Your Hosts

TOM DENISON

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Tom is Co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at SmartHealth Catalyzer, the hub for Midwest Biomedical Venture Creation. SmartHealth builds and seed funds startups around the most promising biomedical innovations being developed at the top 50 Midwest Universities and Research Hospitals. SmartHealth draws upon the Ops Team, a pool of 150+ elite bioentrepreneurs, to build our startup teams. Each member of the Ops Team has decades of industry experience and expertise across therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical devices.

NINA DUDNIK

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Nina Dudnik is a scientist, entrepreneur, and impact-driven leader. Nina is the former Chief Business Officer for BioLabs, where she focused on expanding its footprint and impact worldwide and strengthening its network of cross-sector partnerships to support as many life science entrepreneurs as possible bring their ideas to fruition. Prior to joining BioLabs, she was a Director at MilliporeSigma where she identified opportunities for entry into high-growth new technologies, and provided government affairs support to advance R&D and biomanufacturing projects worldwide. Previously, as the Founder and CEO of Seeding Labs, she delivered millions of dollars of investment for scientific equipment and training to boost capacity for innovative research in 34 countries. Nina has a PhD in molecular biology from Harvard University and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Africa Rice Center in Cote d’Ivoire. She was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in biotechnology by Scientific American Worldview magazine in 2015. She lives outside Chicago with her husband and daughter and tries to end each day with an informal disco dance party.