The Team

Lauren Celano is Co-founder and CEO of Propel Careers and has nearly a decade of experience working with emerging drug discovery & development biotechnology companies. Prior to Propel Careers, she was a senior account manager for SNBL USA where she worked with emerging biotech companies in Europe and the US to help characterize and advance their drug molecules. Prior to SNBL USA, she held business development positions with Aptuit and Quintiles, where she focused onIND enabling studies to advance therapeutics from discovery into the clinic. At Absorption Systems, Lauren held positions as a marketing manager and account manager managing clients in the north eastern United States. She has a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Gettysburg College and an MBA with a focus in the health sector and entrepreneurship from Boston University. Lauren is on the membership committee of the North Shore Technology Council and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association and on the programming committee of The Capital Network.

Omar Amirana, M.D. is Co-founder and Chairman of Propel Careers.  He is also presently the Managing Director, Life Sciences, at Allied Minds, Inc., a US private equity corporation.  Prior to Allied Minds, he served as a Partner at Oxford Biosciences focused on life sciences technology investing. He joined Oxford in 2005 as an Investment Manager with 15 years of industry-related experience in both large and small companies. He previously served as the Vice President of Business Development at St. Jude Medical (NYSE:STJ) focused on electrophysiology, interventional cardiology and peripheral vascular intervention where he was also responsible for a 20 person R&D team. Prior to joining St. Jude Medical, Dr. Amirana was the CEO of Resolution Medical, a privately held cardiology company in Silicon Valley. Dr. Amirana has helped raise over $60M in venture financing which resulted in three IPOs: EP Technologies, Cardima, and MedicaLogic/Medscape. He was a co-founder of Cardima and served there for seven years as Vice President of Marketing, Business Development and Chief Technology Officer. He was Vice President of Marketing at MedicaLogic through its IPO which raised $101M and achieved a ~$1.1B market capitalization. Dr. Amirana has launched cardiovascular products worldwide and holds various patents. He received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University and an M.D. from Eastern Virginia Medical School.

Yuly Fuentes-Medel  is a Marketing and Outreach Intern at Propel Careers. She is presently doing a fellowship in economics at the Sloan School of Management at MIT studying the economics of life science innovation.  She completed her PH.D in Biomedical Sciences at UMass Medical School in Worcester, MA and developed her thesis work in a collaboration project between Dr. Vivian Budnik and Dr. Marc Freeman within the Neurobiology Department there. Her research area focused on how glial cells contribute to the formation and growth of synapses at the Drosophila NMJ. During her time as a PH. D. student, she pioneered the co-organization of the International workshop called “Small Brains Big Ideas” Biomedical Insights from Invertebrate Neuroscience Research, held in Santiago, Chile, in 2010. This initiative successfully trained thirty Latin-American students in the application of genetic model systems. Prior to her Ph.D., she moved to the United States to complete her Biochemistry Masters degree in the laboratory of Paul Gardner at the Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Institute, at UMASS. During her masters thesis work she studied the transcriptional regulation of nicotinic receptors. She has a biochemistry undergraduate degree from University of Concepcion, Chile and performed independent research with a focus on Immunology and Neurophysiology as an undergraduate student. Yuly is energetically involved in fostering scientific interest and careers in the sciences as a current intern for Propel Careers. One of her major undertakings is to create a connection between Propel Careers and the Universities/Biotech companies located in the Worcester, MA Area. She is an active member of women entrepreneurs in science and technology (WEST). She has a passion for science, innovation and self development.

Jennifer Campbell, Marketing and Outreach Intern for Propel Careers, is committed to building relationships with talented individuals, helping to convey scientific expertise and its significance simply and effectively, positioning clients for growth.  She is constantly seeking out compelling networking events within the Boston Life Science industry, and is enthusiastic about providing a quickly accessible resource on the Propel Careers website for various opportunities to gain insight from corporate partners and other like-minded individuals. Jennifer is also Doctoral Candidate at Boston College investigating the role of innate immune cells in HIV/SIV infection and AIDS associated neuropathogenesis. She recently found that specific monocyte subsets expand during both acute and chronic SIV infection and correlate with the degree of neuronal injury, strongly supporting the notion that ongoing monocyte expansion is required to drive CNS disease progression. Her current research interest is examining the efficacy of therapeutics in the targeting of monocyte/macrophage activation and the trafficking of cells into the brain. Before beginning her PhD, Jennifer gained experience in a rural Ugandan medical clinic with the Foundation for International Medical Relief in Children, where her passion for studying neurological diseases in HIV infected patients began. Jennifer previously worked as a research associate characterizing longevity control pathways involving the Sirtuin gene family in the Paul Glenn Laboratories for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging at Harvard Medical School. She earned a BS in Neuroscience from Furman University, completing a thesis discussing ethanol sensitivity in β-endorphin deficient mice. 

Amina Abrar is the Human Resources Manager for Propel Careers. She is a recent graduate from Hesser College and Southern New Hampshire University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. She also has an associate’s degree in Interior Design from Hesser College. While completing her BA degree, she interned with UPS as a hiring supervisor. This position spurred her interest in human resources.  She is passionate about helping people find the right opportunities for their personal and professional growth.  She is very active in her community and is involved with a nonprofit organization called PAGB (Pakistani Association of Greater Boston) where she is the Director of Memberships.