Inside Our Program / Seminars & EventsBiotech Nexus
Friday, April 25, 2025
5:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Each year Northwestern’s Master of Biotechnology Program (MBP) hosts Biotech Nexus, an exciting evening event which benefits both the MBP students and the biotechnology industry alike. Whether your goal is to network, define a career trajectory, recruit, become a mentor or mentee, or simply enjoy an evening among friends from the biotechnology industry, this event will help you make the right connections.
The 2025 Biotech Nexus Agenda
Welcome address, MBP director Danielle Tullman-Ercek
Explore your career potential as you become acquainted with the numerous and varied career options – both in and out of a laboratory setting – available to those with experience and education in biotechnology.
Panel discussion and Q&A
Engage with a panel of four of the industry’s leading professionals as they explore the future of their respective fields and what led them on their individual career paths. Moderated by MBP director, Danielle Tullman-Ercek.
Networking and refreshments reception
End the evening with lively conversations and introductions during the networking reception with MBP students, alumni, faculty and industry guests.
Panel Participants at the 2025 Biotech Nexus Event
Moderator
Danielle Tullman-Ercek, PhD
Program Director, Master of Biotechnology Program Northwestern University
After earning her B.S. degree in chemical engineering, Tullman-Ercek began her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin under advisor George Georgiou. Her dissertation focused on the pathway bacteria use to transport folded proteins across membranes, and how this pathway may be used in protein engineering applications. After earning her Ph.D. in 2006, Tullman-Ercek began her post-doctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco in the laboratory of Chris Voigt. Her primary project in the Voigt lab was the study of spider silk production and secretion in Salmonella. She also immersed herself in the challenges and potential of the field of synthetic biology. She continued her postdoctoral studies at the Joint BioEnergy Institute, working to improve enzymes that break down biomass for more efficient and economic biofuel production processes. Tullman-Ercek joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at UC Berkeley in 2009. Inspired by her previous work, her research group focuses on engineering multi-component systems in biology – such as protein and small molecule secretion machinery and bacterial microcompartments – using tools and techniques from protein engineering and synthetic biology.
Panelists
Jeff Ehrhardt, PhD
Chief Operating Officer, Shreenika
Dr. Jeff Ehrhardt co-founded Shreenika, a sustainable chemicals company in 2023 with the vision of making biomanufacturing affordable for commodity chemicals. Over the last 2 years he has been focused on finding the right markets for biotechnology derived ingredients, growing the R&D team, and proving the underlying technology to make biomanufacturing affordable. He has a PhD in chemical biology from UNC-Chapel Hill with a research focus on chemical tool development for RNA tertiary structure discovery. When not in the lab, Jeff spends his time hiking in the mountains of southern California and building classic cars.
Elizabeth Goodrich
Technical R&D Director, MilliporeSigma
Elizabeth Goodrich is a bioprocess engineer with over 30 years’ experience in protein purification development, scale-up, system design, and process automation. She began her career at Genentech as an engineer in the Late-Stage Recovery Process Development organization. During her tenure at MilliporeSigma, she has held a variety of technical roles including Head of WW Applications Engineering and Head of Process and Analytical Technology R&D. She is currently Technical R&D Director in the Single-use and Integrated Systems team, focused on bringing novel and sustainable solutions to the industry to enable intensified and continuous biomanufacturing. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Ameet Mallik, MBA
CEO, ADC Therapeutics
Ameet Mallik is CEO of ADC Therapeutics, a leading, commercial-stage global pioneer in the field of antibody drug conjugates (ADCs) focused on unlocking the potential value of a robust ADC portfolio across two pillars of growth - hematology and solid tumors.
Before joining ADC Therapeutics in 2022, he served as CEO of Rafael Holdings, a novel cancer and immune metabolism therapeutics company.
Mr. Mallik has over 25 years of industry experience and spent more than 16 years at Novartis where he last served as Executive Vice President and Head, U.S. Oncology. Before that, Mr. Mallik served Novartis Oncology as Global Head, Marketing, Value and Access, and Head, Latin America and Canada. Mr. Mallik began his career at Novartis as Head of Strategic Planning and held numerous commercial and leadership roles across Novartis and Sandoz during his tenure there. At Sandoz, Mr. Mallik was Global Head of Biopharmaceuticals & Oncology Injectables.
Before working in pharma, Mr. Mallik was an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company.
He currently serves on the Boards of Directors of ADC Therapeutics and Atara Biotherapeutics and is a Business Advisor for Juvena Therapeutics. In addition, he serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees for NJ LEEP.
Mr. Mallik holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania as well as an MS in Biotechnology and a BS in Chemical Engineering, both from Northwestern University.
MBP wishes to thank Northwestern’s Biotechnology Training Program for their generous support and contributions to this event.
Anju Samy, PhD
Head of Regulatory Affairs, Cour Pharmaceuticals Development Co., Inc.
Anju has over 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. She received her Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from the University of Mumbai and is a registered pharmacist in the states of Indiana and Illinois. She also has an interdisciplinary PhD in Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Her prior experience includes clinical staff pharmacist at Methodist Hospitals in NW Indiana, medical information then transitioning into regulatory affairs in the pharmaceutical industry. At Astellas, in addition to her role as a global regulatory strategist on multiple programs in both the rare and non-rare diseases in various therapeutic areas, she served as a co-lead of the Astellas Women’s Employee Resource Group (approx. 800-member group), she led and managed company-sponsored programming for the DEI initiative workstreams.
Anju has overseen several global regulatory interactions and Marketing Application submissions worldwide for rare disease indications, most recently at Amgen. In her current role at COUR Pharma based out of Skokie and soon moving to Evanston, she heads the regulatory affairs department.
Anju, is originally from India and resides in a suburb of Chicago with her family. She enjoys traveling to US National Parks and her home country India and spending time with family. In her spare time, she enjoys baking and reading. She has mentored Pharmacy interns and fellows and believes in sharing her knowledge and experience with young professionals. She also teaches a guest lecture in clinical trials and regulatory considerations to MS Biotechnology students here at Northwestern.
