Michaela Fojtů: Exploring the Boston Biotech Hub in the Time of Pandemic

Michaela Fojtů researches cancer nano-medicine

at Masaryk University in Brno. In January 2021, she departed for Harvard University to join their international research team at the Harvard Medical School and its laboratories located within the MIT campus in Cambridge. Roughly in the middle of her 9-month stay in the U.S., Michaela says that she has no doubt that "I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be." Michaela fell in love with the magic of Cambridge and the whole metropolitan area of Boston. At Harvard, she is discovering the plethora of future career opportunities for a graduate with a biochemistry degree. Boston feels like an intersection of science and business, and so she eagerly takes courses offered by the Harvard Business Club. Classes focused on biotech consultancy, patent law, science investing, innovation challenges, and careers in venture capital are commonplace at Harvard University, but unheard of in the Czech university setting.

Let´s be honest - there have been better years for an international experience then the year 2020. In situations like this one can basically adapt two strategies - either to host a pity party and complain how hard the life is, or you just grab the opportunity that has been given to you and try to make the best out of it. As for me, I recommend going for the second option. My current Fulbright experience started back in autumn 2019 in Cambridge, UK. Here, the first conference on Nanotechnology in Oncology have been organized by the European Association for Cancer Research (EACR). It was here where I encountered dr. Shiladitya Sengupta from the Harvard Medical School for the first time. This eventually resulted in my application for the Fulbright Fellowship to join the research projects within his Centre for Engineered Therapeutics. Here, we are developing novel strategies for cancer therapy merging latest advances from the field of nanotechnology, drug design, and immunotherapy.

Photo 2: Boston downtown, March 2021. (Boston skyline in the background and Boston Harbor with cruise ships in the foreground.)

By the time the lockdown started in the Czech Republic, we knew for about a month and half then we have been awarded by the fellowship. Unfortunately for me, my excessive activity was proven to be unsuitable characteristic in pandemic times. By that time lockdown came, I already managed to arrange many necessities in Boston i.e., an apartment and other, as well as to gave up on many other in the Czech Republic. This made it very hard for me to imagine that the stay could be cancelled. After a series of events and with a great help of Fulbright coordinators, we managed to start our stays early this year. In the beginning of January 2021, Boston welcomed me with a milder weather then I was expecting and with a bit looser restrictions than in the Czech Republic enabling me to get to know the city of Boston at least in a limited form. And when I talk about Boston, I refer to Boston-Cambridge area and its closest neighborhood. In fact, you would not even recognize leaving one city and entering the other without actual knowing as the cities have also mutual public transport. Since the first day of my arrival in the city I had no doubts I´m exactly where I´m supposed to be. For me personally, the city of Boston is the greatest place that I could possibly wish to live in for a while – very European-like, people are very friendly and kind (even though Americans from other states would definitely disagree with me). There are plenty of parks interconnected in the so-called Emerald Necklace designed by F.L. Olmsted in 1883, a man well-known especially for designing the Central Park in New York. Boston spirit greatly resonates with my personal interests which are education, innovations, sport, culture, and entertainment. The role of education is obvious – Boston is a home of the most renowned research institutions like Harvard, MIT, or Tufts – in fact, there are 35 collages and universities in metropolitan Boston. As for sport, Boston is home of several major league teams and people love to engage in collective or individual sports also actively. This only supports the 124-year long tradition of the Boston Marathon, the world´s oldest annual marathon, and the fact that according to the American Fitness Index Boston belongs to the fittest U.S. cities. Walking through the streets of Boston, you will notice many people wearing hats, or hoodies stating their devotedness to a favorite baseball, ice hockey, basketball, or football team (and when you say football here, it means the one we refer in Czech as an "American football" - I still keep doing this mistake).

Photo 3: Czechs and Slovaks meet in Harvard Gardens, Boston, April 2021. (A group of 11 people pose together for a group picture in a bar.)

When it comes to biotech and life sciences, there are not many places around the globe as Boston/Cambridge area. Boston with its rich university environment stands for a biotech innovations’ pacesetter. In the center of this rich environment is the Kendall Square neighborhood that alone hosts around 120 biotech companies within a mile radius that are determining the lightspeed growth of biotech industry. Boston/Cambridge area is also birthplace of more than 2000 innovative startup companies. These are highly benefitting from the plethora of talented young professionals attracted to the city to gain the best education possible. Since my home laboratory in Boston operates at the intersection of the Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brigham and Women's hospital, early after arrival I joined both, Harvard, and MIT biotech clubs. The activities of these organizations are highly impacted by pandemic situation now and the networking is not that easy as is used to be. However, getting to know like-minded people is still possible as the current activities switched to online zoom events. There is a silver lining here - you can manage to attend more events that you possibly could not manage to attend personally. Only here I realized how many possibilities professionals with my background have. Graduating with a biochemistry degree in the Czech Republic, I always thought I can either work as a scientist in the academia/academy of sciences, or for some private biotech/pharmaceutical company. However, there are only very few biotech/pharma companies that actually have their own research and development facilities located in the Czech Republic. This leaves you with a feeling of predetermination for a career in academia, or you might even consider leaving the field completely. You can of course also start your own business; however, for a young professional this is very tricky for several reasons. Firstly, Czech universities unfortunately do not prepare you for an entrepreneurship career in biotech well. Therefore, if you are not interested in this career path by yourself, only little of extra education is provided on this direction. Also, you usually do not have sufficient background knowledge and professional network that might be needed to launch your business or at least to provide you with some recommendations. In the Czech Republic, academia and industry in my field are two separate entities that merge rarely. Here the situation is exactly opposite. Professors often work for several companies and therefore, from what I had a chance to encounter so far, also the projects here put a special emphasis on applicability. University clubs cooperate with companies. For example, in the aforementioned biotech clubs that I joined, students are offered with various paid fellowships within the local companies during studies. They can also join clubs focused on biotech and pharmaceutical consulting as these are given contracts from renowned companies. In this way, by the time when leaving the university Harvard graduate can easily have few years of experience in biotech consultancy. There are also patent law courses, courses focused on biotech investing, machine learning, various innovation challenges, or opportunities for people that want to learn more about career in venture capital. The plethora of opportunities is overwhelming and it´s easy to get lost in it. I personally attend these events often. Extra education on various topics is provided - I personally applied for a Minor in Entrepreneurship course organized by the Harvard Business Club. This is a half-year course where professionals from biotech companies address crucial issues for scientists considering career of an entrepreneur e.g., how to develop an integrated business model, launch a lean startup, how to protect it, how to find investors, how to scale it up and how to pitch with an emphasis put on personal experience of the lecturers invited. Do not imagine these courses as opportunities for masses comprising hundreds of individuals. In this particular course, the number of participants is intentionally kept as low as thirty individuals which provides a great opportunity for personalized discussion as well as for building professional network.

Photo 4: Conquering Mt. Eisenhower with friends, White Mountains, New Hampshire, April 2021. (Four friends in outdoor clothing pose for a group picture during a hike in the mountains.) 
 
Science is international and when applying for funding you are competing with people from the whole world. Fulbright program provides an incredible opportunity to test your professional expertise with the top experts in the field. It gives you higher professional credibility to gain further experience and skills, and to make contacts one could benefit from for the rest of the professional life. Fulbright gives you more self-confidence while you should preserve your humbleness to some extent as these are both crucial for your successful career that will with a help of this fellowship receive an extra kick-off. For me personally, Fulbright is not just another international stay in the laboratory, there is a whole further value added. It is a cultural experience, and the position of the Fulbright fellow opens many doors. International experience as a Fulbright Fellow is unique and I´m very grateful that I have been given this opportunity to push the level of my expertise a great leap further.