Event date: 01-24-2022

Event Time: 5:45 PM

Venue:online

URL: https://massawis.org/event/how-to-get-a-job-at-the-fda/

Monday, January 24 @ 5:45 pm – 7:15 pm EST

Are you interested in getting a job at the FDA? MASS AWIS is hosting an exciting panel discussion with current and former FDA employees. Join us to get insights and advice on how to prepare for a position at the FDA!

Panelists Bios

Dr. Bao Nguyen

Dr. Bao Nguyen is currently a Biomedical Engineer in the Office of Tissues and Advanced Therapies within the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at FDA. She is specializing in regulation of cell therapies and tissue engineering products.
Dr. Nguyen earned her PhD at the University of Maryland where she was dedicated to stem cell research, specifically to investigate their role in the regeneration of bone tissue. She continued to feed her interest in stem cells while she was a Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the California Legislature, supported by the California Council on Science & Technology (CCST). During her science policy fellowship, she worked in the Senate Health Committee and in the office former State Senator Ed Hernandez, and helped champion a bill in curbing the marketing of unapproved stem cell therapies in California. Following the CCST fellowship, she was accepted as a Commissioner’s Fellow, a two-year fellowship at the FDA. As part of the program, Dr. Nguyen researched the use of scientific standards in regulatory submission of regenerative medicine products. She also had the opportunity to rotate between offices at the FDA, learning along the way how various medical products are regulated. She now applies this knowledge as a cell therapy and device reviewer for cell therapy and gene therapy products.

Elaine Soohoo, PhD

Elaine currently works in the Division of Cardiovascular Devices in the Center for Devices and Radiological Health at the FDA. received her B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California Berkeley, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University where her research focused on the development of a novel, non-thromboembolic cardiac assist device inspired by the natural twisting motion of the beating heart. In addition to her graduate work, Elaine was also a Clinical Artificial Heart Biomedical Engineer at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. During her PhD, she was also a Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Fellow at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine. Elaine also had a previous life working as a R&D Lab Associate for Disney Imagineering, where she worked on making the world of Pandora come to life for the “Pandora –The World of Avatar” attraction at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park.

Emmanuel Adu-Gyamfi, PhD

Dr. Emmanuel Adu-Gyamfi is a trained virologist and biochemist with a PhD from the University of Notre Dame and postdoctoral training in molecular virology from the laboratory of Dr Robert Lamb, Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Northwestern University. Dr. Adu-Gyamfi obtained his Bachelor Science (in Biochemistry) undergraduate degree from the University of Ghana. He joined the US FDA in 2019 as a Regulatory Reviewer in the Division of Cellular and Gene Therapies (DCGT). Prior to joining the FDA, he worked as Senior Scientist for Gene and Cell Therapy at Pfizer Inc, USA for many years. He has a wide range of experience ranging from classical virology, reverse genetics to platform technologies for gene therapy, ex vivo modified cells and vaccines development. He lives in the Baltimore-DC area with his wife Akosua and two sons. He is an avid runner, enjoys cooking with his sons and a die-hard fan of Notre Dame Football.

Jessica Chery, PhD

Dr. Chery received her PhD in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology, and Biochemistry from Brown University. Her PhD thesis characterized a previously unstudied zinc finger protein identified by the lab, elucidating its function in DNA packaging and regulation of acetylation marks implicated in cancers such as breast cancer and leukemia. Previous to her graduate work, she obtained a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Bachelor of Arts in Biology from the University of Rochester. Dr. Chery did post-doctoral research at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital where she identified novel small molecules with therapeutic potential for Ebola virus. While there, she collaborated on projects developing small molecules such as antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) and RNAi as therapeutic modalities for metabolic diseases. Pursuant to this, Dr. Chery became a research fellow at Dana Farber Cancer Institute where she developed a gene therapy approach for Very Early Onset Inflammatory Bowel Disease (VEO-IBD) using CRISPR and viral vector technologies. After her postdoc fellowship, Dr. Chery became a full-time CMC reviewer at the FDA.