the world I'd want to live in. And in the world that I am, if I have not slept the eight hours, I'm not good at whatever I'm doing the next day. And so that's just become a non-negotiable.

Jon - 00:19:33: Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes it's good to just like get away from it to like, just like get away, sleep on it, come back and you're like, oh, this problem is actually way easier now that I've actually got, you know how it goes. Sometimes you're just like grinding on a problem like super long. You sleep on it, you come back and you're like, oh, okay, I see it now. 

Rabia- 00:19:51: Most things in my life will, I actually always love talking to younger women and men and anyone, frankly, who's like earlier on, because I'm like, oh yeah, I remember what it was like to be there. And the one thing I've realized is that as you get older, like most decisions are not black and white. There's actually no right answer. And what I've come to is that as long as it's not an irreversible decision and like it doesn't have to be made in the moment, sleeping on it is probably the best outcome.  

Jon - 00:20:20: I love that because I feel exactly the same way. I always talk about it as like one-way doors and two-way doors? 

Rabia- 00:20:27: Yes. Yes.

Jon - 00:20:28: If it's a two-way door, sleep on it. There's no gun to your head. Right? It's like sleep on it, come back to it.

 Rabia- 00:20:34: You must decide now. 

Jon - 00:20:34: Yeah, yeah. But the longer you build this muscle to start recognizing what are the one-way doors, and then you're like, okay, this is a different thing. This is a different decision here. But if it's something that's a non-irreversible kind of thing, you're just like, okay, we can come back to this and it'll be fine.

 Rabia- 00:20:52: It's really interesting you say that, right? Because I spend a lot of my time right now listening to podcasts about frameworks for decision making. And I realized that to most people that might sound strange, but I love frameworks. Like for me, flow charts and frameworks and systematic like A plus B equals C decision making, it's just makes my life easier. And most decisions fit into revolving versus non-revolving door. And then once you've been able to make that categorization, the second categorization I always make is, is more information going to drive a better decision? And what's the time point by which you need to make that decision, right? And so the second you can put things into that category, then you have a framework, which is like, sleep on it possible, sleep on it not possible. All right, now, one can like, put it into a category and categories are great. Then you just put stuff in boxes and life's organized. 

Jon - 00:21:47: I think the same way, because something that in organizations can just end up happening is that you research something to death. And again, it's kind of, it gets back to what your mom's like, there's no time for this, right? There is no time for this. We have to make a decision eventually, right? And like, sometimes you just get caught up in the research and that momentum, that inertia of just like research, research, research. And you forget that this is like, this research now has diminishing returns and it's actually starting to become problematic because now that's taken away from, again, you're working backwards. How many hours of sleep do you need? Why are we continuing to research here when this time could be allocated elsewhere and where there's actually more returns to be had from this decision? You can't let perfection be the enemy of good. 

Rabia- 00:22:31: This is where economics is just the most incredible discipline. I feel like not enough people are excited about economics. 

Jon - 00:22:38: I listen to like econ podcasts all the time. I'm like, this is so fascinating. 

Rabia- 00:22:42: It's so great. So three things, opportunity cost, marginal utility, and behavioral economics, right? Most decisions in life carry opportunity cost, whether actively or proactively. And so I always think about more research carries opportunity cost of no decision. My team frequently will hear me say, what is the marginal benefit of added time spent, right? Because in my head, I have that curve, which is like, now you're going into diminishing returns. And this is all like econ 101, undergrads, the law of diminishing returns, the law of opportunity cost, right? And it's very interesting that they come back to you in ways that you make decisions in life, actually. And I would have never thought about that. And it's the same with the Prisoner's Dilemma. They teach you about the Prisoner's Dilemma. And you watch people make decisions and you're like, oh, yeah, this fits into that box. If now we're degenerated into the lowest quadrant, I don't want to go there. Let's try and move U.S. To the other quadrant. 

Jon - 00:23:41: I love that. That's exactly why I always encourage people to just like go take a peek at these other fields. Because like, again, when I was first learning these concepts, I was like, which is very commonplace in econ, but now I'm like, oh, crap, like this is like, definitely applicable in entrepreneurship. I was like, I thought it was just gonna be like, you know, like some, you know, academic econ person just like, doing the curves. But I was like, oh, this actually has applications here in everyday life. And another kind of like framework that I always like to think about, in addition to like one way and two ways, is just like trying to like, think probabilistically about what's the upside and downside of like the decision. Because I think sometimes it's a muscle that you have to work, but it's kind of like does this bet or decision have like this asymmetric, like downside that can just put me out of the game versus like, what do I actually stand again by making this bet? Maybe I shouldn't even make the bet at all. Like if your goal is to be here for a long time, whether it's like as a person, as a business, whatever, like just understanding what that tail risk is, it's kind of like Nassim Taleb talks about it as I think it was like the Black Swan kind of like events, right? You don't want to do those. Like you don't want to be subject to those. Like you want to not like stay away from those as much as you can. And sometimes people just like, don't do that quick analysis. It's like, if this goes wrong, like, will I be out of the game completely? But oftentimes, and you also will see the flip where it's like, oh, like the downside is really negligible, but the upside is like fantastic here. Take that bet every time. 

Rabia- 00:25:19: So one of the things that I've started saying in the team as well as every decision carries a risk and a probability of risk occurring. Because you'll have people who will be like, oh, well, this thing could happen and this thing could be awful and we shouldn't do it. But then when you like force the question, okay, what's the probability said awful thing is going to happen? Well, that's low probability. And so if you force every decision scenario planning to be probability of said event, upside, downside risk, it actually makes decision making a lot easier. And what I love about probability matrices, risk matrices is it forces you to think about things. And humans, I've been told, are inherently optimistic. I think entrepreneurs generally are. And so we're always assuming a really high upside. And I think mentally downplaying a downside. But when you're forced to write it down and put probabilities on it, it is a realistic. This is the matrix and this is how I need to think about the world. And that muscle is hard. 

Jon - 00:26:25: Yeah. 

Rabia- 00:26:26: Weirdly. It's actually not that easy. 

Jon - 00:26:29: Yeah. It doesn't feel natural. 

Rabia- 00:26:30: No, it's just very uncomfortable. And I love that about being, I guess, a founder or CEO is you're constantly discovering things about yourself where you're like, I did not think that this would be an awkward decision making framework, right? Like, why am I uncomfortable thinking about probabilities on decisions? But it's because humans have not built that muscle. We're not naturally doing that. And I think really good executives will talk about being able to do that. I know Ray Dalio does, right? Like, he writes about that. The other one that I was thinking about is you mentioned Taleb, right? He'll talk about this idea of anti-fragility and things like that. And so I think people that have become very good at their game have mastered these muscles that we're not trained in when we're young, we're not trained in academically, and that you have to learn them in the moment. And so I actually enjoy it, but it took a while. It took a while to get there. 

Jon - 00:27:25: For sure. And I think what is nice to hear about all this, or at least what I've found refreshing or like liberating is that it is a skill that you can learn. It's not impossible, right? It's not this thing that like some people have been bestowed. It's like you learn about it. You try to apply that lens of thinking to, it doesn't even have to be so serious. Just like think about this, like little things that you're doing. You're making a million decisions every day. And then think about this, just try to think about it from that lens. And you can quit, not quickly, but you start to build that muscle and you're going to get it wrong, but that's how you learn. And I think the quicker any entrepreneur and executive can get better at that. You're just like in such a better position. And I think I learned it. So one of my co-founders came from the legal world where it's just like all like risk management. The running joke is like, I'm kind of like a golden retriever. I'm just like easily excitable about like these new kind of like opportunities. I'm that person, like super optimistic. And then my co-founder is like kind of, let's think about the downside here. And so I was fortunate enough to have someone who kind of like mentored me in that early, but it's never too late to start, I guess is what I'm trying to say. There are books out there, you know, Black Swan's a great book, you know, everything there. And so, okay, you are wrapping up your A-levels and O-levels. It sounded like you had your sights on going internationally for uni. Talk a little bit about that experience. Where did you have your sights on? How did you end up making your decision? Tell me about that. 

Rabia- 00:28:51: Yeah. You're sitting in the U.S., right? 

Jon - 00:28:53: Yes. 

Rabia- 00:28:54: Okay. I'm sorry about what I'm about to think. 

Jon - 00:28:57: No, it's okay. It's okay. 

Rabia- 00:28:59: I lived in Lahore. I had a Pakistani passport. My brother's two years older than me. He had done better than me in school and he had gone off to do engineering at Georgia Tech. We were and are from a developing country. Therefore, the exchange rate means you need a lot more money in Lahore to have very little money in the U.S. and in Canada. So anything that had absurd tuitions was just out of question. And so that restricts where you can apply. And so most students with O-levels and then SATs and APs would apply to the U.S.. I actually didn't do my A-levels. My brother didn't either. If you did your A-levels, you would go to the UK. The UK was not an option, very expensive. And so that left North America. Okay. 9-11 happened after my brother had left, and it was such an unfortunate incident for the whole world. But the direct impact that I think a lot of people don't know is that we went to high school with people where they were in the U.S. studying. They came back to visit their families. They were not allowed back into the U.S. to finish their university degrees. And so my brother did not come home for about 11 years, did not meet his parents for six, maybe eight. And this is pre-Skype. This is pre-WhatsApp. This is pre-iPhone. This is scratch pads and phones. Right. And so I applied to the U.S., but also applied to Canada. And when you're sitting in Lahore and no one in our family had gone abroad before, my brother was in Georgia Tech. But, you know, he was figuring out his life post 9-11 Pakistani passport. And so the only name that we knew of was McGill in Canada. And so I applied to McGill. I got into McGill. And it was Georgia Tech or McGill. And Georgia Tech meant it could be that both of us wouldn't be able to visit Mom and dad. So we said Canada and I went to McGill. I did not understand what minus 40 degrees Celsius weather was going to be.

Jon - 00:31:03: Such a stark difference. 

Rabia- 00:31:05: They're like, it's cold. And I was like, how cold can it be? 

Jon - 00:31:08: Let us throw on a layer and I'll be fine. 

Rabia- 00:31:11: My mother packed me a leather jacket and she's like, this is for the winter, a leather jacket. And I still remember being like, but I don't understand. How do I dress?  

Jon - 00:31:24: Yeah. 

Rabia- 00:31:25: Right? You have no concept. 

Jon - 00:31:27: Yeah. 

Rabia- 00:31:28: And no money and no one to turn to. But yeah, so went to McGill and I walked over to Mom. I have, in addition to being a geneticist and a love for economics, a real love for economic development, actually, and social work. And so I went to Mom when I was applying to uni and I said, I'm going to go to university for social work. I'm going to be a social worker. And she said, no, it was done. And so I was going to school to do either biology or engineering. And so I filled out the forms, applied to uni for biology. I got into McGill. And it's really interesting because the Canadian and U.S. Systems, you get a certain number of credits and you have to do those credits, right? And so at McGill, you, I think had 120 credits and only like 40 of them was your biology major. And then you could do other stuff. And so I was like, well, an economics major is another 40 credits. So I can just do that. And I still have extra stuff to play with. And so then I went to the science department and I'm like, I want to do a second economics degree. And they were like, no, you can't do that. And I was like, but why? You have to go to the art school. And so then I had to do some running around because they're, you know, the same thing. It's just a different infrastructure. They're not used to people doing that. And I remember I went to McGill, I went to Mom and I was like, I'm doing biology. I'm thinking economics in the second degree. She's like, yeah, that's a good degree. She's do economics. And so I did those two. And it was so great, right? Because in the mornings you're in biology 101 and, you know, like they're teaching about PCR. And so remember, you're like, these things join and multiply. And it's all very exciting. And then you go to your next class and they're teaching you about supply and demand and being able to alternate your brain. Or at least for me, that was the thing that I've always needed in my life, the ability to have complementarity, the ability to have different domains and flip between them. And I think just having those two things kept me always interested in both domains. 

Jon - 00:33:36: That's very cool. It was a similar experience for me because I almost became a lawyer because I took a lot of like humanities and like philosophy classes. I know that exact feeling that you're describing where like sometimes I'm like, I'm good with biology for now. I want to do something else. And then it kind of scratches a different itch, which is like for me, which is like catnip to be able to know. And then also synthesizing the two was really interesting too. So I know that exact feeling. And while you're at McGill, did you have an undergraduate lab experience? 

Rabia- 00:34:09: It did. Yes. Unsurprisingly, I found the schizophrenia research lab and I sent Dr. Gustavo Turecki an email. They had Quebec's largest bank of brains from patients that had committed suicide, unfortunately. And then they were studied for that. So it was suicide, bipolar and schizophrenia. And it was, I think, first year undergrad. So I don't even know why they let me into the lab. Who knows? Yeah, it was amazing. Right. So thank you to Dr. Turecki for doing that. It was a big lab and there was a technician there. And for a week, she made me pipette water. Right? Just pipette from point A to point B and wash dishes. And then I think like month three, she let me like load a gel. And then I think month four, I got to load my own gel. And this is the moment I will never forget. I woke up. So I loaded the gel, I ran it and there was no bands and I was panicking. And obviously I was alone at this point because I'm on these weird time zones. I have classes and at 2am in the morning, I wake up and I'm like, I forgot Ithidium bromide. And I was like, oh, yes, the brain is processing when you're sleeping. And so, yeah, the very first thing I did was to find work in a lab that was working on schizophrenia. I wanted to understand the biology. I wanted to understand why is this disease manifesting? What can we do about it? How do we study it? Very early on. 

Jon - 00:35:49: I really love that question. I always ask it is because I feel like the first lab experience is always kind of like someone taking a bet on you. It always is. It's always like a pay it forward type thing. And I'm wondering, I'm always curious on how that ends up happening. And I love that about science. It's almost like a lot of like, when I look at it, I haven't been in a lab in a long time, but it's almost like apprenticeship. 

Rabia- 00:36:14: It is. 

Jon - 00:36:15: Like, right, where they're just like, you know, nothing. And that's okay. Like, as long as like you have hunger and you want to learn and you're like about this life, then you're in. And I think people would be surprised that if you're authentically and genuinely interested in that lab's research, that opportunities are available to you. I had the same experience, but just like, first you could pipe at the water reminds me of like that movie, Jiro Dreams of Sushi, where like, he's like training his son to take the mantle to make sushi. And he's like, you're not touching fish for three years. You're only going to be fanning rice. You're only going to be fanning rice. You have not earned the right to touch the fish yet. But it's kind of a similar thing. She's like, I can't have you screwing up these assays. 

Rabia- 00:36:59: I'm contaminating my pipettes, like filter tips and water for you. 

Jon - 00:37:04: Yeah, yeah. You're going to contaminate the cell lines. Like this is going to be problematic. But then eventually you kind of like work it up and you get there. But I love that you had the opportunity to get your hands ready and really start, you know, experiencing what lab, what a lab is like. And can you talk more about that lab? Just generally, I'm curious, like you said it was a big lab. What was like the lab culture like? Like what were some like, you know, just like moments in that lab that like, you know, maybe were eye opening or maybe formative for you? 

Rabia- 00:37:34: My goodness, I think the things that I remember was the main concept that, you know, we have patients that will because it's obviously associated with a hospital and and, you know, people commit suicide. And sometimes, you know, there was technicians who would get called because the brain would would show up and then you have to. Run all the processing, slice it, put it in the freezer. And then it was my first exposure walking down the halls of research facilities. And then you had these rats, right? And there things are open with the electrodes and walking around. And if you think about someone whose entire life was in a developing country, at this point, I'm 18 years old, right? This is how old I am. I've moved from a country where the coldest it's ever getting is 10 degrees Celsius to like minus 40 degrees Celsius, trying to navigate the world of University of Montreal. And so most of it was just novelty. Everything was novelty. A lab was novelty, understanding what happens in a lab. I took clinical research labs for granted from that day on, because that was my first experience. Most labs are not human brain samples. Most labs are not human samples, right? And so it was a large lab in that you had clinical, you had researchers, and then you had people who were managing human tissue. That's a very different discipline. That's not a PhD, a standard PhD, right? And the fact that in this complex environment, the professor who I must have met for five minutes in the entirety of my life, because he met me and he said, here, this woman is going to be your mentor. And then that was it. I never saw him again. And so that entire experience, it shapes you. But it wasn't a large lab in the sense you would think Bob Langer's lab. But it was a large lab for me, the 18-year-old pipetting water, because there were so many different people doing so many different things. It was also the first understanding of there's something called a master's degree, and then you can get a PhD, and people do research in the lab permanently. And so I think just all of that is the thing that's in my mind is that diversity. But the main memory that I have is this random waking up at two in the morning and thinking, oh my God, I didn't put a fit in bromide in the gel. And for anyone that's been in the lab or done a PhD, they know what I'm talking about. So you go home and you're like, oh yeah, that's right. I forgot to add the reagent to that experiment. This is not great. 

Jon - 00:40:15: I don't know that feeling. And I feel like I've had that, like, waking up in my cold sweat, like, Jesus, like, from the day before. Like, God damn it. And you mentioned, like, this is like, you know, you're now starting to get exposure to, you know, the idea of grad school, masters, PhDs. And as you are wrapping up your undergraduate experience, what gave you the conviction that, like, I'm going to do graduate school and I'm going to get a PhD? 

Rabia- 00:40:43: So I did this stint. And while this was happening, I was also trying to figure out how do you fill these 120 credits that you have to fill, right? You have to sit down and choose classes and you have to make sure there's room in classes and things like that. For many people whose parents went to university here and have cousins and aunts and things like that, this might sound trivial, but I had no one, right? My brother was out in Georgia Tech. Making a phone call was a lot of money. You had to buy phone cards. You can't pick up the phone and call your brother and say, can you help me pick my courses? He had his own problems. He was paying his way through university. He was working. And so my parents didn't understand the concept of credits or how to pick classes or, so there's, there's no infrastructure except your peers who are all also international students. And so I was, you know, most of it was just navigating this world by myself being like, I really want to know something about schizophrenia. And so I'm going to go find a lab and do that. I then planned out all my courses. I said, economics, biology, within economics, I discovered an absolute love for economic development and behavioral economics. So trying to find those professors and take their classes. And then you had the ability to do a certain amount of credits on research. So you could take your biology degree and do a research project. And so I applied to a number of PIs and there was another PI who I'm never going to forget. Her name is Rima Slim. And she worked on this idea of high-divis for moles. I don't know if you know what those are. It is a product of conception that can be a tumor. You know, you get pregnant and it's not a baby. It's this weird tumor thing. And some of them just grow really quickly and others don't. They grow slower, but they are tumors and they're called high-divis for moles. And this phenotype runs in families and it runs along the Asian route. And she used to study them and she was looking for someone because she had access to these families that had a genetic segregation of the presence of this high-divis for mole phenotype. And so, you know, Mendelian genetics, if you see a very Mendelian pattern, there should be a genetic driver. And so she had a bunch of samples and she needed someone to come in and genotype them. She had a master's student focusing on this one set of genes and they needed to do two, three other genes. And that was me. And so I said, yeah, I learned about this incredible product of inception that I did not even know existed. Scared me quite a bit because you could see pictures. And was very lucky because the one gene that I was responsible for happened to be the gene that drives that disease. 

Jon - 00:43:33: Wow.  

Rabia- 00:43:37: Best of luck.  

Jon - 00:43:38: Oh my God. That's amazing. Because sometimes I think about it like, sometimes it is just like a lottery. Like when you're, like a lottery and like on what you're going to be working on. Your PI doesn't even know. You're like, there's like, this one seems interesting. Like, go figure it out. Like, go figure it out. I love that. It's just like bullseye. 

Rabia- 00:43:58: And so I distinctly remember sitting there because, you know, you have the alignment, right? You have the wild type and then you have your patient samples and you're literally going letter by letter. And checking, right? Is it aligning? And the master's student who, this was her actual project, she had a set of jeans and they were just not having any luck. And this was like the side project that no one wanted to do. And I remember I was like, but all of the patients have this change. And like, what is happening? Like, I don't understand. And so I went to Rima and I was like, but I don't understand what's going on here. That was it. That's an, I think it's a Nature Genetics paper at the time. And she was blown away. She couldn't believe that this was the gene. And that catalyzed in me this understanding that you can read the book of life. And by reading the book of life, you can find something. And that something can actually make a difference. And I was still an international student at the time. And the problem with being an international student and doing a graduate degree is that your PI has to pay for your international tuition. Most PIs didn't want to do that. And so I was faced with a master's degree in University of Toronto. I had a PhD offer at a lab looking at the host immune response to typhoid because Dr. Daniel Mello was kind enough to take the risk on me to commit to paying that international tuition. And I had a job offer in econ and health economics for $30,000 a year. And I called my dad and I said, Dad, I have this job and I'm very excited. You know, I think I'm going to take the job. I'm going to get paid. 

Jon - 00:45:42: Yeah, yeah. 

Rabia- 00:45:43: And he said, if you're going to make $30,000 a year, you're coming home. 

Jon - 00:45:47: Yeah, that's the entrepreneurial father who's like... No. 

Rabia- 00:45:52: Just no. And he's like, but a PhD is good. You should do a PhD. And so that's how that decision was made. 

Jon - 00:45:59: Dad, no. He's just like, no. Another decision made. Just like, continue on with the PhD. 

Rabia- 00:46:07: Quick decision making, right? At the last year of my undergrad, I had the opportunity to go to Ghana and work in economic development on this women's initiative. And I was so excited about this. But my parents would have to pay for the flight and the volunteer. And, you know, I could have done this Heredity for a mole PhD thing. Sorry, undergraduate research project. And I was like, I really want to go to Ghana. Like, I want to be a social worker in economic development. My mom's like, no. 

Jon - 00:46:35: No, just like decision made. The path has been set. I need you to follow through on this. 

Rabia- 00:46:42: Yeah, this is where you're going. I mean, you could do other things, but this path that you want to do, you're not going to go on. No. You know, science this way.  

Jon - 00:46:52: So now you've decided to actually seriously pursue the PhD. 

Rabia - 00:46:58: Thanks for tuning in to The Biotech Startups Podcast with Rabia Khan. Join us in part two, where Rabia shares how her PhD and MBA experiences shaped her perspective on science, business and healthcare, and how a chance email led to her first startup role, setting the stage for everything that came next. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, leave a review and share it with your friends. See you next time. The Biotech Startups Podcast is produced by Excedr. Don't want to miss an episode? Search for The Biotech Startups Podcast wherever you get your podcasts and click subscribe. Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder-friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. To learn more, visit our website, www.excedr.com. On behalf of the team here at Excedr, thanks for listening. The Biotech Startups Podcast provides general insights into the life science sector through the experiences of its guests. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from the podcast is at the user's own risk. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not the views of Excedr or sponsors. No reference to any product, service or company in the podcast is an endorsement by Excedr or its guests.