Title: Medical Science Liaison
Employer: UCB Inc.
Previous Roles: Medical Science Liaison, Reata Pharmaceuticals
Colleen is actively involved in both healthcare and research. After graduating from the Integrative Biology Honors program in 2011 she went on to get her PhD in Biomedical Sciences at the University of California San Diego (2017) and then became a Postdoctoral Fellow in musculoskeletal biology at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation. She is currently a Medical Science Liaison (MSL) at UCB Inc.
As a MSL, Colleen is the bridge between a pharmaceutical company and physicians. She supports clinical stage programs for rare neurological diseases and her role involves interacting with health care providers to understand the unique needs of these patient populations. She sits at the intersection of the latest science and health care, simultaneously learning from physicians as well as providing them a deep scientific resource on a specific rare disease.
Every step she has taken in her career has been targeted towards translating research and development into meaningful progress for patients with neurodegenerative disorders and their families. This requires both deeply understanding intricate details and identifying larger patterns and trends. “IB cultivated within me the keen ability of astuteness- the capacity to understand not just what is happening in front of me but merging it with measured data and understanding how that may influence a variety of outcomes.”
Her time in IB included conducting genetics research in model organisms including yeast and C. elegans, isolating hemolymph from crabs to measure salt buffering, identifying fungal growth on fallen trees, observing a single plant on campus for an entire semester, learning practical coral reef ecology off the coast of Belize, many courses in molecular biology and neuroscience, and much more. All these experiences directly influenced her capacity to observe, learn, integrate, and translate novel scientific findings. “It has also been a ton of fun along the way!”
Colleen is happy to discuss questions on graduate school, scientific careers in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, genetics in healthcare, and more. She has expertise in genetic disorders, specifically repeat expansion diseases and the movement disorder ataxia, mitochondrial underpinnings of neurodegeneration, the biology of the neuromuscular junction, and other cellular pathways that contribute to movement and neuromuscular disorders. Contact Christina Swanson at alumnimentor@sib.illinois.edu if you would like to connect with Colleen.