Welcome to the Forty Over 40 blog. We frequently spotlight one of our honorees and their thoughts on reinvention, mentorship and momentum…plus a peek into what makes them tick.
This Q & A is with Jessica Flechtner, Business Leader and BioScience Pioneer in the Development of Novel Vaccines, Genocea Biosciences. Jessica is innovating her field of work by cultivating scientific growth of Genocea from formation through to IPO and setting the vision for development of the company’s T cell-directed vaccines.
1) What was a pivotal momentum of reinvention for you?
I think that not being accepted to veterinary school was a pivotal time for me and for my professional growth. I was an animal science major in college and intended to go to veterinary school and become a theriogenologist. The beauty of reinvention truly is that we can change course at any time. More often than not, what we set out to do when we go to college does not always pan out the way we think it will. This event pushed me in a new direction, pursuing research, where I discovered my passion for immunology. After receiving my PhD, my post-doctoral work led me to a path of vaccine development and biotechnology that never even crossed my younger self’s mind. It’s one of the reasons that I have become interested in reinforcing STEM education for girls. Often when young people think of science, they think of two paths, teaching or medicine. There is so much more available to young women (and men) than just those paths, and so many opportunities that await those of us with a science degree.
2) Who has been a valuable mentor or sponsor?
My father has been an incredibly valuable mentor to me. He grew up on a farm in Iowa and got married just out of college. He started his career programming computers for the Apollo space mission (back in the day when they still had punch cards). He moved on to working in electrical equipment manufacturing followed by positions of increasing responsibility in Stouffer Corporation followed by Nestle Foods. He ultimately became the chief financial officer of Nestle UK and upon returning to the US was the SVP of Logistics for Nestle USA. He and my mom raised four daughters and taught us that we could be and do anything that we wanted to. We have each chosen diverse paths for our lives and careers, and they are incredibly proud of each of us. I think that my work ethic is modeled on his. More importantly, I strive to parent as he did. Despite his working long hours and traveling significantly for work, he still made time to spend with his daughters.
3) What is your biggest goal right now?
On a professional level, I’m very focused on leading Genocea’s research team in an effort to make the same impact in immuno-oncology as we have been making in our infectious disease immunotherapy program. The strength of our company’s ATLAS™ technology is that we can, on an individual basis, identify targets of immune responses that protect an individual from disease. The vision is to then take these protective targets and create novel vaccines with them to ultimately help people with hard-to- treat illnesses on a global level. We used ATLAS to identify the components that make up a novel immunotherapy for a chronic virus, herpes simplex virus (HSV). Early clinical trials testing this vaccine, called GEN-003, in HSV-2 infected individuals showed that this immunotherapy could reduce by more than half how often the virus reactivates and how often people have symptoms. This is the first time ever that a subunit vaccine hasshown an antiviral effect for a chronic virus in people. We are currently using the same ATLAS technology to find why some people can make immune responses that clear their cancers, and other people cannot. We hope to create novel immunotherapies using the targets of protective immunity that we discover with ATLAS to truly make a difference for those people suffering from cancer and for whom available therapies are insufficient.
4) How did you get your first job? How did you jump to your second job?
My first job out of college was as a research technician in a laboratory at Cornell’s veterinary school. I had wanted to attend veterinary school after college and decided that the best way to get accepted the next time I applied was to work in a school and have the faculty get to know me – so much of the successes I have achieved throughout my career were based on establishing strong relationships with those I work with and mentors alike. I began looking for job listings in veterinary schools across the country, and saw a description for a research associate position in a veterinary school that stated that applicants needed to have experience with something called an ELISA assay. I had no idea what the assay was, but I wanted to apply for the job. During my tenure as an undergraduate, I had worked for a professor in Cornell’s veterinary school, taking care of his laboratory’s herd of horses, donkeys, mules and hinnys. Not knowing how to perform an ELISA, I wanted to head into the opportunity as prepared as possible. I called up his lab manager and told her that I wanted to apply for this job opening that I saw, but that I needed to learn how to do an ELISA before I did so. I asked if she would be willing to teach me so that I could apply. She called me back and told me that she had spoken with the head of the laboratory, and said that they were impressed by my request. She said that they would not only teach me, but given my initiative, wondered if I would consider taking a research associate position in their laboratory instead. I accepted the offer, learned the ELISA and many more assays, and ultimately ended up getting my doctoral degree in the same laboratory. I did my post-doctoral work at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and our laboratory looked down into the children’s wing of the hospital, which was across the street. It struck me that, there I was, studying some basic pathway that made up an immune response, and that work would never (or not for a long time) be able to help those children who were suffering from cancer. It drove my decision to leave academia and perform research in the Biotechnology industry. To take this next step, I went to a job fair in Boston and met a representative there from a tiny start-up company named Mojave Therapeutics that was located in Westchester, NY. I will never forget my interview because the night before I arrived, their laboratories had been flooded due to rain. I showed up to wet floors, giant fans and the entire team cleaning up the mess. I was incredibly impressed; not only did they have great science and technology, but I had never seen that kind of team spirit…it didn’t matter what role you played in the company, you were all together solving a problem…in this case, a flood. I was hired and immediately hooked on the start-up culture!
5 How do you unplug? How often do you unplug?
I love adventurous travel! Several years ago, my mother, one of my sisters and I traveled to Tanzania, camped among the wildlife in the Serengeti and the Ngorongoro Crater, and climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro by the Machame route. I am also scuba certified and enjoy diving in St. Kitts and in Mexico, and I’ve been heli-skiing in Chile. This year I learned how to kite surf in the Dominican Republic, learned how to paddle board in Wisconsin, and rappelled 23 stories off the roof of the Hyatt hotel in San Francisco with my sisters to raise money for Outward Bound San Francisco. We encourage our children to be adventurous too. For family trips, we often go to Colorado to ski, mountain bike, zip line, bag jump and hike. We try to take a family trip at least twice a year; one for fun in the sun and one for fun in the snow.
6) What challenge / achievement are you most proud of?
Personally, I’m most proud of my amazing children. Professionally, I’m most proud of what we have achieved at Genocea. We have created an immunotherapy that, while still in early clinical development, is actually benefitting patients. This was my reason for entering the biotechnology industry in the first place – I wanted to translate science into medicines that would benefit patients.
7) What was the last business book you read?
An oldie but goodie: “Getting to Yes” by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton.
8) What cause do you most want to advance?
I’m passionate about extending STEM education awareness for girls. There are still too few women in these disciplines. Aside from the societal causes that have been posited, including gender identity and stereotypes, I think that part of the issue is a true lack of clarity about all of the career possibilities that can emerge as a result of STEM education. In addition, and this is not exclusively geared toward women, as scientists, we are often not taught many career essentials during our professional training, including mentorship and management and the art of negotiation. These are things that we need to reinforce earlier in education and especially for women, earlier in their careers.
9) What is the best piece of advice you ever received?
My dad always used to tell me “when you fall off your horse, you need to get back on and ride again.” This is powerful advice (and apropos since I loved horses) and my daily mantra. Also, the last time I saw my grandfather, he was suffering from advanced prostate cancer and was being wheeled out of the room to receive his radiation therapy. He made the person who was transporting him stop, and then he called me over to his bed and said “remember, you’re in charge.” I had no idea what he was talking about at the time, as it was not in the context of any discussion that we had been having or that he might have overheard; he may in fact have just been delirious. Nevertheless, those words have stuck with me and I have chosen to adopt that way of thinking for my life. I’m in charge of my own destiny and I have the power to affect change if things are not going as expected. This is something that I actively try to pay forward as I mentor employees and students.
10) What is your keep me going quote?
I have two favorites:
“Remember that a kick in the rear is a step forward” (I don’t know who this is attributed to), and “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them” – Henry David Thoreau
Check out Jessica Flechtner’s full 40 Over 40 profile here!
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