Industry Perspective

By Huri Mücahit   The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as the name suggests, is the primary regulatory organization for food and drug safety, including biologics and medical devices. However, surprisingly, the FDA regulates much more in the name of protecting public health, such as cosmetics, veterinary products, and tobacco products.

by Helena Mello This is a follow-up post to the article: iJOBS site visit to McCann Health - The Industry, wherein I explained the company’s structure. The second part of the site visit to McCann Health was a panel discussion with 7 current employees who enlightened us about their paths to getting a job at the company and gave advice to those considering joining a healthcare advertisement firm.

By Helena Mello In this post, I will share some highlights from the iJOBS Site Visit to McCann Health in New York City. McCann Health is a global marketing company with more than 60 offices worldwide, and is a leader in strategic communications for the healthcare world. Several big pharma and biotech companies rely on McCann’s services to bring their products to life and engage with their audiences. Broadly speaking, McCann’s market is part of the Medical Communications world.

By Tomas Kasza Dr. Mai Soliman graduated from Montclair State University with a master’s degree in Molecular Biology in 2009 and from Rutgers School of Graduate Studies with a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology in 2017. While completing her master’s and PhD degrees she sought out opportunities to teach high school and college students. After completion of her PhD degree she accepted a position at Northern Valley regional high school in Demarest, NJ, one of the top school districts in New Jersey.

By Tomas Kasza You might have heard that the first rule of contract research organizations (CROs) is you don’t talk about contract research organizations (CROs). THAT’S A LIE! It turns out that employees of CROs are excited to discuss their career knowledge with PhD and post-doctoral level academic researchers. CROs represent a great opportunity for PhD level scientists to transition from academia to industry. CROs provide essential support, generate fantastic science, and create quality products for the large biotechnology and corporate agencies that they contract with.

By: Huri Mücahit Edited by: Manjula Mummadisetti and Aminat Saliu Musah   The following blog post is a summary of “Biology needs more staff scientists” by Steven Hyman, “Staff scientists find satisfaction in playing the support role” by Maggie Kuo, and “Wanted: staff-scientist positions for postdocs” by Ke

The annual iJOBS/BioNJ career fair is the epitome of what you can do with a Ph.D. The iJOBS program stresses that Ph.D.’s can do much more than practice science in the traditional sense. The opportunities are essentially boundless.

by Talia M. Planas-Fontánez

During the week of March 18th, the Myelin Gordon Research Conference (GRC) took place in Ventura, CA. This year, the Myelin GRC was focused on human biology throughout various ages of development, while also offering perspectives on age-related myelin dysfunction that lead to debilitating diseases, such as multiple sclerosis and leukodystrophies, which currently have no cure.

By: Tomas Kasza Have you ever had a bench epiphany? One where you feel that the bench skills you are mastering will never be used at your next job? Making the transition from graduate or post-doctoral training to other types of jobs can be a difficult transition. What is the best way to have your resume show you have the skills necessary to succeed at the positions you are applying to? One way to show that you are prepared for a new career could be an additional degree to augment your education.

When I imagine myself in industry I often see myself wearing a suit performing a task, but the details of those tasks are unclear. After speaking to other trainees about what tasks they envision performing in industry, they describe job definitions, but not specific tasks. This becomes problematic because while you may think that you are a good fit for a profession, performing those unknown duties might make you feel differently. I am surely not the first PhD student to ask the question: what job duties would I do in industry, more specifically Medical Affairs?