Get to know Jason Pellman–Scientific Program Manager

Jason Pellman is a Scientific Program Manager at the Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA), a Sarafan ChEM-H partnership with Stanford Medicine that was established with an aim to translate Stanford discoveries into new medicines. 

We got to know more about this California native’s career path, a recent ambitious project he’s really proud of, and his life beyond work, including his love for anime, beach walks with his husband, and their beloved supermutt, Paneer.

Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you ended up at the IMA?

I’m originally from California and earned both my bachelor’s and PhD from UC San Diego, with a focus on molecular biology and biomedical sciences. It was during that time I realized lab work wasn’t really for me. So in an effort to run as far away from the bench as possible, I took a clinical research and regulatory position at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland in their pediatric surgery department, which gave me an opportunity to work with human subjects in clinical studies (a welcome change from mice). Eventually, I wanted to move into a position that allowed me to combine my clinical research background and project management skills in the drug development and regulatory spaces. That’s when I found an opening at the IMA and joined in 2021.

Tell us more about your current role at the IMA. 

As a Scientific Program Manager, I support the Experimental Human Biology (EHB) module at the IMA. EHB supports the part of the drug development pipeline that goes from Investigational New Drug (IND)-enabling studies to early-phase clinical trials. In plain terms, this means the work that begins right before a drug is tested in humans all the way through the time when it’s tested in humans for the very first time. So, we pull quite a bit of historical data, generate new safety data from animal studies, and eventually support the clinical trials either first-in-humans or in a new population. My role is largely project management, coordinating the many internal stakeholders, external collaborators, Stanford researchers, clinics, pharmaceutical companies, and more, working with my team to ensure compliance with regulatory guidelines, and keeping our projects on track to reach our developmental milestones. 

What do you enjoy most about your job?

There’s always something new to learn and contribute to. Through our Request for Proposals (RFP) process, we regularly bring in new, early-stage projects from Stanford into our pipeline, depending on what stage or therapeutic area we’re focusing on. It’s a collaborative, iterative process with Stanford researchers and a great way to learn about new science from across the campus. I also love that we’re helping researchers navigate a difficult space in clinical research, especially in early development stages. There’s a real sense of satisfaction in knowing we’re enabling progress.

Can you tell us about a project that’s been particularly meaningful to you?

A landmark project for us at the IMA, especially within the EHB arm, is our phase one clinical trial for a potential celiac disease treatment. We have assembled a huge, thousands-of-pages-long package of data to send to the FDA to begin safely testing the drug in humans. This has been a multi-year effort on the IMA team’s part, and it’s our first homegrown project to reach this stage, meaning it’s the earliest phase project that EHB has ever supported all the way to clinical readiness. That makes it really special. There’s so much new information, so it’s been an edifying process and a huge collaborative achievement. 

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing? Any hidden talents?

I enjoy video games, anime, and going to the beach with my husband and our dog, Paneer. Paneer is a rescue pup and a supermutt of an insane laundry list of breeds. And he’s annoyingly smart. I wouldn’t call it a hidden talent, but I’m also a pretty good cook. (Trying to get better at cooking my dog’s namesake.)

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Don’t recreate the wheel. This was repeated to me so many times in grad school. There’s often this urge to redo everything and start from scratch, thinking it’ll be better, but in reality, someone has often faced the same challenge before and already figured it out. Tapping into the knowledge of all the smart people around you can save you a lot of time and grief, especially at a place like Stanford. Chances are, someone knows the answer, or at least knows someone who does. So, think about that before trying to fix something all alone.