The Mentor Hive, which has welcomed four new members, remains an essential part of the Wyss’ technology translation pipeline, with Mentors sharing invaluable advice and experience
By Jessica Leff
The power of mentorship is clear: 70% of small businesses that received mentoring survived for five years or more, which is double the rate of their non-mentored counterparts. Mentors provide guidance and share advice, allowing mentees to benefit from experiences they haven’t had yet. This support can be paramount to a company’s success, with 84% of CEOs reporting that mentors prevented them from making costly mistakes.
Despite this strong body of evidence, only 37% of professionals have a mentor. So, in 2021, Senior Business Development Director for AI and Alliances, Ally Chang, Ph.D., M.B.A., created the Wyss Mentor Hive to address this gap. She explains, “I envisioned a dynamic, interconnected mentorship ecosystem that benefits our community and accelerates the Institute’s mission to transform breakthrough science into impactful, real-world solutions.”
In addition to meeting with project teams, mentors are involved in the Validation Project review process, participate as speakers in the Business Blueprint series, serve as panelists at the Wyss Institute Retreat, attend relevant events, and hold office hours.
Five years later, the program’s success further proves the value of mentorship. Chang shares one notable anecdote: “In the early days of the Wyss Mentor Hive, one of our inaugural Mentors, Neal Muni, had regular meetings with then-researchers Richard Novak and Frederic Vigneault, brainstorming various topics related to the technology they were developing. Now, they have spun out, and Neal remains with the team as their Chief Medical Officer, focusing on clinical strategy and regulatory compliance to bring a therapy for Rett syndrome to market.”
The ecosystem Chang developed is still thriving, with a constant flutter of activity and new Mentors joining the hive, pollinating ideas, and helping them grow into strong innovations poised to make an impact on patients and our planet.
The newest Mentors in the Hive
Over the last year and a half, four new Mentors joined the Wyss community, lending their expertise in women’s health, sustainability, diagnostics development, and cancer research.
Helen Wang, M.B.A., M.Sc., Chief AI and Data Science Officer, Senior Managing Director at Apex Group, Founding Partner of TecoGlobal Group and EcoGen Capital Partners, brought her extensive experience to the Wyss in November 2024. She has a background in deep tech innovation and is a co-inventor of a novel energy-processing system. “What stands out most about the Wyss is the culture and the people,” she explains. “It’s a rare combination of scientific rigor, entrepreneurial mindset, and genuine collaboration across disciplines.”
In January 2025, Tracy Warren joined the Mentor Hive. She is the Senior Managing Director at American Heart Association Ventures, leading the Go Red for Women Venture Fund. Warren is passionate about women’s health and has served as a co-founder, executive director, and CEO, and is a co-inventor on three patents. Reflecting on her experience so far, she says, “The innovators at the Wyss continue to surprise me, which, after 25 years, is not an easy task. It is such an impressive group, and one that invites accountability to a commercial focus that will actually translate to success.”
After serving as CTO and Senior Vice President of R&D at Quanterix, David Duffy, M.A., Ph.D., joined the Institute in September 2025. He is an entrepreneurial scientist who has devoted his career to developing bioanalytical technologies and products for life science research and clinical diagnostics and is an inventor on 36 U.S. patents. “What excites me most is being in an environment where there is world-class science and plenty of new ideas,” says Duffy.
The newest Mentor is Ajit Singh, Ph.D., who joined the Wyss in January 2026. He is the CEO-Partner at Flagship Pioneering and CEO of Harbinger Health. In addition, he teaches clinical technologies and entrepreneurship as an Adjunct Professor at the Stanford School of Medicine, has published two books, and holds five patents. In the past, he served as CEO at Siemens Healthcare and at BioImagene, a startup in oncology diagnostics, followed by a 15-year stint as a VC based in Silicon Valley. “I believe everyone has a calling, and mine is to teach and mentor,” explains Singh.
Worker bees: Mentors’ role at the Wyss
There are eight additional members that round out the Mentor Hive: Milad Alucozai, M.Sc., M.P.H., Dr.P.H.; Marnie Hoolahan, M.B.A.; Emilia Javorsky, M.D., M.P.H.; Neal Muni, M.D., M.S.P.H.; Steve Rosen, Ph.D.; Milenko Jovan Tanasijevic, M.D., M.B.A.; Bruce Thompson Ph.D.; and Priya Yadav.
All Mentors form an Advisory Committee to review Validation Project proposals. Thompson explains, “Serving as a reviewer gives me the opportunity to provide critical feedback about the translatability of these ideas into the biotech community, and in my case, the regulated GMP environment.”
Mentors also participate in Wyss events and work with project teams to strategize how best to de-risk their technologies and prepare them for commercialization. Tanasijevic says, “Much of my contribution has focused on helping teams understand the clinical landscape, identify unmet lab diagnostics needs, and think through the most realistic path from prototype to clinical development.”
This guidance has been highly valuable to researchers such as Senior Scientist Abidemi Junaid, Ph.D., who is co-leading the development of Blood Clot Prediction Diagnostic, a device that predicts blood clots in patients to avoid catastrophic events such as embolisms and strokes. He shares, “The Mentors look at the potential of your work at a higher level and give you practical steps for getting our technologies out of the Wyss to help patients. Milenko’s experience helped us to realize the kind of data we need to generate for our device to be approved by the FDA and used in healthcare.”
The newest Mentors are already serving this important function. Senior Director of Business Development – Commercialization, Gretchen Fougere, Ph.D., explains Warren’s contributions to the same project: “Tracy’s discussion with our team generated a framework I use to advance our technologies: what are the clinical needs, the critical time window for a patient and provider, action that the provider will take based on the results, and the overall risk and economics of the diagnostic and treatment solutions.”
Mentors also bring wisdom that only comes with experience. For example, Thompson’s background as a cell and gene therapy executive helps researchers understand what it takes to turn a therapeutic discovery into a commercial drug. Director of Business Development – Partnerships, Samuel Inverso, Ph.D., shares, “There is a complexity around quality control and contamination that the FDA requires that’s not obvious. He has answered a lot of our questions, especially regarding our assumptions about what the FDA does and does not care about. He advised us on how to phrase questions to the FDA to elicit a real response. It’s like learning a new language!”
As a technical founder and aspiring entrepreneur coming from academia, access to individuals with this depth of industry experience is invaluable.
As researchers advance their technologies, and some prepare to spin out, Mentors prepare them to meet with important stakeholders. Senior Scientist Luba Perry, Ph.D., who is leading the ReConstruct project, explains, “Marnie helped us significantly refine our story and transform our pitch deck into something truly investor-ready.” ReConstruct is an approach to creating living tissue implants from a patient’s own cells for reconstruction following a mastectomy.
Perry continues, “As a technical founder and aspiring entrepreneur coming from academia, access to individuals with this depth of industry experience is invaluable. The Mentor Hive provides critical guidance in the early stages to help ensure the business case makes sense before diving too deeply into the science and technology. At later stages, that same expertise is essential for refining the story, strengthening the business plan, and preparing for investor meetings and eventual spinout.”
Lessons to teach
“One of the most important lessons I learned from the Mentor Hive community is the value of seeking input early and often,” explains Scientist Alex Plesa, Ph.D. “Several mentors emphasized that the fastest way to de-risk a scientific or business strategy is to pressure-test it with people who have already been down that road.” The Wyss Mentors are those people. Each brings a unique perspective from which they offer invaluable advice and encouragement.
Being a clinician himself, Tanasijevic speaks from experience when he says, “I’ve found myself emphasizing the importance of early engagement with clinicians and end-users, grounding technical innovation in a clear unmet clinical need, and clarifying what the first real-world use case should be.”
As a venture capitalist, Yadav’s biggest piece of advice is to focus on proving economic viability as early as technical feasibility. Many startups perfect the science but delay hard commercial questions such as customer willingness to pay, unit economics at scale, and competitive positioning beyond performance specs. She explains, “I encourage teams to engage potential customers early, even with imperfect technology, to validate that solving the technical problem actually solves a commercial problem in a way that’s worth paying for. The market won’t wait for perfection, but it will pay for ‘good enough’ if it’s commercially compelling.”
Hoolahan’s guidance draws on both personal and professional experience and can be helpful in all aspects of life. She says, “Be your authentic self! Never try to cover it up or pretend to be someone you are not, because that will inevitably destroy your drive and your soul.”
The newest Mentors are thrilled to pass on their wisdom as well. In addition to their technical skills, they are excited to share ideas such as failure is part of the process; impact is a discipline; confidence grows through action; trust your own perspective; and having both a clear story and purpose are vital.
While the Mentors are teaching valuable lessons, they are learning about creative problem-solving, thinking differently, and the power of scientific innovation to solve Grand Challenges. Thompson shares, “Being able to interact with scientists on a regular basis allows me to take off my executive leadership hat and conceptually put on a lab coat to think more deeply about the science.”
The importance of mentorship
As they continue to integrate into the Wyss community, the newest Mentors reflected on the value of mentorship and its impact on their careers. Singh shares one story about the transformational role his early-career mentor had on his life: “In the mid 1990s, he asked me to take on a role in Brazil. I told him that it made absolutely no sense. I didn’t speak Portuguese, nor was I from Germany, the company’s country of origin. He paused for half a minute, then said, ‘Exposure to other cultures makes better humans.’ That’s it. So, I moved there with my family, and it’s remarkable to see the lasting friendships we made and what we all learned.”
On the other hand, in retrospect, Duffy feels he didn’t make enough use of mentors. “You think you have all the answers when you’re young,” he explains. “Ironically, as I have gone further, I’ve made much more use of mentors because I realize the value of it.” Now, he’s excited to leverage his experience to guide Wyss members in the right direction.
Many of Warren’s mentors didn’t share her background; most were men in a male-dominated field. But they were instrumental in her making partner earlier than her peers. She says, “The time they spent, sharing perspectives and experience, challenging me to think about deals and companies in my own way, and developing my confidence to invest was priceless.” Unfortunately, she’s seen that largely virtual workplaces have decreased connections between senior professionals and early-career employees. She is enthusiastic about creating those opportunities to connect through her participation in the Mentor Hive.
At its best, mentorship is not about giving answers, but about expanding perspective, helping someone see what is possible, often before they can fully see it themselves.
Wang shares, “At its best, mentorship is not about giving answers, but about expanding perspective, helping someone see what is possible, often before they can fully see it themselves. Throughout my career and entrepreneurial journey, mentors challenged me to think bigger beyond perceived limits, encouraged me to step into rooms where I initially felt uncomfortable, and helped me reframe setbacks as part of long-term growth. Many did not share my background, but they believed in my trajectory and invested their time, trust, and confidence in me. That belief made a lasting impact – and it is something I am committed to and aspire to pay forward.”