The Future of Genomic Storage with Heather E. Williams, COO of Cache DNA

We just had a really fun conversation with Heather E. Williams. She's the chief operating officer of Cash DNA and she has also held a variety of really cool positions. She actually has multiple hats that she's wearing right now. Heather gives some really good networking advice and also speaks to the power of continuous learning and why it's so important to always take opportunities to learn more as you're going through your career. So it was a great chat and we hope you enjoy.

Welcome to Building Biotechs, a podcast by Reeconomics Consulting.

We've helped over 75 biotech, life science and venture capital firms strategize, hire and retain thousands of employees to scale companies that bring life saving drugs to patients.

We speak with those at the forefront of growing biotechs to learn their tactics on building these companies. From the ground floor to the C suite.

We're your host, Karina and Allison.

Heather, thanks so much for being here. We're excited to chat. We always like to get a kind of overview of your career experience. So what did you want to be when you were 7? What are you now and how did you get there?

Yeah, when I was seven, I wanted to be Dr. Quinn, medicine woman. She was this trailblazer who went out west to bring medicine to people who didn't otherwise have it. She was a woman doing things that in that time only men were doing. So I was pretty excited to, to be her.

What are you now and how did that happen?

Yeah, so now I'm a chief operating officer, but I'm trained as a clinical laboratory geneticist and that kind of happened with that passion around medicine. In undergraduate, I was invited to a course called Cytogenetics, which is a study of human chromosomes. And I also was able to rotate through a cancer hospital there. And it really showed me the power of genetic results and enhancing patient care. So that's, that's what put me on that path and I've been on it now for a couple of decades.

That makes a lot of sense. I loved that show too, growing up.

Okay, so you are now the chief.

Operating officer at Cash DNA.

Can you tell us a little bit about what's going on over there? What you're doing maybe a little bit of a day in the life.

Cash DNA is an MIT spin out. We have a proprietary technology that allows the storage of nucleic acids at room temperature. So instead of the way in which most of us think about those things being stored in a freezer somewhere, hidden away, instead it can be at room temperature. A day in the life. I Think the day is, is so full. There's many hats that I wear from, you know, getting into the weeds around how do we transfer something into a proced for our customers to use in their laboratories, to being on a call with investors, to talking about, you know, the potential of our technology, you know, in a, in a pitch to potential.

Customers wearing all the hats. I like it.

Yes.

So with the company, how many, how big is your team? How many people are over there at Cash?

We have seven people and we have quite a number of clinical and scientific advisors who are supporting us through this journey.

What are some of the strategies that you have employed to build the company thus far?

I think that having a team that's united in the mission to build our product and what it's going to deliver for Genomics, always linking back to the fact that there, there is a long term impact of our business. It's not just, you know, doing something and maybe someday it'll have an impact. Always having in your mind's eye that every action you're taking right now is, you know, for the customer and for the patients that they serve. So I think that that boils down to having communication and knowing that someone has your back.

That builds a really strong mission and ethos culture too. I'm sure your, your employees are also linking it back all the time. That's really important from the beginning and we're seeing more companies go that route, thinking patient first. So I love that.

Heather, you gave a really good but succinct synopsis of Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman COO. You have an incredible wealth of experience. I am looking at your bio right now and you have done a lot of really interesting things and have held some really cool jobs. One of the ones that jumped out at me, and we're going to dig into this a little bit, but you were the head of Cancer testing over at Flagship for a while, so can you talk about how you did that, how you transitioned from being the head of Cancer at Flagship over into what you're doing now? That's a pretty big jump right there.

Yeah, yeah, Flagship, obviously venture creation firm, everybody kind of knows it now because of the success with Moderna. But at the time, you know, we were in the pandemic and we were starting another. At the time, I think it was FL67, it was unnamed venture. Today it's Harbinger Health. But we were focused again on that impact that the novel technology that was using AI machine learning to, you know, derive genomic information from patient samples was going to have So I think that, again, it was that small team that existed with the central mission and it was building up the lab. And then, you know, thinking about how that positioned me to, to be where I am now, I ultimately left that role so that I could go to Yale to get my executive mba to be even more positioned to not just build the laboratory, but build the infrastructure and the organization that it takes, and in some way feel as though the success that I was a part of at flagship was something that I could contribute to independently without maybe the strong support of a huge venture creation firm.

That's really interesting about getting your executive mba. Do you think that is a step that would be really beneficial for a lot of people who are founding a biotech? I mean, I'm sure you pull out so much of the business acumen that you have all these brilliant scientists, but does it always translate into business acumen? I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?

That's exactly why I got my mba, because time and time again I would be so excited about the possibility of a new test or a new assay or something that was going to lead to discovery and impact patient care. But I would often find myself at a table with, you know, reality. And by that I mean they were doing their jobs, but administrators, people, finance folks. And I couldn't bridge that gap between rationalizing what I knew was going to be a great idea, communicating what that value would be to them, and, you know, just hitting that, that block. And so I thought that learning the syntax or the lexicon that they used would be the best way to equip me as a leader. But also the scientists on my team with, you know, the tools they needed to capitalize on a discovery. I think there was another part of that question is whether or not other people should do that. And I will say absolutely. I, I think that I hesitate a little bit because it's quite an undertaking. But being on the other side of a couple of years, traveling every 10 days over to the east coast, it was worth it. And I would suggest highly that everybody do that. If you think that you're going to want to build an organization, what was that process?

Do you mind sharing kind of the overview of, you know, how did that work?

So the program's two, two years in length. There were in services where we would spend a couple of weeks together in the same hotel, eating every meal together, really, you know, quick bonding, but in addition to that, every 10 days. So like every other Thursday, I would fly from my home in Ohio off To New York, take a bus. A bus or a shuttle up to New Haven. It was several hours of travel. I'm, I'm emphasizing that because it's not as easy as, you know, just go to class. And then I would fly home sometimes on Saturday nights after class was over, but often because my destination's in Ohio and there's only a few flights that way, it would end up being a Sunday return home. So, you know, every other weekend, being away and dedicating myself to, you know, being a part of the study group that I had, but also soaking in so many of the resources that the university was providing.

Can you tell us what Gene between.

Is a service when you have a question in genomics? And what I mean by that is, you know, it's consulting, but it's not always the, the formal dig in, you know, have a long term contract, help you establish a lab or get your regulation instead. I always like it to be super casual, be available to answer questions that point people in the right direction, equip them to answer questions themselves. I know that some consultants are like, let me dig in, let me be there, but let me get your beck and call. But I see it more of kind of a peer to peer support system.

So that's not maybe a huge component of your day to day. Is that how I'm reading that or are you still doing that? Cause I have it on my list that is currently.

Yeah, yeah. So we, you know, it's. My husband and I, we founded it. We're both laboratorians. I would say it's not a big part of my day, but I'm always excited when someone reaches out and maybe just wants to know an answer to a regulatory question and I can help them along. And sometimes that facilitates a partnership, but other times it's just, you know, helping someone out who needs a resource.

And can we also talk a little bit about the Endless Frontier Labs program? You're currently in that at the moment?

Yes, yes, yes.

Can you tell everyone who's listening what that program is and give us some insight into that?

Yeah. So Endless Frontier Labs is a life sciences incubator as a part of NYU Stern School of Business. And they support us along that journey by matching us with several experts in our area. Of course, we're in the life science track and so we've had an opportunity to meet with people who are very familiar with the chemistry of our technology, but also the application in genomics. It's supporting us on the journey, being there to meet with them. It's about, I believe it's four meetings over the course of the year, but a couple of those are in person. So really having that face to face connection with someone who can help open doors for you and you can contribute maybe to their organization if there's a match there. So in, in a nutshell, I would say it's a supportive group of people who want to see our company succeed.

So you really do a lot of different things during the course of your day. You have your hands on a lot of different bots.

Yes, yes. We're, you know, we're communicating with people in our mentorship program, we're communicating with customers, we're working as a team internally. And of course, I have some other things that I do professionally to promote and engage with our professional societies. So, yeah, it, it can go any way in any direction at any time.

So it sounds too like you're really leveraging some things outside of the Cambridge area. We typically, we're very familiar with the incubators around here, the accelerators, the resources, but you come from sort of a background where you've had the advantage of being able to geographically diversify the things you're taking advantage of. So that's an NYU program. You got your executive MBA in Connecticut, you live in Ohio. So what has that done for you in network building and being able to expand your reach?

Yeah, and I should add to that Cash is in San Francisco. So I travel there quite frequently to be a part of the team in person. But otherwise, you know, definitely a part of the new normal of zoom calls and being able to connect with people, you know, virtually. I will say that, you know, I have lived, trained, worked around the world, and I think the benefit to that is having a large network of people who have diverse perspectives. And I, I say that because sometimes, you know, I just need another person to bounce an idea off of. And I know that each person's individual experience can be pretty powerful in level setting. The fact that I might have blinders on for what's the right direction for our company, for my mission as an individual. So I would say, you know, being comfortable with going around the world and talking to pretty much anyone has made me successful.

When you're going around and you're talking to all these people and you obviously have a very robust network, and I'm sure there's cross mentorship happening all the time. Are there certain things that consistently show up as being a struggle for maybe early founders or, you know, CEOs of an early startup, biotech people who are in that founding beginning phase that you consistently see cropping up over and over again.

Yeah, I think I would describe two different things. I think the initial one is people have great ideas and they're afraid to take the leap. They think they have to do it alone. When I was at Yale, there was Tsai City, which is an amazing program to help support folks coming out of the university there. But not everybody has that kind of access. And so convincing yourself that if you believe in this, you can find those who want to do and take that journey with you is something I see over and over. People come to me or I'm a part of conversations with, like, what do you think about this? Do you think I should pull the trigger? Which I think getting, you know, other people to give you advice is great, but if you decided this is something you want to try, try it, it might not work. Everybody knows that sometimes startups fail, but it will bring you a wealth of knowledge. That's one thing I see. I think the other thing that am a part of is building connections. You may have started your startup, you may be pretty successful, but finding other people who are also in that position who want to facilitate your growth, and then you can give back to them in the same way. I think startups and people who are in that early stage of their, their business, they really want to support others where they've maybe gone awry or where they've learned a, a very terrible lesson. So I, I do think that, you know, emailing somebody to ask a question could, could open a conversation you never knew was possible. So, you know, that would be my advice to people, you know, thinking about reaching out.

Yeah, we talk to people a lot about how important it is to network and to put yourself out there. But I do think people struggle with it. Right. It's a little bit of an awkward thing, but you seem like someone who has really embraced networking and meeting people. And I would love to know, do you have any, any tried and true tips or methods? Like you walk into a networking room and you're like, this is uncomfortable. You're meeting someone who's really intimidating. Any insight there?

I think we've all been in that situation where you're in a room with someone who has three no bills or something like that, and you have no idea what to say. You know, you do your best, you research them, you try to find something that you have a mutual interest, and, you know, what's the worst that's gonna happen? They say, I'm busy, I have to go do something. Else. And then you say, hey, no problem, let's connect later. And you leave a card or you say, can I email you and continue this conversation? So yeah, I would say, you know, break the ice with something you think is gonna elicit. Sometimes I will just say something related to the weather and say this weather is terrible compared to where I'm from. And then of course they're gonna be like, well, where are you from? Because that's a natural human response to that question. And then that allows you to say, I'm from, you know, here, whether that's California, Ohio, wherever. And then you say, oh, cause I'm from there and I went to school there. And then they say, what did you go to school for? And then that naturally brings you into this is what I do now. And that's why I came up to you and that's why I want to talk to you.

Okay. We've talked to a lot of people on the show who give a lot of good advice, but that right there might be the best networking advice ever.

Just, oh, it's terrible for where I'm.

From and just leave that door open. Oh, I love that. Totally gonna steal that.

Yeah, that's really good advice. I think we talk a lot about we work with candidates and how they can make connections on LinkedIn without being creepy. That's like a big topic. And so a lot of the advice is, yeah, you have to leave these normal human dangling open ended interactions that make somebody curious and come back with more. So that's real life advice for you. Staying on the topic of networking and mentorship, how have mentors played a role specifically in your success? Do you have any great mentorship stories you can share with us?

I've had several mentors who've really changed, you know, the trajectory of my life. I think that some didn't realize that's what they were. Right. They were a professor who was inspiring me just by going to work every day and showing me what it meant to be a clinical lab geneticist. Others, you know, we've had that formal relationship where they supported me in the next stage where they're like, okay, well what, what job do you want or what kind of place do you want to work? How can I find somebody there that you can just talk to about what it, what it means like to take that job? So I would say without those people even anonymously being there as symbols of what is possible, I wouldn't have felt, felt like I was empowered to be who I am today.

I like the example of the mentor that doesn't know they're the mentor. I think that's a really. We don't hear enough about that. I have a couple of very similar examples, and if you ask me about formal mentors, sure, it's that relationship. But sometimes you can be a mentor to someone just by showing up and being your awesome self. And I think we forget that. I think we forget the impact we have on just how we show up in the world. That's a beautiful example. Hey there. Just a quick break. I wanted to let you know that if you're listening to this podcast because you are exploring careers in biotech, which it turns out quite a few of our listeners actually are, you might be interested in the Biotech Career Coach podcast. It is brought to you by our sister company, the Collaboratory Career Hub, which is our career development community. If you would like actionable tips on job seeking and career development, that is the place for you. It is a companion podcast to our Career Coach column that we write monthly in Biospace, but we go a little more in depth and sometimes we have special workshops and all of that good stuff. So if that sounds interesting, click the link in the show notes or search for the Biotech Career Coach on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts back to the show.

So I was curious about something. Cash is in San Francisco, and obviously we know a lot about the east coast biotechs, but you're in Ohio. Is there a biotech scene in Ohio? Is there like a little hub there? I'm always surprised where you hear about these little biotech hubs that are springing up.

I'll have to be honest. The reason I'm in, in Cleveland specifically is because of the clinic. The Cleveland Clinic that's there because, of course, my husband is also a laboratorian. I will say that Cleveland as a place for medical innovation, you know, you can't, you can't be the Cleveland Clinic. But to answer your question about Ohio in general, the other C, there's three Cs in Ohio, Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. The other one, which is where my alma mater is at, is Columbus. And there's a huge scene growing there. Nationwide Children's Hospital, which is pretty, pretty prominent in the space for research discoveries for children, has kind of spun out several companies and organizations, particularly in cell therapy space. And so I would say that kind of spirit in central Ohio is growing outside the rest of the state.

Oh, that's very cool. It's always neat to hear about what's happening in these other areas and it's not that I intend on being so geographically centered, but, you know, it's just like those are the mailing list I get on. That's where the news is really coming from into my inbox. And so it's just natural that I know all about the East Coast. But then there's this whole other part of the country.

You have had an interesting career, moving from the lab into operations and all of that. How if someone wanted to follow in your footsteps, what would you say to them? How does that even happen?

There are several people out there. We like to call them the invisible, invisible heroes. During the pandemic, I think a lot of people became aware of the fact that laboratory professionals are central to. You know, we like to quote, 70% of medical decision making is reliant on a laboratory test. Laboratory professionals can really think about the impact that they have, and I think that really empowers them to feel like, okay, I can continue to refine my skills, my education. That's going to lead me down a path of being an expert in my field. It's going to lead me possibly to opportunities as a leader again. I think we talked earlier about having patience central to your mission, and that allows you to really dig in and be devoted to not only the patients that you serve, but to yourself. Because as you improve what you're. It's possible for you to do as a laboratorian. I think you're ultimately ensuring that every patient gets the right test. So my advice would be, you know, believe in yourself and all the great things that you're already doing and use that leverage that to get yourself into positions that you're not sure are possible, but I think is the first step in. In believing that you can.

Yeah, you definitely seem like someone who embraces lifelong learning and taking advantage of opportunities to always be picking up a new skill.

Yes. Yes. My. My daughter likes to tell people that her mother has been in. In school as long as she's been alive and she is 21 years old, which is which. I actually was in school a little bit longer than that, but that's fine. She can.

She can say that sounds better that way. It's more concise, you know.

Yeah.

Well, going back to cash a little bit. Can we talk about the culture you guys have over there and what you're sort of building to? You said there's eight people there right now. Is that about the size you want to stay? Are you looking to grow? How's that all working out?

I think our culture is, you know, Being there as scientists for each other, grounding ourselves in what is scientifically possible. Not, you know, I think a lot of people think startups are, you know, people just sit around and think about the future and how this will work. And because of the nature of the product that we're going to deliver on, which is, you know, storing nucleic acids, we, we have to start with what are the basic principles of science and how can those be applied in our customers hands. And by that we are a small team, we are not looking to stay small. We have all of these laboratories across the country that level, that leverage genome informed care and pretty much anyone who's manipulating nucleic acids is a potential customer for cash. And so we have to be planning every day about what does that look like in different customers hands for our product. And also we have to be building a lot of relationships with scientists because I think we talked about earlier the diversity of minds. We're a small team. We don't necessarily understand all the perspectives of scientists who are going to work and engage with us. And the only way to learn that is to get out there and talk to them.

I'm really excited about the field of precision medicine and I know that you are too. But when we think about how this is growing and expanding, this is, you have a lot of opportunity in this space because we are seeing more and more people thinking about even personalizing things, doing more testing, using data driven insights for patient care. So what are you excited about? Where are you seeing this expand? What's next?

Yeah, I'm really excited that many of these tests are becoming available and they're deriving a lot more information than maybe just 10 years ago. And the reason why I say becoming available, even though I think precision medicine has been a word on all of our tongues for a long time, is as much as I have this excitement about discoveries and you know, changing the way in which we care for individuals once a diagnosis is made, I think we have to always have in the back of our head that in our healthcare system it's those that are insured, those that have access to these specialists who can get access to precision medicine. So I step back from my excitement and say we have quite a way to go in terms of leveraging all of that information for all human populations. So yeah, don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I think that's important for us to have context there of it's so exciting. But it's only a fraction of the information, it's only a fraction of the People who can, who can access it.

It's so true. We're not, it's not democratized yet.

And I think we have a lot.

Of work to get there. I'm hearing a lot about, what do they call these doctors? Concierge doctors. And these are doctors that are, you know, outside of the traditional insurance system. And they will order all kinds of great testing and full body MRIs and all of the different things that the rich can afford to have done. And so while that's great and exciting, that is not everybody. So to your point, you know, we have a lot of work to do.

Yeah. I think we have to remember when it's great to maybe have a physician at your, you know, beck and call. But is that the right utilization of medical services? I would say no, but of course I don't have access to that kind of 24 hour support, so I don't know how it feels. Me neither. Me neither. A lot of people are forward looking about their health, their children's health, and some are even thinking about their grandchildren's health. And so, you know, our technology is this room temperature storage of nucleic acids. But it's long term. Right. We know that when DNA and RNA are stored, they tend to degrade over time. But if today you wanted to keep a biological specimen of your genome so that information could inform the care of your children, of their children, that is essentially possible with our storage technology. And that's how we, we see several different ways that keeping a biological sample long term could help the cancer journey for retrospective, but also for those who just have health and wellness in their mind's eye.

Right.

Leveraging that information, keeping it in the sample type that you've collected and you don't have to go back and be poked again. I do think it's a hot area for people talking about precision medicine. Not just what it does for patients now, but thinking about the future when we do get to that point where everybody's data is accurately represented in these databases that we leverage for, for genomic interpretation.

I could even see that being really useful in the research space beyond medicine. I was listening to a podcast the other day where a researcher was talking about finding a quote, unquote treasure trove of a minus 80 in Canada that had all of these patient samples that were collected in the 80s. And that's great, but think about the storage of that. That's a long time to store those samples. The energy, the space, all the resources.

Oh, absolutely. You know, I think about medicine, the precision medicine, genomics, all of that, just because that's what I've done most of my life, have trained in that space. But I think that anybody who is leveraging samples in that way, whether they want to store them long term, whether or not you talked about electricity, you talked about the aspects of there. You know, there are still areas of the world where the government is cycling the electricity off day to day. These places have hospitals, they have labs, and they have all kinds of consequences that they have to deal with when the power goes out and they, they can't ensure care. So, you know, there is an aspect there that, that could support remote areas of the world where the cold chain just doesn't work for. Not just because they don't have a minus 80, because they don't even have the power to run a minus 80 if they had one. I mean, we've had electricity for a long time. Um, you know, I think we're into the, what, the third century that had electricity. So it's just like second nature to all the rest of us. But certainly that's not something that everybody on this planet has, has the ability to access.

Good friend of mine just got back from a trip to South Africa. And in. In Cape Town, which is a large city, they cycle electricity within the city. So this is not even places you would think are not developed. It's just what is the infrastructure, what is the load, what is the population density?

It's not just getting the samples into a minus 80 and then dealing with the electricity issues. It's even getting the samples from the patient who might be in a more remote area to that central city, whether it's Cape Town or, you know, just here in the States. Right. Going from like rural Montana out to the capital there, it's not easy. And so facilitating that as well.

Even here, the power grid fails. We've seen it happen multiple times, right. People lose power and hospitals do lose power. So, like, it's not foolproof. That's super interesting, Heather. I'm really glad you explained that because I think that's a really fascinating. I hadn't even thought about. Yeah, the Montana is a massive state. To get from A to B is not exactly. It's not Boston.

No, it's not. And a few years ago, I was with a group of geneticists. We wrote a paper about telegenetics because this was the middle of the pandemic and government was thinking about changing the way in which they reimburse for some of those services, particularly for specialists. And Montana popped into my head a few minutes ago. Just because one of the things that's in that paper is we talk about in comparison to cities like Boston and New York, where there is plenty or sufficient number, how about that, of medical and clinical laboratory geneticists available to see individuals with rare disease, with cancer, things of that sort. Montana, I believe, only had one or two medical geneticists and genetic counselors for the entire state. So when we talk about, you know, these, these issues being only limited to other parts of the world, that's just. It's not true here. Here in the States, we have the same problems. And I. I only bring that up because I think it's important to say we can make an impact everywhere right now with these problems.

What do you want to achieve in the next 10 years? What's your big goal?

My big goal for myself is to be a part of a team that I feel like I'm continuing to contribute to patient care in some way, shape or form. And the reason I say some way, shape and form because for many parts of my early career it was. It had to be in a laboratory. Those labs tend to be in the basement or shut off from the patient areas. And I think that when I look to the future, I want to embrace the fact that there are many ways that I can make that impact. And not that I need to reinvent myself in the next 10 years, but just to be. To feel confident and safe in the idea that no matter what I'm doing, if I'm doing it for a patient, it's the right role for me to be in at that time.

You're going to have an interesting answer to this question, I believe. So what is your favorite book or a book that you think everybody should read?

I will say that my favorite book ever is the Poisonwood Bible. I think it tells a strong lesson of if you want to help someone, you need to make sure that that help one is something that they want. And it just has some great warnings for someone trying to build a life that is committed to helping others. And of course, I like Barbara Kingsolver a lot and I think I've read every book she's ever produced since that one. That would be my absolute favorite book.

I think a lot about reading books over the years. Have you come back to it and read it a few times over those couple of decades? I always think that you sometimes see or read something different or take something away differently after you've had some new experiences.

Yeah, I think that the story of the family going somewhere as missionaries to help others, you know, when I was younger, I was like, oh, that sounds so exotic. That sounds so important. And as you read the book, it doesn't quite go the way that they think it will. And now as an adult, I'm like, what were they thinking going out there without being equipped or, you know, at least being familiar with the landscape and I guess in the modern society, I think, what were they doing not connecting with these people before they even just showed up? Right. That's probably just a 2024 thought. So I definitely have taken different things from that book and just keep rereading until I'm sick of it, which is never happened because it's a great book.

For people who want to connect with you and learn more. Where is the best place to do that? Is LinkedIn good?

Yeah, LinkedIn is great. I love getting messages from people. I do have some reserved time that I try to say, you can have 15 minutes on my calendar and I'll say hello. And I think that's only fair to any human to to give them the 15 minutes. It doesn't always work out. I might not be a fit, but I'm never bothered when someone drops in to say hello.

Oh, amazing. We'll link your LinkedIn into the show notes and also about your other companies as well so that folks can find you wherever they want to. Thank you so much. This was really, really interesting.

Thank you both. I. I had a great time.

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