When it comes to bringing a new drug to market, most people see only the end result: A bit of advertising and perhaps a prescription for their ailment. But it really does take a village: Countless numbers of mice, rats, rabbits, pigs, dogs and primates are killed in preclinical laboratory trials to assess the safety of all new drugs.
Dr. Misti Ushio ‘99G, founding CEO of TARA Biosystems, is poised to disrupt the drug development cycle.
TARA Biosystems, a rising star in the “organ-on-a-chip” industry, has developed small strips of live human heart tissue that can be bathed in drug solutions. The heart tissue, grown from stem cells, can then be watched for benefits or adverse effects. Leading pharmaceutical companies, including GlaxoSmithKline and Regeneron, are already using her platform as an alternative to animal testing.
Ushio’s ingenuity led to her recognition by Fast Company as one of the Top 100 Most Creative People in Business for 2018. The annual list honors influential and inspiring leaders from a wide range of industries who are shaping the future of business in creative ways.
Ushio earned her Ph.D. in biochemical engineering from University College London and her masters in chemical engineering from Lehigh University.
"Lehigh has one of the top chemical engineering departments in the country," Ushio said. "They prepared me well for a career based on the fundamentals of engineering."
Ushio has over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry as well as early stage life science company building. She also serves as a director on the boards of private and public life science companies.
"I founded TARA with the vision of addressing a big, global issue that affects every one of us: accelerating the pace of developing new medicines that will enable us to live healthier, more productive, longer lives,” Ushio said in a press release. “Each of us, personally, as a family member or member of society knows what it's like to have someone that we care about suffer from ill health or disease. At TARA, delivering on the promise of safer, more effective drugs, sooner, is everything I've trained for as a scientist, entrepreneur and mom – it's personal and professional – it's what I strive to do every single day, with purpose and integrity."
Before founding TARA, Ushio was chief strategy officer and managing director of Harris & Harris Group, where she worked with and invested in life science companies to help them realize their transformational science into commercially successful companies. Earlier in her career, Ushio held management roles at Merck & Co., where she developed vaccines and biologics products, and Columbia University, where she managed the intellectual property of several scientific and engineering portfolios.
-Story by Mary Anne Lynch '16G
