{"id":6208,"date":"2021-08-05T13:33:30","date_gmt":"2021-08-05T13:33:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/?page_id=6208"},"modified":"2023-05-08T14:35:30","modified_gmt":"2023-05-08T14:35:30","slug":"embl-in-the-united-kingdom-2016","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/alumni\/embl-in-events\/embl-in-united-kingdom\/embl-in-the-united-kingdom-2016\/","title":{"rendered":"EMBL in… the United Kingdom 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Participants at Trinity Hall College
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Programme
Poster<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Amelie Baud, Ewan Birney, Nicholas Furnham
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More than 70 UK-resident alumni and their networks were hosted at Cambridge University\u2019s Trinity Hall College by EMBL-EBI Directors Ewan Birney and Rolf Apweiler. Inspiring projects were presented by a cross-section of EMBL alumni speakers as well as the EMBL-EBI Directors.
We caught up with two of them, Abel Ureta-Vidal and Louise Modis, now in industry to find out more.
See also interview with Angus Lamond.<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Abel Ureta-Vidal
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Abel Ureta-Vidal: Science, a training ground for entrepreneurs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Now<\/strong>: Co-founder, Eagle Genomics, Cambridge.
EMBL-EBI<\/strong>: Project leader, Birney group, 2001\u201307.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe skills you develop as a scientist \u2013 patience, persistence and resilience in the face of setbacks and failures \u2013 are fundamental to entrepreneurship,\u201d says Abel Ureta-Vidal, co-founder of Eagle Genomics \u201cMy aim was to join a big company for a change of scene, but I ended up starting my own,\u201d says Ureta-Vidal, who moved on from EMBL-EBI to industry by way of the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStarting your own business is about mindset: believing you can do it, seeing it like a job and jumping into it. When I started I knew nothing about business. I\u2019d done my PhD and worked in bioinformatics, a trendy field, but I didn\u2019t have the tools to start a company.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Location, location, location<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Location played no small part in Ureta-Vidal\u2019s career change. \u201cHere in Cambridge, you can do both academic and commercial research, and you get a lot of exposure to entrepreneurs, start-ups, role models,\u201d he says. \u201cThat is so valuable \u2013 if you don\u2019t have this kind of environment, you won\u2019t see the possibilities that may be open to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ureta-Vidal worked on the Ensembl genomic data resource for six years before acting as a consultant. He then joined forces with Eagle Genomics co-founder Will Spooner and grew the company from there. Eagle Genomics brings profound domain knowledge to big-data projects, not just solving problems for companies by creating technologies to prepare data for machine-learning, but empowering them to find their own way. \u201cWe work on the premise that our clients are not looking for a drill, but they\u2019re trying to make a hole,\u201d he explains. \u201cThey don\u2019t want to \u2018do big data,\u2019 or machine learning, but they want to reposition drugs, or identify the neutral microbiome so they can create a winning product.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hard graft pays off<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborations between start-ups and academia can be tricky because the legal environment is complex, but there is a lot to be gained from informal interactions, says Ureta-Vidal whose company moved to the Wellcome Genome Campus this summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou shouldn\u2019t worry too much about giving your ideas away,\u201d he says. \u201cThere is so much more to making something profitable \u2013 you should worry more about whether you\u2019re up for a lot of hard work, and learning some very hard lessons about risk, collaborations and IP.\u201d Ureta-Vidal believes all scientists should receive basic business education and gain hands on experience. His top advice to budding entrepreneurs? \u201cStart earlier than I did, when it\u2019s not so hard to take risks, and don\u2019t ever get too comfortable. You\u2019ve got to prepare for the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what\u2019s the next step for Ureta-Vidal? \u201cAfter eight years, I am looking into new possibilities,\u201d he smiles. \u201cI\u2019m finally able to step back and watch the company function on its own. That is something I\u2019m really proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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Louise Modis

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Louise Modis: Connecting ideas and discovery<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Now<\/strong>: Scientific Director, Immunology Network, GSK, Stevenage.
EMBL Heidelberg<\/strong>: Predoctoral Fellow, Developmental Biology, Graf group, 1995\u20139.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EMBL alumna Louise Modis is a driving force in GSK\u2019s Immunology Network, a fresh take on commercial-academic collaboration. \u201cBridging the gap between ideas and discovery is what we\u2019re trying to do, and that takes challenging one another more,\u201d says Modis, whose experience as an EMBL PhD student brought home the importance of defending questions rigorously. \u201cWe can\u2019t do it without an interdisciplinary community because there\u2019s only so much any one of us can know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Creative communities<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Modis is actively involved in the GSK Immunology Network, which provides a new way for researchers working in companies and academic settings to collaborate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter leaving EMBL I assumed I\u2019d only be able to find the kind of collaborative, questioning environment I\u2019d enjoyed so much at EMBL at an academic institute. But I have found such an environment throughout my experience in the sector \u2013 first at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, then at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, and now at GSK,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the May 2016 EMBL Alumni event in Cambridge, Modis stressed the importance of gaining experience in both commercial and academic sectors. For example, the Immunology Network features a sabbatical programme (the Immunology Catalyst) at GSK where researchers with big ideas can spend a percentage of their time, benefiting from GSK\u2019s science, resources and technologies to pursue interesting questions in ways they couldn\u2019t easily achieve in their academic labs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing co-located makes a huge difference because it\u2019s so much easier for people to keep asking each other tough questions, which makes the research better,\u201d says Modis. \u201cAt EMBL it was easy to ask, \u2018Why not?\u2019 We were working together constantly in this creative and collaborative environment, and it was taken as read that we were working towards a common goal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making a difference<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industry needs more \u2018constructive disruptors\u2019, says Modis, to achieve breakthroughs. \u201cThe immunology network is pre-competitive, and provides a way for researchers with very different styles and approaches to work on innovative ideas in the same physical space,\u201d she adds. \u201cThat\u2019s how we\u2019re going to achieve breakthroughs that lead to better-designed medicines, and solutions that make a difference in people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Mary Todd Bergmann<\/em><\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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