Salma Amin, Ph.D. Student
“Like any other final year life sciences PhD student, I was chased by "the grim future" like a snowball down the hill. With woeful hiring conditions in academia and competitive industrial market, this course has helped me see beyond these conventional career paths.
Lab-to-entrepreneurship is a shot of enthusiasm and motivation that takes a holistic approach towards the world outside of the laboratory. This eye-opening course is a journey that begins by engaging in the process of ideation and translatability of the idea. It also equips you with the tools required to cross the bridge between the lab and the world of entrepreneurship. Additional field trips to biotech and pharma companies enable you to build and strengthen your connections and network, making this course exciting and unique!
This course has not only helped me redefine my understanding of the field but has also given me a sense of clarity at a crucial stage of my career.
Lab-to-Entrepreneurship will be your Johnny-on-the-spot!”
Enrique Gamero, Ph.D. Student
What I loved from this course was the fact that it teaches you how to come up with ideas and pushes you to investigate and develop them to make the idea real. It allows coming up with ideas that are feasible and most importantly that it is your idea. Unfortunately, I took this course too late in my PhD, but I wish this class would have existed when I started; it really gives the extra motivation you need to have a happy PhD. At the end of the day, it is good for you because you will go to work happy and motivated; and also good for your PI since your ideas may increase the collaboration and open new doors for your lab.
In my case, the course opened a new range of possibilities. In our lab we have a tool that is commonly used for different purposes, thanks to the class I was able to identify that this tool was unique to our lab. In fact, during the course we realized that I could try to patent it; unthinkable before taking the course. But not only that, it also helped me and my PI to set new collaborations with other labs and be able to apply for new and more translational grants. Before this course we didn’t know someone else may be interested in using our tools and technology.
As a student, I believe this course should be taken by anyone starting the PhD, it teaches you how to get a 100% support from your lab, how to think and it keeps you motivated during the PhD. It also teaches how to write attractively and how to keep the audience engaged. These are skills, which I think we can agree, few courses teach and I believe are essential to become a better scientist.
M.Sc. Student, Department of Psychiatry
I really enjoyed taking the Lab-to-World course; it made me reconsider the potential applications and implications of the research that we conduct in our lab and truly opened another world of possibilities. I learned about a completely different side of science, such as managing intellectual property and building partnerships with industry, which was both novel and stimulating! Since it is a small class, you get to know your peers and professor quite well, and the material is extremely engaging. I would recommend this course to anyone who is interested in translating their research into something that is more tangible and meaningful for the public!"
Aimee Ryan, Ph.D.
Associate Dean (Biomedical BSc, Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs)
Associate Professor, Departments of Pediatrics and Human Genetics
When I heard about the course, I wanted to take it! So I did the next best thing and convinced a senior PhD student in my lab to take it…even though he had already completed his course requirements. From my perspective, Lab-to-World Entrepreneurship is unique in that it provides a safe environment to learn “idea generation” (beyond the basic ones you need to troubleshoot your thesis experiments), teaches you how to communicate your ideas to others, and then, how to focus in on the best ideas and put them in context with needs outside of your own lab.
This course redefines “translation” and fosters creativity, cross-discipline connectivity and independence. Based on the experience of my student, I strongly recommend it for all students regardless