Interview with Dr Rostyslav Semikov, Founder and CEO of Audubon Bioscience Co.
Why did you choose medicine? What were your favorite subjects at school?
Chemistry, biology, along with history, were some of my favorite subjects. My initial desire was to become a scientist in this field. This turned into a desire to do medicine, as I began to see medicine as a more applied form of science; and I wanted to do something useful for people. Therefore, at the Medical University I focused on Surgery. All my efforts during 6 years of study were aimed at building a career in surgery. In the first year I started with student research in anatomy, then volunteered for shifts in surgical departments. By my third year in medical school I was allowed to do some small operations.
Unfortunately, this did not work out as I had planned. At the final year I was admitted to an internship abroad [Saint Louis University School of Medicine] with help of local Presbyterian church friends (Rosemary Oliver, Prof Peri Pepmueller). I was also an active member of the protestant church in Ukraine. And it turned out that the new Rector of the Zaporizhia Medical University who was a former leader of the local Komsomol (Young Communist League) stated that I was an undesirable alien religion and foreign society element. He decided that he would not allow me to become a surgeon.
Despite the facts that I had a diploma with honors, was awarded a Presidential scholarship, headed University’s Student Scientific Society, and received an invitation to a Master’s in Surgery program together with best recommendations from the leading surgeon of the Zaporizhia region (Prof. Acad. Oleksandr Nikonenko). And I was not allowed to enter into my chosen field (surgery). Instead I was sent to work as ‘ambulance doctor’ [EMS doctor who goes out on calls in an ambulance]. It is considered one of the least desirable MD positions, because their main task was to bring patients in to the hospital alive, so they can be treated by the ‘real doctors’. [In Western countries such work is performed by paramedics and doesn’t require MD training].
In high school I spent my 11th grade in the United States under the government student exchange program. I was blessed with many friendships there, including a few influential ones. Among them were prominent medical doctors (Prof Bruce Haughey, Prof Michael Brunt). They saw my frustration and offered help to leave Ukraine, move to America and pursue a career in surgery there. However, I wasn’t ready for such a radical step then. At the same time in Kyiv [capital of Ukraine] I met Volodymyr Kunets, pastor of the local Baptist church. He was friends with Dr Mykhailo Saliuta who was General manager of the large city hospital and the Chairman of the Health Commission in the Kyiv City Council. He went to the Minister of Health of Ukraine and obtained permission to transfer me from Zaporizhia to his hospital in Kyiv. The only condition was that I agree to go into a Family Medicine residency, not Surgery. I was never interested in nonsurgical medical fields, but I completed that 2-year program, and then worked as a General Practitioner in an out-patient clinic for about a year.
During this period, I was engaged in various international projects. I had helped establish exchange programs between American and Ukrainian doctors, receive humanitarian aid, etc. In a number of projects I assisted to a remarkable doctor-neonatologist Ronald Hoekstra from Minnesota. Such activities later were of a great help for me to enter Oxford University. I had a good education credentials, performed a lot of social work, and received valuable recommendations from influential people. I feel it was God at work in my life, opening these opportunities for me then.
How would you compare the education system in Oxford and in our country [Ukraine]? What are the priorities there? To what do they pay the most attention in education?
In the UK and the USA (and just recently in Ukraine) there are 2 levels of education: undergraduate and graduate. Undergraduate studies last 4–5 years and are more difficult for foreign students to enter. Actually, they are more difficult to enter for everyone, are more expensive, and fewer grants are issued. And for foreigners the prices are 3–5 times higher than for their own citizens. Master’s programs are less difficult to be admitted, they have shorter terms and there are more grants available. If you attain a grant, you can actually learn for free. In addition, universities are pursuing students from different countries, as the diversity of students is important for them. They are interested in selecting the best, for it contributes to the prestige of the university and its status. This also increases the prospects of future fundraising as successful and influential graduates are more likely to support their alma-mater financially.
In order to enter a master’s program, it is important to have good academic learning results, and be socially active. Participating in various project groups, presentations, communities, conferences, volunteering outside the school is also beneficial. Finally, recommendations from people who have become prominent professionals is highly important. They can write a good letter of recommendation that will be valued.
The standard application process involves sending your resume, diplomas, and writing an assay explaining why you want to enroll into this particular program. You need to communicate to the institution and the degree program you are applying for how you feel it can benefit you and your country in the future. And how you expect it to change your life and the lives of others around you. There are universities that specialize in specific areas, and there are some prestigious universities that try to be the best in everything. For example, for students who want to study biology and humanities in the UK, the best options besides the well-known Oxford and Cambridge, are University of St. Andrews, Imperial College London, University of Dundee. Comparing Oxford and Cambridge, it is believed that Oxford is stronger in the socio-political and humanities studies, and Cambridge is stronger in the natural sciences, mathematics.
I received information through a network of students who studied in American schools saying that there was such a vacancy in Oxford University. I filed a package of documents, passed a competition, and got accepted into the Global Health Sciences master’s program. The elements of study were composed of health systems management, research methodology, elements of epidemiology — in general, it is a master’s degree in public health.
The main difference between Western educational programs and ours is a general approach to instill in students critical thinking — evaluate everything, doubt everything, rethink everything, and seek evidence.
I heard a saying in Oxford: “There is no right and wrong opinion — there is a reasoned point of view and an unreasoned one.”
Therefore, do not be afraid to express your opinion — it is important to have your own point of view, and to be able to argue and defend it, because it happens that one thing is right today, and tomorrow it is wrong and vice versa. The most important thing is to have valid arguments.
The second most important thing is teaching to work with sources, i.e. find proper scientific materials and literature. It’s critically important to learn how and where to look for the right sources and how to properly analyze and submit them. We had a series of trainings on how to correctly process information and then write about it. In my college years in Ukraine we often wrote assays by simply copying various parts of books and journals without proper indication of sources. Today students don’t have to write by hand and can just ‘copy and paste’. And this is completely unacceptable. In Oxford we were taught that simply swapping words in sentences or replacing some words for others is still not considered a new thought. It has to be the complete rethinking of a thought in your own words. This is very important. Therefore, when our leading scientists or politicians make outright plagiarism, it looks very frivolous to our western colleagues.
Another thing we learned at Oxford is the value of learning through the practice of role-playing. The goal of education is not to memorize and quote as many our teachers here require. It’s often taking place when you read a textbook or lecture notes, simply trying to understand what the teacher wants to hear from you, and so prepare answering on an exam. But true value is in actually putting knowledge into practice! Role playing enables you to focus on the application of knowledge in a particular situation. We participated in a lot of training which involved many conversation, and whole lessons were focused on discussions.
For example, in Bhopal, India in the early 80s a large chemical plant exploded, several thousand people died immediately, and later more than ten thousand passed. Not only this, but a huge territory was contaminated with chemical reagents. The entire class was focused on what would you do in such a situation. From the moment you receive a call that a disaster has occurred, and until the years pass, and you need to minimize damage at the state level (impact related to the people and to the economy). This was all led by professor who personally participated in this process on the ground, and after hearing our opinions, he told us what they did. At Oxford, there was a great deal of such applied studies (“real case studies”).
The lack of what you have listed is a definite drawback of our education, but it will take a long time to change this.
You don’t have to wait until the minister (or the government) changes this situation. It is up to the individual to make these changes at their own level; through project groups, finding right colleagues, participating in international conferences, and other projects.
There are many opportunities nowadays — you just need to have a desire.
The main thing is to understand the direction you are interested in and develop that passion! And remember, learning English language is very important.
What steps did you take as soon as you graduated from Oxford?
I returned to Ukraine in 2008 after completing an internship in China under the guidance of my outstanding supervisors Prof Winnie Yip and Prof Jin Ma. I studied China’s healthcare system financing. When I returned home, I hoped to apply all newly acquired knowledge and experience in my country. So I looked for relevant opportunities through my old contacts. I was introduced to the Director of the large network of Kyiv public hospitals called TMO “Left Bank” Dr Daniel Karabayev. He was interested and offered me a position as Head of the Department of Inpatient Medical Care. This position involved my looking for models to be used in financing medical care that would allow urban medicine to develop. He said this position offered great opportunities: “we will climb high mountains where eagles nest”. I worked there for almost a year, developing some approaches and ideas that were promising. Dr Karabayev agreed and made an effort to convey our achievements to city leadership. Unfortunately, he did not find city officials very receptive. In general, the public sector turned out to be unyielding. Because of this lack of response, and no prospect of forthcoming positive changes, it was obvious to me I had to move on in my career.
This is the point where I decided to move into the business world. I worked with pharmaceutical companies, diagnostic companies, and IT in healthcare start-up. Eventually this moved me toward a career in the field of biobanking. In short, biobanking is the collection for research and development purposed of biological samples from a diversity of patients. In my field most of samples (70% or so) are cancer cells from tumors removed by surgeons.
First, I worked few years for the Swiss-Ukrainian biobank East West Biopharma (www.ewbiopharma.com), developing their customer base and new projects. My interest in this field has grown as it turned out this was the basement in the pyramid of biotechnology. Most research developing new diagnostics and treatments requires biosamples to test models. Before continuing to animals and humans testing should be done in labs in-vitro [in tubes]. “Biospecimens and pathologists are at the center of the Personalized Medicine universe” says field famous expert Prof. Caroline Compton (Harvard Medical School, John Hopkins University, Mayo Clinic).
Then, an interesting thing happened. I was offered an opportunity for a research fellowship at Louisiana State University Neuroscience Center in New Orleans, LA in the USA. Thanks to my old friends, Maurice and Marie Cabirac, the family I lived with when I studied as an exchange student in the USA in 1997–98. This was a very unique chance to work under Prof Nicolas Bazan in research of brain cancer at one of the leading US neuroscience laboratories.
Because it was a self-funded fellowship, the Cabirac’s donated a significant amount of money to the university, along with contributions collected from some of their friends. 40% of these funds were returned to me in the form of a salary, but this was not enough to live with my family in the United States. I planned to continue working with EWB but by law it was not allowed to work at a university and also be employed with a foreign company. However, if I had my own American company, the law would allow companies to collaborate. Therefore, with the help of Cabirac’s, I founded Audubon Bioscience Co. (www.audubonbio.com) incorporated in the State of Louisiana. We signed agreement with my previous employer to represent them in the USA, seeking and supporting customers as a subcontractor.
Unfortunately, as I began studies at LSU my former employers decided to terminate the contract. Therefore, I had to start working independently on the development of my company. I began to set up a network of customers and an infrastructure of suppliers to provide cancer researchers with needed biosamples and clinical data. This is how I started doing my own business.
What is the most difficult thing in running your business and the processes inside it? Perhaps the identification, diagnosis of diseased tissues or is it conservation, logistics, something else?
On one hand, it is important to understand what requirements the researchers have, what they want, and precisely formulate the task. Then you need to correctly convey to the doctors which patients are suitable to be enrolled for this particular project, what type of samples are requested, and then doctors have to explain to patients what their samples and data are needed for and obtain proper consent from them. Then there are issues of logistics — collecting, preserving and transporting samples correctly. There are different types of processing the material. Some samples need to be shipped immediately, some should be frozen, others fixed with formalin and then embedded in paraffin. It is also very important to collect de-identified clinical data about the patient’s disease status. And all this must be properly packed, assembled, and delivered to the researcher in time.
At first, I began working with clinics in Georgia in 2016 together with my partner Oleg Kokhanenko. I had a one-year non-compete in Ukraine clause in my previous employment contract. I kept my obligations and started working with Ukrainian clinics a year later, in 2017. Together with Dmytro Urakov, we established Ukraine Bioscience in Ukraine as part of Audubon Bioscience affiliated network of companies. Later another partner who is well versed in pathology joined us there and we entered into an exclusive contract with the leading pathomorphological laboratory CSD. This collaboration significantly improved the diagnosis for cancer patients who are involved in our research support projects. Making the right diagnosis is one of the main tasks for choosing successful treatment! In Ukraine, most state clinics have rather weak laboratories; well, except for a few. We also have very few good pathologists in the country.
CSD Laboratory (www.csdlab.ua) works according to the latest international protocols and has a representative office in each city in Ukraine. Our partnership allowed to provide patients with an accurate diagnosis for free. Unfortunately, today not all patients can afford to pay the substantial cost involved for this. We also work with local pathologists that have a good reputation. Again, this is very important for choosing the right cancer treatment.
After establishing in Georgia and in Ukraine, I then began opening branches in the European Union countries (Romania, Hungary), Asia (Turkey), Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Malawi). Our next goal is to establish contracts with clinics in the United States. At the present time we only collaborate with 1–2 biobanks there, and we do not have any direct contracts with clinics yet.
The most important thing for successful work is to build a good team.
You need to find good professionals who do their job well, who are interested, and who are motivated. Then it is important to establish and polish all inner and outer processes for communications, logistics, controlling and reporting. These are the main tasks that we have had to address.
Your main office is now located in Houston, Texas. What are the general advantages in location or why did you decide to change the place?
The move to Houston is based on the fact that this city is a very promising place for the development of biotechnologies related to the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases, especially cancer. Houston’s Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world (www.tmc.edu). Their MD Anderson (www.mdanderson.org) hospital is one of the leading oncology clinics in the world and is also a leading cancer research center. Houston is also less densely populated with biotech start-ups compare to the world’s major bio-hubs such as San Francisco and Boston. The presence of great clinics, universities, laboratories, and therefore their staff, researchers and students are the main benefits.
Presently in the U.S. Audubon has four employers and contractors. I plan to expand our employee base there. In other countries, we have established consultants and affiliated companies numbering over 30 individuals. We are making an effort ‘not’ to establish a large centralized system, but to be more flexible, therefore we are developing local partially independent units. These organizations and individuals both compensate and complement each other. What does not work out in one location, can work in another, or we can divide the effort into two parts. This affiliated companies’ infrastructure is becoming more and more mobile.
A large company has certain difficulties and our form of structure avoids some of them. For example, in larger companies there are a lot of formal permits and approvals that you need to get from top-managers. You have to deal with hierarchy of finance directors, law offices, various department heads, etc. When each time these processes are going on with every operation, they become slow and inefficient. I worked in a large company before. Once we tried to implement signing customer’s agreement online, with one click. The idea dragged on for six months! Such approval processes are too complicated and long. In my opinion it is better to be decentralized in most decision-making processes but enforce strict quality control measures across all participants.
How do you manage your time? How do you manage to operate companies that are located in completely different places?
The basic principle is to find the best people, educate them as much as possible, and don’t interfere with their work unless necessary. If there is a problem that comes up that they cannot solve, I get involved. The order of our operations goes something like this: as researchers’ requests are received, they are transferred to country managers (local companies’ directors) for their evaluation. They discuss potential projects with the PI doctors to understanding feasibility. Then they send back their findings and we put together a complete picture of what our customers are requesting. When order is received, we split it for execution among the countries according to their capacities.
Each country manager is a director of local legally independent company. They are responsible for their teams work according to the project’s specific requirements. This approach most often works out fine, probably 80% of the time. If questions do arise, usually related to budget or some unexpected problem, I get involved and make the decision. All this provides us with reliability and maximum results for management within a minimal time and expenses required from start to finish. The most difficult thing is proper communication with our customers and good coordination of our country managers, along with correct evaluation of new requests feasibility and budget. Most of my time is spent on these difficult things.
Last question. It often turns out that a person has a conflict issue between personal and business interests. How do you divide persona and business goals for life?
My primary task now is building a business that not only generates capital but allows to accumulate knowledge and experience. I want to invest all these in the development of science and technology. For me, business is the way to science. The way that gives me freedom to choose research topics.
Having worked in an American laboratory for a year, I came to realize how important economics is in the development of universities and their research. Grants and donations are lifeblood of their financing. For person without such funding it is very difficult to accomplish any achievement in medical research.
You can be a good laboratory assistant, work your whole life in the lab, and become a good writer of articles; but it is very difficult to really influence anything without being able to attract substantial funding.
The Western system is very dependent on grants distributed by the government and non-government organizations.
And there is fierce competition for these grants; it all depends on who receives the funding. I have difficulties with writing grants applications. For me, it’s quite lot of efforts and rather low chances. This is not something I want to base my career on.
In order to receive a grant, your articles citation index is very important; and articles should be from leading world magazines. Obtaining this is very difficult, especially for developing countries. At the same time, I was amazed to learn that 50–90% of life science scientific publications cannot be reproduced. That is, experiments made and published by one person or one laboratory cannot be repeated by other researchers in other laboratories! Many publications, even leading ones, can be unreliable. They may turn out very dubious results. This is a big problem in academia that many are talking about but there is not much done yet. There is analysis that approximately US$28,000,000,000 (US$28B)/year are spent on preclinical research that is not reproducible
In business there is a completely different environment, here success is defined by reproducibility. practicality and application. New tests, diagnostic devices, and drugs have to pass various validation procedures, preclinical and clinical trials and if successful, they enter the market, begin to be applied, and you can see the results. Thus, I think combining business and science is much more effective than “pure science”. For me, the goal is to learn, and then pursue working in the areas that I see show the most promise for diagnostics and treatment of certain cancers.
This is the direction I see myself headed. My desire is to make a contribution to the development of new diagnostics and treatments of cancer, if not as a surgeon, then as a research scientist. When I first formed the company, I focused on business processes — paying salaries, covering expenses, and not going into the red but earning enough to invest in the development.
But now I am interested in searching research projects that we can invest time and money into. I am looking for a direction to move myself and our team. With this goal in mind, I delve into relevant literature, go to scientific conferences, communicate with scientists, and develop a base of important contacts and ideas. In the next couple of years, we plan to start our own research on the development of diagnostic tests for detecting cancer in the early stages. From there we will see what happens.
For these reasons and interests, I find myself interested in Houston, TX as a base of operations. In the future, I am looking forward to working with Ukrainian scientists, developing our understanding in the global context, and also to introduce Ukraine to these unique opportunities.
