Biopharma Research

Marielena
Mata

The Summit or How to Develop the Courage to Think BIG

This blog is about thinking BIG.   I hosted “The Summit” and you might ask, what is the Summit? The Summit was my BIG thought.  Let me explain…Last year I got involved in one of those “Corporate feel good” teams, tasked with the job of bringing innovation into our corporate ...


Maida
Taylor

Drug Discovery, Research and Development

I was at dinner with a former colleague, discussing new business opportunities.  During the course of the conversation, it became apparent that the complexities of drug research and development are not understood in many quarters.  We were discussing a new potential drug.  Without rev...


Maida
Taylor

Vapid but Vital: Vaccination

Last  month, my closest friend called repeatedly about her daughter (who I will call “Karen”) who is pregnant with her third child.  This young mother-to-be developed a febrile illness, with a deep productive cough and myalgias, fatigue, headache, and chills, the classic presentation f...


Meghan
Mott

Alternative Careers for Science PhDs – Part II: Regulatory Affairs

Postdoctoral fellowships provide budding scientists with the advanced training necessary to prepare us for the next step in our careers. Traditionally, these fellowships are geared toward a future in academic research. For most of us, however, as I described in my first post, our career paths will l...


Liang
Zhang

Stepping outside of academia in the comfort of your own room – Virtual Job Summit!

You know that an academic life may not be the right one for you, but what do you do now?  For many people, myself included, the academic path has been a straightforward one that offered little opportunity to learn about the other career choices available in the world.  Even as I knew I wan...


Maida
Taylor

How is your job hunt going?

I assume that many of you reading blogs on Bio Careers are recent grads or grads-to-be, and are scanning trade journals and websites looking for that plum position. I am at the other end of the job seeker spectrum…  what is  euphemistically called a senior, mature, highly experienced applican...


Maida
Taylor

The Risk Benefit Balancing Act: Doing the Math

The FDA held hearings on Dec 8 and 9 on two birth control methods: oral contraceptives containing a progestin called drospirenone  (DRSP) a spironolactone analogue)  and a contraceptive patch marketed in the USA as Ortho EVRA. Several post market studies suggest that pills containing drosp...


Maida
Taylor

Home with the flu (or something like it)

This month I am living in a plague house. Someone should mark the door posts.  Or fly a yellow quarantine flag over the house.  My son came home from Singapore, where he is working for a start up, but he did not bring home some exotic communicable disease like the Hong Kong flu.  No, ...


Maida
Taylor

Is life science really science?

Those of us working in the life sciences suffer in a world of probabilities, uncertainties, and incomplete evidence.  Students of the “harder” sciences, physics and math, may be right in their assessment that the only immutable truths are in pure mathematics. 


Maida
Taylor

The Black Swan: the Unprecedented Event (not the dumb movie with Natalie Portman)

I have become fascinated with rare and unpredictable events.  My interest was triggered by the book, “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable,” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a renowned financial economist.  The theory defines so called black swan events as the following (from W...