When reading this entry on a site that in and of itself indicates "you aren't at the bench anymore" I realized that A> I understood the entire thing, legal words and all AND B>It actually affects some decisions I am making right now.
never would have guessed that I would get here from grad school...
Monday, January 22, 2007
Sunday, January 21, 2007
bears colts , Sad...
Wanted New England becuase I lived there so long....
Wanted New Orleans for 2 reasons. First - that would be such a great comeback story. Second, and far more importantly, I live in fear of seeing "the superbowl shuffle" from the last time the bears were in the superbowl (I think). If that video is on TV ever I am not responsible for my actions.
Wanted New Orleans for 2 reasons. First - that would be such a great comeback story. Second, and far more importantly, I live in fear of seeing "the superbowl shuffle" from the last time the bears were in the superbowl (I think). If that video is on TV ever I am not responsible for my actions.
Saturday, January 20, 2007
more follow up answers to questions in the comments...
Way back here, on the post that I originally started this blog to get out there, someone new asked a question. Quoted in entirety here....
My advice is to take the FAS position. I can't find the post where I mention this (or even verify that my memory that I did so is accurate) but when I joined with a Ph.D. I was working with an MBA. He moved on and I got to see his salary. I earned more than he did. Coupled with that, Ph.D. MBA is a lot of schooling but no practical experience. I still wouldn't hire you in to my group without seeing some field/relevant experience out of you. To be blunt -> School teaches you how to think but doesn't actually teach you anything useful. By this I mean, you don't know how the industry ACTUALLY works. You have some great theories, and you have likely heard about stuff, but there is nothing like an actual kick in the teeth to really teach you. In addition, the books don't teach you how to "smell it" where "it" is anything relevant. You can text book tell me what happened, but I need you to be able to talk to people and remember that the last time you heard "that" the company went *boom* 6 months later. Anyone can look back (given enough data) and say why it happened. I want to see instincts that say it *will* happen. Those range from "They have beeen doing that assay forever and that means they are stuck on figuring out X" to "All the sales people are bailing and someone else just left to spend time with the family, which means Y".
You can't get that from class. I won't pay you for the book stuff. I will pay you for the field stuff.
You can get the MBA later once you get some experience. I heavily recommend (and may some day myself get) an executive MBA. 1 yr, with people who know stuff, doing real world problems.
Get out and get a job.
***note** the "I'm tired of being poor" so closely matches a revelation I had one day in an elevator...after I found out what professors earn in salary. Totally resonates with me. I wanted to do good work AND get paid well. Selfish that way....
Good luck!
Hi. I've spent a considerable amount of time how browsing your blogs and have been throughly entertained! Thanks! I'm in my final year of the PhD (neuroscience/physiology) and it is past time for me to leave the ivory tower. I simply have no interest in the (quite flawed) current academic system where (from my perspective) great ideas are formulated and "sold" to granting agencies but are rarely implemented (or are implemented at a ridiculously slow pace). Also, spending another 10 years in medical school/residency/fellowship just does not seem like the best way to spend my late 20's and early 30's. Simply put, I'm tired of being poor and am not SO enthralled with research/medicine that I'm willing to sacrifice the next several years in a lab or in the classroom. I feel that I am very personable and have excellent analytical skills that I believe would serve me well in the business world. My question is this: if you were in my shoes (single, no kids, 25 years old, finishing up graduate school in the next 12 months, no business experience) looking to break into the business world, would you seek out an FAS type position or would you look to directly enroll in a business school? It seems to be a big financial risk to spend 60-80K on an MBA on the HOPE of picking up a quality job upon completion. Conversely, how long will have to work at the lowest rung of the totem pole before being "qualified" to take the entry level MBA job? Would my career potentially progress faster with the MBA? Any advice/insights would be greatly appreiated!
My advice is to take the FAS position. I can't find the post where I mention this (or even verify that my memory that I did so is accurate) but when I joined with a Ph.D. I was working with an MBA. He moved on and I got to see his salary. I earned more than he did. Coupled with that, Ph.D. MBA is a lot of schooling but no practical experience. I still wouldn't hire you in to my group without seeing some field/relevant experience out of you. To be blunt -> School teaches you how to think but doesn't actually teach you anything useful. By this I mean, you don't know how the industry ACTUALLY works. You have some great theories, and you have likely heard about stuff, but there is nothing like an actual kick in the teeth to really teach you. In addition, the books don't teach you how to "smell it" where "it" is anything relevant. You can text book tell me what happened, but I need you to be able to talk to people and remember that the last time you heard "that" the company went *boom* 6 months later. Anyone can look back (given enough data) and say why it happened. I want to see instincts that say it *will* happen. Those range from "They have beeen doing that assay forever and that means they are stuck on figuring out X" to "All the sales people are bailing and someone else just left to spend time with the family, which means Y".
You can't get that from class. I won't pay you for the book stuff. I will pay you for the field stuff.
You can get the MBA later once you get some experience. I heavily recommend (and may some day myself get) an executive MBA. 1 yr, with people who know stuff, doing real world problems.
Get out and get a job.
***note** the "I'm tired of being poor" so closely matches a revelation I had one day in an elevator...after I found out what professors earn in salary. Totally resonates with me. I wanted to do good work AND get paid well. Selfish that way....
Good luck!
IP, Lawsuits, and is it getting worse?
So, Like every other company in this space, we are in a bunch of law suits. We are in suits with our competitors where they are suing us. In turn, we are suing them. Oh yeah -> they are all suing each other as well. There are a couple of lop sided ones where only 1 party is suing the other and the other has not yet fired back. I would guarentee that privatly they are having a conversation along the lines of "stop or we will sue you back", so it may be just a matter of time before those imbalances are righted.
My question last week, in a moment of complete desperation over what was going on, was "is this worse now than in the past, or am I just young?".
I did some work. First I asked those older than me. It is worse now was the answer. It used to be you could all watch the individual cases in the industry and eveyone would talk about them. Now, most people don't even know all of the cases we are in never mind what the sum total for the industry is.
Then I looked at press releases over the last years I can find at all the companies... yep -> getting worse.
We are now at the point where, essentially, everything we try and sell requires a license from someone. We (I actually...) spend a lot of time on freedom to operate and working with lawyers on this, but there is so much. It is, almost, 100% guarenteed that you miss one until you are a fair ways in to the project. You don't want to. You spend 10's of thousands of dollars on lawyers trying not to. But, pretty frequently you do. Frequently enough that I am now pretty paranoid until we have found the problem because I assume that the fact that we haven't found it means we have missed it not that it doesn't exist.
...and now a digression/example of how this works these days.....
Normally the patent we find comes from some totally left field place that you wouldn't expect. I mean, finding it from a university of some famous academic -> Expect that. Look there first anyway and talk to their tech transfer office (they will always try and license you something, but rarely know the background...). Recently we have been on a streak of turning up stuff that we are just getting interested in, and a large number of papers are coming out of academic labs on (and people getting big notice on!!!) ----and patents were issued in the late 90's to a bunch of different japanese electronics firms on the core ideas. They didn't commercially launch a product, so the only way you know about this work is if you search the patents. AND - oh yeah - They used their own vocabulary so simple text word searching wont work. You have to understand the concepts as they describe them to see that they are talking about exactly what is being talked about in the literature today. Given how much we have put in to this project already... this is a big big big kick in the teeth. I now am talking to them to license and move forward. This will, likely, move at a glacial pace as that is how most deals with them evolve.
The really funny part of this is the academics running around thinking they found something new. I KNOW that they have gone to their tech transfer offices and tried to file patents, as those offices have approached me. They are pretty shocked when I reply "How do you distinguish over this 6 series patent" (The 6 referes to the first number and if you live this crap you know how old that makes it. We are doing 7's right now). I can only wonder if the academics hear back on this? If they do, what do they do? Will the read the patents and copy the work and claim it as their own? (as there is extension to what they have published in the already published patent specs?)
I am skeptical enough of academic science that I don't think they tell anyone but do read and copy.
In any case -> that long diversion illustrates a lot of work that I do.
Once we find the patent, we then either try and work around it (not practice it) or license it. Everyone has a price....the question is "are they sensible?" as many peoples prices are quite high. They think they hold the holy grail and that we should pay up. Sometimes we do, so I can't really fault the trying. Got to know when to hold them, know when to run --or whatever that line is. That negotiation is the fun part of my job (for me...).
Unfortunatly, there are a lot of patents out there and a lot of lawyers. So - companies (ourselves included....) will take a bit of a patent and try and stretch it as far as possible to exclude our competitors from the space. Thus...the court.
I don't know what the answer is, and don't think any of the simplistic ones are it (outlaw patents, make everything free....etc...) but do know that the current status quo will likely break soon in the biotech space.
We will see.
My question last week, in a moment of complete desperation over what was going on, was "is this worse now than in the past, or am I just young?".
I did some work. First I asked those older than me. It is worse now was the answer. It used to be you could all watch the individual cases in the industry and eveyone would talk about them. Now, most people don't even know all of the cases we are in never mind what the sum total for the industry is.
Then I looked at press releases over the last years I can find at all the companies... yep -> getting worse.
We are now at the point where, essentially, everything we try and sell requires a license from someone. We (I actually...) spend a lot of time on freedom to operate and working with lawyers on this, but there is so much. It is, almost, 100% guarenteed that you miss one until you are a fair ways in to the project. You don't want to. You spend 10's of thousands of dollars on lawyers trying not to. But, pretty frequently you do. Frequently enough that I am now pretty paranoid until we have found the problem because I assume that the fact that we haven't found it means we have missed it not that it doesn't exist.
...and now a digression/example of how this works these days.....
Normally the patent we find comes from some totally left field place that you wouldn't expect. I mean, finding it from a university of some famous academic -> Expect that. Look there first anyway and talk to their tech transfer office (they will always try and license you something, but rarely know the background...). Recently we have been on a streak of turning up stuff that we are just getting interested in, and a large number of papers are coming out of academic labs on (and people getting big notice on!!!) ----and patents were issued in the late 90's to a bunch of different japanese electronics firms on the core ideas. They didn't commercially launch a product, so the only way you know about this work is if you search the patents. AND - oh yeah - They used their own vocabulary so simple text word searching wont work. You have to understand the concepts as they describe them to see that they are talking about exactly what is being talked about in the literature today. Given how much we have put in to this project already... this is a big big big kick in the teeth. I now am talking to them to license and move forward. This will, likely, move at a glacial pace as that is how most deals with them evolve.
The really funny part of this is the academics running around thinking they found something new. I KNOW that they have gone to their tech transfer offices and tried to file patents, as those offices have approached me. They are pretty shocked when I reply "How do you distinguish over this 6 series patent" (The 6 referes to the first number and if you live this crap you know how old that makes it. We are doing 7's right now). I can only wonder if the academics hear back on this? If they do, what do they do? Will the read the patents and copy the work and claim it as their own? (as there is extension to what they have published in the already published patent specs?)
I am skeptical enough of academic science that I don't think they tell anyone but do read and copy.
In any case -> that long diversion illustrates a lot of work that I do.
Once we find the patent, we then either try and work around it (not practice it) or license it. Everyone has a price....the question is "are they sensible?" as many peoples prices are quite high. They think they hold the holy grail and that we should pay up. Sometimes we do, so I can't really fault the trying. Got to know when to hold them, know when to run --or whatever that line is. That negotiation is the fun part of my job (for me...).
Unfortunatly, there are a lot of patents out there and a lot of lawyers. So - companies (ourselves included....) will take a bit of a patent and try and stretch it as far as possible to exclude our competitors from the space. Thus...the court.
I don't know what the answer is, and don't think any of the simplistic ones are it (outlaw patents, make everything free....etc...) but do know that the current status quo will likely break soon in the biotech space.
We will see.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
off topic...but really funny
This is good stuff.
Read the ingredients when you get down to that part....
pretty much off topic, but funny none the less.
Read the ingredients when you get down to that part....
pretty much off topic, but funny none the less.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Someone actually reads an "A list" blogger and tries to decipher it...
There are many posts that I read by "pundits" that make me wonder how I can have back that time I wasted. So many that I stopped reading them as they thought they were telling me the future. The problem being that they are so busy talking about it that they aren't really helping it happen. I long ago got the feeling that they weren't actually saying anything and were just writing for the sake of seeing their words on the screen. I would imagine they check how many people read on an hourly basis. The fact that I didn't totally "get it" was also a bit annoying. I didn't want to spend the time to understand...
SO - Joel went and used the secret decoder ring on one article and after he wasted a bunch of time he shows that my hunch was right. Now any lingering doubt I had has been erased.... I am sorry Joel had to waste that hour (more than an hour he says...) , but better him than me!
SO - Joel went and used the secret decoder ring on one article and after he wasted a bunch of time he shows that my hunch was right. Now any lingering doubt I had has been erased.... I am sorry Joel had to waste that hour (more than an hour he says...) , but better him than me!
Washington Post on working X-mas...
In grad school, I didn't get a Washington Post article about going to work on a Holiday. I got some flak from my now wife, but no article. I would rank this under the things that they trot out once a year to say "look at the weirdo's" and "aren't these people great slaving away to keep you healthy". Good to get some press, but I am a little too jaded to think it actually means anything other than it was a slow news day.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Some random links...
To a really old dudes blog (he is 93).... Life lessons learned.
To the new google patents site. This brings patent search to the way the patent office should do it. When dealing with the patent office, you would be amazed at them. From the notice of allowance (that tells your patent is done, accepted, and will issue) to you acutally getting the patent is 6 months. In that time it moves from office A to office B. You pay a small fee. It issues. Their web site is horrid. Google has done the right thing and made it more searchable. Oh yeah - google went back to before 1976 and made all of that searchable as well (meaning the google site is more searchable than the patent office...go figure). Now all they need to do is add patent applications to it and it will really be useful.
To the new google patents site. This brings patent search to the way the patent office should do it. When dealing with the patent office, you would be amazed at them. From the notice of allowance (that tells your patent is done, accepted, and will issue) to you acutally getting the patent is 6 months. In that time it moves from office A to office B. You pay a small fee. It issues. Their web site is horrid. Google has done the right thing and made it more searchable. Oh yeah - google went back to before 1976 and made all of that searchable as well (meaning the google site is more searchable than the patent office...go figure). Now all they need to do is add patent applications to it and it will really be useful.
Bad time of year
Those of you not in a sales/quarterly based world (hello academia) probably enjoy this time of year. For me, this is horrid. Our fiscal year wraps up at the end of the year, so any money I can earn before Dec 31 goes in to this year and all of the financial implications that has for both the company and for myself. There is a great incentive to close deals before Dec 31. Sleep is unneccesary.
For me to close deals, Airplanes are involved. Airplanes at this time of year are full of the "non professional" traveller. Many of you would call these people "families" or "students". I look at them as road blocks in security lines and people who fill in the middle seats on airplanes. They also get in the way at check in counters.
SO - to sum up this time of year for myself and many in similar positions....
High stress to close deals, which requires travel that is itself made more stressfull by the large number of people who don't travel that much.
... to top it all off, many people start going on vacation so stuff has to be done even more quickly. Those that are still at work are really about 50% gone.
Every year I get crabby about this...
For me to close deals, Airplanes are involved. Airplanes at this time of year are full of the "non professional" traveller. Many of you would call these people "families" or "students". I look at them as road blocks in security lines and people who fill in the middle seats on airplanes. They also get in the way at check in counters.
SO - to sum up this time of year for myself and many in similar positions....
High stress to close deals, which requires travel that is itself made more stressfull by the large number of people who don't travel that much.
... to top it all off, many people start going on vacation so stuff has to be done even more quickly. Those that are still at work are really about 50% gone.
Every year I get crabby about this...
Monday, December 11, 2006
Positive about your work....
Over on YoungFemaleScientist she has a post about liking what you do. A couple of points.
1. I can't imagine doing something I didn't like. I invest too much, be they hours, thought, interruption of my personal life...whatever... to not like what I am working on.
2. She points to a difference between men and woman that I don't know what I think of.
She states.
My initial response was to call BS, because I am argumentative that way... but I don't know. I know why I left, and I know why some others left, but in speaking with the folks who are on the dark side (small n, but mix of both men and woman) none of them say "I don't think I would have made it". I get a lot of "I don't know why you would try" and that comes from both men and woman. BUT => we are all saying that to each other after we have moved. Sample bias and eleborate self justification all rolled in to one.
So, I don't know. Part of me thinks I could have made it if I wanted to, but since I didn't want to I didn't even try. This is true for me -> if I am not in to it, I will be bad at it. SO, the justification is that I "wasn't in to it" and thus punted to avoid being unhappy.
3. Random note about self flaggelation, discussing one of her friends.
4. GREAT STATEMENT
Oh yeah. Totally true. Don't know you need to add much to this. A Ph.D. should, if done properly, teach you how to analyze stuff and think for yourself. The rest is up to you.
5. LOVE the competitivness
Statements like
And part of me says, Move over sister, soon it will be my turn!
At the end of the day, I feel we should all like what we are doing. Really love it. I feel that I am worth quite a bit of money per year and that someone should pay me that because I am smart enough to make it pay off for them. I feel that I should be allowed to set priorities for a lot of reasearch groups, and that you should pay me for that. But- most of all- This is what I like doing. I think I am good at all of those things becuase that is what I like doing. I am not doing it becuase someone has set a bar out there that says "this is how you are successful" or "do this to get ahead" -> becuase I think if you are doing it becuase someone else has set a bar that you will be miserable at it and it will haul you down.
If you don't like what you are doing. Change.
sounds so simple....
1. I can't imagine doing something I didn't like. I invest too much, be they hours, thought, interruption of my personal life...whatever... to not like what I am working on.
2. She points to a difference between men and woman that I don't know what I think of.
She states.
This phrase, "I don't think I can" is something I hear all the time from women, but not so often from men....when it comes to the discussion of men vs. woman who have come over to the dark side. She is pointing out something that she hears woman say about academia and use as a justification of why they left.
That's not to say the men don't feel the same way. But more often what I hear from men who leave academia is that they think the system sucks, not that they wouldn't be good enough, if they wanted to be a professor.
My initial response was to call BS, because I am argumentative that way... but I don't know. I know why I left, and I know why some others left, but in speaking with the folks who are on the dark side (small n, but mix of both men and woman) none of them say "I don't think I would have made it". I get a lot of "I don't know why you would try" and that comes from both men and woman. BUT => we are all saying that to each other after we have moved. Sample bias and eleborate self justification all rolled in to one.
So, I don't know. Part of me thinks I could have made it if I wanted to, but since I didn't want to I didn't even try. This is true for me -> if I am not in to it, I will be bad at it. SO, the justification is that I "wasn't in to it" and thus punted to avoid being unhappy.
3. Random note about self flaggelation, discussing one of her friends.
She misses the bench (sound familiar? I've heard this from young PIs before)Why would these people not flee to industry where you can, if you choose, stay at the bench for a long time and make a really good living doing it? This I will never understand.
4. GREAT STATEMENT
News flash: a PhD degree by itself doesn't have magical powers.
Oh yeah. Totally true. Don't know you need to add much to this. A Ph.D. should, if done properly, teach you how to analyze stuff and think for yourself. The rest is up to you.
5. LOVE the competitivness
Statements like
And part of me says, Move over sister, soon it will be my turn!
At the end of the day, I feel we should all like what we are doing. Really love it. I feel that I am worth quite a bit of money per year and that someone should pay me that because I am smart enough to make it pay off for them. I feel that I should be allowed to set priorities for a lot of reasearch groups, and that you should pay me for that. But- most of all- This is what I like doing. I think I am good at all of those things becuase that is what I like doing. I am not doing it becuase someone has set a bar out there that says "this is how you are successful" or "do this to get ahead" -> becuase I think if you are doing it becuase someone else has set a bar that you will be miserable at it and it will haul you down.
If you don't like what you are doing. Change.
sounds so simple....
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Recruiters....
In looking through the comments on Derek's post about his site shutting, there was a link to here, talking about recruiters. WOW> I didn't really think it was that bad. My jobs have all come via recruiters. In my current role, I have moved to exclusivly using them to fill spots. They bring me higher quality people than I am getting via monster/biospace/craigs list. HR makes me post and advertise to places, but I try and limit it to what I have to in order to keep them happy. It just drains my budget to do that.
I get an unsoliciated call/email a day for new positions. I am pretty good about writing back to people saying "thanks, but no thanks for right now". You can sort of smell the useless ones that don't know what they are talking about. Those, I am still polite to. I got my current job becuase a recruiter sent me in for the "wrong" job, but the hiring person recognized that I would be useful for what I am currently doing.
So - I pretty much disagree with the poster at the medicine vault pretty completly. To get a senior position I think they are the ONLY way to get the job. For entry level positions, I am a lot less sure. Would guess that you get a lower quality recruiter at that level, so the posting might be accurate or reflective of that - but that is buried in a little sentance at the end of the post.
I get an unsoliciated call/email a day for new positions. I am pretty good about writing back to people saying "thanks, but no thanks for right now". You can sort of smell the useless ones that don't know what they are talking about. Those, I am still polite to. I got my current job becuase a recruiter sent me in for the "wrong" job, but the hiring person recognized that I would be useful for what I am currently doing.
So - I pretty much disagree with the poster at the medicine vault pretty completly. To get a senior position I think they are the ONLY way to get the job. For entry level positions, I am a lot less sure. Would guess that you get a lower quality recruiter at that level, so the posting might be accurate or reflective of that - but that is buried in a little sentance at the end of the post.
Holiday gifts
It is the time of year that I have to give gifts to the folks who report to me. Always stressful. What to get them? The standard gift seems to be a good bottle of wine. It is what I gave last year and is likely what I will give this year.
However, due to some turnover, I have some "newer" employees, who have only been working for me for a breif while. Don't know them that well. Is wine acceptable? Hope so, as that is whay I bought this weekend...Hope none of them are recovering alcoholics (or practicing one for that matter) as that would be a kick in the teeth.
....more stuff I didn't think about in grad school.
However, due to some turnover, I have some "newer" employees, who have only been working for me for a breif while. Don't know them that well. Is wine acceptable? Hope so, as that is whay I bought this weekend...Hope none of them are recovering alcoholics (or practicing one for that matter) as that would be a kick in the teeth.
....more stuff I didn't think about in grad school.
The other side of a shut down...
A while ago Derek reported that his site (place of work, not Blog) was shutting down. I am sympatheitc to that as that isn't fun, but didn't think too much more about it. Then we started getting the termination of agreement letters and the sales rep in that territory is reporting that there will be a hole. We had a couple of licenses with the site that were lucrative for us. Termination means they won't be paying us that money next year. This means I have a hole that I have to dig out of in my department if I want to show growth and get a bonus. Nothing like what Derek is going through, but I have to say I didn't think of it. Little stupid on my part, as there is pretty much no pharma site around from which I don't derive some part of my yearly income.
These things ripple outward in ways I should have thought about but didn't. In thinking about it, my previous company had a pretty big license in there as well. No idea if they kept it alive for the last few years (no reason to think they wouldn't...) and to them as a smaller company this shut down could be a pretty big deal.
These things ripple outward in ways I should have thought about but didn't. In thinking about it, my previous company had a pretty big license in there as well. No idea if they kept it alive for the last few years (no reason to think they wouldn't...) and to them as a smaller company this shut down could be a pretty big deal.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Transition help: BioCom in San Diego for postdocs to industry
I don't think they had this when I was doing this, but here is something for the San Diego folks. I am sure such things exist elsewhere.... I have been to several BioCom events and they have all been good so I don't know of any reason this wouldn't be as well.
"Transition to Industry" Career Symposium for Graduate students and Postdocs
"Transition to Industry" Career Symposium for Graduate students and Postdocs
Discover what San Diego's life science industry has to offer and how to get there...
When: Saturday October 28, 2006
Where: Biogen Idec
5200 Research Place
San Diego, CA
Registration Time: 8:00-9:00 AM
Symposium Program: 9:00AM-5:00 PM
Networking Happy Hour: 5:00-7:00 PM
Registration Fee: $20.00
Join other local graduate students and post-docs to learn about:
The local life sciences industry,
What it takes to transition from academia to industry,
How to market oneself to industry, and.
Have the opportunity to interact with and seek out information from local companies.
Click here to register.
For more information email biotech@workforce.org
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Grumbling post docs, industry, and options
So last post I put my words in Bills mouth.
Bill was good enough to reply and put his own words in his own mouth in the comments.
Way back at the beginning of this blog, I talked a bit about this. Now, I have actually asked a bunch of people stuff and have a 1/2 way coherent thing to say on the matter.
Much to my surprise, ALL of our directors at the R+D level did academic post docs. About 1/2 of them did 2. All of the people right below the directors did at least 1 (and sometimes 2, although many fewer of them). I was, bluntly, blown away. This has taken awhile, as I started asking people at other companies. N kept increasing but the percentages didn't change. They all do academic post docs.
On the business side, I found that for those with Ph.D.'s the number of postdocs was many fewer. No 2's that I ran in to, and maybe 1/3 of the folks with even 1. Most of us, myself included, totally skipped that step.
We have one friend who did an industry post doc, so I don't really know how you score her. She essentially was working in industry, but becuase she called herself (and was in a program that called her this) a postdoc -> she got paid less. I didn't really understand how that worked for her. Totally understand how it works for the company!!!
SO - To stay at the bench you have to do postdocs. Who knew? (well a lot of people....)
Bill was good enough to reply and put his own words in his own mouth in the comments.
Yeah, that's a pretty good interpretation of what I was saying. To be fair to some grumbling postdocs, though, it isn't necessarily simply a matter of knowing one's options, as there are lots of experienced postdocs who would love to work in industry (at least from what I hear). But they are trapped because they can't get a job there either. So I can understand their anguish.He had previously asked, offline and when he was asking if this site was me (CAUGHT!) about this same subject. Essentially "how do I get in to industry bench". Many do an academic post doc knowing they don't want to be there, is essentially Bill's point (and...his dilemma).
Way back at the beginning of this blog, I talked a bit about this. Now, I have actually asked a bunch of people stuff and have a 1/2 way coherent thing to say on the matter.
Much to my surprise, ALL of our directors at the R+D level did academic post docs. About 1/2 of them did 2. All of the people right below the directors did at least 1 (and sometimes 2, although many fewer of them). I was, bluntly, blown away. This has taken awhile, as I started asking people at other companies. N kept increasing but the percentages didn't change. They all do academic post docs.
On the business side, I found that for those with Ph.D.'s the number of postdocs was many fewer. No 2's that I ran in to, and maybe 1/3 of the folks with even 1. Most of us, myself included, totally skipped that step.
We have one friend who did an industry post doc, so I don't really know how you score her. She essentially was working in industry, but becuase she called herself (and was in a program that called her this) a postdoc -> she got paid less. I didn't really understand how that worked for her. Totally understand how it works for the company!!!
SO - To stay at the bench you have to do postdocs. Who knew? (well a lot of people....)
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Disruptive Tech and the Post Doc grind
In my previous post, I mentioned that I thought disruptive technologies would tend to come from academic groups.
Then I got to thinking about it. Two examples come to mind.
RNAi - which started academic ( and they just got Nobel prizes for it)
PCR - Came from the commercial side. Kary Mullis worked for industry.
miRNA's - academia, and I don't know how disruptive they will be yet. Much smoke any fire?
Tumor supressors - academia, but from a long time ago when there was no industry.
PCR came from the time of not much industry as well, so it is an even bigger anomoly.
The tools companies have a bunch of stuff that no one thinks of as creative, but on the other hand they didn't come up with it either. Promega has all the TnT stuff. Stratagene has QuickChange. Invitrogen has TA cloning. All of these required a massive amount of basic biology research to be done. It is hidden by deceptivly simple ideas and kits, but at the end of the day is very creative stuff.
I don't claim to have any knowledge of "who is more creative", nor do I actually think that is a question with an answer. No idea how to measure that. No real idea of why you would try. My point is that there are really bright people doing really cool stuff in all corners of research. There are really dumb people in both academia and in industry. There are great projects in both as well.
When folks feel they are trapped, as FemaleScientist does right now, then they get depressed. When, in that depression, they throw out huge numbers of options with little to no knowledge about those options, I get annoyed. I probably shouldn't as I don't know her or what she works on, but all the same.....
One of my other friends (hi Bill!) who figured out who I am after reading her site said, and I paraphase, "She is just like all the other old timer post docs around here. Bitter at being stuck but not able to take a break and figure out what she wants to do". By not able to take a break he meant "she couldn't see a way NOT to go to lab and stop and look at the world around her". I have put a few words in his mouth, but not too many. The second half, stopping and getting away and reassessing, is the critical part. When you are in it and doing what she is doing right now there is no way for you to come up with a plan of how to move forward. Everything is lab lab lab lab lab lab lab. It is not "what do I want to do in a few years and what choices exist?" I would also add that I think you are doing crap science right then. You don't have the ability to actually think about what you are doing. There is no analysis and you make stupid errors. Just my experience from watching...
Graduate school has to be done in academia. Everything after that is your own path. Choose from knowledge of choices not from what you can wedge in between two gels. Regardless of what you think, you do have the ability to take a couple of days off and clear your mind enough to make a plan.
Then I got to thinking about it. Two examples come to mind.
RNAi - which started academic ( and they just got Nobel prizes for it)
PCR - Came from the commercial side. Kary Mullis worked for industry.
miRNA's - academia, and I don't know how disruptive they will be yet. Much smoke any fire?
Tumor supressors - academia, but from a long time ago when there was no industry.
PCR came from the time of not much industry as well, so it is an even bigger anomoly.
The tools companies have a bunch of stuff that no one thinks of as creative, but on the other hand they didn't come up with it either. Promega has all the TnT stuff. Stratagene has QuickChange. Invitrogen has TA cloning. All of these required a massive amount of basic biology research to be done. It is hidden by deceptivly simple ideas and kits, but at the end of the day is very creative stuff.
I don't claim to have any knowledge of "who is more creative", nor do I actually think that is a question with an answer. No idea how to measure that. No real idea of why you would try. My point is that there are really bright people doing really cool stuff in all corners of research. There are really dumb people in both academia and in industry. There are great projects in both as well.
When folks feel they are trapped, as FemaleScientist does right now, then they get depressed. When, in that depression, they throw out huge numbers of options with little to no knowledge about those options, I get annoyed. I probably shouldn't as I don't know her or what she works on, but all the same.....
One of my other friends (hi Bill!) who figured out who I am after reading her site said, and I paraphase, "She is just like all the other old timer post docs around here. Bitter at being stuck but not able to take a break and figure out what she wants to do". By not able to take a break he meant "she couldn't see a way NOT to go to lab and stop and look at the world around her". I have put a few words in his mouth, but not too many. The second half, stopping and getting away and reassessing, is the critical part. When you are in it and doing what she is doing right now there is no way for you to come up with a plan of how to move forward. Everything is lab lab lab lab lab lab lab. It is not "what do I want to do in a few years and what choices exist?" I would also add that I think you are doing crap science right then. You don't have the ability to actually think about what you are doing. There is no analysis and you make stupid errors. Just my experience from watching...
Graduate school has to be done in academia. Everything after that is your own path. Choose from knowledge of choices not from what you can wedge in between two gels. Regardless of what you think, you do have the ability to take a couple of days off and clear your mind enough to make a plan.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Industry Science, and why we aren't all morons.
This post is partly in response to this post over on YoungFemaleScientist, but is mostly driven by several conversations I have had with several of my friends individually that that posting started. They are all still post-docs, most in the boston area, and are looking at their next steps. Industry or academia? Can I have a family and become a PI? What if I actually want to see my partner? Kids?
The major question is "what is it like to work in industry?"
YoungFemaleScientist does a very good job of showing the stereotypes of what academics who don't know anyone on the industry side think goes on in industry. She makes it pretty obvious that she doesn't actually know. I don't know how she would know, so that isn't really her fault. People in industry can talk about it, as I have done here, and 1-1 can tell people stuff. Occasionally, as happened with at least two folks previously here (Phd Dropout and Dapi) they can ask someone questions and get some answers. They were focussed on the career path I have chosen, so that was relativly easy for me to answer. As I have fled the bench, those questions are harder to answer.
....so I asked the R+D directors.
They are roughly equivelant to PI's in academia, in that they head up groups that range in size from 5 to 40 people and are focussed on larger or smaller areas of our business. In addition, I spend a lot of time looking at what we know and what we don't know, and what is going on in academia to compare against.
Some summary thoughts:
1. In area's we are active in we are years ahead of academia.
2. Scientists work as hard or not as hard (depending on the person) in industry as they do in academia. Depends on the person.
In order, some more thoughts.
I am going to talk about an area that is of general interest to biotech/pharma and compare it to academia. Kinases. Academics are still doing stuff that looks at cellular localization, binding partners, and knockouts. Pharma has already patented the whole lot and are looking at drugs to interfere, but the academics don't even know that the pathways are worked out. Why am I so certain of this? Look at the drugs they produce. Read the patents that are published at the USPTO. If you look at what is in the published patent applications, and compare to the literature, you will find that more is known and locked up in the companies than they let on about. One, from a "information wants to be free" point of view can get mad about this. BUT, lets look at why this is, and at the area where academics are ahead. Industry can, and does, buy databases that are manually curated from the literature of all the pathways know in the free and open science worlds (Ingenuity and GeneGo are big on this, but there are others). So - take it as a given that they have access to a lot of data academics can't easily look at (licenses to those tools aren't cheap). NOW - if they are interested in a pathway becuase it has in some way been implicated in disease, they throw a lot of people and equipment at that. As opposed to a couple of academic groups randomly throwing grad students at this, PI level people, senior postdocs, and an army of technicians who are trained and motivated attack it. You will get the brute force effects of solving the problem but you will also get their brain power. Most in academia seem to assume that everyone who went to industry got a lobotomy and will never have another creative thought in their lives, but that isn't quite true. Industry scientists are just as good as academic scientists in this regard. Industry is looking for the angle...they want to convert to product. The way you do this is learn something that no one else knows before they learn it. THEN figure out what to do with that knowledge such that you can make a product out of it. In some ways this is harder than academia. There, you can just write a paper about what you have learned and move on. For Industry, just knowing a fact doesn't help you that much. You actually have to do something with that fact.
Where academia does well is on the things that no one can see a use for in the next few (10) years. RNAi was a good example. Not many in Pharma are really looking at gene control in nematodes ( I think Novartis looks at fly's, but that is old knowledge so maybe they don't any more). The fact that the work in nematodes eventually leads to a huge industry push is not foreseeable, so mostly they don't fund it. Academia does this work and does a supurb job of it.
Once the initial discovery is made, and published, and realized that it is usefull, then industry runs with it. Academia can't hope to keep up at that point and is soon left behind.
This is, I think, only really true for disruptive findings. When one is talking about general control or the basic biology of enzyme classes, I think that the academics are behind.
I can't really point at the example, but there was a recent nature paper that shows an effect that we have already released product based on and have a patent on. They are 6 years behind us. We don't publish though. The paper got put up on the board at work and the internal scientists are smiling.
As far as working hours go...People work a bit less than in graduate school. That is, I think,healthy. You can not keep up that pace for the rest of your life. You might think you can, but you won't be productive and in the industry setting you will end up unemployed. Derek Lowe said it best (also has a great heading of industry vs academia where he spells things out well for chemists. I would agree with everything that he says for biologists as well though)
Overall - what I would say to Post-Docs who are slogging through the years trying to figure out what to do - ASK people. Read blogs. Send questions to folks. Talk the uncommunicative industry folks at meetings.
DONT base your decisions on old stereotypes. You don't know what we do on this side of the fence, but we all came from your side so we do know what you are going through.
The major question is "what is it like to work in industry?"
YoungFemaleScientist does a very good job of showing the stereotypes of what academics who don't know anyone on the industry side think goes on in industry. She makes it pretty obvious that she doesn't actually know. I don't know how she would know, so that isn't really her fault. People in industry can talk about it, as I have done here, and 1-1 can tell people stuff. Occasionally, as happened with at least two folks previously here (Phd Dropout and Dapi) they can ask someone questions and get some answers. They were focussed on the career path I have chosen, so that was relativly easy for me to answer. As I have fled the bench, those questions are harder to answer.
....so I asked the R+D directors.
They are roughly equivelant to PI's in academia, in that they head up groups that range in size from 5 to 40 people and are focussed on larger or smaller areas of our business. In addition, I spend a lot of time looking at what we know and what we don't know, and what is going on in academia to compare against.
Some summary thoughts:
1. In area's we are active in we are years ahead of academia.
2. Scientists work as hard or not as hard (depending on the person) in industry as they do in academia. Depends on the person.
In order, some more thoughts.
I am going to talk about an area that is of general interest to biotech/pharma and compare it to academia. Kinases. Academics are still doing stuff that looks at cellular localization, binding partners, and knockouts. Pharma has already patented the whole lot and are looking at drugs to interfere, but the academics don't even know that the pathways are worked out. Why am I so certain of this? Look at the drugs they produce. Read the patents that are published at the USPTO. If you look at what is in the published patent applications, and compare to the literature, you will find that more is known and locked up in the companies than they let on about. One, from a "information wants to be free" point of view can get mad about this. BUT, lets look at why this is, and at the area where academics are ahead. Industry can, and does, buy databases that are manually curated from the literature of all the pathways know in the free and open science worlds (Ingenuity and GeneGo are big on this, but there are others). So - take it as a given that they have access to a lot of data academics can't easily look at (licenses to those tools aren't cheap). NOW - if they are interested in a pathway becuase it has in some way been implicated in disease, they throw a lot of people and equipment at that. As opposed to a couple of academic groups randomly throwing grad students at this, PI level people, senior postdocs, and an army of technicians who are trained and motivated attack it. You will get the brute force effects of solving the problem but you will also get their brain power. Most in academia seem to assume that everyone who went to industry got a lobotomy and will never have another creative thought in their lives, but that isn't quite true. Industry scientists are just as good as academic scientists in this regard. Industry is looking for the angle...they want to convert to product. The way you do this is learn something that no one else knows before they learn it. THEN figure out what to do with that knowledge such that you can make a product out of it. In some ways this is harder than academia. There, you can just write a paper about what you have learned and move on. For Industry, just knowing a fact doesn't help you that much. You actually have to do something with that fact.
Where academia does well is on the things that no one can see a use for in the next few (10) years. RNAi was a good example. Not many in Pharma are really looking at gene control in nematodes ( I think Novartis looks at fly's, but that is old knowledge so maybe they don't any more). The fact that the work in nematodes eventually leads to a huge industry push is not foreseeable, so mostly they don't fund it. Academia does this work and does a supurb job of it.
Once the initial discovery is made, and published, and realized that it is usefull, then industry runs with it. Academia can't hope to keep up at that point and is soon left behind.
This is, I think, only really true for disruptive findings. When one is talking about general control or the basic biology of enzyme classes, I think that the academics are behind.
I can't really point at the example, but there was a recent nature paper that shows an effect that we have already released product based on and have a patent on. They are 6 years behind us. We don't publish though. The paper got put up on the board at work and the internal scientists are smiling.
As far as working hours go...People work a bit less than in graduate school. That is, I think,healthy. You can not keep up that pace for the rest of your life. You might think you can, but you won't be productive and in the industry setting you will end up unemployed. Derek Lowe said it best (also has a great heading of industry vs academia where he spells things out well for chemists. I would agree with everything that he says for biologists as well though)
Overall - what I would say to Post-Docs who are slogging through the years trying to figure out what to do - ASK people. Read blogs. Send questions to folks. Talk the uncommunicative industry folks at meetings.
DONT base your decisions on old stereotypes. You don't know what we do on this side of the fence, but we all came from your side so we do know what you are going through.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
academia vs. industry (bench work)
Over here there is a good discussion of academia vs industry. I pop up in the comments section... My take home point is that industry and academia aren't that totally different at the end of the day (when it comes to bench work). You can be happy/unhappy in either place. Overall, I think you might be better paid in industry, but that doesn't neccesarily make people happy. Anyway - go read it over there.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Nature Peer Review
I will freely admit I had no idea this was going on until I read about it over here. Seems like a cool idea, but as Coranted notes, there is nothing there yet. Many articles, some I even care about, but no real comments. He sums up the feedback pretty well so I won't repeat.
I asked around my own company to see if people knew about this. Nope. Not one did. Stealth launch? -OR- do biologist just not seem to read journals on line. I still get paper versions of several journals. We get them free as we advertise so much that they throw in subscriptions on the side as a bonus. That triggers me to read them. I don't seem to ever go to the science or nature sites? Not like I am computer phobic (working, and programming, in the bioinformatics field covers that...). My entire life is on computers - why not journal reading. When I want to share articles for discussion, I go to the web site and get the pdf to share/discuss around that one. BUT - I don't start there to find/read it. Go there in a directed manner to get 1 article.
In asking around, this was the same behavior that many others had. This wasn't age biased, as there were several new post docs amongst the directors I asked. Wide range of people.
Why don't we find the articles on line? I am just programmed to read the paper version.
When do I start on line? When I find the article in PubMed. Then it is direct to the electronic version. That is directed searching. The reading of a journal is "browsing". I look at the table of contents of every issue of science and nature and generally browse the "news" sections.
Don't think I am weird, but it is weird given that I get the entire rest of my news online.
I asked around my own company to see if people knew about this. Nope. Not one did. Stealth launch? -OR- do biologist just not seem to read journals on line. I still get paper versions of several journals. We get them free as we advertise so much that they throw in subscriptions on the side as a bonus. That triggers me to read them. I don't seem to ever go to the science or nature sites? Not like I am computer phobic (working, and programming, in the bioinformatics field covers that...). My entire life is on computers - why not journal reading. When I want to share articles for discussion, I go to the web site and get the pdf to share/discuss around that one. BUT - I don't start there to find/read it. Go there in a directed manner to get 1 article.
In asking around, this was the same behavior that many others had. This wasn't age biased, as there were several new post docs amongst the directors I asked. Wide range of people.
Why don't we find the articles on line? I am just programmed to read the paper version.
When do I start on line? When I find the article in PubMed. Then it is direct to the electronic version. That is directed searching. The reading of a journal is "browsing". I look at the table of contents of every issue of science and nature and generally browse the "news" sections.
Don't think I am weird, but it is weird given that I get the entire rest of my news online.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Life Science Tools of the Trade
I read this site pretty regularly. They whine a fair bit, and in general are normal academic researchers. They hold, quite rightly, their sales reps to task for things. They are not huge fans of Quiagen and Stratagene (haven't totally figured out what Stratagene did wrong, but Quiagen seems have PO'd them with quality)(Stratagene's sales rep may have annoyed them, but I might have missed some posts there and am too lazy to totally sort it out).
This post talks about what is in the QuickChange kit.
This post here could be labeled inducement to infringe on Stratagene's mutagenesis patents. Would guess, based on the previous postings, that Hal doesn't care or doesn't know. Likely doesn't even think about that. It is in the gray zone, as he doesn't tell you what to do with the components, which would be clear inducement. BUT - he does tell you to go do the method. Stratagene has kept that market to itself because of it's patent protection, so I am curious as to what they will do about this. Everyone, well apparently except Hal, knew this to be true. No one ever put it out in quite so public a way before. (On a side note, a person in Australia welcomes Hal to the club...)
Would guess, although stupidity could break out, that we won't ever see anything happen. A post deletion fire war and lawyers would be excellent theatre. Probably not productive, but still good theatre!
This post talks about what is in the QuickChange kit.
This post here could be labeled inducement to infringe on Stratagene's mutagenesis patents. Would guess, based on the previous postings, that Hal doesn't care or doesn't know. Likely doesn't even think about that. It is in the gray zone, as he doesn't tell you what to do with the components, which would be clear inducement. BUT - he does tell you to go do the method. Stratagene has kept that market to itself because of it's patent protection, so I am curious as to what they will do about this. Everyone, well apparently except Hal, knew this to be true. No one ever put it out in quite so public a way before. (On a side note, a person in Australia welcomes Hal to the club...)
Would guess, although stupidity could break out, that we won't ever see anything happen. A post deletion fire war and lawyers would be excellent theatre. Probably not productive, but still good theatre!
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