Nordic Life Science 1
M OST OF ALL, I am a scientist. Yes, absolutely.
This is my main occupation and the one in which I have the most expertise,” says Mia Phillipson, a professor in the department of Medical Cell Biology at Uppsala University. The process of starting a company is not as interesting to her as trying to apply observations from her lab to the clinic problem, Phillipson says, and emphasizes the importance of having a very committed PhD student and access to business expertise when you start a company. “It’s another way of thinking that I was not used to. It’s a different perspective with so many smart people guiding us to the fastest way to reach validation in patients,” she says. “Science is not everything – you can have the best therapy, but how do you build the product and will it be competitive?” However, many of the traits Phillipson cites as critical to good leaders apply to scientists as well. “You must be extremely committed and sometimes stubborn. You have to have a selective bad memory and be extremely curious. Communication also has become much more important,” she says. “I always wanted to know how!” Mia’s scientific curiosity started when she was young, she says. “I’ve always wanted to know more and was always questioning, I always wanted to know how! What amazed me most was how the body works,” she says. She first trained as a pharmacist at Uppsala University and then realized what she was missing was information about the drug targets, what was mediating the effects and side effects of the drugs. She went on to study medicine at the Panum Institute at the University of Copenhagen. She got her doctorate in physiology at Uppsala University, and then became interested in immune cells, which led to post-doctorate work in immunology, and she did her post-doctoral training in Calgary, Canada. When I asked her to describe the life science vibe in Uppsala, she says it has a very high density of highly experienced people within life sciences, which makes it easy to come across the knowledge you need for validating the concept one step further. “There are a lot of spin-outs, incubator activities around, and having the Swedish Medical Product Agency across the street and in close proximity to the hospital is very stimulating,” Phillipson says. “This vibrant environment is promoting innovations and entrepreneurial activities, and was great for our spin-out journey with Ilya Pharma. The disadvantages of this community come later I guess, when the projects mature and the industrial development that is more capital-intense happens. Prior commercialization, access to capital and knowledge is scarcer locally.” Her advice for the next generation of researchers is, “Just do it! If you don’t put in the work, you can’t expect to get anything out of it. Find something that you believe is important and follow it through,” she advises. 32 | NORDICLIFESCIENCE.ORG Mia and her family live just outside Uppsala and she likes to spend her Saturdays in the woods, taking a long walk with the family’s very active dog. “We are very happy to live by the water, and I try to be active and outdoors as much as possible whenever I am off work,” she states. On her nightstand lies the book “The sisters” by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, “A great novel,” she says. A science enabler Mia Phillipson describes that she sees her role today also as a science enabler. “With time, I have learnt to appreciate the importance of the scientific environment for the success of my ambitious research projects, and I now try to be an enabler of the best science possible also in a larger perspective. The academic system relies on us working together and taking on collegial tasks, but it is important to be able to do this without sacrificing one’s own research,” she explains. Being a female scientist and a female leader she says that mostly she has been in very supportive environments and also made a wise choice in the father of her kids and in her partner. “Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and I believe I have probably systematically underestimated structural hurdles or expectations associated with my gender,” she says. “General advice I give to others, as well as to myself, is to neither reduce nor overestimate your own contribution, to recognize the people that PHOTO NIKLAS NORBERG-WIRTÉN/SCILIFELAB