Founder’s Lessons: Dr. Kiana Aran, CSO of Cardea Bio
Kiana shares her experience growing up in Iran, focusing, reframing challenges, taking notes, and building a team
About
Welcome to the twelfth installment of Tsingyuan Ventures’ Lessons from Founders series. Every week, we publish an in-depth founder interview, ranging from early-stage entrepreneurs to successful businesses. Our conversations cover their personal journeys, the lessons that shaped them, their visions for the future, and their failures. We also learn more about their companies and about the challenges they try to solve. These insights and lessons are applicable to any entrepreneur — current or future.
Read past interviews here.
Cardea Bio
Cardea Bio is linking biology directly up to computers for the very first time by building a Tech+Bio Infrastructure and offering chipsets based on their proprietary Biology-gated Transistors, or Cardean Transistors™. These electronic transistors leverage graphene, a nanomaterial that in contrast to the common semiconductor material silicon, is biocompatible and acts as a near perfect conductor. The result is a technology that’s able to generate interactive live-streams of multi-omics signal analysis in real-time, as compared to the current and static optical observation methods (snapshots). This represents a powerful paradigm-shift in new life science observation where multi-omics data-streams will be the new norm instead of one-perspective frozen-in-time datasets.
Together with their Innovation Partners, Cardea can link biology to computer power and convert real-time biological signals to digital information, allowing for immediate biological insight and a new generation of applications Linking up to Life. Click here to apply for the Innovation Partnership Program.
Dr. Kiana Aran is a Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Cardea Bio, Assistant Professor of Medical Diagnostics and Therapeutics at Keck Graduate Institute, a member of the Claremont Colleges, visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California Berkeley, and Co-Founder of Nanosens Innovations. Dr. Aran also serves as a Consultant of Drug Delivery and Medical Diagnostics for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She received her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the City University of New York in 2007 and her Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Rutgers University in 2012. She then continued her postdoctoral studies in bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley and was a recipient of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral training fellowship at the Buck Institute for Aging Research in 2015.
Her research efforts focus on designing novel biosensing technologies, using 2D nanomaterials, for early disease diagnosis as well as utilizing biology as tech elements for a variety of biosensing applications. She is the inventor of CRISPR-Chip™, the first reported CRISPR-powered electronic sensor. Her efforts have been recently recognized by many awards in science and STEM including the ClinicalOMICS10 under 40 and the 2020 Women in STEM Leadership Pinnacle Award in the Life Sciences category.
Why we invested in Cardea Bio: Cardea’s innovative graphene-based sensor can directly detect a wide range of biological compounds, including specific proteins, DNA and RNA sequences, and more. This could lead to a major breakthrough in diagnostics and make their low power, real time, portable devices highly competitive to all current genetic sequencing technologies in a wide variety of use cases.
Meet Kiana Aran
Interview edited for clarity and length.
“I focus on opportunities I have and what is in front of me, rather than focusing on limitations.”
Kiana introduces herself
My name is Dr. Kiana Aran and I am a co-founder of Nanosens, which recently merged with Nanomedical Diagnostics to become Cardea Bio. I am currently serving as Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Cardea. I am also an assistant professor at Keck Graduate Institute and a visiting faculty at the University of California, Berkeley.
During my undergraduate years I studied electrical engineering. I then went on to get a PhD in biomedical engineering from Rutgers and 4 years of postdoctoral studies at the University of California Berkeley in Bioengineering. At Berkeley, I studied a broad range of sciences from chemistry to biology to 2D material and their applications in sensing. I primarily worked on designing and developing devices and sensors to improve research processes, increase access to biological information, and improve upon drug delivery on-demand release technologies. My postdoc at UC Berkeley was truly an inflection point in my love for science.
While at Berkeley, I was also introduced to entrepreneurship and I started my first company. My first attempt at entrepreneurship did not go very well, but the lessons I learned were invaluable. When standing in front of a room of people to pitch my ideas I realized that I had a lot to learn. The main lesson was that innovation and new technologies are powerful, but are not enough to build a successful company.
As academics, we are trained to invent and develop novel technologies, but how do you sell your ideas and project to others? What skills do you need to take scientific advancements from the benchtop to a commercial application? My first startup experience helped me answer some of these questions and not only find the right team for my next venture, but also select what I wanted to work on as a technology more wisely. Now, when I design a project, I always think about how it can be adapted to a commercial product and have a real impact.
Her background and early experiences
I was born in Iran a few years after the Iranian Revolution, during the Iran/Iraq war. There were many limitations, particularly for women, and this experience of not having access to a lot of resources really shaped me. It taught me to jump at opportunities whenever they arose. If I had an opportunity to take a painting class or learn something new, I would jump on it. I knew that these opportunities were few, and far between, so I had to make the best of the chances I were given.
This experience of not having access to a lot of resources really shaped me. It taught me to jump at opportunities whenever they arose.
Regardless of who you are or where you come from, we all face challenges. My early experiences have taught me that it is a powerful tool to be able to shift your focus away from the limitations you face. Instead, we should refocus on the future and the opportunities in front of us. I have carried this philosophy with me throughout my career and it has helped me to fully focus on utilizing the resources available to me.
It’s not enough to be smart. You have to be resilient, you have to really work hard. And you need to follow your path. Your vision of where you will be in five or ten years might change a lot over time, but having hope and working hard towards a vision is super important. It really makes you focus.
I always envisioned a path for myself, and although this vision has changed over time as I have grown and matured, I have always had something that has motivated me to wake up and get to work every day. I believe it is critical that everyone finds something that will be their engine; a driving force that keeps you moving forward.
I believe it is critical that everyone finds something that will be their engine; a driving force that keeps you moving forward.
Challenges as CSO
As CSO, I run the Innovation Lab at Cardea. It is very important that my team stays focused. We focus on technology that has the potential to become a product. It would not be useful for us to be constantly creating new inventions all the time. We need to think about what we can do with what we have in order to develop a new generation of products. Innovation alone is not enough. You need a path that brings revenue to the company. In addition, along with my team, I need to constantly think about the next generation of products that we want to bring to the market and their competitive advantages which is a really fun activity rather than a challenge, but aligning those activities with the long term vision of the company is critical.
Innovation alone is not enough.
What we are building at Cardea is extremely multidisciplinary so sometimes we need expertise that we don’t have immediate access to. However, we have formed a very strong Innovation Council team that can guide us on our journey. In addition, by working closely with our partners and collaborators we can overcome these challenges. So to be honest, I don’t see challenges really. I see a problem that needs to be solved. It’s not a roadblock, it’s a puzzle that simply requires our focus and dedicated time to solve.
On reframing challenges
A few days ago, I asked myself: what did I want from life when I was 20 years old? I do not remember exactly what I wanted. I know I wanted to come to America, which I did. I know I wanted to go to a good university and complete my studies, and I did. Despite all the odds, I think I’ve achieved enough to make my 20-year-old-self proud. But today I am more demanding towards myself and have significantly bigger visions and want very different things from life.
Her notebook
My favorite object is my notebook. I have always really liked taking notes on paper. When I wake up in the morning, I make a list of things that needs to be done. When I meet with other academics and industry leaders, I always bring my notebook and write down everything. I still have my notebook from last year when we started developing our first commercial product. When looking through it I often think: wow, the way I was managing! I was doing things very differently. Over the past year, I have learned to manage and lead much better. Therefore, my notebook is precious to me. Sometimes, progress feels gradual, but when you look back at a full year you see how much you have learned and grown. It helps me to not take my progress for granted.
What she looks for in choosing co-founders
The technology is 5–10% of what we are trying to build. The team and the people on the team are the real asset. You must make sure that the people you work with empower you and whose values align with your values. I am very lucky to work with cofounders that have lived deeply and have empathy for those around them.
It’s important to build a team with a variety of expertise and a diverse culture. Cardea is a good example of diversity in terms of expertise and culture. So there is always something to learn either technical or cultural which makes the work environment a fun and rewarding place to work at. We call ourselves Cardeans, we empower each other, we learn alongside each other, and we grow together.
We have recently brought on more C-level people who are strong business leaders, and more technical people to expand our platform for a variety of applications which was great. But the most important aspect we take into consideration is to maintain a positive culture and this can only be achieved by building a team who share our vision and have a mission. The team should feel that they are also a part of the foundation of the company and that they are as important to the company as the founders are, because in the end we are a team.
The team should feel that they are also a part of the foundation of the company.
Balancing academia and a startup
Many academics ask me how I juggle my two roles (as a professor and as the CSO of Cardea). I can’t emphasize how much it has helped me to efficiently run my academic lab and Cardea ‘s innovation lab at the same time. When I think about it, it never actually feels like I am juggling two jobs, because I love this set up and I have learned to be efficient in my time management.
Vision for Cardea Bio
The sweeping changes brought to us by digital revolution and modern electronic systems, needs to move beyond just another gadget. We need to take advantage of technology to solve real life problems. Especially in healthcare and agriculture. Our vision is to build a Tech+Bio Infrastructure to allow access to biological information in real-time using advanced electronics. Through our technology we want to enable the transfer of large volumes of biological information to computers for analysis.
Best advice received
I have received a lot of advice, but I only listen to advice that resonates with me and my life mission. The best advice I have received is to always have the big picture in mind. Every day you will struggle with obstacles, and sometimes you get frustrated by small details. However, these small frustrations can cloud your mind and distract you. It is important to zoom out a little and remind yourself of the larger goal. You’ll see the problem shrink. And then you can go solve it. When I think about problems this way, it helps me not get frustrated or lose my focus. I can resolve the problem in a more effective way. It takes practice, but it’s been very helpful for me.
You’ll see the problem shrink. And then you can go solve it
Being a female co-founder
I am asked about being a female co-founder often. Sometimes I think to myself, why do people keep asking me this question? There have been interviews where my colleagues were being asked all types of questions about being a founder and their technical expertise, but when the interviewer got to me the question was “how does it feel to be a woman”?
To be honest, I never thought a lot about it. Of course, I have had experiences that bothered me, but I never focused on them much, unless people asked me to go back and talk about it. About a year ago we took a lab group photo and I realized I had about 15 women in the photo and only about 5 men. But I never noticed. When I hire people, I just look at who is the most suitable person or leader for the position. And the balance changes, sometimes it’s more men than women in my lab. We cannot change the entire world, and limitations for women have been around for hundreds of years, but we can make a choice to take advantage of what we have and move forward as much as we can.
Advice for women leaders
My advice for women leaders is to focus on the opportunities in front of them, rather than focusing on the challenges we face. Be resilient and be focused on moving forward. Progress might be slower from time to time, but it is much better than being static.
Media recommendations
- I used to and still have long drives to work, especially in LA and around Southern California, and I would listen to some podcasts to utilize my time driving. I enjoy science podcasts. I especially like the Science Rules! podcast. Another one I like talks about space and it’s called Are We There Yet?
- I recently read The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. It talks about the challenges you could have as a leader and executive. The way that he writes is pretty new to me. I have read books in the past on similar topics that become very boring after a while. But with this book, you can really feel it. I’d recommend it for entrepreneurs and leaders because it talks about how to keep your focus, how to make decisions, how to manage, how to build a team and how to stay resilient. When you’re dealing with problems as a leader, you want to make sure that you don’t mismanage. You can really connect with the way this book is written.
Outreach activity she participates in
I’m part of an outreach organization which builds elementary schools in rural villages in Africa. The organization is called buildOn. I’ve gone to some of these rural villages with buildOn to build schools as well as advocate for access to education for young girls. The schools we build are required to maintain a 50% female student body. BuildOn also encourages the parents of these kids to attend afterschool programs and continue their own education.
When we build a school, we build it alongside the people within that community, so that they feel connected to the school. That ownership means they also want to send their kids to school there. This has been one of the most rewarding life experiences for me. It is hard physical work, with lots of shoveling and sweating. I am reminded of how lucky I am and how many opportunities I have as a woman living in the US. It is also a reminder to never stop advocating for those in need. Creating equal opportunity for people all over the world will help to make the world a better place.
Question she wishes was asked more often
I hope that instead of asking questions about challenges women face in male-dominated fields, people ask: how can you motivate more women to join this field and to become leaders? This provides a more positive angle. If we really want to see change in society, we must support each other and lift each other up. I recognize that as women we are often told we must choose between our personal and professional lives, but I always try to encourage my women mentees to throw this idea out the window. You should not have to separate your personal goals from your professional goals.
You should not have to separate your personal goals from your professional goals. […] Try to somehow merge your passions.
My advice to young women would be to try to merge your personal and professional passions.
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