Women in Science Celebration: Interview with Dr. Rabia Khan

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

Dr. Rabia Khan is an immunogeneticist who has built her career at the convergence of science, technology, and medicine. Most recently, she was Managing Director for the Discovery Sciences Division at Sensyne Health, a publicly listed corporation and collaborator with UK’s National Health Service. There, she established Sensyne’s scientific strategy, built the data science and discovery teams, and led multiple revenue-generating partnerships. She led the 50-member discovery team’s work to launch multiple successful products, alone or with partners.

Prior to joining Sensyne Health, Dr. Khan held senior roles at BenevloentAI and Meta. At Meta (acquired by Chan Zuckerberg BioHub), she led the partnership with with the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to acquire technology that used NLP to research the biomedical corpus. At BenevolentAI, she shaped the discovery strategy in several therapeutic areas, leading the Age-Related Macular Degeneration and Glioblastoma drug discovery programmes. Alongside Prof. Jackie Hunter, Dr. Khan managed the product development process across technical and biology teams.

Dr. Khan regularly presents on subjects related to the intersection of healthcare and technology to advance better patient outcomes and advocates the importance of STEM in industry and education. She was named as 50 Movers and Shakers in BioBusiness – 19 and 30 Rising Leaders in biotech 2020. Currently, she is Founder and CEO of Ladder Therapeutics, a foundation stage biotech, a YCombinator company.

What advice would you give yourself if you were starting your career today? What would you say to encourage other women to persevere  in their career path?

I shall echo advice given to me by my mentor be yourself. Acknowledge your strengths and your weaknesses and follow your passion. Your path will be unique to you, and shape it based on what your priorities are, both personal and professional.  

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'Acknowledge your strengths and your weaknesses and follow your passion'