How Structure & Resilience Shaped a Biotech CEO | Samir Khleif (Part 1/4)

Intro - 00:00:06: Welcome to The Biotech Startups Podcast by Excedr. Join us as we speak with first-time founders, serial entrepreneurs, and experienced investors about the challenges and triumphs of running a biotech startup from pre-seed to IPO with your host, Jon Chee. Our guest today is Samir Khleif, Founder, President, and CEO of Georgiamune—a biotech that is reprogramming immune responses. Disrupted immune homeostasis leads to disease. To address this challenge, Georgiamune is reprogramming immune signaling pathways to rebalance immune system components and restore health. Samir is a medical oncologist, immunologist, innovator, entrepreneur, and transformational healthcare executive. Before founding Georgiamune, he held academic and leadership roles, including Chief of the NCI Cancer Vaccine Section at the NIH. He was Founding Director and CEO of the King Hussein Cancer Center, Director of the Georgia Cancer Center at Augusta University, and is currently a biomedical scholar and professor at Georgetown University Medical School. A global Key Opinion Leader in immunology and immuno-therapy, Samir has served as chair of the Immunotherapy Committee for NRG, on the Biden Cancer Initiative’s SAB, as a member of the NCI Cooperative Group, and as Special Assistant to the FDA Commissioner—leading the agency’s Critical Path Initiative for Oncology. He advises the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, and holds over 150 patents in immunology and immunotherapy. With deep expertise in immunotherapy, cancer vaccines, and oncology leadership, Samir offers a rare perspective on translating scientific breakthroughs into real-world impact—making this a conversation you won’t want to miss. Over the next four episodes, Samir shares how a lifelong commitment to patient care and discovery led him from clinical oncology and global health leadership to founding Georgiamune. He reflects on building cancer centers, advising the White House, and leading at the FDA—before launching a science-first biotech developing first-in-class immunotherapies. Samir also offers hard-won insights on company-building, from assembling a world-class team to choosing the right investors—and why reprogramming immune responses may be key to treating cancer and autoimmune disease. Today, we’re diving into Samir’s early life in the Middle East, how growing up as a refugee shaped his worldview, and why education was his family’s highest priority. He shares how a physicist father, a love of logic, and formative experiences in the Boy Scouts instilled discipline, fairness, and adventurous thinking—traits that later guided his leadership in science and business. We also explore his early entry into medical school, the student organizations he founded, and how those grassroots efforts laid the groundwork for operational and entrepreneurial thinking. Without further ado, let’s dive into this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast.

Jon Chee - 00:03:47: Samir, so good to see you again. Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Samir Khleif - 00:03:50: Great to see you, Jon. Lovely to see you. Thank you for having me.

Jon Chee - 00:03:54: Of course. We're really excited for this conversation. I know it's been a long time coming. And, you know, really, we wanted to turn back the hands of time and start from the early days. And, you know, you had a very successful career, but we we'd love to learn about were there any formative moments that got you into science and or perhaps formative moments that influence your business philosophy and leadership style. So take us all the way back. What was growing up for you, and walk us through that kind of era.

Samir Khleif - 00:04:21: That's interesting. So I grew up in the Middle East, actually, and I grew up as a refugee. So, of course, to be growing up as a refugee, there are lots of things that influence your life, including that education is probably the most important thing that you do. And when you grow up on high importance of education, I think it influenced lots in your life. So there are many things that influence those kind of moments. And I think if I'm gonna categorize them growing up, there are probably three forces that played a big role. One is my parents. And both of my parents, of course, they were refugees. My mother did not have the chance to get educated properly in college or even finish high school. And my father was a physicist, and, uh, he was a physics thinker even. So everything at home, was need to have logic.

Samir Khleif - 00:05:25: It needs to have, certain methodical interjection or action that makes sense. Right? So Yeah. So I I believe that those two things, in addition to the major love that they both provided me and my siblings, it really influenced a lot in what I do. And probably it influenced my leadership in a way that it should be. The leadership should be logical, should be a thinking process, should be something that would make sense, and everything that needs to have a reason why you should make that decision. The second force is I was a Boy Scout, and Boy Scout was a major part of my personality, crystallization, and, formation. And, you know, Boy Scout, if it teaches you anything, it teaches you leadership in a camaraderie fashion. It teaches you leadership in a way that how you can take risks, how you can be an explorer, how you can think out of the box, and more importantly, how you can be adventurous. So maybe that is a big part of my entrepreneurship thoughts. So the combination of both of those are very powerful. And then the last one, as I mentioned to you, my being as a refugee, Education is very important, but fairness is very important. Because when you are in a position to be a refugee, you believe that, you know, fairness sometimes may not exist, and, hence, you need to take it into consideration in your leadership style, in your leadership formation, and look at everyone in an eye that is equal. Do not even discriminate between people except for their value and what they bring to the table, and their talent. So I think all those together made a major influence in my life and my leadership style and what I became.

Jon Chee - 00:07:12: Absolutely. And my dad is a structural engineer, so he had a similar physics knack in the household. And I'm not as mathematic as he is, and I just remember. I'm like, dad, I'm, like, trying to draw here. Like, I'm just trying I'm, like, just start trying to, like, hang out, but, like, I get it.

Samir Khleif - 00:07:32: I get it. That doesn't work.

Jon Chee - 00:07:33: That doesn't call me. It doesn't compute. I was like, okay. I guess this is my life. And, uh, you know, thinking about my friends who I grew up with who were also Boy Scouts, that was definitely something I was jealous of. I wasn't a Boy Scout, but all the adventures that they went on, sometimes I'm like, that sounds really dangerous. Like like but,

Samir Khleif - 00:07:52: You know, Jon, what helps you all these three, particularly Boy Scouts and the parents, etcetera, it helps you with work ethics.

Jon Chee - 00:07:59: Yeah.

Samir Khleif - 00:08:00: Because you would develop a work ethics that is a very big part of your personality, which is really important. So if I summit both, this is why Boy Scout is is really fantastic. You should if you did not do Boy Scout, you should do it now. 

Jon Chee - 00:08:15: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, hey, guys. Like, I know I'm late to the game, but, like, bring me in.

Samir Khleif - 00:08:20: But, you know, can you take me? So Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Bring me in.

Jon Chee - 00:08:22: Bring me in. And no. I absolutely agree. I think there's something to be said about work ethic that's built early. It's kind of like these foundational building blocks. Um, and I think for me, kind of just like having early jobs, you know, I was working in retail, um, and then food and really just, like, understanding work isn't always glamorous. Sometimes it is just you're chopping wood. You're doing hard stuff. You're having customers yell at you in your face, and you're like, oh my god. And you just gotta get through it. And it was, like, as much in the moment, it was, like, not a pleasant experience. I look back on it fondly now. I'm like, yeah. I think I I got a tougher skin, and I know how to get through adversity.

Samir Khleif - 00:09:04: Build the character.

Jon Chee - 00:09:05: Yeah. That's what my parents said. They're like, Jon, this is building character. I'm like, I don't wanna do this anymore. Like, this is embarrassing. Like, I'm just, like, made someone sandwich wrong. And I was like, oh god. This isn't this is rough. So it sounds like you had the ingredients for kind of a hardworking kind of entrepreneurial future. Did you know entrepreneurship was on the horizon, like, even in those early days, or was it something that kind of developed for you, like, you know, the idea of, like, starting your own company came later?

Samir Khleif - 00:09:35: So if you really want to limit or focus entrepreneurship by starting a company, I would say no. This came later. But if you want to take entrepreneurship more in the general term, which means starting something from the ground up or building something or leading a program or thinking out of the box in in your research or how to fund your research, etcetera, I would say no. This came from the beginning, and even from college days or medical school days. So I would say from a principal perspective, that entrepreneurial spirit has been there. Although maybe I did not think about it as part entrepreneurial spirit, looking backward on it, I believe that that was it. Because I believe that, again, starting a company, uh, it requires a phenotype that is probably present with you all along your career development path. Right? And then it culminate at the end by starting company because you had the chance to do that, and then we could we could talk about this. But, no, I believe that all this probably build the spirit or at least the ethos of entrepreneurship in me since the beginning. And and I've taken that, uh, looking at it backward, I've taken that in every single step during my studies over my career.

Jon Chee - 00:10:53: Yeah. And and I stand corrected. I I would also have entrepreneurship in the more broader sense. Kind of there's, like, a you know, you can be entrepreneurial within organizations as well, preexisting organizations, and spearhead new initiatives. So I totally agree with that perspective. And so as you were approaching your university years, did you know that you were gonna be in in the life sciences? Was that kind of, like, I'm going to, like, be a doctor? You know? I I know you ultimately went to medical school, but when you were thinking about university, maybe the undergraduate kind of studies, where was your head at, and what were you considering?

Samir Khleif - 00:11:28: So I did not do undergrad. I went directly to medical school from high school. Cool. So I went to six year program medical school, which

Jon Chee - 00:11:34: Got it.

Samir Khleif - 00:11:34: Medical schools in The Middle East. Then When I was in high school, I was passionate about physics and math, and I was thinking maybe I will do physics. But then it depends where you grow up. Right? Physics has no future because you never know where you're gonna be ending up at at the end. I was a good student. I was a highly performing student. So at the end, all the discussions that happen at home and outside the home and all this, you probably went through some of those discussions, ended up, yeah, maybe best thing to do is just go into medical school. And, you know, I grew up in a system where it's interesting because your grades determine what kind of school you can get to. So it's very different from The US, from our system here. Where you apply, you have six other things that you would show for, not only your grades, but your ACT or SAT or your extracurricular activities or your statement, all these kind of things. There, it's only the grade that determines where. And since you got the grades for the highest grades for medical school, that's a a path that you could and I wanted to do research. That was my intent. This is why I liked physics because it has that logical thinking to it and the exploration, and hence, I jumped into medical school.

Jon Chee - 00:12:52: Very cool. And did you get an opportunity to do wet lab research while in medical school as well?

Samir Khleif - 00:12:57: No. I think I was, uh, what, 16, 17 year old when I joined medical school, and, uh, it was all studies. The medical school was six years of twenty four hours a day work. I mean, it was very, very demanding medical school.

Jon Chee - 00:13:14: Yeah. That

Samir Khleif - 00:13:15: was great medical school. So I went to the University of Jordan, which was really a great medical school, I would tell you. And, uh, it's a phenomenal medical school, but it was literally twenty four hours type of work. Having said that, my entrepreneurship tendencies led me to establish two students clubs and whatever, all these kind of things that made it more palatable and more exciting and had lots of social activities, political activities, uh, cultural activities. But, no, there was no time for research. And the school itself at that time was not built to have this for medical school.

Jon Chee - 00:13:53: Interesting. And that's really fascinating. Like, one, I did, um, student groups as well at my time at Berkeley, and I felt that those were some really formative as much as like, it seems like low stakes, but it was, like, almost like a kind of a sandbox for entrepreneurship for, like, how do you get members? How do you, like, collect member dues? How do you do events and stuff? Can you talk a little bit about, like, some of those extracurriculars and student groups that you you you started and ran?

Samir Khleif - 00:14:21: Sure. So the couple of them. One of them is, uh, and, again, I and a couple other people started a international student club. So I was I was not Jordanian. I was international. So we put together the first effort to put all the international students in under one body. And we started it. We formed it. We formed the structure of it. We formed how it works, how it votes, which people can be part of, which and then we started developing the activities of it. So I was a president of it for almost three years, two or three years, and we put activities for it, including, uh, an activity that became very popular at at the school, which is the yearly international show, which is a show that every country provides a a folklore something after them. And it became really a very popular show that people waited for it from year to the year. We we also started a journal, international journal that, uh, it was very entrepreneurial because it also was very critical of the university administration. And and, you know, you get in trouble. So all in all, it was really a phenomenal experience, absolutely phenomenal experience because many things. One is you form completely new friendships, and many of my friends now are because of those kind of activities. Right? It's not because of school, but because of the activities that last forever. Some of them are still friends until today. And the other thing is you absolutely develop and sculpture your leadership style because it's a leadership. Right? Again, when you talk about different top students from different countries and you want to unify and develop activities around them, So that absolutely further the leadership styles that you've learned during your Boy Scouts or during your school times. The other activity, we started also a blood bank friend society, which is a society that perform blood drives blood collection drives. And we used to go out, uh, to different areas of the country and collect blood and take the students, and we teach them how to do it. And and then we bring back, uh, blood to the, uh, blood banks, uh, in Jordan. So that's what another another society that really was a phenomenal society. It was a society service, and it helped the country and the hospitals a lot. I think it's still functioning until today, but, uh, uh, it was really great. So these are the things that and, again, so that's another. When you put all the logistics for how you're gonna go from one city to another, do the blood collection drive, not only the logistics, it's both operation leadership, and it's very, very educating. And it was very great because it adds to your education. It adds to your learning of medicine, and it makes it more rounded.

Jon Chee - 00:17:19: Absolutely. I was gonna say everything you just described is basically building a company.

Samir Khleif - 00:17:24: This is exactly what I was saying, Jon. Right? Those kind of activities, this leadership spirit or the entrepreneurial is something that you develop as you go and you but that's the spirit that you will have from your upbringing.

Jon Chee - 00:17:37: Yeah. Absolutely. And for any of the listeners out there who perhaps are still on campus, like, I highly encourage getting involved with a student run organization or starting one of your own. For us, like, you know, it was a very similar experience. You know, it's like it is, like, gets back to, like, very basic stuff where you're like at at Berkeley, the way they set it up is, like, there's the open courtyard, and all the clubs have their tables. And they put, like, their information, pamphlets, you know, try to attract people. And, like, that is, like, the same exercise as a company. You're just like, how do I stand out amongst all these other companies? Like, my wife was in another student organization where they would do grilled cheese sandwiches, and they're like, this is how we get people to come to our table. We're gonna make grilled cheese. And I I I was actually one of them.

Samir Khleif - 00:18:25: This is how you met your wife?

Jon Chee - 00:18:27: Yes. Yes.

Samir Khleif - 00:18:28: Oh, over grilled cheese?

Jon Chee - 00:18:30: Yeah. Yeah. So it's like it's this thing where it's just like you have to think creatively kind of, like, on how do you stand out your organization stand out as a student club. And, likewise, it's like if you if you think about, like, if you're setting up a booth at a conference, like, how do you stand out and stuff like that. So it's, like, all very cross applicable, and it could be really any club, honestly. What you described as the blood bank, that that is, like, proper operations. So this is like for us, we we didn't have nearly as much, but, like, I was like, dang. Like, that is actual proper operation. So very, very cool that you you had the opportunity to have that experience. And the one thing that really stood out too that I I I forgot about is, like, you almost, like, had, like, a corporate governance kind of like votes, titles, like, voting. Like, how do we make decisions? When I was thinking about it, I was like, oh, man. That was something that I didn't know was a thing until then. I was like because otherwise, it's just a mess. Like, people are fighting. They're like, no. No. It was my decision. No. No. It was my decision. And you're just like, oh my god. What do I do here? Very cool, though. So sounds like you're very busy during your medical school. When you are coming up to graduation, were you like, okay. I'm gonna start practicing? Or where was your head out when you were approaching graduation of medical school?

Samir Khleif - 00:19:43: No. Even during my medical school, uh, my intent was that I'll be done with medical school, continue my medical training, and concentrate on life science research. My intent was to do research, and my intent from day one is I wanted to do oncology because this is where exciting research is happening. When I finished medical school, there was nothing clear because, uh, again, I was in Jordan, uh, which, uh, then I finished medical school, so I had to leave because I'm not Jordanian. And my next step was clear that I wanted to come to The US. So I literally put myself on a flight, and I came to The US. Oh, really? Yeah. And I landed in The US. I had a couple cousins. I I went to my couple of cousins, and then then I said, fine. Let me start volunteering as a researcher until I found my residency. So I volunteered as a, uh, researcher at a university, and I did, uh, cancer research for free. I wanted to learn how to do research and how to explore questions that are interesting to me. Of course, at that time, I did not have a lot of information about research, but I had that in me. I wanted to really explore and learn more and try to be a researcher in life sciences. Uh, so I've done that. And while I was doing that, I was studying for the test that the foreign graduates in medicine take before they get into medical school into, uh, residencies, which I did. So I was studying that while I was doing research, and I passed it. And then I applied for residency, and then I got to residency program. But with the intent that I'm gonna finish my internal medicine residency and then go and do a pretty good high level oncology fellowship that really concentrate on research. So that was my intent.

Jon Chee - 00:21:38: Very cool. Well, one badass. I'm getting on the plane. We're just gonna send it. It's like we're just gonna do this. It take a lot of courage to do that. And, also, you know, I can imagine when you when you touched down, did you experience, I guess, like, culture shock, or what was just, like, personally moving to The US like for you?

Samir Khleif - 00:21:56: Yeah. I mean, there are lots of cultural shocks. Eventually, I'll write a book about my cultural shocks.

Jon Chee - 00:22:01: Yeah. Yeah.

Samir Khleif - 00:22:02: But all in all, I was used to this kind of life because, again, from the people around me and, uh, from family and and friends, etcetera. So there was no major issues that would be some to respond to. I think the most valuable thing was, particularly during my voluntary research year, is the dedication that people put into research and how seriously this dedication is. The second is, again, at that time, we had no real Internet. The amount of information that is available within the colleges and universities that people can depend on to expand their knowledge, cooperate, collaborate, etcetera. So I would say those mainly were some of those shocks. I think the most cultural shock for me was that people stop at stopping sign at midnight when there's no one on the street. Like, what? That was a cultural shock. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If there's no one on the street Yeah. Yeah. Why would you stop on the stopping side? Just go on. It's, like, middle of the night, and there's nobody in the middle of nowhere. So

Jon Chee - 00:23:13: That's so funny. I have family in Southeast Asia. There's some kind of a similar vibe. They're just like, what are you doing? Like, we're just we can't say it flows like water. So you're just like, this the water's gonna keep going. Like, if there's nothing in the way, we're just gonna keep going.

Samir Khleif - 00:23:26: So there's a practicality to it that's like it doesn't fit the logic anymore. So but, anyway, in general, no. I think I think mainly was the availability of the resources and the dedication of people.

Jon Chee - 00:23:38: Very cool. And I think something that, like, stood out to me about that is just, like, when I get questions about, like, how to get into research, when I talk to to folks who are trying to, they're like, where do I even start? And I'm like, exactly what you described. Just, like, volunteer. Like, lend a hand. Like, people will accept. Like, obviously, they're not gonna give you, like they're gonna teach you, like, maybe just, like you're basically doing the dishes. You're you're, you know, for a little bit. Yeah. You're gonna be doing the dishes for a little bit. But, Yvette, like, people are more than happy to bring in if you're interested and, like, passionate about it, we'll bring in. So I was like, I think that's an awesome way to get into wet lab research knowing that. So can you just talk about those first, like, formative lab experience, like, that you're just starting to get into? What was that for you? Did you immediately find a love of it, and were there aspects about that lab that you really liked? And, you know, I know you eventually get into the, you know, NCI, Natural Cancer Institute. Can you talk a little bit about, like, your lab journey to there?

Samir Khleif - 00:24:37: Yeah. So my lab journey started when I did the voluntary work, and, uh, I I think what I loved is just, uh, thinking about an issue and then go get as many references as possible and sit down, read about it, and then come up with your own formulated thoughts. Because medical school, majority of medical schools is digesting information, and you spend six years digesting information to use it for practice. But in a way, the amount of adding information is limited. Right? Because you need to get it digested. Think about how you implement it on patients, which is beautiful. Right? But you're just using patients. You're regurgitating what you've learned in your own way to utilize it for patient care and for patient benefit. When you start doing research, what you're doing is you're digesting the information to build on it with an idea that was not part of what you read. That's different. And that adds a tremendous amount of excitement to what you could do because you feel now that you're using your white matter, your cerebrum, to build on top of what so many great people did to think about the problem a little bit differently. And that, by the way, also requires some entrepreneurship because you're taking risk. Because you might come up with ideas that say, like, uh, this could be crazy idea. Well, fine. As I always tell students and postdocs, etcetera, there's no idea that's crazy. Actually, crazy ideas sometimes are really the ideas. So that was big part of what I at least during my voluntary year, I started learning and thinking about and it's just great. I used to go to Olive Garden, by the way. I don't know if you know all about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There and have dinner and just read and come up with some some thought. But then when I went to my into my residency, I also during residency, which is not usual, I asked one of the basic scientists if I can work in their lab after five. Like, after I finish my work in the clinic or of the floor, I can go and work. And I worked with a brilliant scientist then, and I worked on virology, which was a very different than what I worked on during my voluntary work, which is something that I wanted to work on. And, uh, also, I published my first paper when I was there. So that not only taught me how to do research that's also a little bit more sophisticated, but how to translate that research into publications. But also what taught me is that there are no limits to what you could do. I was doing my residency, and I was doing research at the same time. So that is very important because people can do that. You can. And if you want to do more, no one's gonna tell you no. And if you have the ambition, you absolutely need to find a way to do it. The second thing is, which is very important, is not everything about pay. Because I was doing my residency. I was paid for doing my residency, but I was doing all this extra because I love to do it, because I wanted to learn, because I wanted to develop that interest even more. So there are many things that you feel that fine, which means that if I wanna do something, I can knock on the door of someone because I knocked on the door of that guy. I said, look. I am ready to work with you, and I'll work with you to learn, and I'll come here after five. Fine. Come in. Work. So you can do that. So that's really helped me a lot and help further encourage my interest in doing research even more. So this is why when I was starting to apply for fellowships in oncology, I wanted to apply for the place that really has the highest level of research, not only a great fellowship program, but a place that is rich in research culture. So I applied for the mecca of research in oncology, which is NCI, and I went and I did my research there.

Jon Chee - 00:28:31: Very cool. And what you described of that experience of, like, the creative, like, idea, the wild idea when you're in the lab and having that, like, moment where you're like, I'm gonna, like, do something kind of crazy and just to see skew with the sticks was, like, a moment where I fell in love with wet lab research. Because I previously I didn't become a doctor, but I was, like, in the early innings of trying to be a doctor. And that that was the exact feeling. I was just like I felt like I was just, like, ingesting so much information, and I didn't have, like, this like, I didn't think know it was possible to have kind of a creative outlet in life science. And then I got into the lab, and I was like, oh, this is really creative or, like, incredibly creative and, like, incredibly liberating, which is, like, the exact feeling where I was like, this is it. Like, I wanna stay here. It's just like this is similar to, like, vol the initial volunteer work. It's like, hey. Can I work after hours? And they're like, yeah. Of course, you can. I need help. Um, like, of course. So during that kind of lab period, were there any colleagues or mentors that perhaps took you under their wing or taught you some, like, tricks of the trade that you perhaps carry with you to this day?

Samir Khleif - 00:29:44: There are a couple of things that are very important. Not only how you do research, because you learn research from every person you work with.

Jon Chee - 00:29:52: Yep.

Samir Khleif - 00:29:52: From every supervisor you work with. Each one has their own ideas, their own thoughts, their own tricks, and more important, their own methods. And you learn from each one of them by observing. And, also, you learn a lot from your colleagues and from the people that you work with. But I'll tell you during my residency, when I was doing my internal medicine residency and I was doing this extra work, what really moved me the most is my oncology mentor. His name is Roland Skel, who's, like, a pretty well known oncologist. And he had a book, as a matter of fact, the handbook of chemotherapy, which was, like, in the pocket of every student in the country. And he was the oncologist. He wasn't the person that I was working research with. But I'll tell you, to have a mentor like that who not only sees in you what you could do, but to encourage you to do something like this. Right? It's not like, oh, what are you doing? You're doing residency. You should not be doing other stuff. You should concentrate on it is somebody that can recognize that people can multitask rather than no. No. No. You should only do this thing and focus on it to the degree that not only encouraged me to be able to do research while I was doing residency, but one day came to me and says, would you like to write a chapter in my book?

Intro/Outro - 00:31:14: Cool.

Samir Khleif - 00:31:15: Now I'm a resident, and writing a book Yeah. For me was like, wow. Of course. Yeah. Chapter.

Jon Chee - 00:31:22: Yeah. Right?

Samir Khleif - 00:31:23: Yeah. So it's not only he thought that I was doing too much. He wanted me to do more. Yep. Yep. And I truly believe in this. I think people that can do a lot, they'll do more.

Jon Chee - 00:31:32: Yep.

Samir Khleif - 00:31:33: So that was really great. And after that, as a matter of fact, he asked me to edit the book with him. Right? So he became and he became very good friends. So this is what you'll learn. Right? You'll learn how to mentor. You'll learn how to encourage people to grow. So that process went on all along. And one of the things, again, talking about mentorship is I mean, this guy wanted me to do fellowship in where I'm doing my residency. Right? But he know that I wanted to do more research. So I was applying to places, and and his point was, I'll help you apply, and I will call for you. Despite the fact that he wanted me to stay there. Right? But that's that's called mentorship. That's called and these are the things that you that you learn, and these are the things that you would carry further with you beyond learning research. This is how you learn from your mentors.

Jon Chee - 00:32:24: Absolutely. And I think there's a couple things that really set out to me that I believe as well or incredibly formative for me myself is just, like, having someone believe in you before you believe in yourself to be able to achieve these types of things. You don't even know what's possible. And then a mentor comes in, like, no. No. No. No. You could do it, and the bar is gonna be really high. Like and and the bar is really high. And you're like, I didn't even know the bar could get that high. And then it stretches your imagination into what you're capable of doing, and I there's, like, plenty of folks that have played that role for me where it's just like, no. No. This does a little bit more. Does a little bit more, and then the watermark. There's just, like, a new kinda sets the it sets the tone.

Samir Khleif - 00:33:07: Absolutely.

Outro - 00:33:09: Thanks for listening to this episode of The Biotech Startups Podcast with Samir Khleif. In part two, we'll follow Samir to the National Cancer Institute where he began bridging basic research and clinical care and discovered his calling as a clinician scientist. He shares how that mind set shaped his approach to translational medicine and set the stage for building a world class cancer center from the ground up. If you're enjoying the series, follow the show, leave us a review, and share it with a friend. See you next time. The Biotech Startups Podcast is produced by Excedr. Don't want to miss an episode? Search for The Biotech Startups Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and click subscribe. Excedr provides research labs with equipment leases on founder friendly terms to support paths to exceptional outcomes. To learn more, visit our website, www.excedr.com. On behalf of the team here at Excedr, thanks for listening. The Biotech Startups Podcast provides general insights into the life science sector through the experiences of its guests. The use of information on this podcast or materials linked from the podcast is at the user's own risk. The views expressed by the participants are their own and are not the views of Excedr or sponsors. No reference to any product, service, or company in the podcast is an endorsement by Excedr or its guests.