Q: Hi Michael! Can you tell us a bit about what you do?

I’m a senior scientist in the plasmid engineering and production team. We design and engineer plasmids for internal projects and for customers. Sometimes a customer will send a DNA sequence they want made, or a plan of what they want to achieve and we determine how best to stitch the DNA together.  Sometimes the best way might not be the quickest way, and – with the customers’ input – we’ll make a judgment call on which way to go. Once we’ve come up with the design, we’ll start the cloning process. The result of that is a plasmid prep that we then run through our quality control system, which includes plasmid sequencing, before we hand it over to either the customer, or another group within OXGENE depending on the scope of the project.

Q: Could you give us a sense of the timeline involved in molecular biology projects?

It will really depend on the type of project we’re taking on. Various projects have different levels of complexity to them. Some projects will be over and done within a week, some can take longer. This could be due to a number of reasons – various clients have different requirements for how we carry out a project. But sometimes, science doesn’t always play ball; things don’t always go to plan, you may have to adapt and find solutions in real time. While this type of problem solving is something I truly enjoy in my role - it’s challenging, but also extremely rewarding – we also make a determined effort to anticipate and avoid any issues as best we can. One of the strongest aspects of my team is the ability to properly manage risks – this includes everything from anticipating issues, problem-solving to find solutions quickly and efficiently, to putting preventative processes in place to ensure the issue is easily avoidable in the future. A crucial aspect in this is maintaining clear lines of communication with the client. I’ve found that being open and transparent with the client not only helps them feel at ease about the project, but also helps us deliver exactly what the client needs.

Q:  What does a typical day look like for you Michael?

I get in and hit the coffee machine! Then I review what I’ve got on for the day – various projects we’re working on, what stages they’re at and so on. It’s not unusual for us to be working on four or five projects simultaneously. I remind myself what needs doing in the morning and spend the rest of the day executing tasks as required.

Making decisions on the job, as and when they pop up, is a big part of my role. As is communicating with other members of my team about what they’re doing, how that’s going and planning ahead for future/incoming projects, with meetings and conversations about lab maintenance peppered in as and when they’re needed.

I like the variety. Getting involved in different projects about different things appeals to me. I like multi-focussed work initiatives where you can be working on one thing and then look at something else with an entirely different scientific discipline.

Q: How have things changed for your team over the last year? 

Ever since WuXi Advanced Therapies acquired us last year, things have changed for the better. We’ve added the capability to produce research grade plasmids at scale to our repertoire, so we’ve split into two teams.  Initially we were the vector library development team and now we’re the plasmid engineering and production team but split into two sides – the design side and the production side. This has been a really positive development, as we can now allocate resources more effectively and play to our strengths. We’ve streamlined critical processes and established more efficient production timelines.

My team – on the design side - is broadly doing the same things as before. The idea is that we design the construct, assemble an initial plasmid quantity and then hand it over to the other team, who can produce it at scale. This is something we couldn’t do before; we now have a more effective, well-organised and systematic approach that can address our customers’ needs more comprehensively.

The production team is quite fresh; it’s grown a lot in a short space of time. Their job is to do large-scale plasmid preps involving 10 – 15 litre bioreactors.  They have a brand-new facility and can support what we do on a much bigger scale than we’ve done before.

Our workspaces were renovated and kitted out with brand new equipment and we have a lot more space than before. We’ve got more resources to support customer projects. Stuff is still arriving for the new team- just the other day we had brand new bits of kit turn up. It’s like Christmas!

Q: What makes you most proud to work here?

The fact that we’re involved in testing new technologies and the end result of our work allows our customers to produce potentially revolutionary treatments. At present my team and I are working on TESSA™ projects. TESSA™ is our proprietary process of producing self-silencing adenoviral vectors. We engineer TESSA™ vectors to encode a gene or capsid of interest for high quality manufacture of AAV seed stocks. We’re right at the very start of that process - the design and cloning of the vector. At the end point they are all designed to treat diseases. We are quite far away from the end point but being a part of the process is rewarding.

Day in the Life provides a snapshot of real life at OXGENE and WuXi Advanced Therapies, demonstrating how we invest in our innovative science and company culture to drive success for our customers and our employees. Read these insightful interviews with scientists, project managers, human resources representatives and others to learn how everyone contributes to helping pioneering companies get novel treatments to patients faster.