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Many of the scientists who receive fellowships from the Institute or work in HHMI laboratories early in their careers still pursue the academic path. But that choice is far less automatic than it was even a few years ago, as illustrated by these three examples.
Jenifer Goerlach
Technical Specialist
Myers, Bigel, Sibley & Sajovec
Research Triangle Park, N.C.
After the birth of her second child, Jenifer Goerlach decided to
look for a career away from research during the time remaining on her NIH grant to study antisense suppression in Cryptococcus neoformans. She met with a career counselor at Duke University, where she was a research associate in an HHMI laboratory after receiving her doctorate, to explore her options and learn how to market herself. Goerlach also assessed the skills she had that she might apply to other kinds of science-oriented jobs, about which she gathered information. To learn about a possible career in science writing, for example, she interviewed technical writers at pharmaceutical firms.
The process paid off. Goerlach landed a job at a law firm specializing in intellectual property issues, where she now assesses biotech-related innovations. She studies the experiments and supporting technical information from scientists, looks for similar products or techniques that are already patented, puts together a report and prepares the patent application. Early next year, she will take the exam that qualifies her to become a patent agent.
"Here I do everything but the bench work," she says. The only thing she misses is networking with colleagues at professional meetings.
Imre Kovesdi
Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer
GenVec
Gaithersburg, Md.
Imre Kovesdi, a native of Hungary, was older than his peers when he earned his science degrees in Canada and then joined an HHMI laboratory at The Rockefeller University. As his postdoctoral work neared completion, he was considering offers for tenure-track positions at several universities when a colleague asked whether he'd be interested in working as a molecular biologist in the medical research division of American Cyanamid Company. For Kovesdi, the issue was age, not salary. "I felt it would be difficult to compete in academia for grants and such with people 10 years younger than I am," he says.
After his first industry job, he again weighed jobs in academia and pharmaceutical companies. A headhunter, however, told him in 1993 about a start-up biopharmaceutical firm called GenVec. Kovesdi, the first scientist hired by the company, was named director of vector biology. GenVec now holds 300 patents and has a product candidate in phase 2 clinical trials. Kovesdi was named chief scientific officer last year.
Like many principal investigators in academia, he does no lab work at this point in his career. Instead, he works on strategy. "I still have a little bench space and my pipettes," he says. "I'm threatening my staff that I'm going back to cloning."
Clara Alarcon
Research Manager
Pioneer Hi-Bred International, division of DuPont
Johnston, Iowa
A native Guatemalan from a family of academics, Clara Alarcon came to the United States to get her Ph.D. in human nutrition at the University of Iowa. Most of her training, however, is in molecular biology. After carrying out postdoctoral research in an HHMI laboratory at Duke, where she learned protein biochemistry and yeast genetics, she returned to her husband's native Iowa.
The transition from human nutrition to agricultural biotechnology isn't much of a stretch. Working in a company like Pioneer Hi-Bred, she says, uses all her training in molecular biology and protein biochemistry. She assumed her research manager position in transgenics research with Pioneer in 1997 and now oversees seven people in her lab. "You can do as much biotech research as in academia," she says. "In addition to interacting with fellow scientists, I interact with other disciplines—finance, marketing, strategy. I do bench research and I still publish."
Family members who work in academia have asked her to talk to students about her nonacademic career. If they are definitely going into biotech, she tells them, they should do an internship or a postdoctoral fellowship in industry first. (Alarcon did a postdoctoral fellowship at Pioneer.) She also recommends acquiring management experience and "people skills."
Looking back, she says, "I wouldn't have done anything different. I don't miss academia, but I don't rule out the possibility of teaching at the college level, although not necessarily full time."
—DKC
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Reprinted from the HHMI Bulletin,
January 2001, Pages 18-25
©2001 Howard Hughes Medical Institute
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