Dr. Antonieta Salguero, PhD in Chemical Biology | Visiting Scientist Fellow- External Innovation|Genetic Medicine at Eli Lilly and Company

In this episode, we discuss what led Antonieta to pursue a PhD in Chemical Biology at Johns Hopkins, how her desire to have a direct impact on people’s lives impacted her career aspirations, and the importance of mentorship in her academic and professional journey and how she now pays this mentorship forward.

Hosted by Brooklyn Arroyo

Transcript

Brooklyn Arroyo

Hello I'm co-host Brooklyn Arroyo and this is 100 Alumni Voices podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Antonieta Salguero, PhD in chemical biology who is currently working as a visiting scientist at a pharmaceutical company. Welcome to The PHutures podcast. I'm so glad to work with you today and we we briefly talked about before recording, but we're happy it's Friday.

Antonieta Salguero

Yes, happy weekend.

Brooklyn Arroyo

So, I would love to jump in and hear about your experience prior to stepping into your PhD and what led you to want to study chemical biology.

Antonieta Salguero

Yes, thanks Brooklyn. So, I really like science from the beginning. I I was born and raised in Ecuador and moved to the US with my family when I was 18 years old. So right when I was about to start college, and I remember that at first, I wanted to study nutrition because I was really intrigued about how diet affects the body. And then I decided that what really was interested to me was the chemistry behind it. So, I switched my major to chemistry, and then when I transfer from the Community College to four-year university to the the University of Florida, I found the McNair program, which helped me understand that research could be my career path and helped me get into grad school and find my research mentor and eventually getting to the chemical biology program at Hopkins.

Brooklyn Arroyo

So, you stepped into that space and you decided that you wanted to participate in research and stay in academia and and so do you feel now still that academia is something that you want to pursue, that you're currently pursuing, or do you feel like you've sort of strayed away?

Antonieta Salguero

Yeah, so initially the reason that I wanted to do a PhD was because I love the research aspect of it. I really enjoy seeing the life of the graduate students in the lab that I was working at. It was very, very cool to think that you were getting paid to get a PhD and do research all day and be in the lab with your colleagues and just thinking about science and that was that was your whole life, basically. So that was really attractive to me, the fact that you were just interested in building knowledge and just thinking of the science in that way. But then later on, I discovered that what was really fulfilling for me was seeing the translational aspect of the work that I was doing and that didn't happen in academia very frequently. You normally just would work in a project and be the expert of that one thing that you were working on. But then after you published that you wouldn't see the impact that that would have on a person or on society or anything. You had to wait a long time for that to happen. You were just building knowledge for the sake of building it it felt like. So, I decided that after Graduate School I wanted to explore a career in the pharmaceutical biotech industry where I could be closer to that point where science becomes translational and it can affect somebody's life.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And I think that is an important point to talk about if if that's something that's powerful to you and and what really brings you your passion in your career. You know, I think that many people would be able to relate to that notion that you want to see a little bit of the fruits of your labor and see how your research would evolve and impact the world around you, like you said. And do you feel that within your time at the pharmaceutical company you're working at now, you've been able to see much of that much of the fruits of your labor or the impacts of this work?

Antonieta Salguero

So, this is actually my first job after the PhD. So, I am a visiting scientist fellow, but that's another way of saying postdoctoral fellow. So, I've been working at the in this position for about 10 months and I think that what I really have enjoyed is that I get to learn new things every day. So, during my PhD I was studying a specific protein and that that was the thing that I focused on. But now I get to learn about different therapeutic areas modalities and just very exciting science from all angles and that's what I really like and the fact that, you know, Pharma has a different way of thinking about how to even set up experiments, what our priorities and how this the strategy to bring medicines to patients, which is the ultimate goal. So, even though I'm not at the bench anymore doing the science, I do feel that by being in this industry I am getting closer to helping get science into patients and translating translating science into medicine.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Yeah, definitely. And so, you are relatively new to stepping away from academia then and I would love to hear if you felt that on a personal level or or level of your career, did you experience any transitional period where you had to adjust to this different space away from research and more on the pharmaceutical side?

Antonieta Salguero

So, I during during my PhD, I I was very lucky that my advisor was supportive of me exploring other alternatives to to bench work. So, I did a couple of different internships where I got to explore the business of side of science more. So, I kind of had that coming before coming in, but they definitely it changes how you interact with people, the different levels of collaboration that happen outside of academia, and while sometimes academia can also be a collaborative environment, it is very different when you have, you know, people that have so many different backgrounds and levels of expertise and come together to work on a project. It's even the way to communicate with people. I feel like it's very different than what it was in academia when I I still love to attend talks and we still collaborate with a lot of research scientists from academia, so I'm still very involved in what's going on. But I think that the level of collaboration is different. Also, the the pace at which projects move, work, move is very different as well. And so far, I've been enjoying that fast space and the change. There are also things that I miss about academia, which is that you can, you know, view your passionate about a certain area and depending on the environment of your lab, you can pursue your own ideas more freely, but that doesn't mean that you know you can't do that in industry if you have the support.

Brooklyn Arroyo

So, you spoke on a little bit of your experience with working within this team and having a little bit more diverse set of people that you were working with. And so, did you ever feel like you were stepping in and there were people who have been way more familiarized with what you're doing or way more prepared to be there? And did you ever experience that transition of am I sufficient enough to be working in this now and that sort of thing?

Antonieta Salguero

Yeah, so it can be a really or a little challenging because you know what I did in my PhD for the past six years was being a bench scientist and I don't do that anymore. So sometimes it does feel like I didn't have the experience that I maybe needed coming into this role, but that's what I love about the program that I’m in is a program that it's specifically designed to help people who have advanced degrees, like Pharm D or PhDs step into a role in industry. So, it's a one-year program and we're all putting different functions within the company and so I feel like I have the support from being part of that cohort and having my peers being on the same boat. And also, I think that I've been very fortunate to work with a lot of people who are passionate about mentorship and who are very kind with their time and help you get you exposed to to different things that will help you grow as a professional, especially in your first job. I feel like that's that's very that's been very important for me to have people that I can learn from that are willing to teach me and just to having a supportive environment that has been very important.

Brooklyn Arroyo

Definitely the the environment of a workplace or within academia even is extremely important for how we develop as professionals and just as people. And so you brought up mentorship and I would love to hear a little bit more about some of the experience you've had within mentorship and what that's looked like for you, how you would give advice to people who are hoping to have valuable mentorship opportunities for themselves and and how to go about fostering that?

Antonieta Salguero

Now, mentorship has been the most important part of my journey. I think that I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the many great individuals that I can call my mentors. And I think that in my experience, since I moved to the US and you know, when I moved here with my family and we didn't know anybody. So, it was a little tough at the beginning, but when I started to meet people, especially when I was at UF in the McNair program, we were set up with mentors who regularly would check in on us, and they were people who were part of the program before, who had already gone through through it, and it really helps because when you sometimes you don't know what you're getting into when you get into a PhD program and so having their advice, having gotten through at least the application process of being in the in the program before I even started helped a lot. And then also I think having professional mentors while in Graduate School is very important. So, I was for the SMDP program and I it was in 2017, so I I was going through a hard part within my PhD because my advisor decided to move the lab from Hopkins to Harvard, and so dealing with with that and you know everything that goes on in your second year when you're doing your qualifying exams. So, I was very lucky that I had my mentor, who I still keep in touch with now to ask for support. Like should I move? Should I not move? Those kinds of things that you know you, you you don't know until you experience those those difficult decisions. I think that having somebody who has experience in your field who has been through that it's really helpful. And now even more of being a new member of the industry, I still have a lot of people that I can talk to you about my career and about things that are important to me in that sense. I have a lot of other mentors. I've interest in other areas and they have helped me understand like the priorities, what I need to do, who should who I should learn from. And so, I think that it's very important to be able to expose yourself to those people and to also pay it back when you can. So, I I have a mentee now, which seems very crazy to me because, you know, I feel like I'm still learning myself, but I I feel like at this point I can also contribute to the professional growth of somebody else. So, I really enjoy that experience as well and I hope to to continue to be able to to be a mentor and a mentee as well.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And I think that’s something that academia teaches a lot of people and and one of the best lessons really is that we're constantly learning and we're always students of of the things around us, and so whether that means we have a mentee or a mentor or both, we're we're always going to be learning and growing from that. So, I think that that's really important to your idea of taking in those experiences you've had with those mentors and giving back in a way where you are now mentoring someone else. And so, advice would you have when it comes to doing that shift of always being the mentee and now you have someone who you are providing your expertise and providing your that sense of relationship to them and and how does that shift look when you have to sort of switch from those positions?

Antonieta Salguero

So, I always feel like I'm I'm super, super thankful for having mentors. So, when I think of, OK, like what, what do I love about having a mentor? And it's the fact that you know, I can I can come to them with questions that are very, very important for me. Like, oh, should I take this job or not? Should I, you know, what how should I pick a like a a mentor, like at work and things like that? So, things that I I think are very important decisions that I make it I like to talk to my mentors about that. So, I try to be open for my mentees to have that level of trust in me and to be available for them. So, I think that that's the way that I'm approaching it is just identify areas where I think I can be helpful and be open and establish a relationship where they can trust me and like they know that if they need me, I'm there and that's that's the the relationship that I have with my mentors and that's what I'm hoping to to provide now the other way.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And I think that that's a really powerful thing to keep in mind as a mentor to have that sort of safe environment with your with your mentee. And so, I think that you're definitely going to be able to provide that for them. So, within your career, if there is, if you even thought about it yet, what would the next phase look like and how do you go about achieving that?

Antonieta Salguero

So, I really what I really love about my job is that I get to learn a lot. I get to have interactions with my team internally, but also externally and learn about cool science and things that that are happening with like smaller companies. So, when I think about where I want my career to go, it's definitely in the direction of being able to identify companies that are doing groundbreaking work and be able to evaluate their science and understand what kind of experiments are important to figure out if they have a good chance to succeed. So, I think that, you know, the things that a Graduate School taught me about really being critical about how you would do control for experiments and and those kind of things, I still like, feel like I get to apply that when I think about science new science that I'm exposed to and how to evaluate whether or not the the approaches are are sound and and those kind of things.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And and you briefly brought this up, but I would love to pry just a little bit more how well you think that your academic experiences have prepared you for stepping into the pharmaceutical world and into seeing the implementation take place. Do you think that you've been well prepared within your research to now step into this new career and new area of work?

Antonieta Salguero

So, I think that, you know, even though I'm working in an area that was not very directly related to what I did in my PhD, I think that the most important transferable skill is the ability to learn quickly. And so, when I was doing grad school, I remember when I first started and I was thinking back on on that like that maybe first year is like I could have done what I did in my in the first year in like a month like towards the end of it because I was not the same person. And I had learned like technique, techniques and and how to do things more efficiently in the lab. So, I think that it definitely has helped in in this sense of being able to think more critically about why you do the experiments that you do and how you think about your project and think about the milestones that you need to achieve. So, definitely the critical thinking, the agility for learning new things and also the the ability to collaborate with with others. I think that those are the the most transferable or the most important transferable skills that I've learned and the things that I think I still need to work on is and the ability to communicate science to people who may only need to know, you know, certain things to be able to make a decision. So, I I notice that in a lot of the academic talks, people show all the data that they've ever gotten about for the project. And when I when I see maybe other talks that are more more geared towards like the decision making, they're a lot more concise and they're or a lot less details. And so, I think that I'm still learning how to shift from that like all the data goes in the presentation mentality and and to make it more succinct so only the important must be details are included.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And that's a good point to bring up that I think within any field really there's so much change depending on who you're talking to, the language that you would then use and and within all of STEM, depending on who you're bringing your research to your entire topic and your entire focus is going to be different. And you also brought up how though some of the most important things weren't necessarily even the chemistry or the science that you were learning within your PhD, but how academia teaches people how to think and how to work and and and that sort of thing. And I think that's really important to bring up definitely. So, our finale of each episode and and I think that I'm really excited to see how you'll take it is, is what inspires you right now?

Antonieta Salguero

So, I think that not just right now, but through my whole life, I think that what inspires me is my parents. So, I like I said, I grew up in Ecuador and I moved here when I was 18 years old. So, I was an adult, but also not really an adult. And just thinking about their lives and what they have accomplished in considering the obstacles they've overcome to do that and to and the that the motivation that they had to do that is so me and my brother could have better opportunities than they did have. It's the most inspiring thing to me and it is what drives me and what I think about when you know there's maybe an issue at work or an issue with anything. I gain strength, by knowing that I'm doing what I'm doing to make my parents proud because I really appreciate all the sacrifices that they made so that I could have a better future. So that is where I get my inspiration from.

Brooklyn Arroyo

And I think that's a very beautiful and relatable thing for many, many people too, not only the sense of family, but also coming to a new country and seeking something better that is extremely inspirational. And I've really enjoyed speaking with you today.

Antonieta Salguero

Thank you, likewise. Thank you so much for having me.