I had a friend who described his career path as “blown through life sideways.” While I’d like to think that I’ve been more self-directed than that, opportunity came from unexpected directions.

As I progressed through grad school and my postdoctoral training, I became both engrossed and inspired by my basic research, but there was always a lingering thought that I had diverged from my original intention: production of therapeutics for unmet human disease. This therapeutic direction had always been there, and as I considered the immediacy of the impact of my work, I gave serious consideration to industry scientist jobs in fast moving startups / small biotechs  where I could directly contribute to new medicines.