Dr. Jada Domingue from AstraZeneca and Dr. Li Hao from Pfizer joined us in the studio to chat about their careers in the pharmaceutical industry!
Video Transcript
Jada Domingue (J): I think one of the kind of …no, you know what, I'm not going to tell that story
Li Hao (L): I'm trying to make it the Coronavirus.
Alexandra Abu-Shmais (A): Yeah, I was making a little virus.
VI4 Scientists Doing Things: Careers in Pharma Edition
(L): My name is Li Hao. I'm an associate research fellow and computational biologist at the Pfizer Vaccine R & D.
(J): Hi, I’m Jada Domingue. I am a senior scientist at AstraZeneca in Bacteriology and vaccine discovery.
(A): My name is Alexandra Abu-Shmais. I am a soon-to-be fifth-year graduate student in the Ivelin Georgiev lab.
Michelle Wiebe (W): I'm Michelle. I'm a fifth-year grad student in Maria Hadjifrangiskou’s lab.
[ How does working in industry differ from working in academia? ]
(J): In so many ways. I think the biggest thing, it's the speed at which like things happen, the pace is very fast and the environment is extremely dynamic.
(L): There are some misconceptions. I think maybe people will think industry might be less freedom, but I do feel we do have a lot of opportunities to explore different area.
[ Why did you complete a postdoc before getting into industry? ]
(J): I'd say overall, I think if there's people like me who maybe were very undecided on where they wanted to go as far as their career, whether that was the academic path or the non-academic path, I think the postdoc gave me opportunity to kind of figure that out a little bit more number one, giving the time to do it. But then also being able to kind of build my network a bit more, open up more avenues and have kind of new experiences that maybe you don't get so much like as a grad student.
[ What is some advice you'd give to someone starting a career in industry? ]
(L): I teach three words, one is making your own branding because you want to make sure your name, any time there is a study or research coming out. So they think about you, they know you are, your work is credible. So the second is communication, that's definitely the key because in industry, mostly involved in a multidisciplinary team. You work with so many other groups. So the third one would be mentoring. Because I'm actively in the mentor, mentorship program in my current company. So I know mentorship, how important mentorship is.
