A Day In The Life Of An Associate Scientist At EMD Serono
A typical day for an Associate Scientist at EMD Serono involves prioritizing tasks, "checking on reactions" run overnight, troubleshooting failures through literature reviews and discussions with colleagues, and purifying successful products. The workday, lasting roughly nine hours, balances hands-on lab work with collaborative discussions, which Matthew describes as helpful for problem-solving, ensuring experiments are set up for overnight productivity, and maintaining a clean and safe workspace.
Problem-solving, Teamwork, Laboratory Techniques, Time Management, Troubleshooting
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Matthew Bleich
Associate Scientist
EMD Serono
Hamilton College 2018
UCLA Anderson Full-Time MBA
Humanities, Chemistry, Philosophy
Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical
Research and Development (R&D)
Took Out Loans
Video Highlights
1. The importance of time management and planning in the role.
2. Troubleshooting experiments, including literature reviews and discussions with colleagues.
3. The collaborative nature of the work, including casual discussions with colleagues to brainstorm solutions and share updates on projects
Transcript
What does a day in the life of your role look like?
Every day is a little bit different, but on a typical day, you'll show up and plan out your schedule. Time management is incredibly important in this role. You need to be able to think about what you can accomplish and what you can get done each day.
From there, you'll probably check on the reactions you ran overnight. You'll see which products were successfully made and which ones failed. For the ones that worked, you'll likely work them up, purify them, and figure out how much you made. You'll also see if you can drive those forward.
For the reactions that failed, you may have to start troubleshooting. This could involve setting up more reactions, doing a literature review, or holding discussions with colleagues.
In the morning, you're really just working on understanding what happened overnight. You figure out how to get your day going and what your endpoint will be. You have lunch with colleagues where you can discuss whatever you want. You might talk about what's been going on in your life, or you can be talking chemistry.
Sometimes, these low-pressure environments are the most helpful sessions. You just talk through what's working and what's not. Often, someone will have an idea why.
You go back in for the afternoon trying to get everything to a point where you're still productive overnight. You set up reactions in the afternoon that will run overnight because they take so long that it doesn't make sense to set them up during the day. You dry down all agents that might decompose, and you ensure your workspace is clean.
These days usually last about nine hours. So, you might start at 8 AM and be out by 5 PM.
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