Meet Ambika Bumb, CEO of Bikanta

Tell us about your journey to where you are today.
My family is the starting point of my journey. My father came to the U.S. for his education; he was the first in the family to get a PhD. My mom was the first female in her town to get a STEM college degree. They both truly value education and engrained that into myself, my brother, and my sister.

I always enjoyed the sciences, economics, and some legal studies as well. When I went to Georgia Tech for undergrad, I decided to do biomedical engineering with an economics minor as it combined most of these interests. I really loved my experience. I took a peer-based learning biomed class in my first semester. They gave you a problem, and you had a few weeks to figure out how you, as an engineer in that situation, would handle it.

During that time, mad cow disease was a problem. We learned how this disease originated from prions which can very easily transfer and create further disease. How do you keep it decontaminated and design something to do that? Rather than being taught in a classroom setting, tackling a complex problem such as this was fun. Obviously, we weren’t trained engineers, but it gave us a quick glance into what it would be like to be a biomedical engineer.

As I went through Tech for 3 years, more and more, I liked the concepts we were using in engineering to solve medical problems. I was deciding if I wanted to go into medicine or not, and I ended up getting a scholarship that allowed me to go to the UK, called the Marshall Scholarship. I also received a scholarship that allowed me to pick who I wanted to work with at both Oxford and the NIH in DC to do a PhD.

I decided to work on using nanotechnology to create a platform particle that could be used across three different kinds of imaging modalities. Using this technology that I was developing, I studied imaging a wide range of pathologies from autoimmune disease to breast and brain cancer. How do we detect these diseases better and potentially deliver a drug to them better?

Afterward completing my doctoral studies, I did two postdoctoral fellowships in the field of nanomedicine at the NIH, one at the National Cancer Institute, and one at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

In nanomedicine, my interest is in creating technology and translating that to the clinic and so I in my second postdoc, we were working on a technology on the development of nanodiamonds that can solve very specific problems in imaging.

That led to the launch of Bikanta which I started in 2014 here in the Bay Area. For the last few years, we’ve worked on developing the technology, getting it through R&D into commercial viability, and now, we’re raising money to try to further preclinical and clinical studies.

What role did Jainism play in your life as a child and how has that changed over time?
When I was younger, we would read a lot of texts and have discussions as a community every week. My parents were very thoughtful in wanting to explain why we do the things we do and having discussions about them. Getting a better understanding of what Jainism is formed the basis from which I moved forward. One big part about Jainism is being introspective — thinking through your actions and having reasons for why you’re doing what you’re doing. The Mahavrat often guide those actions.

Throughout R&D and technology development, Jainism has shaped my thought about the work we’re doing. Any medical development has to be eventually be tested, so how do you do testing in animals, organisms, or cells in a responsible manner? What are the benefits of what you’re doing? If it’s not beneficial, you don’t do it. You’re smart and productive about how you define the study.

Jainism also played a role in how I develop relationships. In our company, at Bikanta, we spent a lot of time discussing the cultural values of the company. We defined them the word IMAGINE, where each letter means a different core value.

My contribution to the definition of our company culture stemmed from some values in Jainism about honesty and truth with all of our partners and customers.

What is a memorable moment of your life?

Having a daughter. I feel like I was a mother long before I had her, making decisions on career and life based on when I’ll be a mother. So when she arrived, it was like I could feel my path coming to fruition. When I was pregnant, I had a hard-to-describe sense of connection. I could see and feel her physically moving and kicking in me, but there was also a lot of emotional connect. Whenever I was having difficult questions or decisions I had problem-solve, she sensed it.

Share what a typical day is like for you today.
What’s typical is that things are not very typical. The only things that are regular is that I get up, get my daughter ready and go to work.

At work, at different times, there are different things I need to focus on. It might be legal strategy, a technical team meeting, or developing a new relationship with a scientific partner or an industry partner. Sometimes it’s doing HR work like payroll or looking at our medical benefits. There isn’t a lot of routine, because there are so many things you have to tackle when running a company. I also started developing a a new relationship with a scientific partner or an industry partner. Sometimes it’s doing HR work like payroll or looking at our medical benefits. There isn’t a lot of routine, because there are so many things you have to tackle when running a company. I also started developing a role with the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and there’s a lot of work related to that that comes through.

What’s typical is that I leave work at a certain time as I have to get home to take care of my daughter. When she’s asleep, I go back to tackling all these professional responsibilities. There’s a sense of routine that I go in and work and come back, but what I’m doing during work hours is very different on different times.

How do you define success and how do you measure up to your own definition?
A lot of times, words used to define success include high-quality, innovative, novel, or achievement. Sometimes in a business setting, success might be defined by financial targets that you hit. Those are good to help get goals, but that’s not how I personally define success.

For me, it’s a feeling of satisfaction that what I’m trying to achieve is positive in an impactful way for society, achieving a goal that is going to benefit many people. I may not get to see that entire benefit myself but it’s a goal that will benefit others as well, and I have done my best to try to get to that target.

The initial part of actually setting good goals is something that I think a lot about, so I would probably say I am measuring up to my expectations on that part. On the part of achieving the goals I set, there are always things I could try to improve or do more effectively. So maybe overall, 8 out of 10?

What is a professional challenge that you’ve faced and how have you overcome it?
One huge thing about companies in the nanotechnology space is making products stable for commercial viability. A lot of great nanotechnology ideas are very early and more scientific. You get great results and can immediately use them for a short-term purpose, but if you’re trying to create large quantities that have shelf-life and consistency, that can be a problem.

There were technical issues in this area of R&D that needed to be solved. The way that I went about solving it was hiring a really good team. I don’t think science or other such large initiatives are achieved individually. It’s all about working with the right people and creating a good environment to encourage productivity. We were able to come up with solutions that got a result on a much earlier time frame than I was anticipating. That’s just a theme in general in a lot of career problems or challenges that I’ve had: tackling difficult problems by collaborating and working in a team.

My PhD project that I mentioned — I had four different advisors in four different fields in four different institutes across two different countries. We were looking at big problems that were solved much more efficiently and effectively in a collaborative manner.

What advice would you share with young Jains today?
No matter what your field or direction you go in, study yourself and what centers you and gives you stable happiness and joy. Knowing that helps you in any situation you’re in, professionally or not. Understanding yourself is a big part of handling challenging situations and I think that comes through self-introspection which often involves religion. It can come from other things as well, but if you’re a Jain and you relate to certain values in Jainism, understanding what they mean for you and how you use them in your life in your decision making is important.

The more in depth you understand these things the more it helps you find happiness as you move forward and face challenges. I don’t think anyone’s life is going to be challenge-free. You’re going to face different kinds of difficulties but in those instances, having something that you can relate back to, that grounds, centers, or guides you, is helpful in helping you navigate. Thinking through these things intentionally, not just practicing something because you might have grown up in that environment. Intentional practice and self-analysis are what I would say are important.