Scientific Director and Founder Left Academia with a Startup

Name: Andrea Villanueva

PhD: Cellular, Molecular Biology, and Neurosciences, Universidad de Chile, 2018

What is your current job?

I am a Scientific Director for Ga3D Medical INTL based in Montreal, QC, Canada. I am also a CoFounder and ex CTO at Luyef Biotechnologies, Santiago, Chile.

Since, I am currently working on a startup, I do many things related and not related to my job position. My main task is overseeing the scientific development and R&D in my company, from conception to protocols and intellectual property. Also, I am in charge of the laboratory set up, finding people to work with us (recruitment), managing people, some PR, competitive analysis, and tech vigilance.

What is your favorite thing about your job?

After working in academia, I only worked on startups, my own and this one, and I really like that I feel like a firefighter. I have to think fast and make decisions without having all the information and I feel like I am resolving things day by day. It's exhausting but at the end of the day or week, I feel like I have things done.

Also, I like the possibility to work on many different things, from HR and Business side without losing the tech part.

What is the most important skill you developed or experience you had during your PhD that now helps you in your current position?

Resilience and organizational skills. Also, to be able to see what's really important from all the data and sometimes, contradicting information. I feel that a Ph.D. gives you confidence that you know some things and if you don't know then you know how to find it.

How did you build the skills necessary for your current role?

I read some books and participated in some accelerators for startups, but nothing was more helpful than going and doing it. I learned the hard way, making mistakes and then fixing them.

How did you find this position? What were the career steps you took to get to where you are now?

My husband and I were planning to buy a house and my broker knew someone who needed a PhD in my field with startup experience. She did the introductions and voila.

PhD graduate ➡️ postdoctoral fellow ➡️ Startup founder ➡️ startup worker

If someone is interested in a similar role, what would you recommend they start doing now to prepare?

Soft skills. Many Ph.D.s are very good technically but they lack the social skills to talk to people and then manage people, and that's very difficult. In academia, sometimes, professors are not the best example of how to manage people properly, and it’s good to understand that when you want to work in industry.

Why did you decide to not pursue a career in academia?

It was not a difficult decision. I always wanted to have a company myself and tried to do many projects, but then one of them worked well enough to leave academia and have my own startup.

What advice do you have for someone getting their PhD and looking to pursue a career outside of academia?

Make contacts with everyone. A good social network can help you to leave academia faster and also, try to see how to make your Ph.D. thesis interesting or relevant to a certain industry and then try to meet people from that.

Are there any components of your identity you would like to share, including how they have impacted your journey?

I am from latinamerica and in that region you have to find a way to do science without resources and that knowledge impacted me in a good way. Now, I know I can do a lot without money and in a startup perspective that’s really good.

And for those interested, what was your main area of research?

During my Ph.D., I worked on evaluating the molecular mechanism behind the interaction of proteins related to cancer metastasis (proteins related with cell migration) in a pediatric cancel model in vitro and in vivo. After that, I did a postdoc on bioengineering related to cell culture media optimization.