Each year, the International Biomedical Research Alliance (Alliance) organizes career development field trips for the students in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars/Wellcome Trust Program. From the Goddard Space Center to MacroGenics Inc., the Alliance provides the Scholars with opportunities to see a broad range of career options and meet with professionals in their fields. They not only hear about career paths and insights, but they are also given the chance to network and discuss their research.
Inspired by former Scholars Program Scientific Director, Dr. Thomas Wynn, the Scholars visited the Cambridge-Boston biopharma cluster for a career development field trip. Dr. Wynn, Vice President, Discovery; Group: Inflammation and Immunology, invited the Scholars to Pfizer KSQ, sharing perspectives of research at “big pharma” versus academia. The Scholars toured the facility, heard from a panel of Pfizer scientists and physicians, and met with alumni Drs. Trey Gieseck and Matt Maciejewski. Pfizer’s Dr. Lori Fitz, Director of Outreach and Technology Platforms, set up an overview of LabCentral, a first-of-its-kind shared laboratory space designed as a launchpad for high-potential life-sciences and biotech startups. The Scholars toured the facility with Luke Wallrich, Senior Manager of Events & Operations, and had small group discussions with LabCentral entrepreneurs, including Dr. Iain Kilty, Dr. Paul Yaworsky, and OxCam alumnus Dr. Stan Wang. “The LabCentral site visit stood out to me the most. I was in awe of the quality of the space and the palpable sense of innovation and talent hanging in the air. I was additionally impressed by LabCentral’s pioneering model for supporting fledgling biotechs (some with only a single person!) and their impressive track record for seeing returns on their investments in the form of successful startups and LabCentral alumni,” stated NIH-Oxford MD/PhD Scholar Lawrence Wang.
Alliance Alumni Director Matt Maciejewski, an Associate Director at Pfizer and head of Data Science in the Inflammation and Immunology Department, organized visits to a range of biotech companies. Following the trips to Pfizer and LabCentral, the Scholars visited Relay Therapeutics, a company that leverages the relationship between protein motion and function, creating opportunities to develop more effective therapies for multiple diseases. Led by Dr. Dipali Patel, the Scholars learned about Relay Therapeutics Portfolio and Platform, had a lab tour with on-site lab scientists, and enjoyed a lunch Q&A panel, including people who have transitioned from academia and higher education to industry.
Following the visit to Relay Therapeutics, the Scholars headed to bluebird bio, where alumna Dr. Molly Perkins, the Director of Oncology R&D, graciously hosted the Scholars. She told her story of transitioning into biotech from a postdoctoral position, as well as sharing that during her time at bluebird bio, it grew to over 800 employees across the U.S. and Europe. The company develops pioneering gene therapies for severe genetic diseases and cancers, and Dr. Perkins is at the forefront of it. “This trip enabled me to see how an idea can grow and become reality in the world of research and medicine. On this trip, we saw companies at LabCentral that were as small as a single person, to early stage startups enabling technology to find new therapeutics at Relay Therapeutics, to companies with several successful clinical trials and rapid growth at bluebird bio. The perspective this trip gave me will help me to enact a vision of turning bench discoveries into new medicines, and I’m grateful for the opportunity we had to take it,” stated NIH-Cambridge MD/PhD Scholar Sean Corcoran.
Since Boston is a global center for both biotech and tech firms, it is no surprise that it is now home to over twenty NIH OxCam alumni. To round out the Scholars experience, alumni were invited to network with the group and share their stories. From their experiences in the program to becoming entrepreneurs, to starting families and sharing adventures, the Scholars were able to hear from alumni and have one-on-one time with them. “The Boston career development field trip represented one of the most impactful experiences in my PhD thus far for it showed me how a physician-scientist can fit into different areas of biotech depending on interests. I was inspired learning the journeys of young alumni of the program that have made the transition from academia to industry. It is always nice to learn what the scholars before us have done and are doing with their degrees. I gained not just career advice from these interactions: I even learned new lab techniques – how to exsanguinate a mouse completely,” stated NIH-Cambridge MD/PhD Scholar Hannah Mason. “I came away from the trip having reaffirmed my desire to one day end up in the biotech space designing and implementing clinical trials: I want to be a part of finish-line science, bringing drugs and therapies to clinic.”
NIH-Cambridge MD/PhD Scholar Mario Shammas commented, “This trip was my first exposure to industry, pharma and biotech companies. I felt as though I was able to see the whole spectrum of company sizes and their stages of development. For me, the most striking thing I learned about was LabCentral and the concept behind it – that you can buy a bench (or even half a bench) and use that for experiments when the company is still in its ‘proof-of-concept’ phase, and to use LabCentral as a springboard to develop into something bigger. It was great to see how small companies like Relay Therapeutics have almost all of their staff focused on the same objective but going at it doing their respective jobs. It was also nice to hear about how bluebird bio was able to grow so rapidly in such a short period of time. We have almost no exposure to industry during our training, and are told very little about it – this trip gave me a much better perspective on what happens in industry, and I am very grateful for having had the opportunity to be part of it.”
Last week, Pfizer KSQ hosted several National Institutes of Health (NIH) OxCam scholars for a tour of our R&D site and a panel discussion on discovery research and development at Pfizer and the industrial R&D career path. The scholars are working on their doctoral degrees in a collaborative program between the NIH in Bethesda, MD and Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the U.K.
Tom Wynn, Vice President, I&IRU Discovery Research and a former director of the NIH-OxCam scholars program welcomed the group and shared his unique insights on research opportunities at a large pharmaceutical company.
In addition, the scholars participated in a panel discussion to interact with and hear first-hand from several colleagues representing many of the disciplines housed at Pfizer KSQ. The panel was moderated by Matt Maciejewski, Principal Scientist, Computational Biology and an alumni of the NIH-OxCam Scholars program.
“It was a great day meeting and interacting with this group of scholars,” adds Tom. “It’s important that we host events like this to ensure that top-tier emerging talent is aware of the caliber of R&D happening at Pfizer.”
After hearing first-hand accounts of R&D at Pfizer, the scholars enjoyed a lab tour led by another NIH-OxCam alum, Trey Gieseck, Principal Scientist, I&IRU, followed by lunch with additional Pfizer colleagues. Their Cambridge visit concluded with a tour of LabCentral and discussions with a few of their resident entrepreneurs.
Thank you to Pfizer for publishing this article and hosting the NIH-OxCam scholars.
“Medical students are often taught that, when they hear hoofbeats, they should think about common things, such as horses,” Dr. Wendy Chung began, “My career has been just the opposite and the only thing I really see are zebras.” During Dr. Chung’s keynote for the Lasker Lessons in Leadership, we heard the unraveling of this cryptic statement in her talk entitled: “Life Lessons from a Zebra Hunter.”
As a high school student, Dr. Chung had the opportunity to spend some time in a laboratory. Raised in South Florida at the heart of the citrus fruit industry, she was told to take a golf cart into a field to see what she could figure out. Fruit flies were a big problem for the citrus industry, and she decided that her science project would focus on why the fruit flies laid eggs in particular fruits. For that work she won first place in the Westinghouse Science Talent Search and met researchers at NIH during the weeklong activities in Washington, DC. She went on to study at Cornell University, the college with the best agricultural sciences. One summer she had the chance to return to NIH to work with Seymour Kaufman and to work on phenylketonuria – at the bench and with patients in the hospital. This exposure to patients completed the picture for her as she was able to experience the “soup to nuts” process: from seeing a patient in the hospital and taking blood samples to analyzing the biochemistry and genetics back in the lab. She realized that “banging your head against the wall for so many days, weeks and months” was worth it because someone’s life was truly dependent upon you. After this she decided to pursue an MD, PhD.
During Dr. Chung’s first year as a medical student, the Human Genome Project (HGP) was announced. While her professors disagreed with the concept of funding the HGP, her undergraduate major in economics gave her the courage to “follow the money.” She spent a lot of time throughout her training dreaming of how to apply the information that would come out of the HGP. She was fortunate to finish her training early, just when the HGP was nearing completion. Here, Dr. Chung gave us pearl of wisdom number 1: to skate to where the puck is going to be and become the leaders in the field. This was closely followed by pearl of wisdom number 2: to not necessarily follow the classics. For example, right now we are living in a wealth of data that needs to be analyzed. However, the real powerbrokers are going to be not only those who can code, but those who can additionally understand the biology.
For Dr. Chung, she was beginning her career at the frontier of genomics at a time when most genes had not yet been cloned. During graduate school, in order to continue to remain in touch with the medical side, she went on weekly clinical rounds with her mentor, Rudolph Leibel. On these rounds, she learned about rare diseases, and this was the start of her fascination with uncommon diseases, or “zebras.” While she was collecting zebras during her internship, she discovered pearl number 3: find the right person to help you with your journey. For Dr. Chung, it was her husband whom she described as an incredibly important part of her success. Being a planner, she started to determine where her life was going, for both work and family. Then something unexpected happened that turned her world upside down: the death of their second son. While his cause of death was never determined, she resolved to move her career to where it would have the biggest and most immediate impact on patients.
While working in the clinic, there were times when carrying out a critical genetic test for a patient was impeded due to gene patents, which caused the price of testing to become too costly. However, the worst situations were when a lab that held a gene patent shut down. This meant that no other labs could carry out the genetic test due to “cease and desist” orders, resulting in patients not being able to access critical genetic tests for over 2 years. In some cases, this caused patients to die. Dr. Chung couldn’t fathom why this should be allowed and decided to step in for the public good. After unsuccessful meetings with NIH and congressional staff, she was contacted by an ACLU lawyer, who agreed with her stance and saw gene patenting as a civil rights issue. After being heard in several lower courts, the case ultimately went to the Supreme Court, where the court ruled, in a 9 to 0 victory, that genes cannot be patented. Dr. Chung considered this to be one of her greatest accomplishments as a scientist, and it ushered in a new era for genomic medicine. “Without this victory, we would not have the ability to inform people about their genomes, and the genomics era we now live in would have been hampered,” she stated.
Dr. Chung went on to explain that in order for this progress to continue, we need to bring scientists and the public together; if we can’t get the public to understand what we are doing, we have lost half the battle. Therefore, she is striving to improve this connection by making complex topics accessible to the public. Indeed, her TED talk, “Autism – what we know (and what we don’t know yet),” has had 3.7 million views!
To be inspired, all of us have a role model to ask questions about how to make choices and, throughout this Lasker Lesson in Leadership, Dr. Chung gave us a necklace of pearls to take with us on our own zebra hunt.
The National Diversity in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Conference was organized by the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans (SACNAS). SACNAS is an inclusive organization with over 46 years of experience promoting, from college students to professionals, the attainment of advanced degrees, careers, and positions of leadership in STEM. SACNAS serves approximately 6,000 members and a larger community of 20,000 people total with 115 SACNAS student and professional chapters throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico.
As the largest multidisciplinary and multicultural STEM diversity event in the country, the 2019 SACNAS Conference equipped, empowered, and energized participants on their academic and professional paths in STEM. Hawaiʻi, the most ethnically diverse state in the nation, was selected as the site for the 2019 SACNAS Conference. “The SACNAS conference [was] fully aligned with Hawaiʻi for partnering with SACNAS in the essential work of making the scientific enterprise diverse, equitable and inclusive,” said SACNAS President Dr. Sonia Zárate.
Throughout the SACNAS Conference, undergraduate, graduate, and professional attendees were immersed in cutting-edge scientific research and professional development sessions, heard from motivational keynote speakers, visited the Graduate School & Career Expo Hall, attended multicultural celebrations, and partook in an inclusive and welcoming community of peers, mentors, and role models. This year’s sessions were led by scientists of color, Native Hawaiian, and indigenous scientists across STEM disciplines, and sessions included topics such as the effects of climate change. It also focused on indigenous and western sciences entwined together to add noteworthy value to the understanding of STEM subjects.
Manager Alexandra Ambrico was selected as a mentor judge for the 2019 SACNAS conference poster sessions, providing positive mentoring and constructive feedback to student presenters. “Listening to undergraduate researchers present their data, many at their first national conference, I could feel the excitement and drive they had to solve their scientific questions,” remarked Alexandra. NIH OxCam alum, Dr. Juan Pablo Ruiz, presented “Storytelling: Bringing Your Authentic Self to Work” with Drs. Brian Castellano and Sonia Zárate. “Coming to SACNAS for the first time, especially as a Postdoc focused on advocacy issues, was an incredibly empowering experience,” stated Dr. Ruiz. “To find myself surrounded by other people, from undergraduates to faculty, who are as enthusiastic about science as they are about challenging the status quo was uplifting, and a reminder of why I do the work that I do. The ability to present my guidelines for departments wishing to improve their mentoring and training climates was an incredible experience, and I consider it a huge privilege to have been able to witness and share in the experience of a Powwow with Native scientists celebrating their cultures and identities.”
Dr. Ruiz graduated from the Program in 2018 and is now a Postdoctoral Research Associate studying Early Career Researcher Mentoring and Wellbeing at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. He is also the President of Future of Research, a non-profit that champions, engages, and empowers early career scientists with evidence-based resources to improve the scientific research enterprise.
The NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program was represented at the SACNAS conference, which included over 5,000 attendees.
The International Biomedical Research Alliance, in collaboration with the Lasker Foundation, invited six doctoral candidate students from the NIH Oxford-Cambridge/Wellcome Trust Scholars Program to attend the 2019 Lasker Awards in New York City.
The Scholars attended Breakfast at Lasker, an intimate gathering of the 2019 Lasker Laureates moderated by Jordan Gutterman, M.D. The breakfast provided a roundtable discussion for the group to ask questions ranging from career paths, making new discoveries, and how their discoveries are impacting human health today.
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, CEO Dr. Seth Berkley, discussed with the breakfast attendees the essential aspect of their mission: empowering the countries with which they work. He shared that this was not something science has included in the past but, by doing so, allows these countries’ people to have an even greater impact. Lasker Laureate Dr. Max Cooper shared that it is not always clear whether or not a research question has the potential for medical impact. However, he advised that researchers should follow their interests because many clinical advances started from curiosity driven research. Throughout the course of the roundtable discussion, each of the laureates gave thoughtful responses to questions posed by the group and provided some very personal insights and pearls of wisdom.
Following breakfast, the Scholars took photographs with the 2019 winners and attended a reception that included current and past Lasker Laureates, as well as renowned scientists and notable guests arriving to attend the awards ceremony.
The Lasker Basic Research Award honored Max D. Cooper of the Emory School of Medicine and Jacques F.A.P. Miller of The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Parkville, Australia, for their discovery of the two distinct classes of lymphocytes, β and T cells, an achievement that provided the organizing principle of the adaptive immune system. Their pioneering and historic work over fifty years ago launched the course of modern immunology, inspiring major advances in basic and medical science.
The Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Research Award honored H. Michael Shepard, Dennis J. Slamon, and Axel Ullrich for their invention of Herceptin, the first monoclonal antibody that blocks a cancer-causing protein, and for its development as a life-saving therapy for women with breast cancer. Shepard, currently with BetterOutcomes4Cancer, and Slamon, now at Max Planck Institute of Biochemisry, Martinsried, Germany, did their Herceptin work at Genentech. Slamon’s research was conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he continues to work. The influence and impact of the Herceptin story extends beyond the development of a major new therapy. For example, stratifying patients based on expression/amplification of a gene and using a monoclonal antibody to block a cancer-causing protein are now being applied to other proteins in other cancers as well.
The Lasker-Bloomberg Public Science Award honored Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, for providing sustained access to childhood vaccines around the globe, saving millions of lives, and for highlighting the power of immunization to prevent disease. Gavi is a public-private global partnership that brings together the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and several other philanthropic organizations. Thanks to Gavi, more than 600 million children in 73 of the poorest countries have been vaccinated, with an estimated 8 million deaths averted. Over the last 16 years, Gavi has raised global immunization rates by bringing vaccines available to developing countries, by financially supporting the development of new vaccines, and by building stronger health care systems.
For full descriptive information on the 2019 Lasker Award winners, video viewing of award overviews, and expectance speeches, please visit: The Lasker Foundation. We gratefully thank the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation for the opportunity to allow the Scholars to attend the prestigious Lasker Awards.
