EXPERIENCE
HEAD OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT, CUSTOMER DISCOVERY
FORMIC LABS (STEALTH)
How do we generate 10x more progress from the $1 trillion we pour into biotech R&D each year?
August 2022 –
current
INDEPENDENT CONSULTANT
VARIOUS
Occasionally take on independent consulting projects that pique my interest, time permitting.
April 2019 –
current
CO-FOUNDER, HEAD OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
FELIX BIOTECHNOLOGY
Developing bacteriophage tech to treat disease and modulate the microbiome.
August 2019 –
March 2022
BLAVATNIK FELLOW IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP
YALE UNIVERSITY
Working with faculty to launch new ventures, with a focus on infectious disease, rare disease, lab tools, and synthetic biology.
May 2019 –
August 2020
CONSULTANT
CLEARVIEW HEALTHCARE PARTNERS
Delivered strategic insights for clients, from biotech startups to large pharmaceutical companies.
January 2018 –
March 2019
WORLD TRAVELER
Traveled around the Earth, across 5 continents and 28 countries,
in one year with a backpack. Blogged about it here.
October 2016 –
November 2017
DOCTORAL STUDENT
YALE UNIVERSITY
Worked with Dr. Farren Isaacs to develop biosecurity mechanisms for engineered organisms. Mentor for Yale iGEM for 5 years, pro-bono consultant and project manager for Yale Graduate Consulting Club for 2 years.
August 2011 –
October 2016
PUBLICATIONS
The case for biotech on Mars.
Nangle, S.N., Wolfson, M.Y., Hartsough, L., Ma, N.J., Mason, C.E., Merighi, M., Nathan, V., Silver, P.A., Simon, M., Swett, J., Thompson, D.B., Ziesack, M. Nature Biotechnology, 2020.
Organisms with alternative genetic codes resolve unassigned codons via mistranslation and ribosomal rescue.
Ma, N.J., Hemez, C.F., Barber, K.W., Rinehart, J., Isaacs, F.J. eLife, 2018.
Genomic Recoding Broadly Obstructs the Propagation of Horizontally Transferred Genetic Elements.
Ma, N.J., Isaacs, F.J. Cell Systems, 2016.
Merlin: Computer-Aided Oligonucleotide Design for Large Scale Genome Engineering with MAGE.
Quintin, M., Ma, N.J., Ahmed, S., Bhatia, S., Lewis, A., Isaacs, F., and Densmore, D. ACS Synthetic Biology, 2016.
A flexible codon in genomically recoded Escherichia coli permits programmable protein phosphorylation.
Pirman, N.L, Barber, K., Aerni, H., Ma, N.J., Haimovich, A.D., Rogulina, S., Isaacs, F.J., Rinehart, J. Nature Communications, 2015.
Evolution of translation machinery in recoded bacteria enables multi-site incorporation of nonstandard amino acids.
Amiram, M.A., Haimovich, A.D., Fan, C., Wang, Y.S., Moonan, D.W., Ma, N.J., Rovner, A.J., Nakamura, A., Söll, D., Isaacs, F.J. Nature Biotechnology, 2015.
Precise manipulation of bacterial chromosomes by conjugative assembly genome engineering.
Ma, N.J., Moonan, D.W. Isaacs, F.J. Nature Protocols, 2014.
MEDIA
Bits in Bio, 2022: How Biotech Companies Work (and Where Software Fits in)
Johnson & Johnson, 2021: Antimicrobial Resistance – Breakthrough Innovation and Breaking Barriers
Theia Healthcare, 2021: Spinning Out Innovation from Academia
Psychology Today, 2020: Amid COVID-19 Pandemic, How is Biotech Responding?
Falling Walls 2019: Breaking the Wall of Antibiotic Resistance with Felix Biotechnology