KBL Labs is Kanan's independent scientific consulting practice. It provides strategic leadership for rare disease foundations, patient advocacy organizations, and academic collaborators.
"The work I do will support the trials that will one day help patients." That promise — made in a small research institute outside Seattle in 2001 — is the commitment that drives my work today.
"The rarest diseases deserve the most rigorous science — and the most human leadership."
Engagements are structured as project-based, retainer, or advisory — scoped to your program's needs. Not sure which fits? Let's talk.
Defining research agendas and building balanced portfolios — from discovery biology through clinical translation.
Connecting researchers, clinicians, industry, and patient organizations into functioning global research networks.
Designing and overseeing RFAs, milestone reviews, grant management and longitudinal datasets — keeping programs rigorous and on track.
Advancing biomarkers, building patient registry and trial ready cohort
Keeping the patient voice central — through direct community engagement, science communication, and policy advocacy.
Most scientific advisors speak fluently to one audience. We work across all four — patients, funders, academic labs, and program leaders simultaneously and without losing anything in translation.
Translating science into language families can act on — and bringing their voice back to the bench, the boardroom, and the funding decision.
Coordinating multi-site programs and shaping field direction — with 14 co-authored publications including Nature and Science.
Funding recommendations built from conversations, not just literature reviews — so every dollar lands where it can move the field.
Scaffolding rare disease organizations from advisory engagements through embedded CSO — board strategy, milestones, partnerships.
Read the full story →"When patients walked into the lab — the same space where I had spent so many hours at the bench — the science stopped being abstract. I made a quiet decision that has governed everything since: the work I do will support the trials that will one day help the patients and families I had just met."
— Kanan Lathia, MS · 2001
Most scientific advisors speak fluently to one audience. We work across all four - patients, funders, academic labs, and program leaders simultaneously and without losing anything in translation.
"I didn't experience the gaps as problems. I experienced them as a map. I know what a mature rare disease foundation looks like. I also know how to help one get there."
Hover each tag for context.
Read the full story →A study of 23 million newborns reveals that the prevalence models guiding rare disease funding and trial design may have been underestimating patient populations by a factor of ten.
Read more →A foundation's most undervalued asset isn't its grant portfolio. It's the community it holds together between funding cycles — and the signal that sends to pharma partners watching from outside.
Read more →When a parent founds a rare disease organization, the first scientific advisor they bring in sets the trajectory for everything that follows. Here's what to look for.
Read more →Whether you're a patient advocacy foundation, a rare disease research program in need of scientific leadership, or an academic lab seeking a strategic partner — KBL Labs is structured for flexible engagement.
We respond within 48 hours. A first conversation is typically a 30-minute call to understand your program — no commitment required.
"The funding recommendation briefs I write are not just summaries of the scientific literature. They are built from conversations. For a donor deciding where to deploy capital in a rare disease that affects perhaps a few thousand people worldwide — every dollar has to carry the weight of a family that is waiting."