This is one in a series of blog posts where we highlight members of the global yet2 team. We recently spoke with Mali Kaminaga, associate project lead based out of our Waltham office.
When did you join yet2?
I joined yet2 at the end of January 2025 – a good kickoff to a new year.
What industry or technology interests or excites you the most right now?
I’ve always had a high interest in skincare and medicine – two industries that always seem to be innovating. Growing up, skincare felt fairly limited in the types of brands and actives that were available. Nowadays there’s hundreds of treatments, actives, and formulations (e.g. exosomes, microneedles, peptides) targeting different skincare concerns and an immense amount of consumer education surrounding them. It’s been great to see a high interest in brands from outside the States – I’m partial to Korean and Japanese products myself.
As for medicine, we understand human immunology more than ever before and now have the aid of AI and quantum computing to help us solve for drug designs for new biologics and small molecule drugs. I believe we are on the cusp of refining our technology for hundreds of diseases previously thought to be incurable or untreatable. I’m especially keeping an eye out for new mRNA vaccine applications, more advanced oral cancer drugs, novel delivery platforms and drug targets.
What type of client engagements do you enjoy the most?
I realized I enjoy doing outreach during scouting. There’s something about learning about novel technology directly from the employees or the founders themselves that makes it more exciting. It’s a great feeling to get an enthusiastic response from someone anticipating their product launching or talking about the potential of a technology over a call. Of course, sometimes things do not always go as planned but that’s the fun part and the most human part.
Do you have any book recommendations?
I don’t read for fun as much as I did when I was younger and I don’t really want to recommend people to read paper abstracts or communications from nature, Cell or ACS. It was a sad day when I lost my university subscription to all the scientific journals. If you are in the business for a YA sci-fi novel I recommend Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao. It’s a mecha sci-fi novel inspired by a very interesting historical figure, Wu Zetian, – the only female emperor of China.
Are there any areas/topics in which you consider yourself an expert?
I often say I have ‘mostly correct information about a wide range of things’. I’d consider myself more of a generalist in the life sciences: I’ve done research on antimicrobial peptides, nanoparticles for drug delivery, targeted laser ablation for cancer, made a surgical dental model, and have even done some plant virology research among other things. Generally, I am most comfortable in biochemistry and biotechnology topics – especially if we’re talking about microbes and medicine. I also have some experience in patent analysis which I am continuing to expand.
What do you do when you are not working?
My siblings and I share a love of animation and music – we watched a lot of anime growing up and still do. I recently saw the 4K remastered version of Princess Mononoke in theaters which was excellent. For music, Boston is a great place to discover smaller artists since it’s riddled with many intimate music venues. The Crystal Ballroom in Somerville is my local gem recommendation.
I live to experience flavor so I always keep an eye out for local culture festivals and restaurants specializing in foods from other countries. Most recently, I’ve gotten into growing carnivorous plants (did you know Venus flytraps are native to the Carolinas?) and diamond art painting where you place hundreds of colored squares on an adhesive mapped painting. When it’s warmer I’ll play tennis, go ride a bike down a new greenway, or find a way to the ocean.
