For many trainees, a career in industry can be difficult to envision from within the day-to-day rhythm of academic research. The ASPIRE on the Road program offers an opportunity to see those careers firsthand. During this year’s ASPIRE on the Road visit to Boston, Massachusetts, 12 Vanderbilt biomedical graduate students and postdoctoral fellows stepped inside that world and observed different ways of doing science.
Over three days, the cohort of trainees with a breadth of various biomedical backgrounds and career interests visited biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, innovation spaces, and life sciences organizations, including the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, Foghorn Therapeutics, Mariana Oncology, CAGE Bio (part of the 4:59 NewCo initiative), LabCentral, Moderna, MassBio, and Eli Lilly. The trip also included lunch with alums and a Biomedical Research Education and Training alum happy hour, creating multiple opportunities for trainees to connect with scientists, leaders, alums, and peers across the Boston biotech and pharma industry.
For many attendees, the impact of the trip was not only in learning what industry is, but in seeing what it looks like in practice.
“Before the trip, I thought of industry as a rigid structure, and I was often intimidated by the idea of transitioning into that space,” Laventa Obare said. Obare is a postdoctoral fellow studying the immunological mechanisms underlying disease progression and complications at the overlap of HIV and cardiometabolic diseases. “Seeing how team-based, collaborative, and science-driven the environments were helped shift my mindset.”
That shift—going from seeing industry as an abstract career option to understanding what those careers look like in practice—was a recurring theme throughout the trip. At Foghorn Therapeutics, trainees met with scientists across research and development, including teams focused on drug product development, chemistry, biology, immunology, oncology, mass spectrometry, and protein degradation. They also learned about the company’s career development program and toured the lab with the Degrader Platform Team.
Visits to Mariana Oncology and Cage Therapeutics offered a look at the work and culture of smaller, emerging companies, while visits to Moderna and Eli Lilly provided a perspective on larger pharmaceutical organizations through discussions with research and leadership teams, talent acquisition professionals, and laboratory scientists.
For Julia Steele, a graduate student studying cancer biology, seeing companies at different stages was one of the most valuable parts of the experience.
“Witnessing how roles evolve across these spaces and seeing the collaborative nature of the industry, both within companies and across partnerships, was incredibly eye opening,” she said.
Steele’s reflection captured one of the central lessons of the trip: There is no single path to a career in industry. Across site visits, trainees saw how scientific roles differ by company size, therapeutic area, stage of development, and organizational culture. They also saw how collaboration within companies and across external partnerships can help move discoveries from early research toward clinical applications and, ultimately, patients.
For pharmacology graduate student Tony Ferranti, the trip provided a clearer picture of both the career path he wants to pursue and how to prepare for it.
“My biggest takeaway from the trip was that I must network effectively and broadly for the best chance of landing a job in the biotech/pharma industry after graduating,” Ferranti said. “I also have a new perspective on which companies and work cultures would be the best match for me within industry.”
The experience also gave Ferranti greater confidence in pursuing research and development roles after graduation. Conversations with industry professionals helped him see networking as an important part of preparing for that transition.
“I now realize the importance of actively building my network now to land a job about one year from now in industry,” he said. “This trip has motivated me and given me additional resources to do so.”
Networking was woven into the fabric of the trip, which gave trainees opportunities to connect with Vanderbilt alums and other industry professionals outside of formal site visits. Trainees toured Kendall Square and met Vanderbilt alums for lunch before attending a BRET alum happy hour at Lamplighter Brewing Co. in Cambridge Crossing.
For several attendees, those informal conversations were just as important as the formal site visits as they helped the trainees understand how real, actual people navigate the transition from academia to industry. These conversations highlighted the value of identifying transferable skills, positioning one’s training, building networks, and choosing roles that fit one’s values and interests.
“What made the trip especially meaningful was seeing people in senior roles who genuinely wanted to help trainees,” Obare said. “Many of them had faced the same uncertainties we face now, and hearing how they navigated those transitions made industry feel more human, more accessible, and more attainable.”
By the end of the trip, the impact was clear. Trainees had improved their understanding of the range of roles available in industry, how their scientific training could translate to those careers, and the importance of building professional connections along the way. For many, the experience also helped them identify the types of companies, work environments, and career paths they may want to pursue.
For the participating trainees, ASPIRE on the Road: Boston turned an unfamiliar career landscape into something more concrete—something they could explore, ask questions about, and prepare to enter.