This short YouTube interview features Kathryn Najafi MD and her brother Ron Najafi discussing their family separation during the Iranian revolution, their educational paths (Ron in chemistry/pharmacy; Kathryn in ophthalmology at UC Davis and UCLA), and their later scientific collaboration. Ron describes stabilizing hypochlorous acid chemically; Kathryn tested the stabilized product (NeutroPhase) on difficult blepharitis cases, convincing NovaBay to commercialize it. In August 2014 the company decided to build a sales force to market the product as Avinova.
Chapters
I think really the saddest time that I experienced as a child was when our family got separated. And my family's goal was to be reunited. And once that happened, it was just the best thing.
I grew up in Iran, a very close family. I have a brother who's two years older than me. I was about nine years old when my sister was born. I remember on her first day of school, I. I was very excited. I asked her, how did you like the first day of school? And she came out. She said, I didn't like it. But she turned out to be a very good student after all. I also spent a lot of time with my father. He started his own pharmaceutical company in Iran. My dad encouraged me to go and get a pharmacy degree and come back and help him run his business. I became completely immersed in chemistry, in organic chemistry. Just loved it. During my first year at University of San Francisco, revolution happened in Iran.
During that time, the borders closed.
My parents said, don't come back because things are not normal. So the whole plans that we had. I really had plans to go back and help my dad run his company was unraveling.
The moment we arrived in the US and we were reunited with my brothers, I was so happy that I could be with my family and be whole again.
We immediately started to look at rebuilding our life and relationships and being together. She wanted to also pursue a career in chemistry and following my footsteps, and my parents were encouraging her. Everybody was saying, yes, go ahead, do it.
After I finished my bachelor's degree from UC Davis, I got accepted to ucla. UCLA has a fantastic ophthalmology program. I really just loved it. I loved the fact that as an ophthalmologist, you can restore eyesight to patients or prevent blindness. I found that very gratifying.
While that company was going on, I got interested in the chemistry of hypochlorous acid.
One day, Ron calls me and says, katie, did you know that our own neutrophils produce hypochlorous acid?
It's extremely safe, extremely potent, but extremely unstable.
And so the next thing Ron tells me is that he's been able to chemically manufacture this in a pure form, and he's been able to actually stabilize it. I got interested in really looking to see whether this product would be able to be used in ophthalmology. Once we got FDA clearance for neutrophase as our wound care product, I gave it to some of my toughest to treat blepharitis patients and immediately saw results. I realized that we had something very effective. And I had to convince the board of directors at Nova Bay that they should take this seriously.
Our board and our investors spent a couple of months thinking, thinking about it. And ultimately, In August of 2014, we decided to build our own sales force, marketing what is now Avinova.
I'm so happy to be able to contribute to this field. It's also wonderful to be able to work with my brother.
I could have never imagined that Katie and I end up working together. We got separated when I came to United States. We got separated again after graduate school. We talk every day.
We connect on a regular basis for work reasons, but also socially. We make a point of staying connected.
