Katie Bodner

Katie Bodner Spielberg, PhD, is a Principal at 5AM Ventures, based in Boston, MA, where she focuses on early-stage investments in advanced life science innovations. Her responsibilities include sourcing and evaluating opportunities in biotechnology, diagnostics, therapeutics, and synthetic biology, working closely with portfolio companies across these sectors.

Prior to joining 5AM Ventures full time, Katie was a Fellow at the firm and completed a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Stanford University, where she applied systems biology to improve drug development processes. She has also conducted research in synthetic biology with applications in cancer diagnostics, infectious disease vaccines, muscular dystrophy, and biologics pharmaceutical production, resulting in both published work and a patent.

Katie holds a PhD in Bioengineering from Stanford University and a Bachelor of Science in Biological Engineering from MIT. Notably, she co-founded MIT’s first biotechnology student initiative, contributed to advances in mammalian DNA computing, and received awards such as the U.S. Biologics Technical Development Outstanding Student Award and a gold medal at the iGEM synthetic biology competition.