Postdoc Fellow

Tell us about your background?

Hi there, my name is Lotte van Beek, and I'm a postdoctoral research fellow in the mechanistic and structural biology group at AstraZeneca in Cambridge, UK. Originally, I'm from the Netherlands where I studied chemical engineering and biomedical engineering. This got me really excited about how molecules can interact with proteins. Then I did a PhD in structural biology. In this field, you investigate the structure of proteins, and that means you are the first one to see the atomic detail of a protein structure. You can also use this to study how a compound, that one day might become a drug, can interact with the protein.

Tell us about your PhD project?

My postdoc project at AstraZeneca addresses the problem of how the body repairs breaks in the DNA. These breaks occur every day in every cell. Our body has a whole range of mechanisms in place to detect and repair these DNA breaks. This is very important because if the DNA is left damaged, it can disrupt normal cell cycle behaviour and can lead to uncontrolled cell growth. This project brings together two investigators, one in industry and one in academia. They complement each other very well. We collaborate quite closely with each other. We share scientific updates, visited each other occasionally. And during look down the road to review together.

What prompted you to pursue a PhD project which includes a pharmaceutical industry partner?

Doing a postdoc in the pharmaceutical industry brings about many benefits, both for the individual and for the projects. The project benefits, because I can have input from in house experts in the disease area. All my colleagues are really friendly and experts in their fields. Also as industrial post doc, you will have access to state of the art equipment to make your research more efficient and innovative. Finally, you still get to publish scientific papers and reviews and get to attend conferences. Individually I've benefited from doing my postdoc in industry in terms of what I wanted to get out of my career as a scientist. I knew academia already through doing my PhD there. Doing a postdoc in industry gives you a taste of what it is like to work in the pharmaceutical industry.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic influenced your experience?

The COVID-19 pandemic has placed science in the spotlight worldwide and I think that is a great development for searchers collectively. It has also proven how academia and industry can work together to make things happen at an unprecedented pace. As an example, AstraZeneca GlaxoSmithKline and the University of Cambridge came together to help increase the COVID-19 testing capability in the UK. I have stepped up and volunteered to bring my scientific background to good use for our community. It has been an incredibly rewarding and intense experience. I learned a lot of new skills that troubleshooting and innovation, expanded my scientific network, and most importantly made a difference to the community by delivering diagnostic results to patients about their COVID-19 status.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years' time?

The past years as postdoc in AstraZeneca. That's confirmed for me that the pharmaceutical industry is a field I would like to continue working in every day is different. You are solving scientific puzzles, work together with brilliant researchers, and you have the ability to make a real impact on patients lives. In five years time, I hope to be actively contributing to project teams within the pharmaceutical industry. At the end of the day, I would like to help discover how molecules bind to proteins. And ultimately, we can find the best drug for the best patient group making a difference to people's lives.