An interview with Karen Christman (Ph.D. 2003), Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at UC San Diego, member of the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, and Co-founder of biotech company Ventrix, Inc.
Christman received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University, and completed her Ph.D. with Dr. Randall Lee at UCSF, where she examined injectable biomaterial approaches to myocardial tissue engineering. She is the recipient of several awards, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator and Transformative Research Awards, the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Early Career Translational Research Award, the American Heart Association Western States Innovative Sciences Award, and the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) Young Investigator Award.
How did you get from graduate school to where you are now?
In graduate school I focused on biomaterials and tissue engineering, which had been my interests as an undergraduate, and worked with Dr. Randy Lee on injectable materials for treating myocardial infarction. I was fascinated by the heart; it’s a very complex problem. If you can come up with a new therapy it can affect millions of lives. At the time no one had really done biomaterials and tissue engineering for the heart, and there was a lot of opportunity.
After grad school I did a postdoc at UCLA in polymer chemistry and nanotechnology. I worked there on a very different topic, on new polymers and patterning strategies for immobilizing proteins on the nanoscale. I learned a lot about polymer chemistry and design, which was what I was looking for. I joined the UCSD Bioengineering faculty in 2007, and am in the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, a multi-institutional building housing researchers working on regenerative medicine.
Tell us about your product at Ventrix?
I co-founded Ventrix about four years ago with a technology that spun out of my lab at UCSD. We are working on commercializing a biomaterial that is delivered by catheter to the heart to prevent heart failure after heart attack.
We developed the material from the extracellular matrix of pig hearts, formed by removing all of the cells, leaving behind just the matrix. We then process it into a liquid, which once injected into the heart provides new scaffolding that has cardiac-specific cues. It promotes the growth of more muscle and less scar tissue in the damaged area, which improves function and prevents heart failure. We developed this at the end of my first year at San Diego, in 2008, and since then have tested it in vitro, then in small animals, then large animals. Ventrix is completing manufacturing of the material, and is hopeful for clinical trials toward the beginning of next year.
What made you decide to pursue work in industry as well as in academia?
I was always very interested in industry. In graduate school I thought I wanted to work in industry, but a series of events happened after grad school that led me to academia. It was really during my postdoc that I realized that the academic environment was best suited for me.
I always knew I would translate technology out of the lab into the clinic and hopefully help patients one day, and one of the best ways to do that is a startup. I didn’t know it would happen in the second year of my faculty appointment, but we came up with the idea and people here were supportive, so I went for it.
How are the two worlds different?
There are a lot of similarities, you’re still dealing with technical challenges and trying to help patients someday. Definitely in academia there is more freedom in what you want to work on, which is why I stay in academia—because we can pursue interesting ideas. My lab is very translational, but there is the freedom to pursue more basic research when we want to. In a company, it’s very focused on an end goal; you wouldn’t do anything that is too outside of the main goal. There is no room or money for other projects.
How do you juggle it all? Do you ever sleep?
I was very, very busy, but it’s finally starting to ease up a bit now. I prioritize sleep; I’m not a happy person if I don’t sleep. It becomes easier once your lab and company are established; the beginning is more challenging when you don’t have a routine yet. It later gets easier to arrange your time.
What is awesome about your job?
My favorite thing—which hasn’t happened yet, but we’re hoping it will soon—is the potential for developing a therapy that will help patients one day. It has been my goal since I was an undergrad. It’s very exciting to get to work on things that will one day improve people’s health. Seeing my students succeed is also very rewarding.
What was the most surprising or unexpected thing about your job?
Teaching the first year—no one teaches you how to teach, you learn as you go. Also nobody teaches you how to be an effective manager of both people and money. We’re more trained on the research side, not on the management or the teaching side.
What makes bioengineering exciting as a field to be involved with?
Being in engineering I can be very translational. Engineering is an applied discipline and we can potentially get a technology out in the real world, that is what motivates me.
Do you miss anything about Berkeley-UCSF and graduate school?
While I was still busy in grad school, I do miss the free time that I had and the ability to focus more on my research. I miss the Bay Area, although not the weather now that I live in San Diego. It’s always really nice to visit, there are great people up there, and there is a great entrepreneur community.
Any advice for current students?
Pursue what you’re really interested in, it makes a huge difference. If you do something you’re not passionate about, it will not be fun to go to work every day… it makes all the little things that can be annoying worth it.