Guest contributor Virginia Schutte
The international conference Comm4Science: communicating science beyond the lab took place in Heidelberg in early May. Around 100 participants attended, where they met a great roster of speakers, took part in a communication workshop, and asked questions of a panel of experts.
Virginia Schutte
{credit}Image courtesy of Julian Davies{/credit}
Contributor Brady Huggett
Julian Davies has a long history in biotechnology research, particularly in antibiotics and resistance, and he also served as head of research at Biogen’s European division in the 1980s. But for more than 20 years now, he’s been at the University of British Columbia (UBC), where he’s the principal investigator at the Davies Lab. I spoke to Julian for the Nature Biotechnology First Rounders podcast, which was recorded in his office on the UBC campus, with the door closed to help with audio quality, and the overhead lights off. A light rain fell against his office window.
We talked at length about his early family life during World War II, his education in chemistry and biology, and his research across countries. A Nature Biotechnology profile in 2008 had covered TerraGen, Davies’ spinout from UBC, and it’s a topic in the podcast, too. But the element that perhaps stands out most is his eagerness to move around: he’s lived in New York, Manchester, Boston, Paris, Geneva, and beyond – partly to follow research he found interesting, and partly, it seems, because he was perpetually invited to work alongside others. This willingness to relocate helped facilitate his career, as well as allowed him to see the world.
Hear more about Julian’s life on the Nature Biotechnology First Rounders podcast.
Brady Huggett is the Business Editor for Nature Biotechnology
Una Ryan
Naturejobs is celebrating Women in Science. Every day this week we’re interviewing an inspirational female scientist. Yesterday, we spoke to Roma Agrawal, structural engineer at WSP.
Today we’re in conversation with Una Ryan, the Chair of the Bay Area Bioeconomy Initiative and an angel investor in the San Francisco Bay Area. I met Una at a SynBioBeta event at Imperial College London in April this year, where she chaired an all-male panel on the venture capital climate in the Bay Area, and how it differs to that in the UK. Una was disappointed that the panel was comprised entirely of men, but noted that unfortunately there aren’t many female biotech venture capital investors to choose from.
This is something that Una is hoping to change. She invests a huge amount of time in young scientists—both male and female—to support them through their careers. I spoke to Una after her panel event to find out about how she became interested in science, and how she is hoping to inspire others.