Authors: Afsana Trini1, Arkadeep Sinha2, Evan Cimino3, Kavitha Akula1, Vibha Jawa1, Kelly Pham4
1Translational Sciences & Diagnostics, Bristol Myers Squibb, Lawrenceville, NJ, USA, Affiliation
2Bioanalytical Sciences, Upstream Bio, Boston, MA, Affiliation
3Independent Researcher, Affiliation 4: Merck, PA, USA
“Will I ever become someone like them? How did they get to where they are now?”- questions like these kept swirling in my mind young mind as I was watching the keynote speakers and leaders were providing speech and engaging with auditorium filled with Scientists in PharmSci 360 in year 2018. I was a graduate student at that time who had little to no industry knowledge. This is probably a common story of most of the graduate students and young scientists who are just trying to step in to the industry. Early Career Bioanalytical Scientists (ECBS) was formed under the AAPS’s bioanalytical community to support and empower bioanalytical scientists who are at the beginning of their professional journeys. In this article, we will discuss the vision of ECBS and how it is supporting the young or early career scientists to grow by continuous learning and create a network for them.
The Unique Challenges of career growth in Pharmaceutical Science
Issues faced by young scientists in the industry
Success requires a deep understanding of the complexity and specialized nature of that field. For a continuously evolving field like pharmaceutical sciences, it is even more paramount with technology evolving at an extremely fast pace. Keeping pace with the changes and figuring out the best way to grow in your careers could be challenging, especially for early career scientists. Having a network of like-minded scientists and mentors can provide us the opportunity to grow, facilitate collaboration, and make connections to help these scientists along their scientific journey. Recognizing the unique challenges faced by individuals early in their careers, the ECBS community aims to provide a nurturing environment where growth, innovation, and collaboration are at the forefront.
What ECBS is and what we do
Within ECBS, there are three tracks. It tries to bring together innovators with expertise in pharmacokinetic bioanalysis, immunogenicity, and biomarkers monthly to discuss various topics and well as troubleshoot the challenges they are facing. As co-leads of ECBS, we understand the importance of fostering a culture of innovation and being adaptable to new technologies and methodologies in the bioanalytical field. Therefore, ECBS is a forum where the scientists in their early career can have a place to ask simple question. For the past couple of years, the ECBS co-leads have tried to address topics from the three parent groups, with topics ranging from how the PK data generated is utilized downstream for modeling, best practices and troubleshooting for immunogenicity assays, and latest advances in biomarker technologies. In addition, ECBS also had a few sessions on the use of AI in bioanalytical sciences. We meet once each month (4th Friday of each month) and discuss about any general issues/topics that the audience are interested in discussing. The meetings are sometimes very casual where scientists just share how their workdays have passed and what challenge they are facing day to day. Additionally, we have mentors in this community who provides valuable guidance and recommendation in the meeting. In year 2023-24, we want to applaud our mentors, Dr Vibha Jawa, Dr Seema Kumar, and Dr Mark Ma for their support and engagement.
Topics presented in ECBS
With ever changing landscape of science, the role of bioanalytical scientists is evolving day by day. Now, a bioanalytical scientists’ knowledge is not just limited to quantitative measurements of drug, its metabolites, and biomarkers; it has expanded to having a good knowledge of DMPK. Together, DMPK and bioanalysis provide a comprehensive understanding of a drug's pharmacokinetic profile, ensuring its efficacy and safety for clinical use. With this vision, ECBS has hold a lecture series with 5 webinars on DMPK in year 2023-24. This webinar series was designed for scientists not well versed in pharmacokinetics and was introduced to introduce key principles of DMPK. Our speakers, Dr Vibha Jawa, Dr Seema Kumar, Bonnie Wang, Dr Jiangbo Tang, and Dr Azadi Glareh discussed foundational PK topics such as clearance, exposures, and bioavailability, underscoring their significance in drug development. In the most recent webinar, few advanced topics were discussed, such as: how studying translational PK/PD of antibodies across different species can help predict optimal dose in human.
Machine learning and AI: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly making its mark on the pharma and biotech companies to overcome high drug development cost and to enhance the efficiency, accuracy, and depth of data analysis. In this changing landscape, ECBS understood the importance of including AI and machine learning (ML) related webinars for its community member. ECBS hosted 4 webinar lecture series on AI/ML in 2024 featuring mentors in AI/ML field in Pharm: Dr Stephanie Pasas-Farmer, Dr Vibha Jawa, and Dr Shengnan Du. While first webinar was focused on overall possibility of AI/ML use in Bioanalysis, later webinars were focused on the data needs for different AI/ML approaches, and how mining existing preclinical data can provide better insight for Clinical trials. We also learnt about a real-world use of AI/ML models in cancer. There was an engaging general discussion among the ECBS members where they shared their experience of using ChatGPT and AI/ML in the workplace.
Additionally, ECBS also hosted lecture series on ADA cut point analysis by Carol Gleason and Jeff Sailstad. Evaluation of Design of Experiment in neutralizing antibody assay development for multi-domain drugs was discussed by Gurleen Saini. An exploratory clinical miRNA biomarker research work was presented by Saran Ayyadurai by using Nanostring’s nCounter platform.
Effective Communication and Collaboration
ECBS provides a platform to young scientists to have clear and effective communication among research community. By just attending the meeting, a member can learn through Tips: active listening, simplifying complex ideas, and understand where to start the learning process in a new field. Sometimes, co-leads bring questions from their lab/ AAPS community and discuss the opinions with other scientists. As co-leads, we developed some leadership skills such as how to organize meetings and how to communicate with people outside your company/comfort zone. Because, let’s face it, awkward silence in meetings like this is not uncommon. As young scientists, we learnt how to Fill in the blank spaces in a meeting, keeping the audience engaged, and reaching out to speakers for presenting. We are able to now form connection with other young scientists and mentors across east coast and west coast. Beyond connections, the members know the overall drug development process/ landscape. By simply asking a question, you can have exposure to the mentors/ senior leaders in the industry. Through ECBS, few of our members got chance to present their work outside their organizations, and ECBS was just the stepping tool to build their confidence.
Join ECBS
As the year 2024 is ending, we would like to call for new members, from graduate students to early career scientists to join our organization. In year 2025, we would like to work to help our graduate students in their career development. If you do not consider yourself as a young scientist, but an experienced scientist, you are still welcome to join our organization as your input and guidance will be valuable to us.
Please reach out to our co-leads of 2025 to be a part of ECBS:
Shivangi Awasthi
Saran Ayyadurai
Pooja Khanna
Join ECBS, together we grow and lead!