Moving from Academia to Commercialization

How did you become involved in the innovation hub in Calgary?

Nima Najand: My story really started off in academia. For a long time, I thought academia was what I wanted to do. It wasn't nearly until the end of my PhD that I decided that maybe that wasn’t the right choice for me. In terms of life choices, I probably should have made that choice a bit earlier. But in retrospect, I think where I am today probably wouldn't have happened, had I not gone through that academic route.

I'm happy to be where I am right now. I'm working very closely with lots of startup companies in Calgary, Alberta, and supporting their whole entrepreneurial journey from when they come out of a lab—typically from a university—where they've made a really interesting discovery, and turning that discovery into a product. There are a lot of steps in there, and it's just a fun place being at that intersection between academia and the business world.

Nicole Quinn: I can speak to that realization late in academia that maybe you should have thought this through a bit differently and figured out where you're going with it, but also ending up in the right place. I think Jason can too, as he's in a similar world to you.

Jason Goldsmith: I was in academia until senior postdoc. Junior faculty grants were in, and my PI decided to go to China one day and not come back. And then I turned on my “job-o-meter." I'm a physician scientist, and I ended up landing a role at Seres Therapeutics, which is a microbiome company.

I helped commercialize their first product. We just got our FDA approval in April of this year. I was involved in the post-Phase 3-to-commercialization super launch and am still going through that because once you have your license, it doesn't mean you have a full commercial-scale process. So I've been heavily involved in late-stage commercialization. I was also involved in some early kickstarting commercialization in grad school and then did a bit of consulting for early and mid-stage biotechs. I've worked with other versions of Dr. Najand’s institute in Calgary, essentially.

NN: Calgary itself as a city is pretty early into the whole life sciences commercialization game. Obviously, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary has been around for a long time, but we haven't had a lot of programs to support companies in Calgary or in the life sciences space.

It wasn't until 2019 when Innovate Calgary launched the Life Sciences Innovation Hub that we had a concerted effort to say, “This is going to be the focus,” at least for now. We've launched several hubs since then, based on the success of the Life Sciences Innovation Hub, really trying to give people a space and the resources to commercialize their ideas once they're spinning technologies out of the university.

The Current Landscape of Commercialization

How do researchers commercialize their ideas? How do they learn about GMP and navigate the regulatory world?

NQ: I don't know if that is just because this [commercializing ideas] is where science is today, where science has matured to the point where we're actually seeing some of this research we've been doing for so long applied, or if it's maybe a culmination [of factors]. But there's now more rigor, organization, and support behind these processes. We're now talking about it more, whereas it used to just happen behind the scenes. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, but why is it so “buzzy” lately?

NN: I would say part of the pressure comes from the funding organizations that are really putting more and more emphasis on not just basic science, but translational research. That obviously trickles downstream.

I remember when I was doing my PhD and master's, where all I did was essentially basic science. You write this huge proposal for grant applications and in the last paragraph, you say, “Oh, yeah, by the way, if this works out, it might work out to a cure for cancer or something down the road.” It's just a throwaway paragraph at the end to make your research sound relevant.

Now, for many of the grant applications, half the application itself is on how you're going to take this idea to the market. How is it going to benefit society? How is it going to make the world a better place? That emphasis by grant organizations has trickled down to a lot of the resources that we're putting in place now to take in all of the research that is much more translational in nature nowadays and bring those to the market. Universities are increasingly also putting an emphasis on translational research.

NN: I did a basic science master's and PhD, and I think there's a lot of value in basic science because, ultimately, it builds the foundation on which all of this translational research takes place. If you think about the very top of the pyramid being translational research, you still need that huge foundation to support all of that. But society as a whole has definitely veered away more from basic science and is funding more of these [translational research projects]. The University of Calgary, for example, has positioned itself as, “We want to be the most entrepreneurial university in Canada.” For the last three years, it has created more startup companies than any other university [in Canada]; more than the University of Toronto and more than the University of British Columbia [two of the top biomedical research universities in Canada]. By putting resources into becoming more entrepreneurial and changing the culture within the university, we're starting to see that whole buzz around commercialization and taking research out of the lab and into the market.

JG: I think the other thing that's happened is that pharma and other groups that used to do a lot of the early-stage research, where they'd see a paper from a professor and just run and take it, have changed.

I think that’s because pharma now tends to wait for the biotechs to do the early risk work and outsource that. They'll let the early investors and all that early money do the first early Phase 1 and Phase 2 testing, and then buy. So you're shifting the risk from them to these other industries. Also, you now have universities much more interested in their patents. So now there's intellectual property (IP) that universities are developing as a way for them to generate revenue, whereas before, some professor just published a paper, and it’s like, “Oh, there's the cure for cancer in it,” so to speak. Once it's published, you can't patent it anymore. So that happens less. Universities will review before you publish now, and say, “You know, you should patent this. Let's hold the paper for a few months and get the provisional patent going, and then publish.” So then there’s IP. Once there's IP, you need a company, and you need to license it. There's the whole thing with protections that didn't exist before. These could be factors driving groups like Nima’s. There are many innovation centers that exist now.

How Innovation Centers Support Scientists

Why do innovation centers exist and where do they fit in this “new normal”?

NN: The reason why innovation centers and all of the [other] programs that we have exist is because most of the people we deal with have a technical background, coming out with a PhD or postdoc and a really great idea. They understand the science, but they don't understand the business.

We are here to help them on the business side of things. We have lots of programs to support that. Every city, every major city in the country certainly will have some incubator space for early-stage companies. Some of them will focus on a specific industry, some of them are more sector-agnostic.

For the Life Sciences Innovation Hub, we have a combination of supports. This includes accelerator programming aimed at really early-stage entrepreneurs who essentially have no experience in running a company.

We have a program, for example, the Life Sciences Fellowship, where we put $200,000 into each of four companies a year. These are typically freshly formed companies, and sometimes even pre-company formation, where the founders are coming in with a really great idea. It's open to anybody from anywhere in the world to come and take advantage of this program.

Then we give them two years of business training because, [while] it takes decades to learn the science, we can give you most of what you need to know in a two-year period on the business side. I mean, no one's going to be an expert by the end, but at least you have all the tools you need to go in front of venture capitalists (VCs) and start getting actual investment into your company. That's been a really popular program.

What types of investors are there for new start-ups?

NN: Other programs that we have that really support early-stage entrepreneurs are things like a seed fund. We have $5 million in general health, $5 million in child health, and $3 million in neuroscience that we put specifically at very early-stage companies, much earlier than most angel investors (those that invest very early for a high risk and potentially high reward) would get involved. Certainly much earlier than any venture capital investor (investors with deeper pockets who can fund Phase 1, 2, and sometimes Phase 3 clinical trials) would get involved.

The money our innovation hub invests is even earlier than the angels. Typically, we're coming in as the first money into a company, which has been a game changer for the city of Calgary. What we find is, because we do so much diligence on the companies, as much as you can do on an early-stage company, for every dollar that we invest, they get $16 from other investors because once they have the University of Calgary stamp of approval, all of these other investors say, “Oh, maybe I'll get in on that opportunity as well.”

We also provide access to labs. We have level two molecular biology labs, with over $3 million worth of equipment. We have rapid prototyping labs available for medical device companies, for companies that might need access to 3D printers or CNC [computer numerical control] machines or electronic equipment.

We also have a network of over 100 advisors across the country that the entrepreneurs and the companies can tap into; each advisor is an expert in their specific field. So, whether it's pharmaceuticals or human resources, regulatory affairs, IP, whatever, we can pair these up one-on-one with the companies.

So to us, our hub is those specific supports to try and get very inexperienced entrepreneurs out the gate and successful. It's not for the ten-time serial entrepreneurs who know what they're doing.

NQ: It’s such a new idea. When I was in academia around 12 years ago this wasn't really being talked about; I think people were figuring it out for themselves. So the fact that these support systems are being established or are established is fantastic.

Steps from Research to Commercialization

What does a scientist have to do? What are the boxes they have to check, or the steps they have to overcome before coming to you and actually being eligible for this support?

NN: I think it's a large portion of self-identification as an entrepreneur. I believe entrepreneurship is not for everybody. You have to really want to be an entrepreneur. It's almost like a personality trait. And so not everyone should be an entrepreneur.

People naturally self-select. It is not the type of person that says, “I want to be my own boss,” because those are typically the people that might create a bakery or something like that so they can run their own hours. But it's more people who really love an idea and want to take it to the next stage.

As Jason was alluding to earlier, fewer companies are really looking at early-stage technologies. I spent the first five years of my career on the IP side of things, taking research that was happening at the University of Calgary, filing a patent on it, and then trying to shop it around to large pharma to see who would buy it. But increasingly, no one wants to buy it because it's early-stage, and it's very, very risky.

The reality is that often, university research can't necessarily even be replicated. For companies to pay licensing fees and bring on a technology didn't make a lot of sense. So increasingly, we are seeing them coming further and further in development, waiting until a company is doing Phase 2, and then acquiring the company. Yes, it costs them more for that acquisition, but it costs them less in the long run because they're not putting so much money in the early-stage high-risk stuff.

So really, it's the people who want to be an entrepreneur and the people who are coachable. We'll reject a lot of applications to various people who we deem as not coachable. People who come in and say, “Yeah, I know everything I'm doing. This is a really great idea. I just need money to prove this is a really great idea.” That's almost never the first step. The first step is almost always doing customer discovery, market validation, understanding where your product fits within a much larger market, and understanding whether the problem you're solving is even a real problem for anyone outside of yourself. Those checkboxes have to be answered, and we can help people answer those, but really, it's all part of the process.

What’s the whole process, from a crazy idea with a patent to commercialization?

JG: I'm going to come up with a ridiculous example. Pretending I think it'll get to market research.

I have a cure that works for cancer in the left ear. It doesn't work in the right ear. There are reasons. But left ear cancer, I cure with an 80% cure rate. The best thing on the market is 30% with chemo and you're half deaf. I don't have that problem. But in my mouse models, I can cure left ear cancer, and they have hearing at the end. I have a patent. I worked with my university, and I got a patent for my “left ear cure.” Then, I come and knock on your door. What happens next?

NN: One of the first questions you’d have is, ”How often do people get cancer only in the left ear?” And this is specifically a question about people, because we don't care about cures in mice. You have to do a market assessment, then understand how much it's going to cost to bring your drug to the market.

Not to say there isn't any space for orphan diseases or diseases that are very rare, because there are specific business models where you can make a decent chunk of money off orphan diseases. It's just harder. It's a harder path to go down.

Once you do a little bit of market research, then you also have to understand the nature of your cure. Let’s just say it's a small molecule for the sake of argument. You need to understand whether it's a druggable molecule. Does it get to where it needs to go? Does it have any toxicity? All of those kinds of typically what we call “preclinical work,” where at least a large portion will happen in a university lab. It's not to the standards required by the FDA and Health Canada to do a clinical trial yet. It’s about understanding how efficacious your molecule is, understanding if you need to modify it in any way to reduce toxicity, increase the amount of time it stays inside the body, how it's secreted, all of those things need to be answered before you even take the next steps.

That typically falls into the realm of “somewhat academic research.” It's getting into the gray area where there's not a lot of funding for that research, but it does need to be answered before you really start taking steps towards commercializing it.

Is that where I'm going to come and knock on your door and maybe get some startup funds?

JG: I say to you, look, the mice look good, it looks good with my bootstrapped research experiments in the lab, but I need that not quite Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) biodistribution study or a basic mouse toxicology study. And that's what I'm going to get from an innovation center like yours before I go get my angels [Angel Investors]?

NN: Possibly. It's really that early-stage validation for which not a lot of funders are out there paying, and certainly no angel [Investor] is going to pay for that research. That's where you would come to us and we could potentially help you.

But also, most academics don't know the whole drug development process. We were talking about drugs specifically here, but really understanding that your next step is GLP preclinical, and you need to start setting up your clinical trial, understanding what your regulatory path looks like, maybe running a clinical trial. We have a whole group dedicated to helping companies with regulatory affairs. Coming up with a clinical trial protocol, maybe some timelines, because left ear cancer might be one in 100,000 patients. Where are you going to find these patients? Recruitment becomes an issue with those kinds of things. We can help with all of those downstream questions.

The Shift from Basic Science to Translational Science

How do we teach someone to have business acumen?

NQ: This relates to something you were saying earlier, where you have to be the right person to do this. You have to have an entrepreneurial personality.

I feel like we are asking a lot of our scientists these days. They have to be teachers, mentors, and actual scientists, where they have that inquisitive mind. They also need to be science communicators because they have to now interface with the public and be a champion for the work that they do, even politically sometimes.

Now, we're also asking them to have business acumen and be entrepreneurs. You said earlier that most grants require the application piece to be in there. Is science going somewhere we don’t want it to? How do scientists cope with that?

NN: Like I said, I'm a huge supporter of basic science. But this is like any other thing; the pendulum tends to swing to the extremes, and sometimes you're only funding basic science, sometimes you're only funding translational science. We will need to, at some point, come to a balance between what we want to fund as a society.

But in terms of your question of scientists becoming entrepreneurs, it's absolutely challenging. Firstly, from the time perspective, because who's got time to also learn entrepreneurship when you're doing your research? But also from a cultural perspective, because academics are very often opposed to changing how they're doing things and being asked, “Hey, now don't do basic science, do translational science.”

That cultural shift, that cultural change, can be very difficult to overcome. The worst part is, even though these expectations are there on principal investigators to do more translational research, create startups, file patents, etc., most universities don't have a way of recognizing those efforts and contributions. When they're getting their performance review and they're figuring out whether they should be tenured or not, they're looking at their h-index, they're looking at the publication, students, whatever, seldom do they look at: you've got a startup company that's really successful or you filed 30 patents that were licensed.

We need to, as academic institutions, reevaluate how we evaluate students and faculty members on their commercialization efforts and factor that into the whole equation.

Do you know if Canada has certifications for clinical or translational work for PhDs?

JG: I know in the US, we have some NIH-funded sites called the CTSAs, which do a lot of clinical trial stuff.

But then a part of that is that if you're a PhD student, you can go do a one-year course, work, and get a certification that says, “You understand this”, and then you aren't the person that's being forced to change when you're then a faculty member. I don't know if that's happened with you guys, if you've seen that type of thing on your end.

NN: There are definitely certifications on the regulatory affairs side of things. In fact, in case there are many students who are listening to this, that is an extremely high-demand career move, and they [regulatory affair specialists] get paid quite handsomely. If that's something that you would consider pursuing, I would highly recommend it because every company who's doing any human work is going to need to do clinical trials. It's a nonstarter. It's in such high demand and such low supply right now that we actually have a very difficult time filling those positions in the startup companies that we incubate.

JG: As someone who works in the biotechnology industry, and has worked managing clinical trials and regulatory affairs, I can confirm that working in Regulatory Affairs is a great job.

Innovation Hubs Globally

Are these sorts of hubs popping up all over the world?

NQ: We've talked a little bit about what this looks like in Canada and the US, North America-centric standard. But is this what we're also seeing globally? Is this the trend for scientific research everywhere?

NN: I don't know fully what's going on in Europe and other countries in terms of this transition away [from basic research]. I would say globally, we are definitely seeing more and more cities and jurisdictions using incubators and support for life sciences companies as an economic diversification plan. In essence, that's what Innovate Calgary and the Life Sciences Innovation Hub are set up to do.

Calgary, or Alberta, in general, is very heavily reliant on the oil and gas industry for a lot of the revenue that we generate. Given the fate of the oil and gas industry in the next 20 or 30 years, I think most governments are starting to recognize this and starting to diversify, and not just oil and gas, and in other cities it might be other industries like manufacturing.

Those cities see life sciences as a huge opportunity because, in most universities, a big chunk of the research revenue goes to the medical school to do medical research. Because of that, it also generates the most IP and translational ideas. To capitalize on that and not have the companies leave to go to other jurisdictions after you've made this huge investment into their research, you have to set up centers like the Life Sciences Innovation Hub to encourage these companies to stay and do their research and hopefully be successful locally.

JG: Biotech as a sector is growing, fundamentally because of where pharma invests. And pharma isn’t just the US. For instance, Takeda is in Japan, GlaxoSmithKline is in the UK. There are plenty of other companies that aren’t US-centric. Many international companies. How incubators work is a little variable. There are some that are more state-based, so the state will incubate it [the initial idea] out so the state gets the licensing agreement versus Harvard, for example, the private university. But there is that “bridge need”. Whether it’s through the university, an explicit incubator there, or through a third party, it is a growing field because you have to get these biotechs up and running to get funding. And those funders are still angels and venture capital investors until you get to an IPO [initial public offering], which is a stock offering of some form. But you have to get there, and get by until you do, and that’s the game.

How Monetization of IP Works

Are scientists recognized for their startups?

NQ: You were saying scientists aren't necessarily recognized for their startups and for having IP in terms of their promotions or in faculty positions. What monetarily is in it? How does that tend to work if a scientist is behind an idea? Obviously, they've commercialized it with a university. How does that tend to work?

NN: It varies from university to university based on their IP policy. At the University of Calgary, we have one of the most entrepreneur-friendly IP policies across the country. We just take a flat percentage of the company. It's extremely low. That really has been vetted with all the investors that we work with and with the local accelerators that we work with. That whole agreement was done in collaboration with these groups so that it is acceptable.

A lot of times what we find is the tech transfer office, which almost every university has, puts together an agreement for a startup company that ultimately stands in the way of that startup company raising money because of all the clawbacks and provisions that they put in there.

So we've created our documents, all of the agreements that we have, in collaboration with investors. We make sure we are never in the way of commercialization. I think, in terms of getting money back, if you own a big chunk of the company as an inventor or as a faculty member, and the company is successful, that's where you will stand to benefit.

Of course, entrepreneurship is about taking risks. There's no guarantee that you'll make any money. You're going to put all of this time and effort, and ultimately, your startup might fail. That's why I think it's actually not for everybody because very few people are willing to necessarily take that risk.

The caveat is that most of the time, we find that it's not the faculty member themselves whose lab generates the IP that ultimately ends up running the startup company. They can sit back, continue their day jobs as scientists at the university, and act as a chief technical officer at the company in more of an advisory role. Instead, it would be one of their students who would then go and run the company.

The programs that we set up are to enable the students who are in that lab who just graduated with a postdoc and think, “I don't know what to do with my life,” to run these companies. They're usually quite passionate about becoming entrepreneurs, but they may not necessarily have a direct path to becoming faculty at a different university. Those people, when they go to create those startup companies, we try and support them and then ultimately, hopefully, they become commercially successful.

Founding a Startup

Where's the end game for most of these academic startups?

JG: Where do you think they end up going? If their clinical trials succeed. Let's say I can really cure that left ear cancer.

NN: We find that most companies and most entrepreneurs that we work with can really take a company to Phase 1, maybe Phase 2, and then it starts getting very sophisticated and complicated. By then, they've had so much investment into the company that the shareholders are completely different from the shareholders that they started with. So the board will typically appoint a new CEO who's perhaps a little bit more seasoned and has some experience to really take a company to Phase 2 and Phase 3.

Once that happens, typically what that CEO will do is look for it to get acquired. They're looking to exit out. By the middle to end of Phase 2, if things look promising, most of these companies are looking to get acquired by the big pharma companies who have deep enough pockets to fund a level three study.

At the end of the day, that isn't fantastic because it means, in Canada, we're not necessarily incubating all of these successful local companies that are going to bring economic development to the jurisdictions that “raised them,” if you will.

But at least the founders and whoever were involved do get a chunk of cash. Maybe now that they have some experience with their first startup, they can go and run a second startup. Like I said, because entrepreneurship tends to be a personality trait, even if you make tons of money after your first startup was successful, most of these people will actually go on and form a second startup, not because they necessarily need the money, but because they're passionate about it, because they love doing it. So you get these serial entrepreneurs who keep giving back to the community.

Starting a Career in Commercialization

What career advice would you give somebody if they want to be one of you?

NQ: Sometimes the reality is that when we finish grad school, we don't know what to do with ourselves. It doesn't sound like you have a unicorn role. It sounds like this is something that's popping up everywhere.

NN: My master's supervisor used to always say, “Grad studies is like the snooze button for life. You finish your undergrad, you're not quite ready to move on, you hit snooze, do a master's. You're still not quite ready to move on, hit snooze, do a PhD.” Obviously, that's very generalized. There are lots of people who are very passionate about science, but it tends to be that way for many people.

But I think for those people, the advice I would give is if you're thinking about spinning out of academia, start today. Don't wait until you're writing your PhD thesis, master's thesis, and say, “I'll figure it out once I graduate.” That's too late. You need to start today. Start building up your network. Start attending events, especially if you want to go into the field I'm in where you're dealing with startups and the whole entrepreneurial ecosystem.

There are so many events that you could be showing up to. One, it's free food. For a grad student, that tends to bring people out. But it's your chance to meet people and expand your network. There's actually a book called Your Network Is Your Net Worth. It's absolutely true. Who you know is going to determine how successful you are. I know it can be really uncomfortable for grad students who are heads down working on their science and maybe not putting themselves out there in these kinds of situations. But you have to start networking. You have to start being able to cut into conversations and introduce yourself and what you're doing and what your aspirations are. Really get your foot in the door in a company that you want to work with any way you can.

How did you start at Innovate Calgary?

NN: I've been here for more than a decade now, but I started off as a volunteer and not even in the life sciences sector. When I was in the last year of my PhD and had decided not to go into academia, I thought, “I need to get something on my resume that's not academia.” I started volunteering at Innovate Calgary, profiling researchers in the energy sector. I knew I wanted to stay in Alberta, and I knew because we're so heavily reliant on the energy sector, I needed to put something in my resume that has the word “energy” in it.

started off as an energy technology analyst doing volunteer work without really thinking I was necessarily going to stay at Innovate Calgary. But ultimately, after six months, they started paying me instead of volunteering. Then, when I finished, they offered me a full-time gig. I think that was really lucky, and I was quite fortunate to have Innovate Calgary offer me that position.

But even if they hadn't, I thought, “Now I have at least one more line on my resume that distinguishes me from every other PhD that's graduating that's got the same academic credentials looking for a job.” A little bit of industry experience is better than nothing. That was the plan. It's all about getting things on there and making yourself known within the community.

Jason, how did you end up in industry after med school?

JG: When I was the Postdoc President at Penn, I was very involved in industry efforts. I was leading an industry symposium, bringing industry people in and going to other stuff to start building a network. I figured, even in an academic route, I'd spin out a company or two in my time. So I always knew it was in my path; I just wasn’t 100 percent sure how.

It was definitely about networking and just getting out there. Most universities have something like “talk to industry day.” I’d suggest starting there and then start going to stuff. Look at what's in the biotech sector where you are and what local meetups there are.

I should also say that I've done a good amount of hiring in the last few years, and I absolutely pull out my virtual Rolodex and look for people I want to hire. My very first hire was a grad student in the lab I was a grad student in. I knew that they had the skills I needed. And now, faculty will reach out to me and ask if I’m hiring or not, if they have someone interested in industry. Sometimes I'm not, but sometimes someone else in the company is. It really is who you know because the robots throw out the resumes, basically. You have to have the network.

NN: Because we work with so many startup companies, they will come to me and say, “Hey, do you know someone who would be good for this position?” And I'll just make a few recommendations of people who've come to me looking for jobs.

One of the things I always try to do is make time for anybody who reaches out. If there's ever a student at the university that asks, “Can we go for coffee?” No matter how busy I am, I always try to make time for those people. I try to keep that “Rolodex”, like Jason was saying, of people that I think are looking for jobs.

Then if a company comes to me and says, “Hey, I'm looking for this person,” I can say, “Here's a few,” and send them the resumes that I keep on file. That's been quite successful for a lot of the students who've talked to me.

NQ: I think the one thing I would add or maybe emphasize because it was already said. People can network and network and network, but ultimately, they also have to have the CV that backs them up. You could have a great group of people around you, but you still need to gain the skills so that you will be successful in a role, even once you get the role.

Both of you highlighted how you started off in volunteer positions. In my career, I didn’t necessarily have the same experience, but I was editing academic journal articles for non-English-speaking scientists, and I was doing that for bread and butter. That was just basically to help me through grad school. But that ended up being the little tiny edge I needed to get the job I wanted. Then I built my skills from there within STEMCELL. I think those are great tips on how to ultimately find your passion and find your path.

Final Words of Advice

Any general advice for grad students looking for careers outside of academia?

NN: I would say there’s this whole sunk cost idea of, “Well, I've spent 10 years doing grad studies, and now I feel pressured to go into academia.” I think you just need to let that go. It's still a worthwhile investment. It's still worthwhile to do that, but really don't be afraid to explore other careers and get out there, find out what's even out there.

To be honest, even the position I'm in now, I didn't even know this position existed. It kind of didn't, but at the time, it did exist in other cities. Really figure out what you could be doing outside of academia.

I feel like most faculty members, at least in my experience, and maybe this is an overgeneralization, but they don't expose their students enough to what's outside of academia. That's a huge disservice to the students that they deal with because all they ever do is encourage you to continue academia, do a postdoc, and get a faculty position somewhere.

And I can't blame them because they themselves have known nothing outside of academia, they themselves did a master's, PhD, and got an academic position; it's hard to tell people what's out there when you yourself don't know what's out there. It really becomes incumbent on the actual students themselves to go and explore and see the whole world outside of the university and where they could be.

Nima, Jason, could either of you do the job you're doing now without the academic training you had?

JG: Absolutely not.

NQ: I couldn't do my job without the academic training I've had either.

NN: I studied cardiac development. While I don't apply those specific skills to what I'm doing, the general concepts and knowledge that I have and the confidence you gain in terms of your knowledge base, I think is super important because I can talk to almost any company and basically understand what they're doing relatively quickly.

You can find Dr. Nima Najand on LinkedIn.

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