Tomorrow’s World Today® Podcast
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Tomorrow’s World Today® Podcast
Biotech with Heart: Atara’s Path to Hope for MS & Cancer
Learn more about: Atara Biotherapeutics
Featured on Tomorrow's World Today: S5E3 – Healing Heroes
What happens when science meets creativity at the frontier of medicine? Dr. Kristin Yarema, former Chief Commercial Officer at Atara Biotherapeutics, takes us on a journey through the world of cell therapy and its potential to transform treatment for cancer and multiple sclerosis. 🧬
Dr. Yarema shares the touching origin story of Atara, founded by Dr. Isaac Chichenover in memory of his mother, who passed away from ovarian cancer. This personal connection serves as the company's "North Star," keeping its focus on developing innovative therapies for patients with serious illnesses.
With her unique background combining chemical engineering and English, Dr. Yarema bridges the gap between complex scientific innovations and clear communication for physicians, patients, and stakeholders. 🔬
The conversation explores how mentorship shaped her career path and offers valuable advice for those interested in entering the biopharma field. "Making a new medicine is a total team sport," she explains, highlighting opportunities for people with diverse skills and interests. 🥼
Dr. Yarema passionately discusses neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis, which she describes as "one of the great remaining frontiers in medicine." Atara's work on investigational therapies for progressive MS represents a push toward addressing these devastating conditions that currently have limited treatment options.
Whether you're fascinated by medical innovation, considering a career in STEM, or simply curious about the future of healthcare, this episode offers insights into how science, creativity, and communication come together to solve some of medicine's most challenging problems. 💊
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Welcome to the Tomorrow's World Today podcast. We sit down with experts, world-changing innovators, creators and makers to explore how they're taking action to make tomorrow's world a better place for technology, science, innovation, sustainability, the arts and more. On this archive episode, host George Davison, who is also the host of the TV series, tomorrow's World Today interviews Dr Kristen Yerima, former chief commercial officer at Atara Biotherapeutics. Dr Yerima shares her personal journey, blending science and creativity, and the company's mission to transform treatment for serious diseases like cancer and multiple sclerosis. She emphasizes the importance of communication, mentorship and passion in biopharma, while highlighting the industry's potential to revolutionize care for neurodegenerative diseases.
George M. Davison:Thanks for coming, kristen. We were hoping to have a conversation with you today for our audience, to learn a little more about the organization that you're working with and how you got to where you are in the world today.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Absolutely Looking forward to our conversation.
George M. Davison:All right. So can you tell us how was Atara formed? Was there a founder back in the day?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Oh yes, yes, there was. So Atara Biotherapeutics was founded in 2012 by Dr Isaac Chichenover, and he named the company for his mother. His mother's name was Atara and she had, at the time, recently passed away from ovarian cancer, so he named the company in her memory.
George M. Davison:That's wonderful. That's very meaningful. I could see why he was so passionate as to what he was working on. Thank you.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Yeah, and I think it helps us really stay focused on patients. At Atara, our mission is really to transform the lives of patients with serious grievous illnesses like cancer, multiple sclerosis, and so, you know, just having our company be named in honor of a patient who needed more therapeutic options than she had, you know, just keeps that very front and center for us. It's really our North Star.
George M. Davison:That's wonderful. You know as sad as that can be for him having a North Star that can move through time with staff as the company continues to grow. That's very helpful for startups. So can you tell us a little about your position at the organization?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Yes, absolutely so. I am ATARA's chief commercial officer. I also oversee corporate communications and public affairs, so what I do is really a couple things. So I focus on how do we take the therapies that we are developing in clinical trials and how do we make them ready as medicines to really meet the needs of patients. So, you know, how is it going to be handled by insurance? How are we going to communicate about the therapy to physicians, to patients, to anyone who you know, who needs to know about it? And so, in a way, I would say communication is really at the heart of what I do.
George M. Davison:Wonderful. You know that's communication. We refer to that around here as storytelling and trying to figure out a way to communicate new innovations and technologies to the general public that has all sorts of different upbringings and understandings. And how do we communicate? If you create something, you need to learn how to communicate in a way that your audience will understand. So that makes sense.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Ideas have no power if we can't communicate them. You know it's like the tree falling in the forest right. Does it happen if no one hears it?
George M. Davison:Exactly, exactly. Well, that's so. Let's take it back, then let's. How did that? How did you figure out that was something you'd like to do?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Oh, it's a great question. So you know, I guess growing up I always had, actually I felt a very strong tension between the arts and a creative side and the sciences and engineering, and my family had a number of doctors and scientists in it. So I saw that, you know, saw them growing up and I was very inspired. Both my uncle and my grandfather were doctors. My aunt was the head nurse in the ER really challenging job. My mother was a science teacher and my father was a researcher at one of the national labs, so the STEM genes were very strong, but also really passionate about art and music and doing things with visual or creative arts, and so the idea of creating, innovating, making something new was also always very strong for me. So you know, I got to the point. What do I do with that? Right?
Steven Ruffing:What does that where?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:does that take you? So I ended up in college with a really bizarre double major of chemical engineering and English and and then I thought, well, you know, where do? Where do I go from here? How do I apply that? And then I thought, well, where do I go from here, how do I apply that? And so I thought I want to make a difference. I want to research and work on and bring to market new medicines and I want to make sure that people really understand the power of innovation. And that kind of led me into roles like what I'm doing now, and I just love being an ATAR and I love what I do.
George M. Davison:Well, that comes across. So I'm thrilled that you found something that you love to do and that, because that's the kind of passion that you know, moves you into life and to chase bigger goals. I don't know how I'd do life if I didn't love what I did. So how about mentors? Did you have a mentor in high school that might have helped to steer you into the field of science?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Yes, so I would say you know teachers and family. So I had some amazing science teachers in high school and they all kind of fit the bill in a way of the you know the portrait of the mad scientist and they were just zany and you know. So we did very creative lab work and you know, and I loved chemistry, I loved watching chemical reactions and seeing things happen.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:So, you know, I would say my. You know, my science teachers in high school really put me on that path and I continued to watch my family too, so I would have the opportunity to go into some of the medical offices. You know of my grandfather and uncle and you know, hear and see what they did for patient care and how important that is. So I would say, you know those examples, learning from all of those people was really, you know, really formative for me.
George M. Davison:You know, most high school experiences aren't perfect. So let's if we could share something in the world of you know, around here we, we refer to it as we like to fail our way forward. We learn from our mistakes. If there was a mistake that you'd like to forget about, or maybe that you'd like to forget about, or maybe you know that you might share with our, just so we, the people, know this. You can move past mistakes, can't you?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Yeah, absolutely Gosh. There's so many, I guess, for me, and maybe a lot of this would be in the realm of cooking.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:I, you know, I like to, you know, I like to create things, and so I was always kind of experimenting in the kitchen and some of those things turned out really well. So I make an amazing chocolate chip apricot cookie and any flavor of pie you want to think about. But some of them were also quite spectacular failures, Like the time that I invited friends over for coffee but I didn't know the first thing about making coffee and I boiled whole beans in you know, in a pot and you know that just didn't go over so well.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Fortunately I still had the friends after that failed experiment. Fortunately I still had the friends after that failed experiment. But you know it's you just, if you don't experiment, if you don't take the risks, then you're not going to know when those you know, those happy accidents come out Right. You know, they used to watch that painter Bob Ross.
George M. Davison:Mm, hmm.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:And he always described his paintings as happy accidents. He didn't quite know how they were going to turn out. He just put paint all over the canvas, but it always turned out well Right kept at it.
George M. Davison:He had a good eye and creative mind. You get back up off the ground and try again or keep working on it. He made those happy little trees.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Exactly the happy little trees, that's it.
George M. Davison:How about? So it sounds like you like to cook. Is that a hobby?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Yeah, so you know everything that's. I like working with my hands and also just visual and creative arts. So I love to cook, I love to make things, crafting things, but I also really love music and literature. So all those things, I would say are kind of what keep me going when I'm not at work.
George M. Davison:So it's a work-life balance right. So sometimes we have to really think hard and work hard, and we need that relaxation time to let it all go loose Around here. When we work really hard, we think of it as our mind is working on a problem, and the more we work on it, our mind gets tighter and tighter and tighter, to the point where we can't get any ideas out of it. As our mind is working on a problem, and the more we work on it, our mind gets tighter and tighter and tighter, to the point where we can't get any ideas out of it. And so we hey, it's time to take a break and relax and bring that mind to an open state again, and it's amazing how many ideas actually come in once we go into that other state of mind.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:You are absolutely right.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:In fact, you know, I think one of the challenges in, you know, in our busy professional lives and something that I'm really very have to be very mindful about is making time to just step back and let things percolate, let the juices flow and you know, step away from the problem at hand for a couple hours, maybe even a couple of days, and at least for me, you know, sometimes that's when the ideas really pop and I've learned and it took a long time, but I've learned to really respect my own personal creative process in that way and just trust that it will come and it usually comes. But making that space you know, for those, for those ideas to flow.
George M. Davison:All right. So, knowing what you know today, what advice would you give someone interested in entering into your industry?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Yeah, great question. So, first of all, I would I encourage people to enter my industry. I think there's never been a better time to be in biopharma and what we're doing at Atara and soul therapy in particular. This is a frontier, and we expect that this technology and this area of medicine is just going to grow for, you know, years and decades to come.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:And so what I would say to people who are interested is, first and foremost, be open, do make sure that it aligns with your personal passions and values. You know life is too short to be, you know, stuck doing something that you're like. You know this just isn't the right fit for me, so you know. So dive in with both feet if it's the thing that suits you, and then try to learn from people around you. So seek out those mentors. Talk to you know, talk to a lot of people.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:I think, you know I wish I had talked to more people when I was early on in my career.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:I think that's something that I did not do enough of, and I would definitely counsel, you know, younger, younger folks to do that, because there are so many different perspectives, there are so many different paths, so many different opportunities. It's really about understanding what's out there and what's going to play to your unique strengths and passions and be open to the opportunities that come along. Some of the greatest experiences I've had in my professional career were things I didn't see coming, things that when the idea was pitched to me or the opportunity was presented, I was like I'm not really sure that's what I want to do, that's for me. But I listened, I tried to listen and I did listen to the advice of others and you know those times led me into spaces where I learned so much, took on you know, new tasks, learn new skills that I never thought I would have and that wouldn't have been possible, you know, if, if I hadn't listened and taken advantage of you know, some of the unusual things that were offered up to me so the audience understands this emerging industry, biopharma.
George M. Davison:Can you maybe describe a little bit of what that means, if they may not have heard that term before? What do you do in the field of biopharma?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Yeah, absolutely so. Biopharma is really the industry where we discover, develop, manufacture and ultimately bring to physicians and patients new medicines. And, of course, you know, we have a lot of medicines already. So someone might say, well, do you know, do we really need more medicines? Well, there are so many diseases and conditions today where we really have no good therapeutic options at all, or we can always do better.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:So think about, you know, we work a lot in the area of cancer and some people may have heard about President Joe Biden's moonshot initiative for cancer. So that's the idea there is. You know, can we cure 50% of cancers? Well, that sounds pretty good. It'd be a lot better than what we're doing today. But 50%, that means one out of two people is going to have a cancer that isn't cured. We need to do better than that. And so, you know, if you're the kind of person who loves helping people, loves innovation, you know, wants to do something that's really going to have an impact, then I think you know, biopharma is, you know, is just an amazing, is just an amazing field to work in.
George M. Davison:And it's like, I think, all industries there's no stopping point. Eventually you get to the point where you're doing more innovations and maybe there are incremental improvements Around. Here we refer to it as there are incremental improvements, which are small, incremental stepping stones forward, and then there's the dramatic, the brand new creation which has never been seen before, and then that leads to the birth of a new industry. So, yeah, I don't ever see any industry not going through incremental. So I think there'll be a lot of jobs in this area for quite a long time. That's for sure. Let's see here. So let's, if we were talking about this, people in general and with your life experiences so far and all the different people you've met, do you think just about anybody can be successful today? And you can define successful as personally successful, let's say financially successful? You could take that word a lot of different ways, but do you think anyone can be successful?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Oh, absolutely, yeah, I think the number one thing is being interested, you know, being involved, and if it's something that you know excites you and you want to do, then absolutely. You know there's some training, there's getting advice from you know, like I said, others around you. But you know, in my field there are also so many different things that can be done, so everyone can contribute in some way.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:So, making a new medicine is a total team sport. It takes the whole village. You've got people who are doing research on the bench. You've got people who are out interacting with doctors in hospitals and helping design and run clinical trials. You've got people like myself who are thinking about you know how do we set up arrangements with insurance or how do we make communications. And then you've got you know people who IT is huge, right, so you know. You might think you know if I'm an IT person, am I working in medicine? Yeah, absolutely. We crunch huge amounts of data. We, you know we make it all happen. So I think it's deciding that it's an interest that you have and you know, then stepping in and trying it out.
George M. Davison:Yes. So basically, success is defined in such a broad way that if you're happy and you have found something that intrigues you and a company or a person's willing to pay you for that, you know you've been successful in at least the commercial form of the word, and so hopefully you can find your passion out there. So can we focus on, let's say, one project that you can think of in your industry that you think would elevate humankind the most?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:Oh, wow, that's a really good question. Well, I mean there are two that jump to mind. I mean the first is definitely, you know, changing the curve, you know reaching that moonshot with cancer that we talked about you know already a little bit, but we already mentioned that one, so I'm going to give you another, which is neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:So neuroscience is, in a way, one of the great remaining frontiers in medicine. Think about diseases like Alzheimer's or ALS, or a disease that we're working on investigating new therapies for, which is multiple sclerosis. So all of these are diseases that are chronic deterioration, long-term degradation of the nerves, and they affect millions of people in total know are just disastrous, horrible and often deadly diseases, and they've been very difficult nuts to crack. So I think if we could really begin to find effective novel therapies for neurodegenerative diseases, you know, the public impact, the public health impact, the impact on millions of patients and their families, their caregivers, would be simply enormous. And so that's what we're trying to do a little bit with therapy that we have, investigational therapy that we have in development for multiple sclerosis. We're starting with studies in progressive forms of multiple sclerosis, which is, just to put it very simply, where someone, just you- know progresses with their disease.
Dr. Kristin Yarema:It never gets any better, it only gets you know worse over time and the question is how quickly and how much? And we really need effective new therapies that can address progression for that disease.
George M. Davison:That's a noble cause and that sounds like something that we need. A lot of work on that subject. So well, this has been very eye-opening and I want to thank you very much for coming in and talking with us about your background and your company and some of the things you're working on in the future. Do you have anything else you'd like to add?
Dr. Kristin Yarema:No, just thank you so very much, george. It's been fantastic to be here. Just thank you so very much, george. It's been fantastic to be here, and I would really encourage any of you young people out there to really think about careers in STEM or STEAM. It's all important and if it makes you tick, there's so much opportunity. There's something new, something creative out there for everyone. So good luck.
George M. Davison:Thank you, Kristen.
Steven Ruffing:Thank you for listening to this episode of Tomorrow's World Today podcast. Join us next time as we continue to explore the worlds of inspiration, creation, innovation and production. Discover more at tomorrowsworldtodaycom. Connect with us on social media at TWT. Explore and find us wherever podcasts are available.
