Category: Students

“If you find yourself in a place where there is nothing left to learn, then it is time to leave,” said Jeremiah Mitzelfelt when questioned about his decision to pursue technology analysis after receiving a Ph.D. in Medical Science. He wanted a change of pace from scientific research, but was unsure about other career opportunities where he could use his skills. That’s when he found the internship with the Emory Office of Technology Transfer and began to delve into the world of technology analysis and commercialization. Most Emory OTT interns have a background in chemistry or life science, which often leads to research focused careers spent in labs wearing white coats at the lab bench. However, many former interns learned that research and development extends far beyond the lab and involves writing, creativity, and negotiations. Dr. Paul Musille says his OTT internship taught him to digest, understand, and write about technologies–far from his graduate thesis research in lipid regulated transcription. The versatility in technology was Musille’s favorite part of the internship because it allowed him to work on many different types of projects. Emory’s OTT certainly generates useful skills, but many of these are difficult to quantify. Dr. Sommer Zimmerman

“My internship with Emory OTT allowed me to step outside the lab, and into another realm of scientific development,” said Jeremiah Mitzelfelt, a PhD student and Emory OTT intern in 2011. Other former Emory OTT interns feel similar to Mitzelfelt, explaining that Technology Transfer gave them a sense of renewed excitement for scientific innovation. Beyond increased excitement, it also created a new career path in the sciences that allowed them to move outside structured lab research into the fast paced, versatile work of technology transfer. Most OTT interns are PhD or Post-Doc students looking for a way remain involved in the world of scientific development, but who also desire to step outside the lab where the baseline research of this development was occurring. Dr. Rose Freel says OTT taught her to look at a technology with a wider lens than she was taught during her graduate career. She began to understand that for scientific innovation to have a wider impact, technology developers must evaluate more than just the incidence rates of a disease and the hard science. They have to understand the larger picture and facets of the market and the IP landscape. Dr. Paul Musille, an intern in 2013,

Emory’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) offers internship opportunities for graduate students, postdocs, and others looking to gain experience in the technology transfer industry. An intern can expect to leave with skills like technology assessment, writing marketing materials, performing market analyses, IP searches and exposure to contract negotiations. However, former interns cite networking opportunities as one of the most useful component of their experience at OTT. Interns are able to socialize and connect with various employees throughout the office and also get the chance to meet important individuals in the local biotech, startup, IP, and technology transfer fields. Dr. Sommer Zimmerman, a former intern and now a patent agent, advises future interns to meet as many people as possible, participate in as many events as they can handle, and to get involved in the OTT community. She describes the Atlanta IP Community as “a tight-knit group” and people remember you if they run into you enough. She advises interns, “Try to maintain and build on these relationships as much as you can,” and explains that those relationships have personal and professional benefits. “Networking should begin years, not weeks, before you need a job. Consider the internship an opportunity to build

Many scientists who obtain their PhD through rigorous coursework and excruciating time spent in the lab are unaware that they can apply their technical expertise in the burgeoning field of technology transfer. I am in the midst of this challenging transition from academia to technology transfer which means entering an entirely new world, one with which scientists, like myself, are very unfamiliar. Fortunately, I am in the trustworthy hands of the team at Emory University’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT). Their internship program features introductory crash-courses that teach up-and-coming technology transfer professionals the lay of the land, from the basics of marketing and intellectual property to assessing real world technologies, their market size and potential patentability. The crash courses on marketing and the patent/intellectual property law sections were highly comprehensive. The first course helped translate the marketing language into something we could understand by detailing the vernacular we would use during our time in the program. After we felt comfortable with marketing, the Emory Patent Group introduced the cohort to the broad field of patent law in a course that covered everything from how to read patents to interpreting patent claims. It was very interesting learning about the exacting nature

Interns at Emory’s OTT work with various members of the office in two-month rotations. Initially rotations are limited to the licensing team and marketing associates so that a strong foundation in basic technology transfer skills can be established. It is also important to work with multiple licensing associates as each one brings a unique background and thus perspective to the licensing process. After honing basic skills such as technology evaluation, tech brief writing, and targeted marketing, interns are free to rotate with the other members of the office in order to broaden their skill set. When an intern reaches this point in the internship, it may be helpful to look at job postings for various positions and identify which skills still need to be acquired or developed. Future rotations can then be set up with members of the office that can provide training in those areas. At Emory this can include additional experience with MTAs, startup support services, the Emory Patent Group, or compliance. For example, a number of specialist positions (contracts, marketing, compliance, etc.), in the Emory office focus on specific aspects of the technology transfer process. If so interested, interns can also move over to rotate with the

Our interns often move on to pursue careers in intellectual property law and technology transfer; some interns, like Sharon Ngwenya, do both. In this two part series, we caught up with Sharon to find out about her current career path and how a tech transfer internship has helped along the way. If you missed the first part of this series, click here where we learn about Sharon’s experience in IP law and tech transfer jobs. Today we turn our attention to her experiences as an OTT intern and what she has learned looking back. What skills did you gain as an intern do you feel were most valuable to your professional development/career? The most valuable skill that I gained as an intern was the ability to perform prior art and marketability searches. The criteria and mindset when performing these searches are different from the searches that I performed as a researcher because you are looking for information that could present problems during the prosecution of a patent application, not information that supports your hypothesis. If your search results support the hypothesis too closely, you may have found prior art that may necessitate killing the technology. What were your favorite and

Our interns often move on to pursue careers in intellectual property law and technology transfer; some interns, like Sharon Ngwenya, do both. Sharon Ngwenya was an intern in the office while she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Fellowship in Research and Science Teaching (FIRST) program. Before Emory, Sharon earned her doctorate from Texas A&M University and earned her bachelor’s in science in biochemistry from Oakwood College in Huntsville, AL. After completing her postdoctoral studies at Emory, Sharon joined the law firm Ballard & Spahr as a technology specialist of intellectual property. She later transitioned into technology transfer as a licensing associate at The University of Tennessee Research Foundation in Knoxville, TN. Currently, she is a senior licensing associate at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute in Houston, TX. In this two part series, we caught up with Sharon to find out about her current career path and how a tech transfer internship has helped along the way. How did you find your first job? I liked my first job at Ballard Spahr, an IP law firm. While IP law offices and tech transfer offices both have the goal of filing patent applications that result in issued patents, the day to

When I first started my PhD program I was driven by my desire to learn more about neuroscience, pursue translational research that could eventually help people, and contribute to our growing knowledge of the brain. As I progressed through my program, I started to think more about my career after earning a doctoral degree. I first focused on the type of academic career track that would best suit me, but I began to realize that the life of a typical academic did not appeal to me. Although I did enjoy learning about new scientific discoveries and felt an immense sense of pride in being part of that discovery process, I realized I did not want to continue bench work as a life-long career. Unfortunately, I had a limited grasp of careers available to Ph.D. graduates and no idea for how best to make the leap from academia to ‘alt-ac’ careers. I did know that I wanted to find a career that matched both my experience as a trained scientist and my desire to promote new scientific ideas. I decided to pursue an internship with OTT because it seemed to align with my interests and desires in a career. The internship

Although the core duties of an intern, such as prior art assessments and writing non-confidential summaries, are key to developing your knowledge of technology transfer, embracing those unique opportunities with special projects can be a valuable experience as well. My first “other project as assigned” was to help prepare paperwork for a company that was looking for early stage, small molecule therapeutics for further development. The company had already identified technologies in which they were interested. The paperwork necessary was a blend of a non-confidential summary, prior art search, and market assessment, but with a focus on small molecule development. The task was not difficult, but it allowed me to gain a greater feel for how small molecule therapeutics are developed (skills I didn’t have from my science career) and to get a glimpse into how companies assess technologies for licensing and development. My second “other project” was to evaluate non-exclusively licensed technologies and identify any potential technologies that were generating reasonable revenue and had the potential to be more broadly licensed. I was allowed (forced) to use some creativity to determine the best way to present the massive volume of numbers I was working with and present the information

Internships are great opportunities to learn about a new field and decide whether you actually like it before you commit to a career change. Being an intern is fun and exciting, but it’s also challenging and sometimes a little daunting. Below are some suggestions for really getting the most out of your time as an intern: Ask questions – Do your research first but when you reach a wall, ask. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes –If you don’t try & fail, you won’t learn. Learn from your mistakes – This point probably goes without saying, but it needs to be said. Take advantage of every opportunity – As an intern, it’s probably not best to say, “That’s not part of my job description”  (unless it’s fetching someone’s coffee). Other opportunities include networking and attending meetings. Some offices may even help pay or sponsor you to attend. Learn to multitask – You’ll have to learn how to do it at some point, so learn to do it now. Explore on your own – Don’t do only what is asked and stop thinking. Research this possible new career path – is it something you could see yourself doing after the internship?

“Why should I care?” is a question most often asked by mentors in order to push a mentee to communicate the bigger picture of science. With scientists in the lab striving to understand a small part of life, the overall goals of research are sometimes lost in translation. Part of the confounding issue of science communication is that writing and presenting skills tend to fall to the wayside in graduate training; yet, the ability to clearly communicate ideas is a critical component of securing funding, publishing good quality articles, and winning the occasional best presentation award. While these are all familiar goals for scientists, the importance of disseminating science extends past the academic audience. Communicating new technologies and their marketability is a critical component in the office. Whereas many academic scientists promote their impact on the scientific field, the focus of technology transfer is to promote potential commercial value. These are vastly different goals that can be hard to consolidate for a graduate student. I first found myself stumped at the prospect of switching gears to business mode. After retraining some neurons with the help of the staff, I realized that many of the skills I gained through graduate school