R&D Graduate Scientist 2

Hi, I'm Paula I'm one of the R&D Graduate Students here at AstraZeneca. I'm originally from Spain from the north coast but I have lived in several countries including Austria, the UK and the US. Here in the UK is where I went to university, I did biotechnology at the University of Surrey.

So what prompted me to do graduate placement in the pharmaceutical industry? Well, I've always really enjoyed learning about the human body and disease and how to learn how to fight disease in order to then contribute back to humanity. This is one of the main reasons as well as the fact I've always worked in academia and I wanted to see more of the industry research like side of the research in the sector. So as I mentioned, I really enjoy learning about the human body and how to fight disease and treat it so that I found this a very exciting opportunity to take part in.

Moreover, this particular programme consists of three different placements, each of which is eight months long, and I think this is a great opportunity in order to try different areas and find which one suits you best. So you can take part of different areas about different research and it's a great opportunity to see what the company is doing and get a better understanding of and a wider scope of the company's intentions.

Moreover, because we take part in different placements, then we also gain a wide range of skills laboratory and personnel are like soft skills, as they call it, which I think can make us a more attractive candidates is great for our career development. And, yeah, it's a great opportunity overall in order to really understand and learn about the pharmaceutical industry.

So what's my day-to-day like? Well, I'm mainly lab based, so it really depends. We have some weeks where I'm heavy loaded with experiments ,then have other weeks where I don't have as many experiments, I do more to data analysis as well as experiments write ups. And I would say on average, I have like, half a day I'm allowed to carrying out experiments and the other half I'll be either analysing the results or writing out my experiments.

We also do have quite a few meetings, industry is a lot about sharing the knowledge, so we have some team meetings where we learn about what the other people are doing. We also have some departmental meetings, as well as maybe like some which are across different departments and different branches, so not only within the biopharma, but also within the Oncology Branch, so it's really good in order to gain a better understanding of the company.

So has COVID 19 pandemic affected displacement? If I'm honest, just joined in September 2021, just a little less than a year ago, and ever since the restrictions have been getting easily have been lifted up. So initially, it was a bit stricter. We don't have to wear masks anymore. We didn't have any face to face meetings. It was all very cool, despite all being sitting down there in the office, and we had to keep our distances as well in the workspace. However, ever since spring, other restrictions have been slowly lifting up. We've had more socials, or we've been able to meet our colleagues and do some networking which is great in order to expand your network as well as to learn more from other people. Now we also have face to face team meetings, which I find very beneficial because it's easier to take or to ask questions. And then online and to learn more.

So where do I see myself in five years? Well, I want to do a PhD after this. And then I hope I'm hoping that I could come back to the company as societies or senior scientist or perhaps pursue a similar role elsewhere.