At CB, I’ve adapted my scientific writing skills toward the team-oriented development of promotional materials in the orphan/rare disease space. I’m working with people from a wide variety of backgrounds, and my role is often to “translate” the medical data that underpins all of our work. Working at an agency has given me valuable insight into the marketing aspect of the pharmaceutical industry. When coupled with my research background, this has given me a well-rounded perspective of the entire drug development process.

Performed deadline-driven quality assurance checks of scientific documents from international clients.

During my time at Luminomics, I contributed my expertise to the development of a high-throughput screening platform to study degenerative diseases. With this platform we maximized the many advantages of the zebrafish model system, in order to elucidate novel mediators of cellular regeneration. I learned several aspects of working in the biotech industry, while continuing to develop my skills at writing both grants and manuscripts.

At the University of Wisconsin, I strengthened my capabilities as an independent researcher, while also learning multiple aspects of how to work in a team. Upon joining the lab of Anna Huttenlocher my responsibility was the novel development of a zebrafish model to study leukocyte migration and inflammation, which would complement ongoing studies in human cells. As the only researcher on this project, I had to function independently during the early years. With the gradual addition of personnel to the zebrafish project we became a team that published several quality papers. From this experience I learned how to best perform my role in a team, as either a leader or contributor. I also managed several multidisciplinary collaborations with labs in fields such as Cancer Genetics, Medical Physics, and Developmental Biology. I am very proud that following my departure, the zebrafish work that I helped to start in the Huttenlocher lab has had continued success.

At Rutgers, I built a solid foundation in molecular biology. My thesis work was a study of how a pair of yeast homeodomain proteins (MATalpha2 and MATa1) interact with each other and bind DNA to regulate transcription. For these projects I learned several molecular biology and biochemistry techniques, and during this time I constructed over 100 plasmids. I gained a significant appreciation of the versatility of the yeast model system, which I believe can be deployed as a tool in many other aspects of eukaryotic cell biology.

As a research technician at Ohio State, I gained expertise with multiple useful skills in the field of cell biology. These included basic cell culturing techniques and immunohistochemical methods. I have found myself adapting these very same methods at several different stages of my scientific career. On the other hand, I also personally developed hundreds of rolls of photographic film of microscopic images (this was before the widespread use of digital cameras). I haven't used this particular skill since then, but who knows - maybe it will come in handy again some day.