Joshua's placement story

I originally enrolled in a health and science double-degree at the Swinburne University of Technology due to a lifelong fascination with the functioning of the brain and mind. Several members of my immediate and extended family had also suffered from neurological and mental illnesses and while studying abroad in Leicester, United Kingdom, I came across a competing idea of the undergirding aetiology of major depressive disorder which challenged the existing monoamine theory. It was also at this time that placement options began to emerge and a job at Pfizer (who produced drugs that my family have used) became available. I felt that this coincidence was too good of an opportunity to miss, so I applied and was successfully placed as a Process Validation Scientist at Pfizer.

Process validation is “the collection and evaluation of data, from the process design stage through commercial production, which establishes scientific evidence that a process is capable of consistently delivering a quality product”. For my role, I am an analyst for the internal quality control of Paclitaxel, a cytotoxic/chemotherapy drug which occurs naturally in the Pacific Yew bark. I have been trained in calibrating and using; pH meters, Karl Fischer Titration, High-Performance Liquid Chromatography, Microscopy, and particle counters. I have also analysed this data using statistical software such as Microsoft Excel and Minitab.

The main highlight of this role is gaining laboratory experience. My skills have improved vastly thanks to the near-daily laboratory work whose hours far exceeded that of a typical undergraduate course. At university, I find the learning to be mostly theoretical, so we predominantly learn about the history, research, and undergirding mechanism in a passive and textbook-style manner. By contrast, I am in the laboratory almost daily at work and I have learned technical nuances and intuitive understandings of the machines and the underlying science with hands-on experience, which theory alone could not achieve.

While I certainly enjoyed working in the industry, my time at Pfizer has taught me that academia and research are my main career goals. Instead of working in a quality control environment, I would aspire to work in the research and development of pharmaceutical drugs that target psychiatric disorders.