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From Sequence to Function

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Young British Researchers Visit Japan

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Journal club on the Node

A Career in Science Management

Posted by on February 13th, 2012

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Last June, Eva summarised the Node’s alternative careers stories, personal accounts of how scientists made their transitions from research into various alternative career paths. As a friend of Andrea Hutterer, who is now the Fellowships Manager at EMBO, I witnessed her exciting leap from the bench into science management back in 2010, and now asked her to tell her story. I’m sure her experiences will interest the Node’s readers and complement the alternative careers stories already available on the site. Enjoy the interview!

 

Briefly tell us about your scientific career.

I studied biochemistry in Vienna and then did both my diploma thesis and my PhD in Jürgen Knoblich’s lab at IMP and IMBA in Vienna. The focus of my thesis was asymmetric cell division in the nervous system of Drosophila. After that I joined Masanori Mishima’s group at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge, UK, for a postdoc. In his lab, I studied the process of cytokinesis.

Why did you quit research?

I was simply not sufficiently fascinated by one particular biological problem. My CV was good in scientific terms, so I think I could have gone ahead and started to apply for PI positions. But without being passionate about a question I think it’s hard to be successful, and being quite ambitious I decided it’s not the right career path for me.

What got you interested in research funding and policy? Did you consider other career paths?

Once I had decided to look into alternative careers, I needed to find out which career paths were open to me. I looked into loads of things - management consulting, scientific editing, medical writing, conference organising and science communication. In the end it was clear that science management was the best choice for me, as I would still have direct contact to scientists and thereby get a broad overview of scientific progress and emerging fields. On top of that, one can make a difference in terms of policy, for example by dealing with researchers’ employment conditions or gender issues.

Did you take any additional courses to polish your CV?

At the Gurdon Institute I was lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the fantastic careers service Cambridge University offers. In the beginning, I almost randomly took courses such as microeconomics, web-authoring and programming languages. This helped in a way that I found out quickly that pure economics were not entirely my thing and Perl was not my language. Other courses were more useful, for example when I learned the basics of using HTML to build websites or how to best write a CV for non-scientific jobs.

With regard to “polishing” my CV, it wasn’t so much the courses I listed but more how I organised the CV. I tried to emphasise my soft skills and highlighted extracurricular activities such as supervising younger students and organising retreats and symposia.

How easy was it to get your first job in funding?

It wasn’t easy at all, not even to get interviews. My scientific CV was good, but I had virtually no other relevant experience. Many employers appreciate even the smallest amount of experience more than a fantastic scientific CV, so what you really need when coming out of a PhD or postdoc is to get a foot in the door.

The first interview I got was with Cancer Research UK, but they didn’t offer me the job. I then got offered a job as Science Manager with the Medical Research Council (MRC) in Swindon, UK. I was quite over-qualified for this job since it didn’t even require a PhD, plus it came with a significant pay cut, but I was glad to have been offered it and accepted. In hindsight, it was the perfect stepping stone.

As preparation for the interviews, the Cambridge Careers Service again proved extremely helpful, because they offered mock interviews with the career advisor. It helped immensely to practise - I found out what I might be asked in an interview and I learned to explore different possibilities for answering these questions. I simply got an idea of what to expect during the process.

What does your work consist of?

On an everyday basis, I do some general administration, the details of which depend on the various fellowship application deadlines: I read proposals, find referees, talk to fellows, talk to my team [Andrea has three administrative staff to manage] and attend in-house management meetings. Every now and then I travel to career events to give talks about the programme, or attend workshops somewhere in Europe, which cover different aspects that come with the programme, such as a recent workshop on tracking research careers.

I also write grant proposals to try to get more money for the programme, and organise and attend the EMBO Fellows’ meetings in Heidelberg and the US. So it’s a very diverse job and I’m never even remotely bored!

Is there anything you miss about working in research?

At the MRC, although my colleagues were great I sometimes missed the international environment, which I do have here at EMBO. Sometimes I also miss standing at the bench, running around in the lab, being physically active. But I’m aware that that would have stopped sooner or later even if I had stayed in research and had become a PI.

What advice do you have for PhD students and postdocs wanting to leave academic research?

Find out why exactly you want to leave and what you would rather do. Even if you’re unclear whether research might be the right thing for you or not, start thinking about alternatives and get involved in non-scientific activities early on. There’s actually quite a lot one can do with our education. You just need to be clear about your goals, have a good non-scientific CV ready and work towards the new career profile. It might take a while until you get the job you have in mind, and you possibly need to be prepared to take pay cuts and will maybe feel slightly under-challenged in your first non-research job, but at least for me it was all worth it.
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Leaving the lab: career development for developmental biologists

Posted by on September 6th, 2011

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Over the past months, we’ve heard from several people who left research for a career away from the bench. Now, a summary of all these posts appears in Development, followed by some tips for graduate students, postdocs, and their supervisors. Below is the full text of the article, but it’s also free on Development, and you can get it as a PDF from there.

Leaving the lab: career development for developmental biologists


Let’s face it: not all PhD students and postdocs will become lab heads. Every few years, the National Science Foundation surveys doctorate recipients in the USA about their career progression, and their latest published data (collected in 2006) show that only about one quarter of biomedical science PhDs held tenured or tenure-track positions (see the links at the bottom of this post). If graduate and postdoctoral training are merely apprenticeships for tenure-track jobs, these numbers suggest that there are too many people being trained for the number of research jobs that are available. But if trainee positions are more than a stepping stone to running a research lab, what value does a PhD in the life sciences have outside of the lab, and what types of job do the remaining three quarters of PhD graduates go on to have?

In July 2010, I asked the following questions on the Node: `Should there be fewer postdoc and PhD positions? Or different kinds of [research] trainee positions, where some include training for scientific careers outside of the lab?’

The ensuing discussion suggested that the PhD degree and the postdoc system are not in need of reform, but that attitudes towards these positions should change. Greg Dressler, a professor at the University of Michigan, wrote in a comment on the Node post, `I do think we need to get over the idea that nothing short of an academic career fulfills the ideal goal of our students and post-docs. Most of the folks I went to graduate school with are not in academia anymore, yet they have meaningful and successful careers.’ In the same discussion, James Briscoe, a group leader at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research suggested that we need `the acknowledgment and encouragement of a diversity of career routes and development paths’.

These are good suggestions. There are a number of jobs outside of research or academia that are suitable for PhD graduates. A research job in industry, for example, connects seamlessly to research experience gained during PhD and postdoctoral training. But not every PhD graduate wants to continue in a research career, academic or otherwise. What kind of non-research jobs are available and how do PhD graduates get these jobs? And how is scientific training useful to people in a non-research career? To answer these questions, I invited a number of people to write a post on the Node to explain how they moved away from a career in research after their PhD. These posts can be found on the Node, but it’s worth discussing here the trends they raise collectively, and distilling some of the advice from those people who have left the life of the lab bench behind them.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Keeping an Open Mind – A Scientist’s Quest for Positive Change

Posted by on July 12th, 2011

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I am the founder and CEO of DataGiving. I founded DataGiving whilst completing my Ph.D. in Genetics at the University of Cambridge. I have always been passionate about helping people. After completing my Bachelors degree in Psychology, I worked as an Assistant Psychologist at St Marys Hospital in London, helping adults with severe mental health disorders. Since I was a teenager I had aspired to become a Clinical Psychologist, but as much as I admired the great work Psychologists do, I didn’t feel that my desire to reach out and make a positive change would be fully achieved in this role. I returned to academia, as I had long been intrigued to learn more about the biological basis of human behaviour and cognition. I completed a Masters degree in Cognitive Neuroscience, at Imperial College London, which included a laboratory based research project at the Hammersmith Hospital, investigating the genetic basis of Parkinson’s Disease This research sparked my passion for genetics, and specifically the field of Epigenetics. I went on to be awarded an MRC scholarship, to undertake research into the imprinting regulation of Gsα in the laboratory of Dr Gavin Kelsey at The Babraham Institute, Cambridge.

Whilst at Cambridge, I was determined to fully participate in both academic and social life Cambridge University had to offer, and I served on my College graduate committee, was editor for the Graduate Union Bulletin, and was responsible for raising sponsorship for the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs Society (CUE). At Cue, I learnt about what was required to develop successful businesses, and met fellow students interested in entrepreneurship. I also worked for a while for a biotech, identifying collaborative opportunities with research labs around the world.

I have long been an advocate of harnessing creative and innovative technologies, to facilitate change for the common good. After a period of teaching myself basic computer programming, myself and a team of fellow Cambridge graduates won the TedxCam 2010 Open Data Challenge Hackathon, with a web data mashup named Ventropy (www.ventropy.org). Described by the BBC as “jaw-dropping”, Ventropy impactfully communicates the needs of grassroots businesses in mainly developing countries looking to raise funding through the microfinance site Kiva. Ventropy received high-praise from leaders from both the technology/web and charity fields, and is featured in the Kiva app portal. I was invited to speak about the inspiring idea at The Guardian Activate 2010 Summit, Technology, society and the future: Changing the world through the internet.

I went on to be awarded an UnLtd HEFCE Social Entrepreneurship Catalyst Award to develop the idea of Ventropy into a data visualisation app that translates the charitable impact of any amount of money, this can be seen at www.datagiving.com.

I am passionate about inspiring social entrepreneurs, and earlier in the year I was invited to speak to students at Cambridge University interested in ethical careers at the Beyond Profit flagship event, ‘From dream to reality - funding and support for social enterprise’, alongside UnLtd CEO Cliff Prior. I was also invited back to The Guardian Activate Summit in 2011 to take part in a stimulating panel debate discussing the power of data to save the world.

My scientific training has equipped me with an analytical mindset and curiosity that I’m able to apply in wider contexts of innovation. I am still very much passionate about biological science and in encouraging innovation in this field. I recently came runner up in an Open Innovation competition organised by MedImmune and Cambridge University Technology Enterprise Club, and I have since been asked by MedImmune to develop an Open Innovation strategy for MedImmune and the University of Cambridge.

My career to date has taken unexpected and unconventional twists and turns, but I’ve enjoyed every moment. Keeping an open mind and carving out your niche can be hard work, but incredibly rewarding.
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How fate determined my career as a science journalist

Posted by on June 21st, 2011

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If I shut my eyes, I can still picture  the young boy dressed as a gravedigger. He’s taking centre-stage, flourishing a spade and cheerily telling his audience that if they don’t practise safe sex, they will die of AIDS and boost his business. It’s not the sort of thing you expect from a Sunday school play.

It was February 2002 and I was in Kenya, covering a story for New Scientist magazine about how traditional African theatre could help teach local people about HIV, food hygiene and environmental threats such the pollution of nearby Lake Victoria. The science conveyed in the plays was basic, but it had the power to transform people’s lives.

That reporting assignment, which also took me to Nairobi’s slums and into the African Rift Valley to meet the Maasai people, is probably the most challenging of my career. It taught me how much you can achieve with nothing more than a notebook, pen and a pocket camera. It also sealed my conviction that sharing scientific knowledge is as valuable an enterprise as generating it.

I certainly didn’t start out with the idea of becoming any kind of journalist. The developmental biology bug bit during my undergraduate degree and I decided to pursue a career in research. Funded by a Prize Studentship from the Wellcome Trust,  I joined Helen Skaer’s lab, then at the Department of Human Anatomy in Oxford, in 1995. Under Helen’s excellent tutelage, I started work on finding out how the cells of the Drosophila renal system, the Malpighian tubules, decide their fate.

But while I was happily dissecting embryos, two things changed the course of my career. The first was a science communication course run by the Wellcome Trust for its Prize students. One of the course tutors, Peter Evans, a science radio journalist for BBC Radio 4, encouraged me to try my hand at student radio. Before long, I was a writer and presenter for The Frontier, a science magazine show on Oxygen 107.9FM, the UK’s first student station with a full FM radio licence.

I have no idea how many listeners  The Frontier team had, but producing a live half-hour show every week, whilst also studying for our degrees, was both hugely stressful and immensely fun. It planted the idea that this might be something I could do in future. To test the waters a bit more, I entered a number of science writing competitions, and was a runner up in the Wellcome Trust / New Scientist Essay competition.

This prompted the second career-changing event: as I was writing up my doctoral thesis, I applied for an internship as a subeditor at New Scientist. I succeeded in getting the job and joined the magazine as soon as my lab work was complete.

Working on a magazine was worlds away from counting Malpighian tubule cells, but the experience of working on The Frontier, as well as the writing competitions, did help—both in terms of doing the job and getting it in the first place.

So if I could only give one bit of advice, it would be this: if you want to get into science journalism, just do it. Take every opportunity you can—blogging, writing competitions, student newspapers or radio, writing for trade or academic publications, working as an intern—to flex your writing muscles and build a portfolio of examples to show prospective employers. Plenty of people say they want to be science journalists, but far fewer demonstrate the initiative and nous required to make it happen.

Subeditors are unsung diamond-polishers of the publishing world; their job is to edit prose for clarity, good grammar and style and then write eye-catching headlines. Being a trainee sub taught me a great deal about how to write well and fueled my desire to become a reporter / writer myself. I started writing pieces for the magazine and within a few months, I had wangled a job as a reporter in New Scientist’s news section.

I stayed in News for about 18 months before finding my métier as a feature writer, and eventually I became a features editor. Features are longer articles that give you the time and space to explore ideas in more depth and craft an article into more of a story, both of which appealed to me. In 2005, I left New Scientist to join Nature as a senior reporter and editor, where I focused on developing the biology features in Nature’s news section.

While this was all happening, I had been using my annual leave to train scientists in science communication skills, with my marine biologist husband, Jon Copley. There is an increasing demand for researchers to communicate with the public and to demonstrate the impact of their work. So Jon and I founded a company called SciConnect to offer training courses in these areas to scientists who need them.

By the time I had been at Nature for two years, the demands of SciConnect were growing. What’s more, I found that I was spending most of my time editing rather than writing. Much as a enjoyed working at Nature, I decided to leap into the unknown and become a freelance science journalist and full-time managing director of SciConnect. After I handed in my notice, I lay awake all night, fretting about whether I had just made the worst mistake of my career.

I need not have worried. Running my own company and freelancing as a writer has been terrifying, exhilarating, overwhelming, and empowering, in turn. It demands a whole new skill set and the learning curve has been precipitous. But it has its rewards: SciConnect has now equipped more than 1600 scientists, from PhD students to Profs, with the skills to share their work with the world.

There are days of doubt, of course. Every now and then I fish a sozzled fruit fly out of my Rioja, dry its bright wings and feel a pang of nostalgia for the lab. Or I’ll encounter a snotty academic dinosaur (thankfully a rare species) who thinks that “journalist” means “imbecile” and that leaving the research track somehow equates with failure or “dropping out”.

At times like these I remember the jolly little gravedigger and remind myself that science is not just about making discoveries, but also holding science to account and making sure those discoveries reach beyond the lab.

If anyone is contemplating making the leap into journalism, check out the career information on the Association of British Science Writers’ website.

Alternatively drop me a line via email (info@sciconnect.co.uk), on Twitter (@ClaireAinsworth) or my blog and I’ll do my best to help.
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Round-up of alternative careers stories

Posted by on June 8th, 2011

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In December we asked people to share how they moved from research to a career away from the lab bench. Since then, we’ve heard from a number of people, and a few stories are still coming in. Here’s the list so far, with current affiliations:

Keep up and blog on - my route to the Node
Eva Amsen - Community manager for the Node and Online Editor for Development

A career in publishing - a developing story
Jane Alfred - Executive Editor for Development

Educational game designer: where biology, games, and technology meet
Nicole Husain - educational game designer at Spongelab Interactive

From the bench to the science centre
Sarah Gibb - Science and Interpretation Officer at Glasgow Science Centre

A career as editor
Vivian Siegel - Director of the Center for Science Communication at Vanderbilt University, and Editor-in-Chief of Disease Models and Mechanisms.

My transition to patent law
Michael Belliveau - Patent Attorney at Clark & Elbing

My journey to scientific editing
Kara Cerveny - scientific editor at Cell

My journey from bench scientist to clinical ethicist
Michael Szego - fellow in clinical and organizational ethics at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics

How fate determined my career as a science journalist
Claire Ainsworth - science journalist

Keeping an open mind - a scientist’s quest for positive change
Sobia Hamid - entrepreneur
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My journey from bench scientist to clinical ethicist

Posted by on June 1st, 2011

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Four and a half years ago I was introduced to the field of clinical ethics while nearing the end of my Doctorate in Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. After attending a talk given by Kerry Bowman, a clinical ethicist at one of the University teaching hospitals, I approached him with some additional questions. The ensuing discussion led to a productive working relationship. Initially, I helped him perform an ethics analysis of a complicated genomics project. He then invited me to participate in some of his other professional responsibilities, opening a door into a new profession. This foray into clinical ethics had a lasting effect; in short order I decided to retire my pipette and pursue a career in clinical ethics.

At the beginning of my PhD, my intention was to pursue a career as an academic scientist. Like many graduate students I experienced both euphoric moments when critical experiments worked and frustrating periods when experiments were not informative. While I enjoyed the scientific process, I had a nagging feeling that a scientific career was not the perfect fit for me. Accordingly, I tried to keep an open mind and got involved in extracurricular activities. I participated in student governance, got involved in science outreach and taught with a non- governmental organization overseas. I also regularly attended a life science career development seminar series meant to expose graduate students to careers outside of academic science. I first met Kerry when he talked about clinical ethics at one of these seminars.

What immediately captured my imagination was the interesting breadth of activities performed by clinical ethicists. In Canada, most large hospitals either employ their own clinical ethicist(s) or have access to a regional clinical ethics service. Clinical consultations are the bread and butter of most clinical ethics programs and are usually triggered by an ethical tension in the provision of patient-care. A conflict regarding a treatment decision or plan, complicated end-of-life decision making, whether to withdraw life support, consent and capacity issues, and disagreement about discharge planning are all examples of clinical cases that may benefit from clinical ethics support. On the organizational level, many ethicists are also involved in the development of hospital policy since good policies may help mitigate future ethical tensions. Teaching is another important facet of clinical ethics. Education serves to raise awareness about ethical issues and can increase the capacity of healthcare workers and researchers to deal with ethical issues in their practice. Many ethicists also conduct independent research and serve on hospital research ethics boards (the Canadian equivalent of research ethics committees).

After deciding on a career track, I knew I needed more education. To address my knowledge gap, I enrolled in a Bioethics Masters program at the University of Toronto. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship and worked hard over the two year degree to immerse myself into the field of bioethics. I took a generalist approach and chose a course-based professional masters program, which allowed me to take more courses compared to the thesis-based program that was also offered. I completed the degree and am currently a fellow in clinical and organizational ethics at the University of Toronto Joint Centre for Bioethics. The fellowship program is analogous to an apprenticeship program in ethics. Each fellow rotates through the ethics programs of four partner healthcare institutions over the course of a year (3 months is spent at each site). This unique and wonderful experience has given me practical ethics experience that complements the theoretical knowledge I learned in graduate school.

How has a PhD in molecular genetics prepared me for a career in ethics? Interestingly, several of my patients and non-ethicist colleagues have asked about my background and only about half immediately appreciate why a background in genetics might be useful in ethics. The other half usually can’t get over the fact that most of my training is not in philosophy. I view my background in science to be of great relevance. I am able to understand the science behind many emerging technologies in medicine, which is critically important in order to discuss the ethical implications of new technology and recommendations on how to proceed. My science training also heavily contributed to the development of my analytic, writing and presentation skills, which nicely compliments my bioethics education.

The combination of science and clinical ethics training is still quite unusual and has afforded me some unique opportunities. For example, I have been embedded in a genomics centre at a large research institute to work on ethical issues in parallel with scientific innovation. I have also been invited to speak at several interesting venues on topics involving genetics and ethics. As my fellowship is drawing to an end, I am seeking out clinical ethics positions that will allow me to perform all the clinical activities I described earlier and also use my genetics knowledge in a research ethics capacity. I hope to continue working closely with scientists and work on the ethics of the new research as it is being developed. Although not yet employed as a clinical ethicist, I was recently asked to give a talk about clinical ethics at the same seminar series that first introduced me to the field. I graciously accepted and am looking forward to describing my exciting field to other life science students.
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My journey to scientific editing

Posted by on May 24th, 2011

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Although I’m no longer working at the bench, I still think of myself as a scientist. During grad school and much of my post-doc, I assumed that I would follow the “grad student to post-doc to professor track” so that I could continue to be paid to learn for the rest of my life. I’ve come to find out that many alternatives to the traditional academic path, like my current job as a scientific editor at Cell, enable life-long scientific learning.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always loved learning about the natural world. When I went to college, I thought I wanted to be a medical doctor, but several summers working in labs and one summer studying animal behaviour changed my mind. I was bitten by the basic science research bug. My PhD thesis work focused on mitochondrial morphology and inheritance, but I also pushed myself beyond my cell biology and genetics comfort zone into areas like biophysics, biochemistry, and computational biology. Six years and three first author papers later, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation awarded me an opportunity of a lifetime. They funded my post-doc fellowship proposal on dissecting the connections between cell proliferation and differentiation in the zebrafish retina.

My post-doc was challenging – it stretched me emotionally, culturally, and intellectually. The transition from yeast cell biology and genetics to zebrafish developmental biology was more difficult than I had anticipated, but my lab mates, husband, and friends provided the support I needed to succeed. Deciding to leave the lab – my projects, my colleagues, and my friends – was one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever made. When I talked with my advisor about the possibility of working as a scientific editor, he tried his best to be supportive but also tried to convince me to stay on in his lab. Unlike other post-docs who had moved onto non-academic positions, he (and many of my peers and colleagues) told me that I “have what it takes to be an academic researcher”.

Were they wrong? No. I actually agree with them. Intellectually and emotionally, I am suited to academic research. I delight in thinking and discussing biological questions; I enjoy working collaboratively as well as individually; and I am keen to share my knowledge with others by teaching and mentoring. I am, however, not well suited to the uncertainty that comes with tight funding and shrinking university budgets.

Near the end of the third year of my post-doc, with fellowship money running out, I began to worry that my research, while important and interesting to me, wasn’t likely to make into the high-profile journals (this is something that I never really thought about before; I always just wanted to do the best research in an area that interested me). I applied for several research/teaching assistant professorships back in the US, and I received very nice rejection letters. Around this time, I also began to notice that many scientists whom I respected were struggling to secure funding and spending much of their time carrying out administrative duties. Together, these events motivated me to think about what I was really doing in academic science. Was there something besides being a professor that would satisfy my desire to learn and share my enthusiasm for scientific discovery?

Throughout grad school and my post-doc, I participated in scientific outreach events – hosting high school students in the lab during the summer, working with non-scientists to explain our work to the public (you can listen to the result of one of my favorite collaborations, “Fish Eye/Fix Me”), visiting local schools and science fairs, and even starting my own blog called post-doc perspective. After participating in the 2010 Santa Fe science writers workshop, where I met fantastic people interested in learning about the best ways to communicate scientific knowledge and scientific discoveries, I thought I might use my talents to become a science editor/writer. When the job offer from Cell came, it was a no-brainer.

Some people were happy when I told them I would be starting a job as a scientific editor of Cell, a few of them even tried to become my new best friend. Others were horrified, asking how I could dream of leaving science. I explained that I didn’t see it as leaving science at all, simply as participating in a different aspect of the scientific process.

I began my scientific editing career with the hope that I would be able to facilitate the communication of scientific breakthroughs with integrity, honesty, and fairness. I’ve been an editor for less than a year, and in that time I’ve come to appreciate that scientific editing is a very challenging job; it comes with great responsibility, but it is also a lot of fun, especially for someone like me who loves to learn. At this stage of my career, I can say with confidence that this is the right place for me. I love the intellectual challenges that come with being an editor at Cell, and my husband is thankful that I’m no longer frustrated by experiments not working. I enjoy working with authors and reviewers to ensure that the scientific studies we publish are accurate and at the forefront of their respective fields, and I am thrilled to be part of a team of scientists, writers, and illustrators who work hard to communicate scientific discoveries in the best way possible. If you enjoy reading and writing and learning about biology from reading papers and attending journal clubs, scientific editing might be a good fit for you.

For those who are interested, my undergraduate degrees in biology and chemistry (and summer research experiences) are from at Duke University. I earned my PhD in biochemistry, cell and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins Medical School, and I carried out my post-doctoral research at the University College London.
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My transition to patent law

Posted by on May 22nd, 2011

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I am now a Patent Attorney at Clark & Elbing, a Boston boutique patent law firm specializing in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. I have been at Clark & Elbing since 1998, and am now a partner.

Prior to becoming a Patent Attorney, I was a graduate student in Connie Cepko’s laboratory at Harvard Medical School. For my research, I studied intrinsic and extrinsic cell fate choices in the developing vertebrate retina. Even prior to attending graduate school, I had been interested in retinal development; during my undergraduate career, I worked in a laboratory studying development of the retina in teleost fish.

My time in the Cepko lab was fun and fulfilling. During my time there, several exciting discoveries were made by other lab members, including identification of a photoreceptor-specific transcription factor as well as several other genes assymetrically expressed in the developing retina. Additionally, we shared lab space and lab meeting with the members of Cliff Tabin’s lab. It was at this time that Cliff and his colleagues identified the Sonic Hedgehog gene.

I had been interested in patent law even before attending graduate school. Prior to attending Harvard, I had taken the LSAT law school admission examination. From discussions with patent attorneys, I learned that completion of a Ph.D. was nearly an essential requirement, so I delayed law school and instead pursued my doctorate degree.

During my final months in the Cepko lab, I explored the possibility of joining another lab as a post-doc. I interviewed in several prominent developmental neurobiology labs and was offered a position in each of them. In the end, my heart wasn’t completely committed to continuing with scientific research, and I chose to resume my pursuit of a career in law.

Fortuitously for me, Connie was working with a Patent Attorney at Clark & Elbing, who invited me to interview at the firm. Additionally, pursuing my own leads resulted in other interviews. In each case, the position for which I was interviewing was “Technology Specialist.” In the Boston area, and in other U.S. cities, law firms hire Ph.D. scientists who are interested in becoming Patent Attorneys, train them, and assist with the expenses of attending law school.

It was 1998 when I was transitioning from science to law. At that time, universities were not particularly supportive of their graduates pursuing “alternative careers.” There were no panel discussions of alternative careers, no events hosted by companies. Even joining a biotech company was frowned upon. But Connie and Cliff were always 100% supportive, as they were throughout my graduate tenure. Equally supportive were my new colleagues, who had made a similar transition from the bench and thus knew of the difficulties associated with the move.

What I do now as a partner is quite different from what I did as a Technology Specialist. In the early years, relied heavily upon my scientific knowledge. Having a broad knowledge base was important, as there were few patents relating to retinal development. My first projects at Clark & Elbing related to the production of transgenic fungus capable of efficiently producing antibiotics. Now, I rely more upon knowledge of the law than my knowledge of science, although the latter certainly remains important. The one aspect of my scientific training that has continuously served me well is the ability to critically analyze a collection of facts. The ability to do so is critical to the success of scientists and Patent Attorneys alike.

I am now the Hiring Partner at Clark & Elbing. It is my job to review resumes submitted by those pursuing a career in patent law. From my vantage point, it appears universities are more supportive of careers away from the bench. I am a frequent visitor to local universities as a participant in a discussion of career alternatives. What remains a challenge for the scientists is determining whether a career in law will be a fulfilling one. Certainly, I am exposed to science on a daily level. In some ways, the science is more fulfilling, as it is generally being applied to improving human health. The work environment is certainly different—suits and ties have replaced the shorts and sandals of my earlier days. How can a scientist considering a transition to patent law determine whether this career would be fulfilling? In short, there is no easy way. What was recommended to me, and what I recommend to others, is to talk with as many people as you can. Through these discussions, look to identify people who share your values. And feel free to write to me. As someone who made a similar transition (albeit quite a while ago), I’d be more than happy to help.
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A career as editor

Posted by on May 19th, 2011

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I was a PhD student with Peter Walter, studying protein translocation across the endoplasmic reticulum. I did very well as a student, publishing six research papers during that time. After that, I was a postdoc with Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard and then with Yuh-Nung Jan, studying oogenesis and pattern formation in Drosophila. Throughout my training, people handed me their papers to read and asked me to attend their practice qualifying exams because I was always looking for the big picture, always needing to know why they were doing the experiments in the first place. Time and again, friends suggested I become an editor. I mostly laughed at them, in part because I wasn’t really sure what an editor did, and in part because there seemed to be so few jobs for editors that I never thought I’d get one. Anyway, I was good at the bench and I couldn’t imagine disappointing my father by not taking a job in academia.

In 1993-4, I went on the job market, looking at standard faculty positions. I received some offers, including one from Vanderbilt University, where I am now. But I was resisting accepting a position, and some friends – who were also on the job market at the time – sent me to a career counselor. The counselor’s husband was a bench scientist, so she had some sense of my career until that point, and asked me a very simple question, one that I had never asked myself: “If you didn’t have to worry about how much money you made, or what anyone else thought of you, what would you do?” What surprised me was that I knew the answer to that question: I’d be a student for the rest of my life.

When I said that, I realized that what I loved about being in science was knowing something today that no one knew yesterday, and that it didn’t matter so much if I learned it by my own hands, or over coffee with a friend. This calmed me down a lot about the idea of starting up a lab, as I had been worrying about going around claiming other people’s work as my own.

When I got back to the lab that afternoon, I went into our lunch room and opened an issue of Cell. Near the front cover, there was an ad for an editor, and they were looking for someone with expertise either in cell biology (my graduate training) or developmental biology (my postdoctoral training) – and I thought to myself that it seemed an awful lot like being a student, so I applied for the position. The short version of this story is that I got the job, and I was a full time professional editor for about a dozen years, including a few very exciting years as the Executive Director of Public Library of Science, before returning to academia to my current position at Vanderbilt University. I still spend most of my time as an editor, most notably as the Editor-in-Chief of Development’s newest sister, Disease Models & Mechanisms.

Being an editor is really very much like being a student. You encounter lots of interesting and new science every day in a broad range of fields. But, at least for those of us who decide which research papers to publish in high profile journals such as Cell, it is also about being able to judge science. As an editor, you will have to turn away most of the papers you receive, and explain your reasoning. I think that editorial decisions need to be timely, constructive, transparent, and fair – or at least as much as they can be, given the need to turn complicated issues and shades of gray into stochastic decisions, and the need to keep confidential information confidential.

Editors and journals can be important partners to science. Through editorial policy they can help scientists do the right thing, such as sharing information and reagents; and through publishing policies, such as leaving copyright with the author or providing free access to published work, they can contribute to accelerating science itself. Editors are both gatekeepers and guardians of our treasury of scientific information, and editors need to behave responsibly and ethically. Thankfully, the Committee on Publication Ethics, of which Company of Biologists is a member, helps editors know and do the right thing.

For any trainees interested in being an editor at a journal like Cell, I encourage that you participate in journal clubs. A lot of the work of an editor is to assume the best of all possible worlds – that the conclusions are justified by the data and the interpretations are reasonable – and then assess how important the conclusions are to and beyond the field. Journal clubs are great ways to practice this – but be careful not to miss the forest for the trees, and to get too focused on the weakest part of the paper, which may be tangential to the overall conclusions. Also, take the time to go to seminars and meetings and talk to scientists in other fields and at other institutions. A scientist too buried in his own experiments to pay attention to the exciting discoveries around him is unlikely to enjoy or succeed at an editorial career.

Oh, and when I told my father, he was delighted. You see, he’d wanted me to be a writer, and considered this an enlightened combination of my twinned loves of science and language. And he was right.
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From the bench to the science centre

Posted by on February 15th, 2011

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During the first year of my PhD, I undertook a small rotation project in the lab of Dr Kim Dale, doing some work with the chick embryo. I did this project to try something a bit different. All my work up until this point had been sub-cellular and mostly within the nucleus. Who knew there were whole tissues and even whole organisms to study? Not me. I had never considered it before. I was all set to cure cancer during my PhD and then along came the chick embryo. I loved the project (and Kim) so much that I returned to her lab to complete the remaining three years of my PhD. I didn’t even know what mesoderm was when I started, how we laugh now and thanks Kim for bringing it up at my viva presentation (it’s not forgotten).

I absolutely loved my experimental work and Kim was an amazing supervisor. During my first year I had some very beautiful results and was still all set on undertaking a career in research. To be honest, I didn’t really understand why anyone wouldn’t want to run their own lab (and obviously win a Nobel prize for being so fabulous). They said, “you’ll understand  one day”. They were right. I have to say that while I loved doing my experiments the level of anxiety and distress caused by the rest of academic life was just not worth it for me. The constant pressure and the need to commit so much of my soul to the work was not something I felt I could maintain for the rest of my life. I soon became aware that there would never be a point where the pressure lessened, there would always be papers, grants, fellowships, tenure, more papers, more grant applications and more rejection. Not an enticing prospect. I liked finding out how things worked, not the politics that goes with establishing a career in academia. It doesn’t pay well enough to make up for it. I also became aware how narrow the opportunities were to establish your own lab. Only one in ten post docs make it and the thought of what happened to the other 90% terrified me. And most of the 10% then have go through tenure (yuck). So I decided to get out before it was too late and I was doomed to eternal postdocing.

I think that I had made a firm decision NOT to be an academic researcher at the start of my third year. Then the question was, what the hell do I do now? All my dreams and hopes had changed. I also didn’t want to go into industry. So what else was there? I had no idea. Getting help with this was quite hard. Academics, at least from my own encounters with them, tend to have only experienced an academic life and therefore don’t know what’s required to move out of it in many cases. I know this is very generalist but it is certainly how I felt at the time. Kim was fantastic and very supportive however. When I told her my decision, she did all she could to help and never once made out that it was the wrong decision (although she did say it was a loss for science but I am very much still involved with science so I guess it depends how you look at it). She was happy for me to do any skills courses I wanted and did all she could to help me progress in whatever career I chose.

So I added to my work load and took on as many other activities as I could. I starting organising scientific meetings with my best friend who works at the Roslin Institute. Soon the first Scottish Chick Symposium was born and there have now been five meetings. I also did plenty of generic skills courses in time management, communication skills, presentation skills, the list goes on and on. I put myself forward for presentation at every opportunity and went to as many conferences as I could to network to the max. This involved applying for funding, making lots of posters and generally staying up really late (best networking time is 1-3am I find). I also did a lot of public engagement work, getting the whole lab involved in events at science centres, writing articles and doing some free lance writing for The Primitive Streak project. I also did a three month science policy internship at the Academy of Medical Sciences in London.

So basically I was knackered, but still managed to complete a successful PhD and developed a vast array of skills. I’d also learnt a lot about what I enjoyed. I found that I actually really liked working in an office. I liked feeling like part of a team, where you didn’t feel possessive over your work and everyone helped each other out. I also rekindled my love for a wide variety of science. I hadn’t realised how narrowly focussed I had become. It turns out somites aren’t the only area of science! They had ruled my life for four years so regaining perspective was wonderful. I also found an office job to be extremely varied. Much more so than the lab where the same experiments are done again and again (I still don’t know if I will ever miss cutting PSM explants or not, it might take a lot of years). I also was rather fond of project management. I really enjoyed organising things and loved the challenge and variety that this could bring. I also discovered that outside of academia, no-one really cares about your publications! Or at least there isn’t the same requirement for them. They mean the world to you at the time but trust me, your skills are so much more important when you’re leaving academia. And I don’t mean lab skills, I doubt anyone will ever ask me to dissect some PSM explants in a job interview at any point.

So, I’d done my PhD and an internship. I then returned to the only place I would consider doing a postdoc, in Kim’s lab. I wanted to get the project ready to pass on and get a review paper written, so I went back for six months. This turned into ten months while I was searching for jobs. This takes such a long time I can’t tell you. Each application form would take up to four hours. You HAVE to tailor each one or there’s no point writing it. Whoever looks at it will just stick it in the bin if you just witter on about the details of your lab project. Why do you want that particular job and why are you the best person to do it? That’s all they want to hear or you won’t get an interview. This is a big learning curve, you can’t just have a CV and send it around. I don’t think that works in academia either by the way. Having seen the selection process in Kim’s lab, I know that sending out your CV with loads of non-specific info just makes it look like you don’t really care about the job. Which is likely to be true. Those ones are canned immediately.

I digress, sorry. It’s just an important point that’s all. So, I had filled out more application forms than I care to mention. I wasn’t sure if what I was applying for at that point was for me, hence the lack of interviews I guess. However, I did find searching for jobs and applying absolutely invaluable as I started to open my eyes to the number of possibilities out there. I was hoping that a policy job would come along but there aren’t so many in Scotland and I didn’t want to move to London and my husband would have divorced me if I’d asked him to go there (did I mention I also planned my wedding and got married during my third year?). Then one day I saw a psci-com post (a website for science communication that has loads of jobs advertisements in all manner of scientific fields) that was advertising for a Science and Interpretation Officer role at Glasgow Science Centre. The role would be to undertake some research to help put together an exhibition about health and wellbeing. This sounded ideal, I loved the activities I had done in science centres and it would involve project management and lots of interaction with researchers. The only problem was, the contract was only for 12 months and Glasgow is 60 miles away from where I live in Perth. But I thought, ‘well, you can’t have everything’ and applied.

I didn’t initially get invited for interview. I found that out when I phoned to ask how my application had gone. The reason was I had a lack of experience in developing exhibitions (actually I didn’t have any experience in this but what can you do). I was very disappointed and asked if someone there could perhaps phone me back and discuss my application with me. I explained that it was the ideal job for me and I felt I had a lot to offer. I really wanted to know what those who had got interviews had in their applications that I didn’t (other than direct experience). I heard back from them and they’d changed their minds about interviewing me after looking at my application again. I also had a wonderful letter of support from Jon Urch, who runs all of the science communication activity for the University of Dundee, which I think helped massively. I only had a couple days notice for the interview but said I would be delighted to attend. At this point I knew I was on the bottom of the list going into the interviews, their last choice. So I didn’t expect much but was very keen to get some interview experience.

I didn’t think the interview went terribly well, but then I always think that. It’s really hard to know what they pick up on in the interview or what they’re looking for. I was more myself than usual in the interview so I guess I was more relaxed. I just answered their questions as best I could and told them about the stuff I had done during my PhD (the non-somite related stuff) and how I went about work in general. It must have done the trick as a few days later they asked me to submit a portfolio of my written work (in hind-sight I wish I had done this before being asked but never mind) and shortly after that I got a phone call offering me the position. I was delighted and after negotiating salary and start date I was set to start. Since then they’ve told me a big part of their decision to offer me the position was based on the fact that I had done a PhD, I had experience of doing research and lots of reading and doing it quickly. They also felt I had the confidence and experience to go and speak to top academics in all manner of fields.

I’ve been there since October. It’s fantastic. I’ve read about research ranging from prosthetic limb design to stem cell research. I’ve made rockets to see how far I could make them fly using a plastic bottle as a launcher and made drugs out of Lego to prototype some ideas of how to engage the public with the drug discovery route. It has to be said that the commute is horrendous but I work from home a lot and travel around Scotland a bit meeting researchers so I don’t have to do it every day. I love the job I am doing. I did have to sacrifice money and travel time but it has been more than worth it. I feel like I am where I should be now and vitally, when I look for my next step, I will have some real job experience to add to my application. There is so much I can do with the skill set I have developed and my PhD was crucial to that development. I don’t regret having done a PhD at all, it’s the most character building thing I’ve ever done!

My advice for anyone looking to take a similar leap out of the lab, start NOW. You already have by reading this overly long blog. Think about what you enjoy doing and start filling in some application forms. You will have to be prepared to put in some serious hours doing stuff on top of your lab work but at the end of the day, if you don’t want to be where you currently are in a year’s time, you will only change it if you make it happen. Think outside of the lab, if you don’t plan to be an expert cryosectioner for the rest of your days then that’s not the most important skill to perfect while you’re in the lab. And I’m not suggesting give up on your bench work and go and do some skills courses. You need to have a successful project in the lab but that success goes beyond doing 5000 western blots.
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