Break Into Biotech Graduate Inna Dolinskiy Obtains Prestigious QWEST Internship at HexemBio
By Chrissa Olson.
What took her mentor months to learn took Inna Dolinskiy only a couple hours in the lab.
Studying genes implicated in Parkinson’s, she’s now passionate about her work. She has a clear talent for it – but she’s only just begun. Last fall was her first time working at the bench, in Helen Bateup’s lab at UC Berkeley.
“[The biggest challenge was] learning how to advocate for myself, because a lot of tech people either have their parents in tech, or they come from really wealthy families,” Inna says. “That’s great, that’s amazing, but I really did not have that background. I’m the first person in my family, or even of people who I know, to consider biotech. A lot of it has been bridging that learning gap, and believing in myself that I can do it too.”
Inna is part of the first cohort of QB3’s Break into Biotech program, which provides paid five-week training and six-month lab placements to underserved students, the majority of which need to work to support themselves, says Director of Workforce Development Wanichaya “Noem” Noiwangklang. The program has now graduated two of its classes.
Students then have the opportunity to apply for prestigious QWEST internships to work within companies at Bakar Bio Labs. Inna obtained one with HexemBio, a startup that works on developing cell and blood rejuvenation therapeutics. They joined Bakar Bio Labs as tenants this past summer.
Coming from a family and social network where people rarely went to college and had no biotech connections, she was left to her own devices.
“I have a lot of gratitude because I’m really grateful that someone saw me and said, ‘You clearly have it in you, you have the potential, and all you need is the resources,’” Inna says.
The change in Inna’s abilities was day and night. She went from having no lab experience, to being placed with neuroscience graduate student Atehsa Sahagun in the Bateup Lab. There, she learned to read academic papers, lab techniques while surrounded by PhD students and postdocs while working on the Parkinson’s study. She learned how to be open-minded, process and organize information, the ethics of working with lab mice, and responsibility.
While she doesn’t know exactly which field she’s going into yet, she’s interested in CRISPR metabolism, cell signalling, and development. Outside of biotech, she was co-editor in chief of Troika, a Slavic journal, and she likes to cook, host dinner parties to keep her friends connected, and drawing. She also worked at the Institute of Governmental Studies Library to digitize their collection.
According to Atehsa, Inna goes out of her way to get to know everyone in the lab as a person, not just as a coworker. Anna Manis, a postdoc fellow in the Baetup Lab in the neuroscience department, says that in Inna’s lab presentation, she assigned everyone a flower that most matched their personality.
“I’m just really glad the program existed,” Atehsa says. “I’m happy I got placed with her. I genuinely think I learned a lot from her, and it’ll be hard for the next person I work with to try to live up to the bar she’s placed. There’s people you meet in life that stick with you – she’s one of them.”
Inna had “clear expectations” about what she wanted to learn, Atehsa says. She took control of her own learning and improved constantly. As much as Atehsa was teaching Inna, Inna was taught Atehsa “everything” from positivity, communication, patience, and to never underestimate anyone.
Like Inna grew alongside her mentor, the company she’s joining for her QWEST internship is just getting started too. She gets to see not just the science behind HexemBio, but also how the company functions, including all the “little things” she wouldn’t have been privy to at a large company.
“Inna quickly became an integral member of the team, helping establish our stem cell culture workflows and supporting key experiments that advanced our blood rejuvenation program,” says Samira Kiani, Hexembio’s CTO and a cofounder of the company. “She brings creativity and precision to her work from troubleshooting challenging assays to generating reliable data that informs our scientific strategy.”
Beyond the science itself, Inna is interested in the ethics of what biotech scientists create, whether it’s from funding sources, genetic modifications, or access to new technology. HexemBio particularly stood out to her because they were concerned about the ethics of what they were creating – from the start of her interview, she knew she was going to love working with the team.
“I’m constantly making my 15-year-old self proud,” Inna says. “I would tell her, give yourself some grace, because it’s gonna be great. I think you’re capable of finding the help you need, and you’re capable of growing, reaching out and being part of something big.”
