Founder Stories: Arnav Chhabra, Co-Founder of Satellite Bio & Regenerative Medicine

All right. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Slice of Life Sciences. I've been super eager to get today's session or get to it, given our guest and what his company has been doing. Has done and is continuing to do. They are pioneering tissue therapeutics. I typically take this time to give a relatively lengthy overview of the person and the company, but after doing some research on Arnav, I'm going to keep it short and sweet and just dive right in. So without further ado, we have Arnav Shabra, co-founder of Satellite Bio. With us today, who's working on the next frontier of regenerative medicine, which has enormous potential, which we'll touch on a little bit later. So, Arnab, thanks very, very much for taking the time to be with us today and allowing the listeners to hear your story and your company's story.

Dave, it's a privilege to be here. Thanks for asking me to join you today. I've actually been avidly listening to your previous episodes, kind of preparing for this one. And I have to say, I'm super excited for this conversation. I think you do a great job, and I think it'll Fun one.

Well, that's, that's good to hear. Thank you for that. Um, so yeah, in some of my previous episodes, you've probably noticed I'd like to start from earlier stages in your life. And, and I think this is going to be a really conversation given how unique some of, um, your experiences have been. So rather than diving right into satellite, I thought, um, we'd just learn a little bit about you as the person. So if that's okay with you, I'll just kick things off. Sweet. So where did you grow up and what were some of the favorite things you did growing up?

Yeah, it's a good question. So I mean, I grew up in India, you know, we grew up in a small town and it's a small town of 1.5 million people, right? And that's considered small for India. And it was adjacent to like this big city of Delhi, which is the capital, right? So And honestly, it was quite a fascinating experience growing up there in the '90s. Like, we had very similar influences that you guys did. Like, you know, we also loved Friends, watched a lot of Nickelodeon, and we also had Beanie Babies and whatnot, as you guys did in the US. But it was also, I think, culturally very different at the same time. And for me personally, like, and this is going to sound a little bit weird, what I really enjoyed growing up was like solving problems. Like, I literally went around the house went around the neighborhood just looking for challenges or like how, you know, if someone was doing something inefficiently, I would point that out and then I would try to help fix that. And that's really like what I got enjoyment out of when I was young. And, you know, unsurprisingly, that's kind of what's stood out for me today too, right? This is reflected in what I do at work now. This is reflected in what I did when I was at school. And frankly, I just never took a break when I was trying to solve the most challenging problems. And, you know, while I'd love to say like I got some of this from my parents who are both physicians, but at the same time, you know, I think they're very different people than I am. You know, we're similar in many ways, but in this specific way, I think I was kind of unique in my household. And so I still don't know actually where it came from, but, you know, what I would say is like taking on challenges has been kind of a big part of like my life from the beginning. So interesting.

Were there— was there anything unique about growing up in India that you've kind of looked back and you realized maybe at the time or now that you learned a lot from?

Yeah, it's a good question. You know, like over the years I've tried to kind of sit down and reflect, you know, on my experiences growing up and tried to find those like threads that link to who I am today. And what I've come to realize that like a lot of the times it seems like there's random events that happen in your life. But oftentimes, if you go back and really think about it deeply, they can usually be traced back to something that was early on in your life. And I'll give you some examples specifically for myself. So like when I was 12, my grandfather, you know, shared a lot of stories. And one of the stories that he shared with me was his family's move from Pakistan. And so, you know, India and Pakistan separated in 1947. And there was a lot of unprecedented violence that occurred at the border. So as I was growing up, those Friday evening story sessions were basically a ritual in our house, right? And those are the stories that I think really stuck with me. And frankly, they're still a huge driver for me. And I think a way to think about it is that the partition, which is what we call it when India and Pakistan separated, is kind of buried in the psyche of most Indian kids at this point. Who grew up in the '90s. And while we were not obviously there at the same time like our grandparents were, our parents were, right? And so our childhood was always like full of anecdotes and stories that they were telling us about how those events unfolded. And I think for most people it affected them differently. Like for some people it kind of motivated them to, you know, go out and achieve financial success, right? Just so they could— their families could be immune from those types of situations, right? Many others, like some of my friends and some people even in the popular culture space, you know, became artists and creators, right? Like if you look at the writers from Ms. Marvel, that's kind of their origin story as well. And for me, I think what it really did was it kind of highlighted the massive scale of human suffering from a medical perspective, right? And it kind of motivated me to think about like, how can I create tools to alleviate that suffering? Now, some people would want to do it from a political perspective, but honestly, I was just way better at science than I was at politics. And so for me, it just made a lot more sense to, you know, use that as a motivation to, you know, do good through science, basically.

So that's like, is that where the passion for science at least started and then continued? And did you, I guess, how long did you live in India before you came to the United States? Did you go to high school there? Did you move to the United States for that? And how did that even come about?

Yeah, no, it's a good question. So I was there till 2006, so until I was to the age of 15. So we moved here when I was in 10th grade, which was kind of an awkward time, honestly, right? Because, you know, all the people that started in 10th grade with me had been friends for a while, right? So they had been friends since friends since middle school, and even the ones that were not friends since middle school, you know, they had started in 9th grade. So it was kind of an awkward time for me to start, but you know, I made the most of it. So I, at the time, did not know a lot of people because it was a new country for me altogether. So I did what I knew best at the time, which was kind of dive deep into the books, right? And like, think more about, you know, how can I help people using my passion? And so I think for many people, like, moving can be a huge challenge. If anything, for me, it ended up actually being a little bit of a blessing because it gave me the space and the time, right, to pursue other interests, which was like, you know, I started as— we'll probably get into in a little bit, you know, I started doing research when I was a high school student, primarily because, you know, I didn't know anything, anybody else here, right? So like, that was the one thing I knew how to do.

So yeah, I was fascinated by that because I saw that in high school you published your first paper, and on top of that you were volunteering at MD Anderson Cancer Center. So I assume you lived nearby in Houston. I guess, how did that come about? Because that's a pretty unique— getting a paper published and on top of that volunteering at MD Anderson in high school. So just curious what motivated you to do that and the experience you took out of that.

Yeah, no, it's a good question. So like my parents are both physicians, so both of them were actually working at MD Anderson Cancer Center at the time. And so I, as I mentioned, did not know a lot of people here in this country. So like I was looking for things to do over the summer, right? And so my mom was like, well, why don't you, you know, come and volunteer for a little bit? And so I started volunteering. I was there for a couple months and then I, you know, once you're there, it is actually an incredible environment. For learning because they have amazing libraries at MD Anderson that you can just kind of sit in for hours, right? And just dive deep into the books there. And so once I started to do that, I realized there was a lot of labs around too that were just looking for high school students because, you know, it's kind of a cheap way for them to get people to like help out. And it was great for me too because I was super interested in research at the time. And so Given that my parents have always been physicians since the '80s, I always kind of expected to end up in the medical field or at least in a medical adjacent field. So then, at the time, it made a lot of sense for me to sort of continue to try to do research in that space. And so I reached out to one of my mom's colleagues and they had an open position and they were like, yeah, why don't you come join us and see see how it goes. And so when I started there, they gave me a project and then I really liked it. And then, and yeah, the rest is kind of history.

Wow. And then, so from, from high school, then you went to UT Austin, which I also did. So I probably wasn't as good of a student, but I'm excited to hear you're a Longhorn alumni. Take me through a little bit of your, your studies and kind of when you started finding your mold and then eventually from UT getting your PhD at MIT and Harvard, I believe.

Yeah, so at UT, like I've always done, I like challenges as I mentioned before. So when I started at UT, instead of just doing what I thought I was always going to do, which was be in the medical space, I challenged that assumption. I wanted to make sure that that's really what I wanted to do. So instead of jumping into biology or biomedical engineering or something like that, I challenged that assumption and then I started in a different major altogether. So I started in mechanical engineering. And while the desire for me was just to challenge myself, like I actually feel very fortunate that I ended up doing that, right? Because today, like the grasp of those engineering methods and principles that I learned during my time at UT, I think it has made me a much better scientist. And it frankly also just comes in super handy in my job all the time.

And so you did that just basically to ensure that what you wanted or what you thought you wanted to do was what you wanted to do?

Exactly. Yeah. Because I knew I wanted to end up in the biomedical space, but I always felt like that was because I had grown up in a household where my parents were physicians, right? And so I just wanted to challenge that assumption. So yeah, so I did mechanical engineering and frankly, I feel super fortunate that I did that because what I did not learn during that time was any biology. However, I've been able to kind of teach myself then over the last 6 years or actually over the last 9 years now when I started my PhD. And I'm kind of glad that I utilized my formalized learnings to like focus on something else.

And then how did, so from UT, what were you thinking for the next step? And did you, was that a clear next step or did it take some thinking and time to work or how did you get to your postdoc, I guess?

Yeah, it's a good question. So like UT honestly was like a really good experience for me because I think it was a great balance between like learning, like formalized learning through classes but also what I would call like white space exploration, right? Just having the bandwidth and the time to do what you really want to do, right? So the department at the time, I was in the mechanical engineering department, they really encouraged us to take the time outside of the classes to explore research opportunities. And there were many sort of formal and informal ways to do this. So I did it more informally, I would say, like I didn't join one of the formal programs they had. Like I simply just cold emailed 8 to 10 professors one summer and simply saw like who responded, right? And like the question was like, who's going to take a chance on an 18-year-old who has no research experience, like in a lab, right? Because all the stuff I did at MD Anderson was really just like reading papers and like reviewing papers. So, and so yeah, 2 people responded and they said they had openings and they were super interested in having, you know, like someone new that they could teach and someone that could learn from them. And so one was in a fluids lab. So like mechanical engineering, you know, there's multiple different paths you can take. One of the paths is like fluid mechanics. And so one of the professors was Dr. Hidrovo. And then the other was like a photonics lab led by Dr. Ben Yacar. And so after my freshman year, I ended up just picking one of those because I realized that I didn't have the bandwidth to spend time in both. And so I picked one and then I kind of focused on that for the rest of my undergrad. So that was also the lab that I ended up just staying in for 4 years.

And then from that lab, how was the transition to Cambridge?

Yeah. Yeah. So in that lab, right? So let's take a step back and talk about what I actually learned there, right? Yeah. So in undergrad, I was working on understanding basic things, basic questions, which is, how do water and other fluids move through these tiny channels, right? So we were making super small channels and pushing water and other fluids through them, and then we would observe those phenomena. And what we realized was that the physics of the fluid movement on that scale, right, when these channels are like microns or even smaller than that, like it is very unique. And what happens at that scale is that you can leverage some of those fluid changes to generate energy.. And so what I realized at the time was that you can generate energies at much higher efficiencies than you can do at large scale, such as with like hydroelectric power plants and such, right? So those are the types of questions, you know, I was looking at at UT. So it was very unique and very different from what I'm doing now. So then, you know, when I came to grad school, like, I was like, okay, I've learned a lot of physical principles and I've learned, you know, how fluids move through different channels. Like how can I apply that, right, to the human body? And so I joined Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia's lab, and she had been working at the intersection of microtechnology and human health, right? So how do we take engineering principles and utilize them to understand biology better? And so that actually made perfect sense for me because I had been working at that microtechnology anyway, at that scale anyway. And so I knew that piece. What I did not know is how it would apply to human health. And so I wanted to learn that piece from her. And so that's why I joined her lab when I came to MIT. And so her lab's been developing microtechnology tools since like the '90s, right? And the idea is that we can develop these tools to understand how cells work together. And so one thing her lab does, which is they fabricate these like micro liver tissues. So tissues that are made of multiple cell types, and then you can do this in multiple different formats, and then it enables you to study different diseases. And so her lab is studying malaria and multiple other things. I actually took these technologies and then used them to study how the liver grows. And one thing to note is that if you take 70% of your liver out, the rest of it's going to grow back in a matter of a month. But then the question arises, what are the factors that are driving this recovery? How does it happen so robustly each time? And how can you then take those factors that you learned from that process and then how can you use those to help diseased organs recover? And so that was really kind of the crux of my PhD and something I've learned a lot during that process and then something that I'm also bringing to Satellite now.

Was that something that a couple teammates of yours were working on or was it really primarily you leading the forefront of that?

Yeah, we had a lot. So I think Sangeeta's lab has been running since like the late '90s, early 2000s. Right. And so there's been a whole body of work that's been done in the liver space. And so what I like to say is like every new grad student builds upon, you know, something that's already been done before. And so the idea was that people had shown before I even got there how to keep the liver cells alive and how to keep the liver cells happy in culture. And so my job was now to take those learnings and build upon those with new tools that we could bring to the table. So I brought sort of experience on the microfluidic, microtechnology side, and they had the experience on the biology side. So we kind of merged heads together that way. So, yeah, initially it was just myself, but then we ended up recruiting couple other grad students, you know, one from another lab at BU and then several other people that were in our lab itself. So it ended up being a pretty collaborative project.

And did you, did you eventually also join a lab at Harvard Medical School, or am I wrong in that?

Yeah. So her lab was actually affiliated across multiple different institutions. And so the program I was also in was also affiliated with Harvard and MIT at the same time. So, okay. Yeah, so that's probably the connection you're thinking of.

I know that, um, that you were selected as the Forbes 30 Under 30 and also were funded by the National Science Foundation. Out of curiosity, was that during your time at UT or was it while you were at the lab at MIT that that kind of came about? And just, I mean, that's— congratulations, that's obviously amazing. And just would love to hear what it means to you, but also how that came about and your experience from both of those.

Yeah, it actually came about when I was in grad school, so when I was at MIT. However, I think a lot of the times these awards, they recognize stuff that you did in the past as well. So I think for me it was a recognition of the work that I did both in undergrad, but also when I was in high school, right? So like, publishing that paper in high school has kind of stuck throughout my life, right? So I think one thing I would encourage people to do is like if you have opportunities in high school to do research and you're interested in those, right? Like definitely take advantage of those because people recognize that and that recognition comes with a lot of other perks. So, but I think, yeah, go ahead.

No, no, go ahead, go ahead.

No, I was just saying like I think what that's meant for me honestly has just been exposure, right? Which is, it's given me sort of a door to a lot of different opportunities, right? Which is people will see that and be like, okay, that's impressive. Well, let's talk to this person, right? So it's kind of opened the door for me in a lot of different situations. So like, you know, I have a pretty good network now that I can leverage. And it's also just been nice to, you know, be at a lot of events where, you know, you see other sort of Forbes 30 Under 30 people. And all of them are doing very cool things in totally different spaces. And so it's always super nice to be able to talk to them about what they're working on.

That's great. Um, with all the, these experiences leading up, I guess, to this moment, did you know that you wanted to start something as the next step? Did you, did, was that a gradual realization or, or I guess how did this lead into satellite, which we could, we'll get into in a second about the genesis of it, but.

Yeah, it's a great question. Honestly, like, I don't think that was the case for me, right? Like, I anticipated and even planned on staying in academia, right? Like, when I started grad school, I really enjoyed research. I knew I enjoyed experimenting, right? So the grand plan personally for me was to get a PhD, do a postdoc and then become a professor. But I got what I would like to call, I'm making up a word which is called Cambridge'd. And the idea is that you come to Cambridge, Massachusetts with the hopes of becoming an academic and then you quickly realize there's a wonderful ecosystem out there around us for doing what we love to do, but within the realm of developing new therapies for patients. Biotech is there, venture capital is there, biopharma is there, right? And academia is there. So like you can merge and learn from all those different situations and then do what you love, but just do it in a space where you can actually develop therapies for patients, right? So that's how I got sort of sucked into entrepreneurship is I realized that there was just a lot more to Cambridge than just academia. And yeah, I think it happens to a lot of people. Around me and I'm glad like we have an ecosystem like this.

So you can copyright the term. You got Cambridge'd.

I got to trademark that now.

Yeah, that's what I meant. Trademark.

Sorry.

So I guess how did the founding of Satellite come about and what was the genesis and who was the team around you and where I guess where did you meet them? So just a little bit of everything.

Yeah, so initially the co-founders are myself, Sangeeta Bhatia, who was my PhD advisor, and Christopher Chen. So Dr. Chen was, he was not my PhD advisor directly, but he was on my committee. And so Chris and Sangeeta had been working together for a while, right? And I think to really think about satellite, you have to kind of go back into the '90s, right? So I think satellite's really been in the making, I would say, for over 2 decades now. And I was honestly just lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, right? And 'cause Sangeeta has been working on this technology since the '90s, and Chris has been working on sort of blood vessels, which is also important for our technology since around the same time. And the two did their MD-PhDs together in the same program, the HST program that I was in, just 20 years earlier. And so they met back in the first day of grad school,. And they realized that, you know, they had similar interests and synergistic interests. And so they continued to collaborate as colleagues, and then they really have been working together for the last 20 years. And so their work is what kind of fleshed out Satellite's platform. And that's what we're building upon today at the company. And so, you know, I started in her lab in 2013, right? And throughout my PhD, I ended up inventing a couple of technologies that helped advance Satellite's platform. To where it is today. And then sort of in the late 2018, early 2019 timeframe, Sangeeta had been approached by a few investors, right? And they were super interested in talking to her about starting something new because she had just finished sort of leading a successful company and handed it off to a new CEO. And so at the time they were like, okay, well, what else is coming down the pike for you, right? And so she realized that I was interested. She knew that the time was right, you know, because biopharma was in a very good place at the time. And so one thing led to another and, you know, the rest, as they say, is history. We ended up raising, you know, $120 million for our Series A, which, you know, was announced pretty recently.

So, yeah, I saw the NASDAQ had a nice record or showed some recognition.

So congratulations.

Yeah, thank you. For all the listeners, could you tell us a little bit about what Satellites' mission is and the impacts it can have around the world?

Yeah, so Satellites' mission is very simple but powerful, and it's as follows, right? So we want to restore hope to patients and their families that are suffering from severe life-threatening conditions. That's, that's our mission statement, and the impact it can have is, I think, massive, So the way to think about satellite is to think about sort of elusive diseases. So there are a few diseases out there that we would call elusive and, sorry, let's take a step back. So there are a few diseases that are characterized by singular challenges where you can have one gene that's missing and those are relatively straightforward because you understand what's missing. However, most diseases that people are suffering from are complex in nature. And these reflect the complexity and redundancy of human systems. And these diseases are typically characterized by dysfunction in multiple levels of biology. So it's not just one pathway that's missing. It's not just one pathway that's dysfunctional. There's multiple different things that are missing or dysfunctional in these cells. And so typically what happens is that cells ultimately fail. Then those organs can lead to organ failure, and then you have end-stage disease that requires a transplant. What we're trying to do is we're trying to study satellites, which are basically satellite adaptive tissues. These are tiny ensembles, mixtures of multiple different cell types. The idea is that when we put them in the configuration that we put them in, they can recapitulate the human biology. That's necessary. And so another way to think about it is they are microorganisms that we can then implant into the body, and then they can provide the function that's missing from the patients. And so, you know, we're going to start off our work in the liver space, right? So we're making liver satellite tissues initially, but our hope is that this can actually be a platform to basically deliver any sort of solid organ cell out there. So any solid organ, non-blood cell that you can imagine, we want to be able to deliver that successfully.

That's what I was going to ask. So, so the liver is the focus at the moment, but eventually it'll grow in its range down the road.

That's the idea, because really what we have, right, is our platform can do multiple things. It can stabilize the cells so they can function appropriately, right? It can put them in configurations. So when you implant them inside of the body, they can recruit blood vessels, right? And so once you have function, and you have blood vessels inside of the body, you typically get long-term persistence of these satellites. And having those two is really powerful. And it's, you know, that technology can then be scaled not just to hepatocytes or liver cells, but to any other cells as well.

So, being a pioneer in the area, have you seen that the marketplace has has changed since you start or since you embarked on the journey from the beginning?

Just— Yeah, you know, I think it's a great question. Yeah. Yeah.

I was going to say just with— I'm thinking through, you know, taking or the ecosystem getting established with regulators, pharma companies, et cetera. That's kind of where my head's at asking that question.

Yeah, it's a great question, you know, because like Back when I started my PhD in 2013, right, there were no FDA-approved cell therapies to speak of at all, right? However, this work has actually been happening since the '60s. So I'll just give you some key milestones, right? So the first liver transplant happened in 1963. The first auxiliary liver transplant, where they showed that a portion of the liver can be put into a site that's remote to the actual one, happened in 1986. The first hepatocyte transplant, where they injected liver cells directly into the veins, happened in 1992. And so since then, you know, Sangita and her colleagues have been working on the liver for over 2 decades. But I think what really made Satellite possible, right, kind of in the commercial sense, is that a CAR-T cell therapy finally got FDA approval in 2017, right? It helped the regulators and the reimbursement agencies sort of understand the requirements and a lot of the pricing models that are associated with these therapies. And so that's really what I think coalesced at the right time for us and then made us, us and the investors have a lot of confidence in this technology.

And the company was founded in 2019, did you say?

Yeah, 2019 is when we incorporated, but we started operations in like 2020.

So having And as you mentioned, raising the $120 million, I assume your company's growing and growing quite rapidly. What's your day-to-day role? Kind of what, or what are you helping with now as you're establishing your executive team, whatever it may be?

Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, this kind of being my first company, right? I had to kind of learn a lot on the job, right? And so for the first 5 months or so, right, there were only 5 of us. So we all had to wear different hats. And at the time, you know, I was doing pretty much all things possible you can imagine, right? So, you know, I was setting up the lab, you know, I was buying lab equipment, I was, you know, helping with recruiting, I was, you know, helping with experiments, I was in the lab, I was, you know, helping with, you know, fundraising, etc. So like pretty much every single possible thing you can imagine at a company, I was at least involved in some way, shape, or form. Since then, we've been lucky to have a healthy fundraise and we've been able to hire a lot of great people. So we've actually hired about 42 other people other than me. So we're at actually 43 people now, I think. And what that allowed us to do is to actually have different functions in the company. And so where I have landed right now is I'm leading our research team. And so, you know, you can imagine in a sort of early-stage biotech company that's focused on advanced cell therapies, you know, there's going to be departments that are focused on developing those therapies, right? So manufacturing them and improving those manufacturing processes. But then there's also a department that's focused on the earlier stage before that, right? So, So I'm currently serving as the Vice President of Research. So this includes pretty much all the early stage discovery work and anything to do with sort of novel and cutting-edge science will be led by me on the R&D side. And my group currently is around 10 people right now, which is about a quarter of the company. And so we have a couple more open positions, so we are hoping to get to around 12 by the end of the year or so.

From the days where you were 5 people to now being significantly larger. Is it— did it go the way you thought it was going to go, the vision you had in mind, or were you taking it day by day? I imagine it was a— it's been a roller coaster of a ride seeing the company grow that much.

Yeah, I mean, I think we wanted to do all the planning possible from the beginning, right? Because when you're starting a company, you want to make sure that, you know, you have a 2-year and a 5-year plan, right? But honestly, because we were just 5 people back then, we had no bandwidth whatsoever. And so we ended up taking it mostly day by day, I would say. And I think it actually ended up teaching us a lot. I learned a lot about sort of how to manage things operationally in an environment that's changing constantly. I learned a lot about how to sort of pitch into functions that I had no idea what to do from the beginning, right? Like how to pick up things on the job as quickly as you need to. Also just learned a lot about fundraising, which I think is a unique skill set that, you know, a lot of, a lot of people don't have it. But I think, you know, the more times you can go through it, the better you get at it, just like any other job, right? So I think fundraising is something that I feel like I picked up along the way too.

So any particular challenge, or I guess what is the biggest challenge throughout your learning curve early on, if you can pick one? I imagine there's been plenty of moments that you've learned and had to figure things out, but—

Yeah, it's a good question. I think people have different challenges, right? So I think, you know, I was trained well scientifically. So like, you know, my PI Sangeeta trained me well to do on the scientific pieces, but there's a lot more than just science to be able to run a company, right? And so those are the things that I did not quite pick up during my PhD, but things I've had to learn on the job. So as my CEO Dave often reminds me, to be a successful leader, you have to win both the hearts and the minds of the people. And I think I knew how to win the minds of the people, but not quite the hearts at the beginning. So I think it's been a constant journey for me, sort of building more rapport on the people side and just making sure that we have a culture at the company that people really want to come to work, right? And people really want to work hard at, right? Because as you know, in startups, it's going to be a ton of work, it's going to be a ton of late nights, and you have to make sure that people are bought into the mission and vision of the company. And so that's been sort of the learning process for me, which is how do you get people to buy into those, right? And then how do you get people to then be self-motivated? Throughout their tenure here.

So yeah, have you developed or has, have you and your team developed any company values that are key components to who Satellite is?

Yeah, absolutely. So we have what I would say 3 key pillars of our values, right? So number 1 is we're deeply patient committed. So we always think about the patient, right? So like, if we're doing any, if we're adding any new function, right, if we're adding any new sort of indication, let's say, to our platform, right? We want to make sure that there's a direct connection to the patient at the end of the day. Number 2 is because we're engineers, right? A lot of us are at least, and a lot of us are scientists and biologists. Like, we actually relish doing hard things well. And that's not just on the science side, but also on the operational side and the people side, right? So it's an important pillar for us. And then the last is, I think we, what we like to say is we harness the powers of an inclusive environment. Generally what that leads to is authenticity, courage, tenacity, and integrity. That's inclusivity across a lot of different dimensions. You can think of inclusivity across race and gender, but also inclusivity across scientific thought, inclusivity across people's backgrounds, people's experiences, etc. We really believe and encourage an environment where people from all different walks of life and all different backgrounds are able to contribute and are able to sort of put forth their ideas and be listened to.

What excites you the most as you look ahead?

Yeah, I think, as I mentioned, a lot of us are very driven by the patient aspect of it. And so I think what I'm super excited about is seeing that first signal, positive signal in our first patient. And we're not there yet because we haven't filed an IND. But I think when we see that signal, it's really going to demonstrate that this technology can work effectively. We've done a good job in mice, but at the end of the day, the goal is not to cure mice, right? It's to cure human patients. So, I want to make sure we can get there, and I hope we can get there in a safe way and in a way that can actually help those patients that are suffering from a lot of different conditions right now.

Look, this has been an amazing conversation. So, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to share both your story and Satellites mission. I, I always do like to ask, uh, founders this question, and I, I think for you I'm going to ask it a little bit more generally. Um, just given your early stage life, kind of what you accomplished early on and, and into grad or undergrad, into grad school, into founding a company right out of college, what advice would you give not even just another first-time founder, but anyone as they're kind of trying to figure out what their passion is and going about life, wherever that may be for them?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think what I would say is like, become comfortable with the unknown, right? Especially if you're starting something new, you're never going to have all the information you need. You're always going to be forced to make decisions without fully understanding, you know, every single piece. And that's just something you have to get comfortable with. But you also have to get good at that, right? Like, when do you make a decision versus when you keep seeking more information? Because honestly, in science, there's always more information you can gather. But sometimes you just have to be able to call it. And, you know, sometimes you just have to make the decision that you have the information you need. And now is the right time to make the call. And so I think for early stage founders, especially sort of in the biotech space, What I would recommend is striking that balance early on between sort of a product with a good foundation versus making sure that you're still moving at a pace that's steady and making sure that you're meeting the milestones that you need to.

So. There you go. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it, Arnav, and I hope you enjoyed, and I'm sure that the listeners are gonna love this. So thanks again, and can't wait to obviously follow Satellite in your career.

Thanks so much for having me on, David. It's been a pleasure.