Karin works at AstraZeneca in Sweden, the same city where she completed her university and research degrees. She thought about many different careers before deciding on her present one. “Journalist, actor, physician, history teacher – I considered them all at some point. But circumstances led me to pursue studies in biology. I’ve always been interested in both biology and medicine, and the work I do now puts me right in the middle of the two.” “As biologists we search for the links between the disease and the target. A target is a specific aspect of a disease that a chemical compound might be able to modify. Biologists have to know as much as possible about diseases in order to identify potential targets in the search for new medicines. We’re involved in the entire Discovery process, from the very beginning when the target is identified to the screening of compounds and eventually to the nomination of a Candidate Drug.” Karin first worked as an immunologist, dealing with different aspects of antibodies. Before she came to AstraZeneca, she spent a few years with a small biotech company in San Diego, changing and improving antibodies for therapeutic use by antibody engineering techniques. Back in Sweden, she also worked with antibodies for cancer therapy. Karin’s current position at AstraZeneca is as Team Leader in the Cell Biology division, where the focus of her work is on testing potential new treatments for lung diseases. She puts a lot of her efforts into the use of biomarkers, aiming to improve the quality of the results from clinical studies. “My work is very diverse, and entails grappling both with small details and with large, sweeping questions in the same day. It’s fascinating to try to solve the mystery of why the body responds in one way or the other.” “AstraZeneca is a big and multicultural company. I think this works very well, we have a good atmosphere. My own research area is divided between three different locations but communication runs smoothly. “ |