Alternative Careers in Science

Leaving the Ivory Tower

Cynthia Robbins-Roth

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780125893763
• eBook ISBN: 9780080454986
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

Many science students find themselves in the midst of graduate school or sitting at a lab bench, and realize that they hate lab work! Even worse is realizing that they may love science, but science (at least academic science) is not providing many job opportunities these days. What's a poor researcher to do !?This book gives first-hand descriptions of the evolution of a band of hardy scientists out of the lab and into just about every career you can imagine. Researchers from every branch of science found their way into finance, public relations, consulting, business development, journalism, and more - and thrived there! Each author tells their personal story, including descriptions of their career path, a typical day, where to find information on their job, opportunities to career growth, and more. This is a must-read for every science major, and everyone who is looking for a way to break out of their career rut.* An insider's look at the wide range of job opportunities for scientists yearning to leave the lab* First-person stories from researchers who successfully made the leap from science into finance, journalism, law, public policy, and more.* Tips on how to track down and get that job in a new industry* Typical day scenarios for each career track* List of resources (websites, associations, etc.) to help you in your search* Completely revised, this latest edition includes six entirely new chapters

Chapter 1

A SCIENTIST GONE BAD

How I Went from the Bench to the Board Room

Principal, BioVenture Consultants. Cynthia Robbins-Roth, Ph.D.

Publisher Summary

This chapter provides an insider’s story on 24 different ways to put scientific training to good use away from the lab bench and away from academia. The chapter is full of personal stories from individuals who share a strong scientific background. While these individuals ended up in an amazingly diverse collection of jobs, there are certain recurring themes that one will find in all of their stories. The first is a willingness to take a chance—to give serendipity an opportunity to work. The second is a strong streak of self-confidence—the willingness to risk falling flat on their faces. This does not mean that all went well for the authors. On the contrary, most of them faced real adversity. These adversities taught them how to build strong interpersonal relationships.

It all began so innocently—back in 1984, I was happily running gels and killing tumors in mice. One year later, I was wearing grown-up clothes and hanging out with vice presidents and chief executive officers.

After that first move out of the lab, I founded BioVenture View, a monthly biotech industry newsletter, and BioPeople Magazine, the first biotech industry magazine about the movers and shakers building the sector; I became founding editor of BioWorld Today, the first daily online/faxed biotech newsletter; I started BioVenture Consultants, which still provides business, technology, and financial consulting services to start-up businesses and established biopharmaceutical (“biopharma”) companies around the globe; I started writing a regular biotech industry column for Forbes Magazine and Forbes ASAP, along with two books (this book and From Alchemy to IPO: The Business of Biotechnology). You probably noticed that bio is part of all of these endeavors. That early scientific bent remained a big part of all that I do. I have traveled throughout North America, Europe, and the Pacific Rim, giving invited talks and working with governments and young companies. And yet, I haven’t done a hands-on experiment since 1984.

And I couldn’t be happier.

This completely unplanned-for transition has led me into a universe of opportunities to earn my living by spending time with world-class researchers pushing back the frontier of science and by communicating the excitement and promise of that technology to the rest of the world. And what other biochemist can claim to have been quoted in that respected scientific journal Town & Country?

When I crossed that line from scientist to “suit,” there were very few examples for me to study. Researchers in the biological sciences were just starting to believe that it might be okay to leave academia and go into the newly emerging biotech industry—but only as a scientist! I had no idea what a scientist could do outside of the lab. I had spent my entire career immersed in a very rarefied environment, surrounded by other biomedical researchers who saw the simple move from university to company lab as the most radical career move ever!

These days, with government funding for academic research still very much under pressure, with a dearth of academic jobs (with or without tenure!), and with a growing sense that there must be more possibilities out there, graduate students and other members of the academic community are beginning their search for life after lab much earlier. I find that many universities have active career seminar series that bring students and faculty into contact with former scientists who have entered a diverse range of careers. Many corporate scientists are looking for ways to grow beyond the lab.

This book gives you the insider’s story on 24 different ways to put that scientific training to good use away from the lab bench and away from academia. Each of our authors took an unexpected detour into worlds that were previously unimagined during their early training. And while each of these jobs took the authors far from their original paths, the key to their success and enjoyment of new careers was the critical role science continued to play.

Right now, it might be tough to see how a scientific background could be valuable to a stock analyst, publisher, or government policy expert. But, as you will learn from these personal stories, it’s the science that taught them all to think analytically, to structure an approach to new areas, and to forge ahead into new territory without fear (or at least not much fear).

The world is full of those with M.B.A.s who long to enter the growing biotech sector but who just can’t master the intricacies of the technology sufficiently to be useful to the companies or investors; of patent lawyers who struggle with applications because they can’t fully grasp the prior art in the scientific literature; and of information providers who don’t understand the information they sell and thus can’t always tell the difference between crucial and just interesting data.

Don’t let anyone tell you that science is a dead end, now that becoming a full-tenured professor seems out of reach. And don’t believe anyone who tells you that it is a waste of time to pursue a science education unless you plan to stay in the lab. There is a wide universe out there, just waiting for you to explore!

“And do not believe anyone who tells you that it is a waste of time to pursue a science education unless you plan to stay in the lab.”

SO HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

I was first bitten by the science bug in seventh grade. The teacher was showing us how dripping acid on a rock could determine if it was limestone. This simple-minded experiment had a huge impact on me. I loved the idea that you could do experiments to figure out something that you didn’t already know, that you could query the universe! This appealed to me immensely, in part because I already had a serious problem with authority figures and loved the idea that you could find answers independently.

While the specific field of interest evolved for me over time, the basic drive toward lab work never changed. At Bates College, my biochemistry focus shifted a bit when I took my first immunology course, taught by a young scientist fresh out of his post-doctoral position (“post-doc”) at Yale. Immunology was just on the verge of converting from phenomenology (okay, stick this stuff into a bunny and see what happens!) into a realm where a protein biochemist could have some fun and learn cool new stuff about how the immune system actually worked. That teacher was the first to let me into the wonderful world of hands-on science—I was in love.

I moved to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for my Ph.D. work with Dr. Benjamin Papermaster, whose lab was focused on applying the tools of biochemistry to purify and characterize the proteins that carry messages (Kill that tumor! Wipe out the virally infected cell!) for the immune system. I was intrigued with the idea that we could use our work to find a way to provide cancer patients with the immune factors their own systems were not making, moving away from the incredibly toxic chemotherapy drugs that were the only treatment available at the time.

By 1980, it became increasingly clear that, while I loved the lab work, academia was not for me. If I had to listen to one more medical student whine about the lab work I had to teach them, I would be forced to throw them through a window—which would probably be detrimental to my academic career. I started interviewing for jobs at pharmaceutical companies, but I was discouraged by their overpopulation of middle-aged white guys in clean lab coats and ties who all went home at 4:30 in the afternoon. These companies seemed too conservative for me, and my little problem with authority figures had not gone away.

In 1980, while I was in the midst of a post-doc in the interferon lab of Dr. Howard Johnson, I got a phone call from a scientist at a newly formed company—Genentech, Inc., in southern San Francisco, California. While I had no idea what this “biotech” industry was, my ears perked up when he said the company was only 2 years old and had chosen cytokines—my area of interest—as an initial research focus. We agreed to meet in Paris at the week-long International Immunology Congress (really, ALL job interviews should take place in Paris, don’t you think?). To this day, I am convinced it was my ability to order him his first full meal in French that got me the job.

In spite of howls of “traitor” from my academic colleagues, Genentech turned out to be exactly what I was looking for, in many ways. The labs were packed with young ex-post-docs and those with recently received Ph.D. titles who had no commercial experience, along with just about every piece of equipment you could want. The company environment was very entrepreneurial—Genentech was one of the first biotech companies formed, and it changed the ground rules for doing science in a corporate setting. Dress codes were nonexistent, scientists kept whatever schedules they wanted (being ex-post-docs, we all worked 18-hour days, at least 6 days a week), and we didn’t have to write grants or teach medical students! I was working with some of the best scientists in a broad range of disciplines—protein chemistry, immunology, tumor biology, molecular biology, X-ray crystallography, assay development, and so on. I was in heaven.

At Genentech, my “jack-of-all-trades, master of none” personality, first nurtured in Johnson’s lab, really came into play. While I was supposed to be focused exclusively on assay design and purification schemes, I spent a lot of time wandering the halls and learning how to do amino acid composition and sequencing, RNA purification (and why you really don’t want phenol on your hands), and some really hard-core protein biochemistry. I learned about the problems in designing productive animal studies and the challenges a young entrepreneurial company faced when starting with 75 folks, who knew each other pretty well, and ending up with 150 people and more.

During my Genentech stint, I spent time as a project team leader. The phrase “herding cats” springs to mind when remembering what it was like to get a group of aggressive, competitive scientists from different departments to quit bickering and start cooperating so that the project could move forward. This experience convinced me that people management skills—not just excellent science—were crucial to a successful business and that I needed to improve my people skills!

HEADING OUT OF THE LAB

That other change in my thought process was the realization that science for its own sake wasn’t all that satisfying for me. I wanted my work to contribute to developing a new therapeutic treatment that could help patients. I wanted to understand how the company decided which science projects would generate the best products and what issues outside of technical points had to be considered.

As luck would have it, my incredible ineptness at corporate politics and frustration with the “pushing limp spaghetti” aspect of team building in a nonteam environment propelled me out of the lab and into the best place to learn the answers to my questions—business development.

I wanted desperately to leave Genentech and the constant battles, but I couldn’t find a bench job that wasn’t in conflict with my project at Genentech. I had no idea how to find a nonbench job. The only scientist I knew who had made the transition was another biochemist with a Ph.D. who became a patent lawyer—but the idea of going to law school did not appeal to me at all.

I started scanning the newspaper want ads and reading the classified ads in the back of Science and Nature. Months went by before I stumbled on an ad for “Advisor to the CEO” at a company I had never heard of, California Biotechnology, Inc., in Mountain View. I had no idea what they did there, but what the heck, they were looking for a scientist with a Ph.D., someone with biotech experience, and I certainly could give advice! (Of course, I worried that my shy and retiring personality might be a drawback.)

I sent a résumé and was invited for an interview. It turned out the Cal Bio was a biotherapeutic company with 75 employees and 35 ongoing projects. The CEO wanted me to help analyze the huge number of projects and help the management team determine which were great product opportunities and which were not—my first exposure to the concept of due diligence.

The perfect job! I had to learn how to analyze science not just from the perspective of experimental design and data but also through examining intellectual property issues and competition from other biotech firms and “big pharma” companies (large, sometimes multinational, pharmaceutical companies). I had to build a network of clinicians to learn what they saw as critical medical problems requiring a novel approach; I had to understand what it would take to develop such a product from lab to FDA approval and into the marketplace.

Luckily, I had a great mentor, Stefan Borg. He had a molecular biology background plus an M.B.A. degree. Stefan taught me the basics of business development and encouraged me on a daily basis.

I loved it! My science training in tracking down information and fitting pieces of data together to form a picture came in very handy, along with the ability to critically evaluate and analytically work through a problem to obtain a potentially unexp...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• CONTRIBUTORS
• PREFACE
• Chapter 1: A SCIENTIST GONE BAD: How I Went from the Bench to the Board Room
• Section 1: Science and Information
• Section 2: The Financial World
• Section 3: The Corporate World
• Section 4: Providing Services to Companies
• Section 5: Science Careers in Government
• APPENDIX: INFORMATION RESOURCES ABOUT ALTERNATIVE CAREERS FOR SCIENTISTS
• INDEX