Elizabeth Iorns
Elizabeth Iorns | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 31, 1980 Melbourne, Australia |
| Occupation(s) | Scientist, entrepreneur |
| Years active | 2008–present |
| Known for | Founder and CEO of Science Exchange, co-founder of the Reproducibility Initiative |
Elizabeth Jane Iorns (born 31 December 1980) is a scientist and entrepreneur from New Zealand, serving as the founder and CEO of Science Exchange, a Silicon Valley-based startup that operates a platform allowing researchers to outsource experiments to various institutions such as university labs or commercial contract research organizations.[1][2][3] Since its inception in August 2011, Science Exchange has attracted considerable media coverage, particularly following its involvement in the Y Combinator accelerator program during Summer 2011 and its role in launching the Reproducibility Initiative in Summer 2012. Iorns has been profiled in prominent outlets including Nature, FastCompany, the San Francisco Business Times, and Xconomy. She operates out of Palo Alto, California, where Science Exchange is headquartered.[4][5][6]
Education and early life
Born in Melbourne, Australia, Iorns was raised in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand. She earned a first-class honors degree in Biomedical Science from the University of Auckland and completed her doctoral studies in Cancer Biology at The Institute of Cancer Research, affiliated with the University of London. Her dissertation, supervised by Alan Ashworth, was entitled High throughput functional analysis for the identification of breast cancer targets.
Career and research
Following her Ph.D., Iorns undertook a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. In 2008, she was awarded the Young Investigator Award by the Expedition Inspiration Fund for Breast Cancer Research for her investigations into Breast Stem Cells and therapeutic targets related to cancer stem cells. By 2010, she had advanced to the position of Assistant Professor of Medicine at the same institution.
Her scientific work focuses on understanding breast cancer initiation and progression mechanisms, resulting in multiple influential publications. Additionally, Iorns is a leading proponent of enhancing reproducibility within academic research. In August 2012, she co-founded the Reproducibility Initiative, a program designed to assist scientists in confirming research findings through independent laboratory replication.
Entrepreneurial and investment career
Iorns established Science Exchange while affiliated with the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Encountering difficulties locating collaborators for immunology studies, she partnered with Ryan Abbott and Dan Knox to launch Science Exchange in May 2011. In recognition of her entrepreneurial contributions, she received accolades from the Kauffman Foundation in 2012.
She holds a part-time partnership role at Y Combinator, where she leads their biotech sector, and also mentors at IndieBio, a life sciences accelerator initiated by SOSV in 2014.
Awards and honors
In December 2012, Nature included Iorns among the "Ten People that Mattered in 2012" for her work initiating the Reproducibility Initiative. In May 2013, together with co-founders Abbott and Knox, she was named "Tech’s Most Inspiring New Founder" by David Lee of SV Angel. The following June, she was featured on WIRED's list titled "50 Women Who Are Changing The World." In May 2014, Iorns was one of six female entrepreneurs honored with Glamour Magazine's Glamstarter Award.
References
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