For this special instalment of our 'Careers in...' series, we're delighted to welcome a panel of Crick alumni and friends working in drug discovery across academic and industry. You'll have the opportunity to ask them questions about their careers, and the talk will be followed by an informal networking reception from 17:00 in the atrium.

Find out more about our panel below:

Kinga Bercsenyi | Vice President of Business Development - Next Generation Drug Discovery, Arctoris 

Kinga gained her PhD in the Schiavo lab at the LRI in 2014 before starting her career in the field of drug discovery. She has held a number of roles in business development, and in 2022 joined Arctoris, a tech-enabled drug discovery company, as Vice President of business development. 

Sarah Caswell | Associate Principal Scientist, AstraZeneca

Sarah studied structural biology in the Taylor lab, completing her PhD in 2018. She then moved to the protein science team at AstraZeneca as Senior Protein Scientist before moving to Associate Principal Scientist.  

Professor Namshik Han | Head of Artificial Intelligence at Milner Therapeutics Institute & Associate Faculty at Cambridge Centre for AI in Medicine, University of Cambridge and Co-founder & CTO, CardiaTec

Namshik gained his PhD in Machine Learning and Computational Biology at the University of Manchester before moving to the University of Cambridge for his postdoc. In 2017 Namshik became the head of Artificial Intelligence at the Milner Therapeutics Institute, and during this time he launched the spinout CardiaTec, developing an AI platform to discover new drugs for cardiovascular diseases. 

Professor Beth Psaila | Associate Professor of Haematology, University of Oxford and Co-founder, Alethiomics

Beth trained in medicine at Cambridge and UCL before completing a PhD in the role of Megakaryocytes in Tumour Metastasis. In 2016 she joined the MRC Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine as a clinical postdoctoral fellow, before becoming Associate Professor of Haematology in 2021. at this time she also co-founded Alethiomics, a spinout harnessing the power of single cell multiomic technology to discover and develop treatments for patients with blood cancer. 

Sam Hunter | Team Lead Talent Acquisition Partner – Oncology R&D, AstraZeneca

Sam has over 20 years experience in recruitment. She joined AstraZeneca in 2018 and leads a team of 8 Global Talent Acquisition professionals and is responsible for recruiting the best talent for a range of departments within the Oncology Business Area. 

Our monthly 'Careers in...' series aims to highlight careers outside of academia for those thinking of their next step, or are just a bit curious! Each month we focus on a different industry and Crick staff and alumni share their experiences of transitioning from academia into a range of roles. Its a great opportunity to find out more about potential career paths and ask questions from those who have done it themselves.