nature immunology volume 10 number 3 march 2009 227

Ross M. Kedl is in the Department of Immunology,

National Jewish Health, University of Colorado

Denver, Denver, Colorado 80262, USA. e-mail: ross.kedl@uchsc.edu

ciples of the transition process first requires a relatively accurate picture of what corporate science is like, so first it is important to dispel some rather entrenched corporate myths.

One of the first comments I heard after accepting my industry position was that the only scientists who work in industry are those who could not get a ‘real job’ in academia. That statement is so obviously false, for so many reasons, it almost does not merit a response. It might just as easily be said that people only take academic positions because they are hid-ing from the ‘real world’ (an idea expressed by many of my corporate colleagues). A more concrete rebuttal, however, is that companies do not want and cannot afford the ‘dregs’ of the scientific community. The average corpo-rate job posting has anywhere from 50 to 500 applicants; it would be nonsense to suggest that a company would choose the least com-petent of those.

Another rumor bandied about is that post-doctoral training is not required for a job in industry. This idea is surprisingly common, probably because there was a time when skip-ping post-doctoral training for a corporate position was more typical. A cursory look at today’s corporate advertisements, how-ever, shows that the average position actually requires more, not less, post-doctoral expe-rience than an academic position does. This is mostly because each company is looking for a specific skill set from the applicant that may take more time or diversity of research experience to acquire. As an obvious corol-lary of the previous corporate myth, when the competition for these positions is so high, why would the company take the least experienced person?

sector, as well as (hopefully) some insight for those wishing to return to academia.

Corporate mythsLet me first say that were I to attempt to describe the ‘industry’ of science solely on the basis of my experience of it, it would be much like the proverbial blind man trying to describe an elephant after only having had the briefest encounter with its ear. I suspect that there are as many experiences in the industry of science as there are scientific industries. To suggest that mine encompasses or approxi-mates even a small portion of these would be sheer lunacy. It is not possible to provide an accurate comparison of all pharmaceuti-cal positions to academic appointments, and therefore, no such comparison will be forth-coming. Furthermore, it is not my intent to pen the scientific equivalent of Tales from the Crypt, providing tips on how to avoid the ‘menace of middle management’ and survive the industrial experience. Contrary to what is often told to students during their matricula-tion through graduate alma maters and post-doctoral institutions, industry is not the ‘dark side’, it is not a ‘waste of talent’ and it is not a ‘dead end’. It is to this last point my obser-vations are probably more relevant and most worth relating.

My credentials for offering this insight are admittedly minimal; after my post-doctoral training, I went into industry for three years as a senior scientist and then returned to a faculty position in academia. I was left with a set of impressions of what corporate life is and what it is not, as well as what is important in making the transition between academia and industry. Appreciating the important prin-

Depending on the survey used, only 20–30% of science graduates in the US who stay

in science will ever go on to hold a faculty appointment in an academic research institu-tion. This is due to a variety of reasons, but it means that roughly 70–80% of all science PhD recipients fortunate enough to be employed in science research move to the industrial sector. Of course, nearly 100% of PhD candidates are trained in academic institutions, many of which hold ideas about the industrial sector that are antiquated and border on the para-noid. Therefore, the vast majority of graduate students today are being trained and educated in an environment that often has, at best, little information (and at worst, bad information) about the sector in which they are most likely to be employed.

In my brief career, I have been fortunate enough to be a part of both camps, transi-tioning from life as a corporate scientist back into a faculty position at a university. I often get surprised looks and remarks from other scientists, both corporate and academic, that the direction of this transition is the reverse of what most perceive to be the usual. Actually, most scientists in training will be pleased to hear that this is not as unusual as it once was; the scientific community is now much more tolerant of a variety of nontraditional career paths winding through the more usual road-ways of industry and academia. The goal of this commentary is to provide some information to those pondering a future in the corporate

Revolving doors: from academia to industry and back againRoss M Kedl

Is it possible to return from the industrial sector back to academia? Although academic scientists have traditionally perceived this to be akin to winning the Nobel prize, the personal experience of Ross Kedl suggests that the reality is something quite different altogether.

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scientific freedom. The more discoveries made in uncharted intellectual property territory, the better it is for the company, thus providing further incentives for corporate management to allow unfettered exploration of these scien-tific realms. However, the company eventually does require an actual product of some sort to market, and this product can be made only from information in its patent portfolio. This creates an important link between the science and the product market, a link that admittedly does not exist in academia, where one buys, sells and trades in information, not products. Because the company’s assessment of the mar-ket can change even faster than the science, there is a good chance that a project will be terminated before the research is completed, not because the science has ‘dried up’ but because the market has. It is mainly for this reason that many academics see the corporate sector as a ‘scientific penitentiary’.

Finally, it is generally believed that once one is in the corporate world, it is impossible to leave. This is probably the most believable myth because until recently, it has been gen-erally true. Corporate positions have typically been taken at one of two times in a career: at the beginning or at the end. If an industrial position was not taken immediately after post-doctoral training (or even right out of graduate school, which was a more common occurrence 10–20 years ago), a more advanced researcher might do a stint in academia before becoming disillusioned with the publication and grants ‘game’ and seeking a corporate position. In rarer cases, a world-renowned academic with an established career might be offered a posi-tion as a department head of a big company later in life. Either way, it was a bit like a ‘roach motel’: you go in but you don’t come out. It is somewhat gratifying be able to state that the terminal nature of corporate employment has changed for a variety of reasons.

‘Retrograde transition’ to academiaAbout a year and a half into my corporate career, I realized I wanted to emigrate back into academia, and I chose a variety of approaches to try to make this happen. Some of these approaches were useful for my ‘retrograde tran-sition’, whereas others probably were not, and as I look back on the experience, three basic principles and a handful of specific actions stand out as being important in facilitating my return to academia.

These principles I believe are universal, as they apply to any career destination, academic or industrial. The first is that who you know matters: get to know the ‘movers and shakers’ in your field of research. Although everyone wishes they were living in a true meritocracy,

sharing, salaries are fairly commensurate for academic and corporate positions. And in the present economic environment, profits are minimal. Over time there can be economic benefits to corporate positions, but times are uncertain and no one works for the same company for their whole career anymore, which often makes a corporate position the greater economic risk. The bottom line is that no one enters biological science research for money, whether corporate or academic.

The most common concern among aca-demics is that scientific freedom is limited in the corporate world. This is not so much a myth as it is a misunderstanding of the word ‘freedom’, and it is best dispelled by exposure of the (erroneous) unspoken assumption that there is unlimited scientific freedom in aca-demia. In the history of the National Institutes of Health, I have never seen a Request for Application, Request for Proposal or Program Announcement requesting cutting-edge research on whatever topic the investigator deemed interesting. Private funding sources are even more restrictive in their goals, requir-ing the investigator to apply their research to a specific disease target. Thus, there is in actual fact no such thing as unlimited scientific free-dom anywhere, short of being independently wealthy and funding yourself.

That being said, research done in indus-try is clearly targeted toward its intellectual property; that is, what the company owns and can sell. Failure to do so would result in little profits and, ultimately, bankruptcy. Under the umbrella of a company’s existing intellectual property, and outside of anyone else’s intel-lectual property, there is actually tremendous

Of course, the classic criticism of industry is that ‘real science’ is done only by academ-ics. To dispel this myth, I need only mention that PCR, the Nobel prize–winning technique that has transformed the face of biological sciences as it is known today, was originally developed at Perkin-Elmer. Many other tech-niques, methods and scientific facts have also been developed or discovered in the corporate sector. Indeed, many of them probably could have been developed only in the corporate sector. Yes, the goals of the science are often different for industry, but it is usually still considered ‘hard-core’ science nonetheless.

Corporate scientists often have the reputa-tion of being ‘automatons’, doing menial tasks such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays all day. Actually, I have run far more enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, and done far more menial laboratory jobs in general, since returning to academia. During my company years, I had technicians to do all these things for me; it was luxurious. Eventually, many procedures became fully automated and did not even require a technician. Because phar-maceutical companies usually spend a lot of time and money on their scientists, they prefer to take advantage of a scientists’ skills in making important decisions rather than paying them to do menial jobs that a techni-cian or robot could do. Of course, there are always parts of any job description that can be unpleasant, but this is an occupational haz-ard of that thing called ‘employment’, whether corporate or academic!

Another common misconception is that taking a corporate position is ‘selling out’ for money. Aside from stock options and profit

Crossing from academia to industry was considered a one-way street. Now research scientists can move from academia to industry and vice versa with relative ease.

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had almost expired and that had even been the subject of previous publications. If no other aspects of the data were patentable, then by using such compounds, I was obtaining data that were already more likely to pass the patent attorneys’ ‘litmus test’ and be published. These kinds of data were the backbone of what I pre-sented at meetings, in papers and, ultimately, at university recruitment seminars.

Finally, find ways to leverage the corporate position to maximize networking opportuni-ties. Every company will have some unique technique, compound, drug, process, tech-nology and so on to which the rest of the scientific community has limited access. This uniqueness can be leveraged to a researcher’s advantage. Communicate with the ‘movers and shakers’ in that field and form whatever kind of collaboration is possible. In my case, the company had a family of new immune-stimulatory compounds that at the time were unavailable to the rest of the scientific com-munity. I was able to engage the interest of many people in the field simply because I could help them gain some degree of access to these compounds. It also helped that I was in charge of arranging speakers for my depart-ment seminars and could, in the same phone call, invite them to give a seminar with a sub-stantial corporate honorarium attached to it. This greater exposure to the scientific com-munity helped improve my recognition and credibility and was an important asset when I began ‘shopping’ for an academic position.

Preparation favors the revolving doorNo one would dispute that Pasteur was right in saying “chance favors the prepared mind.” Everyone has had the experience of chance playing a large part (larger than most are comfortable with) in the course of their sci-entific career. However, it is good to be living, and doing science, when preparation favors so many opportunities in the sciences, both academic and industrial. The wall that once existed between the industrial and academic sectors is now much more of a revolving door. Although this door does not rotate freely, it is keyed on some basic principles and actions that do not require the scientific equivalent of a safecracker to follow, as my experience has proved. These principles are no guarantee, but should the chance arise, they certainly seem to favor the desired outcome.

rule was that smart people usually have more ideas than those the company is working on at present, and freeing the scientists’ time for independent research often opens up new areas of intellectual property. A surprising number of ‘blockbuster’ products from my former company were a result of research initiated under this rule. Many companies have a simi-lar policy, and this kind of freedom can result in publishable research.

Once the amount of personal research time is established, choose at least some projects that are already covered under existing patents. Often, studies investigating the mechanism of action of a particular drug or compound fall under this heading because a company will usually patent the utility of a given inven-tion or compound long before the company understands why or how the invention or com-pound works. As long as it is deemed safe and has some efficacy, the company will endeavor to move it into clinical application and work out its mechanism of action much later down the line. In such a case, the company usually not only allows publication but also encour-ages it to increase the scientific credibility of the new product without compromising intel-lectual property rights. A well-chosen project yields publications for the researcher and more credibility for the company, clearly a ‘win-win’ situation for both parties.

It is also necessary to take into consider-ation which company materials are pub-lishable and which are not. For example, in the company that employed me, there were compounds in certain patent classes that were strictly ‘off limits’ for publication until at least 18 months after the filing of a patent application, the point at which the applica-tion was published and in the public domain. As a result, any experiments done with those protected compounds could not be presented to the public in any way, at least not for 18 months or more. I realized very quickly that if I had to wait that long before I could publish anything, I would either never get around to it or someone else would have already published something similar.

My way to circumvent this was to always include a set of older compounds in most experiments, whose results I could publish. These were compounds that had activity simi-lar to that of the newer compounds, that had been around for a long time so their patent life

the reality is that networking is important for any career and science is no exception. The contacts or collaborators of today may be future recruiters tomorrow.

Second, passivity is never an asset; always plan ahead. Nothing will happen without some kind of prior preparation on your part. Although it is true that the ‘best laid plans of mice and men often go awry’, a lack of pro-activity is guaranteed to get you nowhere. Post-doctoral planning should begin in the second year of graduate school, and the post-doctoral project chosen will usually determine a researcher’s future career trajectory.

Third, support the company but follow the science; ultimately, the science will take care of the researcher. If and when they leave a com-pany, the only thing researchers take with them is their scientific reputation. This was a prin-ciple I saw in action during and after my cor-porate stint, as the company I was with closed two years after I left. Having a good corporate reputation serves a researcher only as long as there is a company. Maintaining a solid scien-tific reputation serves one well both in and out of the corporate environment. Whether you are changing jobs in the corporate world (as everyone does many times in a corporate career these days) or transitioning back to academia, it is necessary to maintain a good scientific reputation in the ‘outside world’.

The first two points are straightforward in both principle and in application. The third point, although obvious in principle, is a bit more complex in application. Maintaining a good external scientific reputation while serv-ing all the necessary internal company goals can be a bit more difficult. In the final analysis, the only real way to maintain a good scientific reputation outside the company is to publish as much as possible. When the company’s first goal is to patent, not to publish, this becomes a bit more complicated but is by no means impossible, and there are even ways in which the corporate structure can help.

Using the corporate structureFinding out what kind of independent time a company is prepared to give researchers is important. The company that employed me had what they called a ‘10% rule’, whereby 10% of every employee’s time was supposed to be free for doing whatever research they found interesting and engaging. The idea behind this

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