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Brent - Cancer Research Doctor
46 Plays1 year ago
Brent is a cancer research doctor who shares his early interest in science, research and DNA, all the way to his current role helping oversea cancer drug research trials.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Background
00:00:12
Speaker
Hey, folks, you're listening to the jobs podcast and I am your host, Tim Hendricks. Not going to waste your time by babbling on endlessly. Let's go ahead and get right to the interview today. We've got Brent with us. Brent is a cancer research doctor. This guy is a smart as attack. ah It's been my pleasure to know him for a number of decades. And he's going to tell us where he started, when his interest in science began, all the way to where he is now doing clinical trials for all kinds of cancer research.
00:00:41
Speaker
He's going to have to explain some of this stuff to me like I'm five, but he's a patient guy, so I think he'll do well. Hey, Brent, how you doing, man? Hey, Tim. I'm all right. It's Friday. Oh, I know. Ready for the weekend? Yes, very much. Good deal. Well, let's get
Childhood and Family Influences
00:01:00
Speaker
just started. um We'll just start right out of the bat by going with your childhood story, the places that you've lived, where you were born, family, just, you know, a general snapshot about who you are and where you've come from.
00:01:12
Speaker
Yeah, um I actually was able to live in a few different places. My dad worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service, so we kind of moved around a bit, but lived out in the country for a good chunk of my childhood, so that's been ah unique and fun. So I was born in Georgia, then moved to North Dakota, and then South Texas along the Gulf Coast, and then the panhandle of Oklahoma. All of those are pretty much in the country and then when I was in the summer of 7th grade between 7th and 8th grade, we moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico and finished high school there. That's kind of what I consider home. I like the Southwest and the mountains a lot. um What did your I'm assuming it was your dad. What did he do that caused you to move around so much? Well, he drank a lot and they got fired. and
00:02:06
Speaker
running from the law. A lot of packing in the middle of the night, I don't know. um No, he worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service, so he was though a lot of people don't aren't as familiar with them. They think, oh, he was a park ranger. So the Fish and Wildlife Service, we always explain it like the wildlife refuges for the animals in the parks are for people. So there's refuges all around the country for endangered species or whatever. So like in Texas, the refuge was set up for that endangered species, the whooping crane, that would migrate
00:02:40
Speaker
south and they would winter there on the refuge. So it literally like it sounds, it was a refuge for the animals to not be haunted or whatever. So just kind of a career ladder. Like he's, I think the in Minnesota or North, we lived in North Dakota. I think the refuge is in Minnesota across the border, but he um was like a wildlife biologist there.
Educational Journey and Career Inspiration
00:03:01
Speaker
And then he kind of moved up the ranks and was an assistant manager at the Texas one, which was a,
00:03:07
Speaker
a pretty big um refuge and so then he kind of ah got learned the chops and then the Oklahoma move was so he could be a manager of a smaller refuge and then kind of fortuitously like his career was such that he realized he needed to sort of put some time in the quote unquote corporate or the regional center in New Mexico. um And he also knew like all you know Texas and Oklahoma where I basically went to grade school was these tiny little towns of like ah K through 12 in one building. I had like 12, you know, third graders and that was the whole class. um So decent education, but I'm sure there was better opportunities. So it just worked out like by the time my older brother's 18 months older than me. And so by the time he was starting high school and I was in eighth grade, he thought it would be good to both for his career and for us to move to a bigger city to have better schooling. So it worked out nice.
00:04:03
Speaker
um I continued my migratory ways. ah You know, that's where I met you at Point Loma Nazarene College in San Diego. Finished there and then I went to graduate school in Tucson. I got my PhD in cancer biology and then moved to Denver to do my postdoctoral studies. And that's out of my childhood, so I guess I'll stop.
00:04:29
Speaker
When did you kind of think that you wanted to get into the line of work that you're in? Was there always an interest in the research aspect of science or was it the medicine or what kind of what what was your launching point? It's pretty defined actually. i mean Because my dad was a wildlife biologist and we grew up in nature, I kind of, you know, I am probably like everyone you're kind of, what do you want to do when you grow up? well I want to be what my dad is. So um I kind of thought that but really in high school I had a really good chemistry teacher and I was pretty interested in chemistry and took a couple of like independent classes. um But then what really crystallized where I'm at now was because
00:05:13
Speaker
um when you're a senior in high school, you can go visit that Point Loma College that I went to. And I pretty much, you know, knew that that's where I would want to go. Anyway, um my parents, I was raised in the church in Nazarene, and there's a few Nazarene churches or colleges around the country. But of those, the Point Loma had a pretty had kind of a better biology research. So even though I was like interested in chemistry, they also had good chemistry. So I kind of it was kind of a given looking back that that we I would probably go there. So senior year I went to visit and I sat in on a genetics class that was just starting a new chapter and um it really just blew me away. i' I've always tried to remember, I don't feel like in high school that like ah if we talked about DNA and RNA and stuff like that, i I really don't remember it. Like I said, I was pretty interested in chemistry.
00:06:06
Speaker
But Dr. Falk was the genetics professor that was teaching that day. And I still remember he talked, you can Wikipedia it, but there's a, it's called the lactose operon. And so lactose is just the sugar and bacteria basically don't waste resources trying to digest the sugar if they don't, you know, if the sugar's not around. So it was really,
00:06:26
Speaker
pretty neat um lecture about just, and it's very basic genetics, but just how the bacteria, um if it senses that there's lactose around, it turns on genes because the lactose actually binds to these proteins and sort of it turns it on and let's it digest the sugar that is now available. But just the way he described it and all that really, really was a turning point. so i ended up being a joint major of chemistry and biology, but really, but this biology and molecular biology and genetics was all kind of a spring point from that one genetics lecture
Advancements in Genetics and Molecular Biology
00:07:01
Speaker
I said. on That's the one that just kind of sparked the interest and the rest is, as they say, history. Yeah, pretty much. Okay.
00:07:09
Speaker
So now you're probably going to have to talk to me like I'm five when you start talking about DNA and RNA and all that kind of stuff. My eyes start to glaze over. I'm just a fireman. So I really don't understand a lot of that stuff. But I don't think see, we're both close to the same age, the big five. Oh, and when we were younger, genetics or ah RNA or the stuff that they're doing now with is it called CRISPR?
00:07:34
Speaker
acronym yeah was that even on was that even being looked at Was that even on the radar at all? No. Even when I was yeah learning all this stuff at Point Loma, let's just say in the early 90s, that was still not really on the radar. It's pretty crazy how much things have You know just more than balloon like exponentially increased in knowledge over the last 30 years um So no crisper and all that like, you know back back that here's here's a way to gauges so like the guy that invented PCR which nowadays like, you know high school and
00:08:16
Speaker
biology classes do this polymerase chain reaction, so basically it's like it's kind of like a little Xerox machine to make more copies of DNA. like that That's as exciting as having a refrigerator in your house um for for scientists, but the guy got a Nobel Prize for it in the mid-90s or so because it was just was you know before that. To make copies of DNA was very laborious and fraught with with difficulty. And, you know, so that was in the 90s. So even being able to do the stuff that CRISPR does and chop out pieces of the genes and put it back together and all that stuff is, is definitely sort of the newer generation. Is your is your industry, you know, you always hear about and when it comes to electronics, when you buy a laptop computer, six months later, it's already
00:09:08
Speaker
Obsolete kind of a thing as far as the speed and the processing power and all that is your industry similar to that where now it's just snowballing to where it's accelerating so fast with discoveries and Advancements that it's it's just it's hard to kind of hold on you're jumping onto a moving train for lack of a better term um I mean in some parts yes and some no, I mean Certainly the and it's more incremental than that. I mean, okay there's Even, you know, from PCR to CRISPR was a slow going, but I think there's a pretty steady, of but ah you know, even my point is is, unlike your computer, you know, people are still using PCR. So, you know, you build on it, but some foundational aspects are still there. um There's some pretty cool stuff now. Look, the the kind of, I think that one of the new hot things is basically trying to do single cell stuff, which is really interesting.
00:10:07
Speaker
when you before that, you basically take some tissue and grind it up and look at the DNA of the whole you know chunk of tissue. And now they're trying to figure out like on a cell by cell level, what's the DNA and RNA expression and stuff so you can get a really more and the computing obviously helps. You can't you couldn't you couldn't have done that before. But now you can get all this data from like every cell and get a much richer picture of what's happening, which is important because they're learning a lot about, they talk about likemor the tumor microenvironment, so just stuff right around the tumor. If you just chop off the whole tumor and try to sequence it, you miss a lot of the complexities that they're now realizing is there.
Clinical Trials and Industry Experience
00:10:48
Speaker
So it's pretty cool, like you're just kind of seeing a window into stuff that you didn't that you kind of knew something was going on, but now there's better tools in place to figure it out.
00:10:57
Speaker
Now, the word you just used there was tumor. I don't know if we'd got to that point yet, but your area of specialty in your industry is you do essentially cancer research. Is that is that an accurate statement? Yeah, I mean, um it's more... Go ahead. Well, I used to do cancer research in that I was in the lab like doing bench active stuff, and I still like that, but I'm more in the clinical side now, so helping the...
00:11:27
Speaker
I'm in a pharmaceutical company that runs clinical trials for cancers that we have drugs and we're trying to see if the drug works. So I mean, I guess technically it's still cancer research, but I'm not, I'm not at the bench, you know, doing cell stuff anymore. its check concern Is there a certain type of cancer that you prefer that your, your life's work has been spent on at colon cancer or brain tumors? Um, no, actually. And again, all the way back from point Loma college days, I really got interested in cancer.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of times we when we're sort of introducing our our group, the group by men, we kind of go around and say how we got where we're at, kind of like we're doing now. And I just feel really blessed. I mean, I i haven't had a family member die of cancer particularly that unfortunately my wife's brother has, but i i was' there I didn't know him all that well. but so My interest in cancer, in a way, it was kind of academic and that is specifically this idea of apoptosis, which is programmed cell death. and it's kind of the There's a flip side of the coin. so Alzheimer's, a neurodegeneration, that basically there's too much cell death. The cells are killing themselves when they're not supposed to.
00:12:37
Speaker
And in cancer, some cancers can happen because they're not dying when they're supposed to. um so just so And that's kind of across. I mean, obviously, there's some cancers that that's more of a an aspect of, but yeah, the is so i my in cancer was more foundational. So it's not like I've always been interested interested in brain cancer or kidney cancer or something like that. So it's kind of a foundational part. Well, there is a benefit to that because, I mean, we all know somebody who's and either dealt with cancer in some form or another, or they've unfortunately passed away.
00:13:11
Speaker
And that's an emotional aspect of you know ah illness that some people deal with. But when you're able to just kind of look at the nuts and bolts of it and remove any emotion from it and really dig into it, I mean, that's probably freeing to a certain degree because you don't have any emotions getting in the way and it's just pure data, pure science, pure discovery.
00:13:33
Speaker
Yes, I'm like the Mentite in Dune.
00:13:38
Speaker
I have no emotions. No, but it is, I mean, when I hear other people talking about, you know, how cancer had affected them personally, or their yeah family or something, I do feel blessed. But I mean, it does, it is the cool side of being on the clinic, as you do, you sometimes hear from from patients or, you know, run these clinical trials, you'll you'll hear through the The physician that's in that participating in the trial, they'll pass on, you know hey, our our patient just had his tumor shrink by 30% and they just want to thank you guys for the work you've done. Oh, that's really got to be nice. Yeah, it's pretty neat. I bet. Well, yeah. you're
00:14:16
Speaker
you're seeing the fruits of your labor and you're not just cleaning something or whatever, you're helping people stay alive. So that's, yeah, I can say that. Yeah, that's pretty weird. So to jump back just a tiny bit, you were in academia and then you, in Denver, and then you moved, when did you leave the academic side of things and get into the, I guess, the corporate side of things and talk us through that journey?
00:14:44
Speaker
Yeah, um it was a it was somewhat, I suppose you could say, pushed out of the nest or whatever. I think things are different now, um which is probably for the best, but kind of in that time of the industry and academia stuff, like there I feel like there was more of a separation and especially just you know when you're in graduate school getting your PhD and then usually the next sort of step is often that you're going to go do a postdoctoral research in another lab somewhere else and kind of learn how to write grants and do more independent research kind of under the wing of somebody but you're supposed to sort of be learning to fly on your own.
00:15:25
Speaker
Um, with, again, the idea of basically like, you're going to be a professor somewhere. And I, uh, looking back, I realized I, my postdoc was probably atypical in some senses. Cause I, I basically, I wanted to live in Denver. And so I looked at what was up there that I could, you know, do my cancer, apoptosis stuff with. And that's a, maybe a story for another time, but it was sort of serendipitous. Um, and I enjoyed it, but.
00:15:50
Speaker
I didn't have at that point. It wasn't like, oh, you know, I'm going to do this and then I'll do this and I'll be a professor and I'm going to go to industry or whatever. So I kind of backed into it. But, um, uh, for my point is that I think back then there was a stronger wall between him and on the academia side, I had, you always kind of hear like, well, if you really want the freedom to do the research you're interested in, you got to stay in academia industry. You're just like a drone and you got to do what they tell you.
00:16:17
Speaker
And with that kind of propaganda, I'm like, well, I don't want to go to industry. But I also saw that my professors were always writing grants, and they're never in the lab. So I was like, well, what's what? But ultimately, the professor I was doing my postdoc with moved her lab to Texas, and I didn't want to move. So I was like, well, and there's no other lab around here that's doing stuff. So let's see what's in industry. That was about a two-year process to try to, then it's always the tick on the egg.
00:16:47
Speaker
all these places want you to have industry experience and nobody will hire you to get the industry experience. um But I think things have changed a little bit so not to sound discouraging to people that are interested in this career path because I think um nowadays there's a lot more chances to intern and postdoc. That was the other thing I feel like at the time I had heard things about like, well, if you go postdoc for industry, they won't hire you. And that's probably technically true, like the place that you're actually post docking, that lab that you're in and that manager.
00:17:17
Speaker
they probably have like rules in place that they can't just hire you from, you know, as a postdoc with a defined like three year timeframe, but you get your foot in the door and certainly you could probably still get a job. Um, and I've seen that happen when I was working at this other pharmaceutical that I moved over and that I got hired at eventually. Um, so all that to say that I think people that are interested, you can really, and that's the thing I was going to say is,
00:17:44
Speaker
you know I went ahead and got my PhD because I was just really interested in it and and whatever, but there's certainly people that have gone far up the career ladder without a PhD.
00:17:56
Speaker
science is still one of the places that it's sort of a true, in ways, a meritocracy. like If you can do the work and you know publish good papers and whatever, like I just remember at the company I was at, it was kind of a ah you know a talking point that there's this lady who is running, like I think, almost all the diabetes programs or whatever, um and she She I think only had a bachelor's or something and again in in industry most people have a PhD that are you know, kind of higher up in management, so And and yeah, so you can get a bachelor's and go into industry and have a very lucrative career You can get a master's and go into industry. So there's a lot of routes into industry more so now than probably when I was starting
00:18:44
Speaker
I would imagine that the academic side of things is not near as lucrative as the the corporate side or the industry side of things. Is that an accurate statement?
Roles and Challenges in Biomarker Research
00:18:55
Speaker
Yeah. yeah yeah I don't know as much anymore, but i mean in general, the and so i as far as I know, that's still the way things work is you're always having to write a grant to the usually the government or, you know, there's, again, in cancer, it's, it's kind of quote unquote easier to get money right to, I'm going to cure cancer. So give me some money as opposed to some niche, you know, I want to study the bacteria that lives in sloths or something like that. So you can, and you but you're basically always having to write grants and ask for money and show how you're going to use that money. And then you've got, you know, three years to show something for that money that's been given to you.
00:19:35
Speaker
So it's it's definitely, I feel like, a I mean, at some point, you the you know, the the golden chalice for them is to get tenure as a professor. And then then as I understand it, that's how ignorant I am. But as far as I understand it, like tenure, you get a salary and and you're not having to work as much on grants. But and i for those that are on that track, forgive me if I'm misspeaking, but that's kind of what I've always understood it to be. so Sure. Yeah. I mean, at some point, it probably becomes lucrative, but it's certainly, I feel, a longer grind to get there. Yeah. So your day-to-day job that you do now, you said that you're not doing much bench work anymore. and that I'm assuming that you're not in the lab doing experiments, for lack of a better term. and and Yeah. Okay. you're kind of You're in management now where you oversee people doing that kind of stuff. and you're you're um Is that fair or no?
00:20:34
Speaker
No, not even that. Unfortunately, like um like i the stuff I'm doing is with the clinical trials. so I mean, I guess, ta I mean, I'm not really managing people. umm so It's not like, you know, hey, let's run this experiment and then show me what the cells did and let's figure out the next step. It's I work in biomarker specifically for for cancer trials. So we're trying, you know, the whole point of biomarkers is just trying to see, get like an earlier read on things. So, you know, these phase one trials, the first time you put a drug in people, a cancer drug,
00:21:09
Speaker
You want to see, you know, as it is it doing what we think it's going to do? Is it inhibiting this protein? Is it causing the immune cells to do what they're supposed to do? So you're not necessarily looking for everybody to be cured right away, unfortunately. But if it does, obviously, that's the next step. But some of these early steps, you want to just see if there's sort of signals that would hint that the drug is working. so That's more what biomarkers do so we we work with other companies that you know their whole job is they're called cros like contract research organizations and so like i. I will specify like okay let's draw blood at this time and this time and this time and we're gonna send it to this company and they're gonna look at the DNA from.
00:21:51
Speaker
tumors that are flow from tumor cells that are floating around in the blood and we'll see if things have changed. So um it's a lot of and logistics and strategic planning and scientific, you know, we got to figure out what genes might be interesting and that kind of stuff. So it's still sciency, but it's not at the bench. And it's not even, you know, telling people what to do at the bench, but really,
00:22:15
Speaker
working with, it's a pretty big team too for these clinical trials. So you're always talking to the medical people about the trial in general. And there are more logistics people that help you get the cells or the blood draws that you need and all that. So it's ah it's a it so really big team.
00:22:30
Speaker
the The clinical trial aspect of things, is there a general rule of thumb um as far as it'll on average take two, three, five years or whatever to get to the point where you could actually give it to a human being for for use or does it does it depend on the drug or the type of cancer that you're dealing with?
00:22:51
Speaker
Um, kind of yes to everything. I mean, there's, there's a lot of, I think again, the FDA is, is trying to help things go faster. Um, I would say like, uh, the shorthand, everybody always says this is probably maybe, yeah, I don't know, five to 10 years from start to finish, but There's ways, you know, the FDA has what they call accelerated approval. So in certain, and and I should just say like, I've been in the industry for a while, but I've only more recently been on the clinical trial side of stuff. So I was at the bench for quite a bit longer. So I'm learning myself some of this stuff. So okay take it with a grain of salt. But I mean, I know there's this, they call it accelerated approval and there are certain parameters. Not everybody, you can't just always take your drug and try to get accelerated approval, but there's ways that you might get the FDA to agree that your drug could be sold
00:23:41
Speaker
quicker and then you have to do like kind of these follow up market follow what they call post marketing commitment PMCs like other trials like you know the data looks good and you can start looking at things but you have to promise to look at this and this and this also.
00:23:57
Speaker
um And then there's ways that you know the you've probably heard there's there's phase one, phase two, and phase three trials. So phase ones are the ones that I'm mainly doing, which is, again, like the very first time this chemical has ever been in a person, and you're just trying to see, you know does it do what we think it's doing? And phase two is more like, okay, we've It seems to work. We think we've picked a dose. Now we're going to try to see if it works, if it actually cures the people more so than what we saw in phase one. And phase three is kind of the big one that's that you always hear about, especially like heart and other than oncology, you know, diabetes and heart disease. And those those are the really big expensive make it or break it trials that take years sometimes to show a difference. So in a way, oncology is nice because
00:24:45
Speaker
It still takes a while, but you know, it's pretty easy to see like, okay, the tumor shrank and people are living longer. right So I just remember like some diabetes trials on heart disease and stuff like who literally would take like 10 years before they could publish their phase three results. So it's not that long for oncology anymore.
00:25:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's frustrating. um As an outsider looking in, you can appreciate the process that has to go through to make sure that it's safe, but it's also, you know, when you're dealing with that, it almost seems like it's moving at a glacial pace and you'd wish it pick up a little bit, but you know. Sorry. Yeah, one thing that's cool though is um there is a big push too, I think in the industry, it's kind of mutually beneficial, but it's pretty surprising. We could go down a rabbit hole of what what man on the street thinks about clinical trials. and and there's I think a lot of people are uninformed about things and and don't realize how many are out there.
00:25:41
Speaker
and i mean granted it is you know it is an experimental drug, so you don't know if it's gonna work or not, but I think there's been a push in the industry to try to educate people and realize, for instance, I think some people don't realize, like a lot of these oncology clinical trials, it's not like you're not giving a placebo, like, well, you get nothing or you get our drug, like you'll you'll be getting what's the standard of care, like what everybody, if you just go to the hospital for your you know lung cancer, you're gonna get treated with something.
00:26:09
Speaker
And the clinical trials is usually that something versus this drug. And so you're randomized to put either on this. So, you know, you and you you get, you know, a lot of the stuff is paid for, like, it's not like you're so that, you know, there's there's things that I think people don't realize about clinical trials. Excuse me. And there's so many. um So and it helps us because a lot of times we're struggling to find patients to. That's why the trial takes so long sometimes is because we're only getting one patient a month.
00:26:39
Speaker
And by statistics, like you have that's the whole point of phase three, is you need to have like a large number of patients so that you could do the statistics to show, like okay, there is a meaningful difference between people treated it with a standard of care and the people treated with our drug. And look, our drug is better, or at least our drug is the same. or you know But you can't do that with like 50 people. You have to have like hundreds of people to to do the geeky statistic stuff to prove you know that there's a difference or an improvement. Is that number of people something that's set by the the government? is that No, no, there's a whole that's industry. my son my No, my son was even asked. I should have told him. I didn't even think about that he asked me last night. He's like, Dad, is there
00:27:18
Speaker
Careers for like what you would play do math stuff and I at first I drew a blank but no there's biostatistics people that their job is to like figure out how many patients you would need to stay call it a treatment effect is one thing they look at like okay if we enroll six hundred patients.
00:27:36
Speaker
or the other way around, they do all the math and they're like, okay, to see a 3% increase in survival over six months, we need to have 500 patients enrolled. or you know they they I don't even, it's black magic to me, but there's they there's statistics people that are out there that that's their job in industry is to take all the parameters and figure out like how big does our trial need to be to be able to to say and and have the math to prove that your drug is better or whatever. you know To parlay that into a ah question, your industry seems like there there's one giant umbrella of you know pharmaceutical or cancer research or whatever you want to give the the name, but there's a million different specialties and and occupations that you probably could specialize in. is that Would that be fair? Oh, yeah. Yes, yeah. yeah yeah
00:28:30
Speaker
What kind of person, I mean, I know you you're, I know you, so you're a very analytical person, but what, what types of people, as far as personality traits or skill sets are just the natural way that people, some people are, who does well in your type of industry? Well, I mean, it's, but excuse me, I'm sorry about this. There's, there's, um, all kinds, I mean, ah At the core, I think a lot of, I mean, I was going to say almost everyone's a scientist, but that's not even true. I mean, there's people that, you know, I mean, there's finance that's in these drug companies so that you don't have to be a scientist to be in a drug company. But I think at the heart, there's people, you know, want to solve problems. I think that's a general trait is problem solvers um and just collaboration, especially like I just said, that these clinical trials
00:29:24
Speaker
um takes a lot of teamwork, a lot of different people doing different things and communication is because therefore it's important to let everybody know what's going on and you're a little part of it.
Industry Trends and Remote Work
00:29:36
Speaker
Um, and so there's that, but there, you know, there's, there are more outspoken people. There's, injur yeah. So I wouldn't say like, Oh, all the extroverts work in pharma or something like that. Like I, there's, I'm overall probably more introverted, but there's,
00:29:52
Speaker
There's definitely extroverts. so the i mean i I think the main soft skill, I would say, is just collaboration and communication of the big things. um because yeah there's just ah for For the clinical side, I would say especially. i mean When you're at the bench doing stuff, you still have to communicate with people what you're doing and get feedback. and Rarely do you have all the skill sets to do all the experiments you want to do, so you're always working with other people to do some aspect, you know, like, you know, you want to check this thing or that thing and you don't have the equipment or you don't have the specialty. So you're and you know, the more you collaborate, the more you get papers published, which is the big thing in academia is getting your science papers published. So people are always happy to work together. Right. Your industry doesn't have the luxury of of departments being siloed because you're all kind of moving in the same general direction. And so I can see communication being extremely important.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah, and especially the thing I'm still, you know, butting heads with or just learning to live with it is these timelines. Like, um because you work with the government, um everything is very regulated, and you know that you need to have a meeting with the FDA. yeah You work backwards on the clock all the time. So you're like, okay, well, if we want to meet with the FDA to talk about this,
00:31:16
Speaker
you know, you look on their calendar, like you six six months ahead of time, you're like, okay, well, if we're going to meet in March, we have to give them data by February so that they can digest it. And if they need the data by February, then we have to have all of our databases cleaned up by January. And it's just like, back, back, back, back. So even though like, I'm still, my point is like, I'll hear these quote, unquote deadlines of, okay, we got it, we're going to meet with the FDA in March. So I'm like, okay, well, you know, it's November, got some time.
00:31:45
Speaker
But no, actually like some things have to be done at the end of November for this stuff to happen in March. And it's just crazy. Yeah. So like, I'm, I'm not a planner as much. So things like that is something you got to get used to. And again, communication and stuff. So like, you know, now that I know that then I don't want to make sure things are done in time, but it's really pretty crazy how, how detailed the planning is because again, all these different parts have to come together. So.
00:32:12
Speaker
It doesn't sound like it's a pressure cooker environment like the stock exchange or something working, the you know, on Wall Street. But you also do have to keep keep kind of keep the ball moving as far as meeting the different benchmarks. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, i first, I thought you're being sarcastic because I definitely it's I'm never sarcastic. bri I was I would say.
00:32:34
Speaker
there's periods of manic activity and then periods of um things are just going along, but there's there can definitely be pressure, especially especially in these sort of regulatory environment when you know something's gonna be submitted or you you know that a you know a critical trial time point is about to be reached or something. There's a lot of stuff that has to happen. So there are definitely times when it's pretty crazy.
00:32:58
Speaker
sure Your industry, this question is gonna be regional dependent. you know If you live in California, the cost of living is gonna be higher, and so the wages would typically be higher than if you live in Iowa, for example. But is there, um not talking about academia, but the industry, is there a general oh expectation of pay on certain positions? Like when you're just getting started, what what would you expect ah to look at pay-wise?
00:33:28
Speaker
um Yeah, it's really hard to throw a generic number out. um If you're coming in with a bachelor's degree, doing bench science stuff, that's sort of an associate principle or whatever. I mean, even even in Iowa, you're probably looking at easily, i this is totally off the wall, but I'm guessing 50 to 70K. And that's, that I could be, but that that that I would say is the bare bones. I mean, it is, yeah. It really, you're what what ah what experience you have, what education you have, yeah, where you're at. um And even even for better or worse, like what disease area, I think um sometimes,
00:34:19
Speaker
maybe it was kind of whatever's hot, but you know, like if if the, the company you're in is really focused on diabetes. Like maybe those people get paid a little bit more. I don't, it's, it's hard to know. That's the other, I don't know how it is other companies but or other industries, but you know, it's not, there's there's, I think everybody, I think all the companies obviously try to be competitive. And so there's, it's not like, oh, company X pays way more than company Y. i get it They probably are all around the same ballpark. okay I have an N of two, so I've been in two sort of big pharmas and they were comparable.
00:34:55
Speaker
yeah um so But yeah. I imagine once you get your foot in the door, though, then you can you can certainly establish yourself and and make a long-term career out of it that would be financially rewarding. so Yeah. Yeah. um But it's funny, though. they're like there's a lot of change. i Industry has gone through different changes. So the company I started in, I was a little frustrated because it felt like literally about every two years there were reorgs and I would get put in a different department with a different boss. um The company I'm in now, I feel is relatively stable. So some of it was just the time, um the time, but but yeah, you can, if you if you, excuse me, if you do a good job and,
00:35:43
Speaker
you know, kind of yeah build your brand or whatever, you know, people know that you're a good scientist. And yeah, you can, it's it's either or. There's some people who who you I've seen that will go from one company, especially if you are in like California or Boston's a big hotspot, where there's a ton of like biotechs and stuff. You know, people will jump from company to company, they'll learn something, go to another company, learn something else. So it depends, like I mentioned earlier, like I probably and not as much of a planner as some people are. i'm not I wouldn't say I'm not ambitious, but some people are very clear, you know, I want to be leading yeah a company or I want to be leading a group of 30 people doing this. So they will leapfrog their way into that through different companies.
00:36:26
Speaker
what you just mentioned there a minute ago about Boston being a hotspot, are there are there a number of areas, you know, we live in the United States, so let's just stick with here, but where are the hotspots for your industry in the United States besides Boston? Is there, if somebody just wanted to look where they could live and make a living, is it close to them or if they'd have to move? Well, it's, is's you know, post COVID and and and even, I would say before that, I mean, obviously,
00:36:57
Speaker
I mean, New York City obviously has, it's funny, like there's not a lot of real estate per se. I mean, I guess post COVID there's a lot of empty buildings now, but you know, there's a like a lot of, yeah. Now things are more decentralized and so you can have people live wherever and work remotely, especially things like what I do. Like I'm not at the bench, so I don't have to, um,
00:37:21
Speaker
you know, go to a specialized lab and do certain things. If I have a laptop, I theoretically could work anywhere, I suppose. So come so it kind of depends what you're doing. But I mean, in general, the coasts are where and and ah historically, right? So like the East Coast, Northeast, you know, New Jersey is kind of a hotbed of of big pharma.
00:37:40
Speaker
just for historical reasons, probably. And then, of course, the Bay Area is another sort of hotbed of innovation in general. And there's biotechs out there. San Diego is another one, of course. um Those are kind of the ones you always hear about. San Diego, Boston, um San Francisco.
00:37:58
Speaker
which unfortunately also are like super expensive. And I think that's why again, post COVID, people on my team, even like there's some of us here in the Midwest, some of us are in New York, one of my colleagues is in Arizona. um So the remote work is definitely a possibility as long as you're not physically at the bench, so.
00:38:22
Speaker
Do you think the remote work is going to stick long term? I mean, we're pretty far past COVID now. I know some industries are wanting to get back to people coming into the office. Is your industry going to do that? Or do you think they'll stick with the remote? um Yeah, I think maybe a hybrid. Okay. I think they've seen that remote can work, um especially for, you know, like I said, like these bioinformatic type things where you're not ever at the bench. And I think clinical trials especially have always been decentralized in the sense that you know you don't need all these people in the same room all the time. Everybody's doing stuff and you know with technology as it is now, with Zoom and everything else. So um I would think, I mean, I could see on the other hand, like people that live in the city that they they are working in,
00:39:15
Speaker
That company may sell everybody's got to come in, but I you know i don't know. it's a bit Like you say, it's been a while post COVID and it still hasn't happened.
Reflections and Future Speculations
00:39:22
Speaker
so Right. Well, um if you weren't in your current career that you are right now, was there another occupation or line of work that always kind of interested you that you know if I could go back and start all over again, I would do something completely different? I mean, obviously be a rock star or something, but maybe you want to be a plumber secretly or something like that.
00:39:45
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. it's i i The stuff like, you know, you've known me like hobby wise, like I like to snow ski and play ice hockey, but those were never, I actually started those later in life. So it's not like I grew up playing hockey and I thought I would want to be an NHL player or something like that. So, um I don't know. i there i I may be giving away your secrets, but I know we we had a little bit of a pre-talk about what some of the subjects would be, so I knew you'd ask this question. I really have been thinking about it. there's If it wasn't this actual bench science, I will say like, as you're alluding to, there's a lot of different things. So I think one thing that has changed that I wish I did more of is more of this computer aspect. There's like bioinformatics and of course now with AI.
00:40:35
Speaker
There's just a lot. And as I mentioned, because there's computing power, it kind of goes hand in hand. there's There's more data that you can get from cellular research type stuff, and then you need people to be able to work with all that data. so And even in ah what I do now, like I kind of wish I knew some more coding, even you know Python and R and some of these, which is probably even outdated and in some respects. but I would say probably data adjacent or like science adjacent, I think I have always liked that kind of stuff. And um yeah, there so there's there was never like a fork in the road, like, I could have done this, but I chose this or whatever. But everything I've known about you, and then talking with you today, anybody listening can tell that you are very content ah with your line of work, and you still find it a challenge after doing it for
00:41:29
Speaker
ah what how many decades now. So some people just find their passion and it happens to be their career and they take it and run with it. So it's great to have people in something so important like cancer research that are actually happy in their job. And they still find it a challenge and they still find um Satisfaction out of it. So yeah, yeah, it's uh, I mean there's things change enough that it's always sure thank ah More to learn. Yeah Have you ever gotten what's the best compliment that you've ever received from? Somebody doesn't have to be at work. It could be you know a mentor Yeah,
00:42:09
Speaker
what I think I did think more work specific it's maybe even a I don't know, I just thought it was an indirect compliment, I guess, in the sense that I was kind of proud of it secretly, I guess. But I was trying to remember when I was in grad school. Basically, in grad school, you take classes for the first couple of years.
00:42:28
Speaker
um and you're doing some research for your professor. And then the last couple of years, you're really done with classes and you just, you're basically being a scientist, um learning stuff at the bench or whatever. But those first couple of years, you're, it's kind of like college again. I mean, you're, but it's like halftime. So you're definitely hard at work learning stuff, but then you still do stuff in the lab. But I remember towards the end of my grad school,
00:42:51
Speaker
So, and kind of like college, you know, they don't really say freshmen, sophomore, junior, senior or something, but you know, you're in grad school for four to five years. And you get to know in these smaller programs, like I was in, you get to know the younger students, but not overly well sometimes, because by then you're kind of stuck in the lab and they're the ones going to classes. All that to say, I felt secretly a little bit proud. Somehow I was talking to one of the younger ones,
00:43:16
Speaker
And you know they they take the same courses that I took. One of them pulled out like a Xerox of my test answers, like because most of these, you're having to write these like big essays about you know how would you solve this genetic problem or something. I don't remember what it was, but like I was like, wait a minute, that's mine. Why are you guys studying off of mine? And they're like, because I and did get pretty good grades and stuff. And my handwriting was atrocious. This was way before the laptops and stuff. And so they were still Xeroxing my my ah answers and using them to help
Concluding Thoughts and Inspirations
00:43:50
Speaker
study. So I felt that was kind of cool.
00:43:52
Speaker
Well, yeah, they know they're gonna do well if they follow your examples. So good deal. um Is there somebody I mean, you mentioned early on one of your professors that was kind of a, I don't know, a mentor or somebody that just kind of launched your interest and it just kind of sparked your interest in your career. Is there somebody else that you admire somebody in your field or somebody outside of of where you work that you just like to follow their stuff and Um, well, it's funny. I kind of, it sounds like jumping on the bandwagon, but just more recently, like just with, I hadn't, I, you know, I'm actually not on Twitter, but Elon Musk, like the, he seems to be sort of the Isaac Newton of our time or something. It just, it's kind of crazy that this one guy can be successful at such disparate things, but, yeah um, just this idea, especially I've only read like sort of third hand, I haven't read his, uh, biographies or anything like that, but just to the drive that he has in this whole,
00:44:53
Speaker
It seems like he really wants to go to Mars and to take a step back. and I just think it's a neat time to be alive. and it's i so i Again, you and I are the same age. We were born, let's just say, in the 80s or before.
00:45:08
Speaker
And if you look back, people that were born in the 1880s and live, you know, until like the 1950s even, like think how much life changed from like base of the old West, 1880s to World War I, World War II, all that stuff. And I feel like we're kind of like that today, like how much things have changed since we were a kid. yeah And now there's now there's this guy that in my lifetime, theoretically, maybe we're going to go to another planet. Like it's, and this guy seems to be single-handedly Uh, what's the responsible for it? But like, he's the one that's really pushing this along. And so I think there's a lot to admire with him. I, again, I don't know him as a person or, you know, other stuff, but just recently he's been on my radar as like somebody that's pretty crazy to, to know about. He is having his moment. He seems to be everywhere. And some of that's political, but some of it is just, he's got so many industries and he's just a big dreamer, a big thinker, and he just goes for it with everything he's got.
00:46:02
Speaker
Of course, he has the finances to make a lot of that happen. But yeah, yeah it's crazy to think that, you know, if we live another 20, 30, 40 years, we could see human beings on Mars. I mean, that's just insane to think about. So yeah.
00:46:17
Speaker
yeah Well, Brent, thanks. I've known you for a long time and I even learned a lot about you today by talking with you. You've got a pretty cool story and it's always neat to see the inner workings of someone's progress you know from where their occupation and their interest starts all the way to where they are now and um you've been successful at what you do. Hopefully I never get cancer, but you know if I do, I'd have got your cell phone number, so I'll give you a call. Yeah, thanks. This has been been fun. I hope somebody
00:46:48
Speaker
and help benefit from it. And yeah I'm glad you're doing what you're doing. I think it's cool to let people know the all the massive varieties of jobs that are out there and how people get there. Thanks, man. I appreciate your help. All right. It's good talking it to you as always. You bet. Thanks, Brett. Yep. Take it easy.
00:47:07
Speaker
And with that, we will wrap up yet another successful episode of the jobs podcast. Thank you so much for joining us today. As always, I wait till the end of an interview to ask for like subscriptions and shares. I want to make sure that you liked what you heard. You feel it's worth subscribing and sharing with everybody that you know. So we will see you on the next one. Have a good day.