Biopharma Research

Shu Chin
Ma

Sibling Rivalry: The Stupidest Way to Choose Your Career

First things first: Maybe you’re wondering how I can make that claim? Let me tell you a story about a girl and her inability to swallow her pride. My younger brother and I are exactly 21 months apart, so technically we should be 2 grades apart in our climb of the educational ladder.


Andrea
Habura

BioMaker: Seeing Design, Seeing Usability

“Val, I could build one of these. A better one.”Val’s colleague expertly placed the next mouse on the horizontal spindle of the Rotarod and pressed a button to start the run. The spindle rotated slowly at first, and then faster, and the mouse log-rolled to keep its balance on top of the rod. E...


Lu
Huang

Regulatory affairs: A promising career option for researchers in biomedical science

Many people have heard of “regulatory affairs,” but do not know what exactly that means. In my understanding, regulatory affairs is a field where you write, review, edit and submit all kinds of documents required in the process of drug development and clinical trials. The ultimate purpose is to ...


Andrea
Habura

BioMaker: Biologists as Tool-Builders

“If you can’t open it, you don’t own it.” – Maker motto. Alfréd Rényi famously joked that a mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems. We biologists, on the other hand, tend to need more equipment than a pencil and a coffee cup. Stand at your bench, and you can put yo...


Marielena
Mata

What do you do in Strategic Marketing? Or where is the dart board?

If industry is the dark side of science, strategic marketing is the dark side of industry, or so it seems.  As scientists sitting in teams with our strategic marketing colleagues, we always wondered how they came up with those projections of how much revenue a drug would have in 2025 (yes, they...


Christine
Zafra

Join me on my blogging adventure as I embark on my career journey!

Hello! My name is Heather, and I am currently a postdoctoral fellow. As I was thinking about beginning this blog, one question kept popping into my head “What makes me qualified to give career advice?” And what I realized is that I am not any different from the scientist sitting next to you. ...


Maida
Taylor

The Long Engagement: Waiting to Hear Back After the Interview

The New York Times published a graphic,  the Beveridge Curve on March 6, 2013, noting that there is  “A Shift Toward Higher Job Vacancy Rates.” The New York Times Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.The Beveridge Curve compares the job vacancy rate with the unemployment rate.  ...


Maida
Taylor

Listening at Hearings at the FDA

Last month, I attended two days of hearings at the FDA campus in White Oak, MD.  The first day concerned two neuroscience molecules, gabapentin and paroxetine, both being evaluated for the treatment of menopausal vasomotor symptoms.


Kate
Sleeth

Radioactivity – The Isotope who loved me!

I recently watched Skyfall, the new James Bond film, and it made me think of spy’s.  More importantly, how they die in movies (and real life).  I kept thinking of From Russia with Love and Rosa Klebb who tried to kill Bond with a poisoned knife in her shoe.  From poisons, I started ...


Maida
Taylor

Will “reshoring” = restoring jobs in the USA?

It’s the same old song---contaminated drugs from China.  The news was reported by Laurie Burkitt in the Wall Street Journal  on April 17, 2012.  Chinese authorities halted the sale of 13 drugs, because the gelatin capsules used in manufacturing were found to have high levels of the ...