'Ris­ing star' CEO re­counts path from pre-med to break­through meds; Den­dreon taps Big Phar­ma vet Ja­son O'Neill as CEO

Fresh­man year was a trans­for­ma­tive one for Aet­na Wun Tromb­ley.

Hav­ing en­rolled at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia, San Diego think­ing she would be­come a pe­di­a­tri­cian some day, she got in­trigued by the chem­istry re­search projects she was in­tro­duced to in her first un­der­grad­u­ate chem­istry course. She joined the lab of the lec­tur­er, paving the way for her to drop pre-med and even­tu­al­ly com­plete a PhD at MIT.

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