MOICHOR founders Shevy Karbasi and Matthew Chen with President Barron at the 2018 Invent Penn State Venture and IP Conference. Credit: Penn State
The final year of college is a mix of emotions for most students: There is the joy and anticipation of completing a degree, often offset by the anxiousness and uncertainty of the future. Where will you work? What graduate school will accept you? Will you get into medical school?
Two Penn State seniors who don’t share that uncertainty are Sherveen (Shevy) Karbasi ’19 Bio and Matthew Chen ’19 Bio. Karbasi and Chen are the founders of Moichor—a startup company that has developed a smartphone application, which, combined with a proprietary test-strip reader, provides a complete blood count (CBC) test that can be done at home and then sent electronically to health-care professionals. The other partners in Moichor are Steve Flanagan ’19 Bio and Ph.D. candidate Thanh Le ’19 IST.
Moichor, formerly HemoGo, was the brainchild of Karbasi, who saw the need for a more-convenient way of getting blood counts.
“I was doing an internship at Massachusetts General, and I saw health-care workers taking vial after vial of blood, and it was really annoying to the patient,” said Karbasi. “I saw this was a problem and thought there had to be a better way.”
He saw the solution in artificial intelligence (AI) and the potential of training algorithms to differentiate between red blood cells, white blood cells, and platelets. This, combined with an optical attachment for a cell phone and a chip to analyze the blood, would become the core of the Moichor solution.
“Our primary audience would be chemotherapy patients who need to monitor for white blood cell counts and who need to go to a clinic to do this. Now they can do it at home,” Karbasi said as he explained the future potential of Moichor, including how it could be used by emergency services providers as they transport a patient to the hospital.
The potential of Moichor was validated last May as Karbasi, Chen, and their partners bested five other teams who pitched their innovations to a panel of judges for the WPSU-TV show The Investment, a Shark Tank–like show where Penn State students compete for part of a $30,000 prize. In past years, The Investment’s winners split the winnings; but this year, Moichor was awarded the entire amount—which they added to an earlier award of $2,000 they received from the Invent Penn State initiative to help move their innovation forward.
And moving their product forward is how they are using their winnings. “The success of these types of products is iteration. The more you iterate, the better refined your product is,” said Karbasi, who indicated that Moichor has no plans to be bought out by someone. Rather, their business plan is to pursue the full potential of Moichor on their own.
“We built this company to outlive us. When we die, our company will continue. That’s a real motivator for us,” said Karbasi, adding, “We might consider an IPO, but we want to remain with this business.”
Both Chen and Karbasi have been spending time in San Francisco—where they plan to relocate after they graduate, to take advantage of the incubators and accelerators the Bay Area has to offer.
“I’m not as nervous [as other seniors], because I can control things based upon the amount of effort that I have put into this,” said Karbasi. “It would hurt more if I never tried this.”
Look for Moichor to move on from winning entrepreneurial competitions to winning FDA approval for their inventions and entering the burgeoning self-service medical device industry.
Example 2
The Board of Directors of the Eberly College of Science Alumni Society established this award to recognize alumni who have a record of significant professional achievements in their field and who are outstanding role models for students in the college. The following alumni received the 2018 award:
Fred Allendorf ’71 B.S. Zoology
Nick Hartman ’03 B.S. Chemistry
Alexandra Heerdt ’85 B.S. Science
Danielle Pasqualone ’90 B.S. Molecular and Cell Biology
PENN STATE ALUMI: (from left) Alexandra Heerdt ’85, Fred Allendorf ’71, Nick Hartman ’03, and Danielle Pasqualone ’90 have been honored with the 2018 Outstanding Science Alumni Award. Photo credit: Nate Follmer
Fred Allendorf
Fred Allendorf is a Regents Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University of Montana. He has spent his career as an evolutionary geneticist applying the theory and molecular techniques of population genetics to problems in conservation. Much of his research has focused on understanding the genetics of salmonid fishes after a whole-genome duplication event, which resulted in fish with extra copies of their genome (tetraploidy). Allendorf’s work in fish genetics began while he was an undergraduate student at Penn State in the laboratory of James E. Wright, professor of genetics from 1949 to 1983 and professor emeritus of genetics from 1983 to 1997.
Allendorf was program director of population biology at the National Science Foundation from 1989 to 1990. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1987 and elected president of the American Genetic Association in 1997. He received the American Fisheries Society’s Award of Excellence in recognition of outstanding contributions to fisheries science and aquatic biology in 2011 and the Molecular Ecologist’s Molecular Ecology Prize for lifetime achievements in the fields of molecular ecology and conservation genetics in 2015. Allendorf is senior author of the book Conservation and the Genetics of Populations and has written several papers that unite the sciences of ecology and evolution with the spiritual practice of Zen in order to inspire actions to address the extinction crisis currently facing the planet.
Allendorf completed a bachelor’s degree in zoology at Penn State in 1971 and a doctoral degree in fisheries and genetics at the University of Washington in 1975. He was a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Aarhus in Denmark and a postdoctoral NATO Fellow at Nottingham University in England. He also served as a Professorial Research Fellow at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, from 2005 to 2012.
Nick Hartman
Nick Hartman is a partner at CKM Advisors, a developer of data science solutions for Fortune 500 clients with offices in New York and London. Hartman and the team at CKM utilize digital empirical measurements and analytics to detect and improve process efficiency, employee productivity, and resource utilization while also providing a data-driven approach toward assessing and reacting to operational risk. These insights enable CKM’s clients to incorporate advanced data-driven decision-making and automation into their daily operations.
Before the launch of CKM, Hartman started his career at OC&C Strategy Consultants, a global strategy consulting firm. His expertise and experience in the rapidly growing field of data science, especially as it pertains to large enterprise data environments and the complex processes that generate those data, have allowed Hartman to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business operations for a variety of clients.
Hartman’s research, including that conducted while an undergraduate at Penn State and while at Cambridge and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, frequently took advantage of proteomics, or the study of proteins. He developed a technique to screen for undiscovered protein complexes and also explored the molecular composition of colored, dissolved organic matter in sea water, which absorbs sunlight, potentially limiting the amount of sunlight available to other organisms.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Penn State in 2003, Hartman completed a doctoral degree in biochemistry at Cambridge University in 2008 as a Marshall Scholar, one of the most prestigious graduate scholarship opportunities for U.S. citizens.
Alexandra Heerdt
Alexandra S. Heerdt is an attending breast surgeon on the Breast Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), where she has worked since 1992. She is also an associate professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Over the past 25 years, Heerdt has worked to improve the healthcare management of women at high risk for breast cancer as well as those undergoing surgery. She was the principal investigator for a drug trial that demonstrated the impact of the compound tamoxifen, a drug that is now used in the prevention of breast cancer. She also was actively involved in studies evaluating the role of a procedure for the evaluation of lymph nodes, called sentinel node biopsy, which has become the standard of care. Most recently, she has served on committees to improve quality of care and safety at MSKCC and to evaluate patient-reported outcomes—reports of a patient’s health condition that come directly from the patient rather than being interpreted by a clinician or others.
Heerdt has maintained a clinical practice and has been named a Best Doctor in New York for more than 15 years. She has also been named a Best Doctor in the United States for Breast Cancer Surgery by Castle Connolly and a Compassionate Doctor by MSKCC. She is actively involved in the education of surgical fellows and teaches surgical management of breast diseases as well as communication strategies to improve patient satisfaction.
Heerdt earned a bachelor’s degree in science with highest distinction at Penn State in 1985 and was a member of the Penn State Cooperative Program in Medicine. She graduated summa cum laude from Jefferson Medical College in 1987 and also holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia University. Heerdt completed her surgical residency at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical College.
Danielle Pasqualone
Danielle Pasqualone is the vice president of intellectual property at Five Prime Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing innovative immuno-oncology protein therapeutics, which use the body’s own immune system to fight cancer. As the leader of the Intellectual Property Group, Pasqualone directs global patent strategy and provides strategic counsel on collaborations and licensing transactions.
Pasqualone’s work protecting intellectual property in the biotechnology industry helps promote innovation in both basic research in molecular and cell biology and drug development. She worked for nearly 12 years at Genentech, Inc., one of the foremost biotechnology and drug-development companies in the world, where she worked with distinguished scientists and pioneers in the biotechnology industry on programs ranging from basic research to clinical trials and commercialization. She also helped enable partnerships between industry and academic/nonprofit institutions to support collaborative, translational research. Her work on intellectual property matters contributed to newly developed treatments in oncology, which are providing groundbreaking, effective therapies for breast cancer.
As an undergraduate at Penn State, Pasqualone’s research helped define a class of movable genetic elements—genetic material that can move around within the genome—implicated in gene regulation and disease in mammals. Her doctoral research at Cornell University focused on a component of the machinery that segregates genetic material into the two daughter cells that result from cell division, and her postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, focused on chromosome dynamics during cell division. Pasqualone then shifted gears to a career in intellectual property and earned a doctor of jurisprudence (J.D.) at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2003.
Example 3
The Office of Science Engagement works with students, employers, faculty, and staff to connect students with learning opportunities outside the classroom. A strong component of this is the Study Abroad program, open to all students in any college at University Park. The STEM study abroad opportunities are particularly valuable. Efforts like the Study Abroad program offered by the Office of Science Engagement support the college’s belief that a student who engages thoroughly at Penn State is more likely to graduate.
“We know that students who engage in high-impact co-curricular experiences—like study abroad—are more successful; have higher retention rates, shorter time to degree, and higher GPAs; and are more likely to be successful when applying to graduate programs and jobs,” said Tomalei Vess, director of engagement at the Eberly College of Science.
From January 2017 through August 2018, the Eberly College of Science saw 208 students studying in 33 countries and Puerto Rico. Students have access to a variety of opportunities abroad—ranging from full-semester and one-to-five-week faculty-led programs to embedded programs with no additional tuition cost, in which students go abroad over a break.
“Students can take courses in other countries that count toward graduation requirements. They can also do internships or engage in research while enhancing their learning and professional development in an international context,” said Vess, who added that “the college and the University have a variety of options to help students pay for experiences abroad. We are working to increase awareness of this funding and how these opportunities fit with the context of science and the student’s career goals.”
The Eberly College of Science supports increasing the accessibility and affordability of study abroad for all interested undergraduate students incorporating international experience into their undergraduate degree. The Office of Science Engagement administers the Global Experiences Scholarship to qualified students participating in Penn State study abroad programs. Award amounts vary based on scholarship availability, scholarship requirements, and program details. The minimum award amount is $250, and the average award amount is $1,000.
Example 4
Melanie McReynolds, an alumna of the Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Molecular Biology graduate program at Penn State and now a postdoctoral scholar at Princeton University, is among the 15 outstanding early career scientists selected by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) as Hanna Gray Fellows in 2018.
Each Fellow will receive up to $1.4 million in funding over eight years, with mentoring and active involvement in the HHMI community. In this two-phase program, fellows will be supported from early postdoctoral training through several years of a tenure-track faculty position.
“As a Ph.D. candidate, Melanie was a joy to mentor because of her energy, creativity, and determination,” said her former adviser, Wendy Hanna-Rose, professor and head of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “She pioneered in my lab by expanding our capabilities in metabolomics analyses and completed an impressive thesis where she established distinct biological roles for each of the NAD biosynthetic pathways. She chose to continue her studies of NAD metabolism as a postdoctoral fellow, and her receipt of the elite HHMI Hanna Gray Fellowship is evidence of her outstanding potential as well as a significant resource that will ensure her future success. Melanie has always been dedicated to building an outstanding independent research program, and she is specifically passionate about inspiring and motivating other young scientists to aim high. With her receipt of the Hanna Gray Fellowship, she is in a position to achieve both goals. I look forward to many future impressive accomplishments from Melanie.”
McReynolds currently works with Joshua Rabinowitz in the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton. Her work focuses on the molecule NAD+, required by every living cell. Low levels of the molecule have been linked to aging and a wide range of diseases, including type-2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and cancer. Using sophisticated tools that can track the molecule’s metabolic origin and fate, McReynolds aims to identify how NAD+ is produced and consumed, in order to clarify—and someday counter—the causes of diseases and aging.
About the program
HHMI’s Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program seeks to encourage talented early career scientists who have the potential to become leaders in academic research. In particular, this program aims to recruit and retain emerging scientists who are from gender, racial, ethnic, and other groups underrepresented in the life sciences, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The program is named for Hanna Holborn Gray, former chair of the HHMI trustees and former president of the University of Chicago. Under Gray’s leadership, HHMI developed initiatives that foster diversity in science education. HHMI continues to carry forward this work on college and university campuses across the U.S.
