Leila Safavi

Bio:

Leila is the co-founder and CEO of Purist, a company based on a technology she co-invented during her Ph.D. studies. Purist's focus is developing a technology to be implemented in existing nuclear reactors to produce medical-grade radioactive ingredients. These radioactive ingredients are time-sensitive materials used daily to treat and diagnose life-threatening diseases such as cancer. Leila earned her Ph.D./M.S. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering and B.S. in Chemistry, all from the University of California, Irvine (UC-Irvine). During her time at UC-Irvine, she became a licensed nuclear reactor operator by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and maintained this license for over five years. In 2017, Leila co-founded Purist with her former Ph.D. advisor Dr. Mikael Nilsson and was appointed as Chief Executive Officer. In this role, she has won first place in the 2017 UC-Irvine New Venture Business Plan competition, been the recipient of the 2018 Orange County Engineering Council's Project Achievement award, and the 2018 Best Female Owned Business award from the UC-Irvine ANTrepreneur Center. In February of 2021, Leila was selected to be in the first class of 250 entrepreneurs for Forbes's NEXT 1000 list.

In 2019 Purist was awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health. The SBIR award, combined with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Innovation Crossroads program, has provided funding and resources to accelerate Purist's technology towards commercialization.