Your browser does not support the audio element.Scientist-entrepreneur Javier Garcia Martinez recalls combining an academic role at the University of Alicante, Spain, while getting a catalyst start-up called Rive Technology off the ground.
Martin Gosling was focused on basic research for the early part of his scientific career in academia. His PhD looked at ion channels in bone, his postdoc was on ion channels in blood vessels. Interacting with those people who have made a single target for example, you know, the focus of their life, have that incredibly deep expertise and understanding. If that then becomes the next hottest target those people are pivotal to realising the potential for that. And they may not but in other cases, they may not be the people that are best placed to realize the potential of their more academic research interests and discoveries.Javier Garcia Martinez agrees.
But at the same time, being in industry, I think, has made me a much better educator, because now I have a better understanding of how industry operates. And in the chemical sector, that's critically important. So a classic example at the moment would be the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine that was done completely hand in hand with the University of Oxford. And that's a very big profile, big high profile example of where the two sectors aren't operating separately. They're really working on the edges of both their expertise to create something greater than they could do if they only operated on their own.
A lot of hard work is often needed to overcome these hurdles that you come across. And communication can't be underestimated. either. I think for every project I work on with the company I make sure we have one or two-hour monthly meetings with the company where every team member involved in the projects attends.