Roche Continents

You took part in the Roche Continents Workshop in Salzburg in 2007. How did you like it?

The drumming session at the start of the workshop was particularly impressive, and so were the group performances at the end. There was a lot of music. The concerts were great; I would never have thought I'd be attending some of them without looking at my watch. Others were more for the trained ear. The mixture however was brilliant. I also remember that we spent a lot of the time eating. The food was fantastic, and there was plenty of it. 

What effect did the workshop have on your education and your work?

It did broaden my horizons. It gave me the opportunity to stand back a little from classical music, to listen to something more modern and to meet musicians. The workshop expanded the spectrum of music I listen to and made me more receptive to modern music. As I was working on my doctorate at the time, the effect on my education was somehow limited, well, except that I was away for a week. 

You are currently a researcher at Roche Pharma in Basel. What brought you to us?

My doctoral work at the ETH was actually partially funded by Roche and I kept in touch with Roche after I'd finished it. This job was advertised when I was a post-doc in Britain. I applied, and I was lucky enough to get it.

How do you like Basel?

I think it's a great city. It's beautiful, and very well situated. In no time at all you can get to central Switzerland, France or Germany. I occasionally go to Germany to buy things you can’t get in Switzerland – like Spezi, a blend of cola and Fanta.

Tell us something about your work.

Well, once medicinal chemistry has identified a promising substance, people will need more than the few hundred milligrams that are typically prepared in medicinal chemistry in order to carry out experimental studies on humans, for example. Since medicinal chemistry’s primary objective is to quickly produce many compounds, my job is to find efficient syntheses for just a few select ones. It is therefore hardly ever possible to use the route by which a molecule is manufactured in medicinal chemistry for large-scale production. I especially like the creativity in finding a good synthesis and being situated at the interface between small and big.

What aspects of your work give you the greatest satisfaction?

I personally find it a tremendous thrill to hold a product in my hand that I've spent days or weeks working on. Observing the growth of a glittering crystal or the constant drip of a pure distillate, and knowing that you've created something, you've made something new. And if that result makes a difference, it’s great.

What are the highlights of your career so far that you're especially proud of?

Apart from Roche Continents, obviously… Serendipity struck real hard when I was doing my doctorate at the ETH. The cooperation with Roche led to things that are currently in use not only at Roche, but also other companies all over the world. The stuff’s even commercially successful. As an undergrad, I did internships, studied abroad, and I saw something of the world. I’m glad now that I invested that time.

Were there times when you thought you might have made the wrong career choice? What did those experiences teach you?

Ever since secondary school I've never had any real doubts about studying chemistry. I've known for a very long time that I wanted to be either a physicist or a chemist. The nearest I ever came to having doubts was probably when it came to looking for jobs, and I noticed things didn't look that rosy for chemists. Keen as I was on chemistry, I couldn't help wondering whether I should perhaps have done something else. But eventually things turned out all right for me.

What career-development opportunities do you think there are in your field?

It’s difficult to say after just six months. There seem to be basically two options. Either you become a manager, leaving the laboratory at some stage to focus entirely on planning and leadership, or you stay on the laboratory track, on the scientific career ladder in other words, and you become a true expert in your field.

Have you already decided which option is more interesting?

Both have their pros and cons. The management track involves a bit more making a name for yourself and carving out a career. Other things than chemistry come to the fore. On the other hand, you have to give up science. One drawback about the scientific career ladder is that you can easily turn into a nerd: you can get stuck in your pigeonhole, and that limits your options. That's why I am still totally undecided about what I want to do. There are lots of things I'm interested in apart from chemistry. But doing nothing but send e-mails and run from one meeting to the next without ever spending time in the lab may not be right for me either. At the moment I'm still far too keen on chemistry to imagine becoming a manager.

What career development advice would you give other Roche Continents alumni?

All I can really say is what was best for me, and that's going to sound really cheesy. I've always done what interested me the most, regardless of whether or not it would further my career. I believe the most important thing is to do what you enjoy doing, and the rest will somehow fall into place.

To what extent did Roche Continents influence you to consider Roche as a potential employer?

Well I didn’t actually see Roche Continents as a recruitment programme but took part simply because it was so interesting to me; the links between art and science, the parallels and the differences. I wasn’t really looking for a job with Roche.  But what truly impressed me was how well the whole programme was organised. I thought it all ran very smoothly, without any hitches, and I was pretty impressed by that. And I thought, if a programme like this, which wasn’t in fact a recruitment programme, is so well-organised, then I reckoned that the company as a whole must work very professionally too, i.e. all the company processes in principle, and so that’s why I felt good about applying to Roche for a job.

Did you gain anything personally from the Roche Continents programme?  Did it change your life or behaviour in any way? If so, could you give me a couple of examples?

Yes, I’d say it did change things a bit.  What really struck me – since we did, after all, talk a lot about art and science – is that I realised that science too is very subjective. We scientists also try, in principle, to paint pictures, to create something, and this whole process is very creative, but then in science – not so much in art – you often have to critically analyse things, to make sure everything is right.  Scientists often think that everything they do is highly objective, but I think virtually every experiment is subjective.

What springs to mind when you think back to Roche Continents?  What most impressed you?

OK, now I think that’s going to be a slightly longer story. One evening I shall never forget is the evening we went to the opera. It was a modern opera and Niggi had said we should dress smart-casual as it was a modern one, and I went and took that advice a bit too literally and turned up in jeans and a pullover, though I was wearing decent shoes.  But I was the only one, – not just among the Roche Continents participants, but out of all the people at the Salzburg Festival – to turn up in jeans and a pullover.  OK, I thought, perhaps it won’t be too obvious and I’ll just try and behave inconspicuously so that I simply go unnoticed. And then, among all the people in the audience, I had to sit next to the President of the Festival and of course she noticed. We had a nice conversation, also about the opera and then, when the opera was over, she took me by the hand and said: “there’s someone I’d like to introduce you to”, and then she presented me to the Austrian President and I shook his hand. And I did all this in my jeans and pullover, with everyone else dressed in suits! Yes, that’s the evening I keep remembering.

And now I always double-check what “smart-casual” actually means.

Yes, and looking back, which moments influenced you the most?

The moment I just described certainly influenced me where dress code is concerned, i.e. that I really shouldn’t interpret smart-casual too literally. But what influenced me the most at Roche Continents were the lectures on innovation and creativity.  I found that very motivating for my later work. I also enjoyed the workshops with the group, i.e. with the people who were in my group. It was great fun and we discussed a great deal and had different opinions, which was very interesting. I liked that.

Can you tell me something about what you did after Roche Continents and before you came to Roche?

Yes, but actually there’s not much to tell. When I took part in Roche Continents I was half-way through my doctorate, so I finished it and then started with Roche straightaway, without losing much time.

What advice would you have for a student, for example, what is important, what brings satisfaction, where should the focus lie: hard work, work-life balance, individual work vs. team work?  

Well my advice to a postgraduate student would be (and here I quote my PhD supervisor) that, “when everybody is running fast in one direction, you should carefully go the opposite way”. You shouldn’t always do what others do or tell you to do. You always need to find your own way. And very often, that isn’t the way everybody else is going. So that would be my main piece of advice.

The other points relating to work-life balance and so on, I don’t know. I think it’s different for everybody. It was like this for me, and this also became clear to me through Roche Continents: Science is ultimately a creative process. I don’t necessarily have these break-through creative moments when I’m standing in the laboratory.  In other words, a good work-life balance was very important for me to be creative. This also helped me a lot to keep my passion for science alive.

Thank you Jan for taking the time for this interview.

One of the first things we heard in Salzburg was that we should try to think “out of the box”.

I took this motto to heart and stepped “out of my box” by making an internship at Roche. Trained as an organic chemist and in the middle of my PhD, I stopped working and wanted to experience something completely new. My old “box” was the University lab, making synthesis, studying organic chemistry, training students. The new experience was an internship in the Pharma Research Scientific Communication in Basel. No longer chemistry and lab work, all this replaced with communication, newsletters, information gathering, on top of meeting new people and discovering a new city.

My old “box” meant security, being surrounded by people I know, doing work I was familiar with, with the hope that one day it will all lead to a secure job. This was the “normal” path which was foreseen, the rational one. Following this path means limiting myself, not seeing what’s happening outside of this path. After following this path for several years I asked myself, why not take (maybe) the last opportunity to just look what may be lying beyond? Making an internship means you can always come back to your old way, but during this period, it allows you to look around, to see what is out there and maybe discover something new, perhaps even find some answers.

I was lucky to find an internship position with the help of Niggi Iberg here at Roche in Basel. Under the very friendly supervision of Sabine Päuser I learned how a newsletter is made, how to write an article, where one obtains information. I read many papers and learnt things on topics I never even heard of! I also had the opportunity to attend some interesting talks and lectures within Roche. Besides the “scientific work” I had the chance to meet a lot of people with different backgrounds. Those people showed me that there are many possibilities and options for future careers. I also could get an idea what it’s like to work in a large company such as Roche as well as simply being allowed to live in this beautiful town and to come in contact with the Swiss culture and people.

After this experience, my advice to all of you:

If you ever have the opportunity to step out of your “box”…..take it!

Carolin Ammer

Roche Continents Participant, 2008