On this interview, we communicate with Melanie Leveridge, Vice President of Discovery Biology at AstraZeneca and Chair of the Board for ELRIG UK, to debate her in depth profession within the pharmaceutical trade, her function in fostering scientific innovation, and her imaginative and prescient for ELRIG’s future.
Please may you introduce your self and provides me a short overview of your skilled background?
My identify is Melanie Leveridge, and I am the chair of the board of ELRIG UK. In my day job, I am Vice President of Discovery Biology at AstraZeneca based mostly in Cambridge. I’ve labored within the pharmaceutical trade for round 20 years, main groups in early discovery, supporting assay improvement, screening and compound profiling, mechanistic biology, and pattern administration. I have been concerned with ELRIG for so long as I can bear in mind, first as a speaker at occasions or session chair, then on varied committees and as a board member since 2017, and most not too long ago, chair of the board since 2020.
How has your in depth profession background influenced your function as chair at ELRIG?
It is very a lot a two-way avenue. The work I do in my day job clearly informs us of the scientific subjects that we wish to showcase at ELRIG. We have to ensure that the science and expertise that we showcase are actually related to scientists in drug discovery. The work with ELRIG actually helps to construct networks, which helps with the day job and helps me perceive what sort of newest science is on the market that I can then convey again to the day job as nicely. ELRIG additionally helps to foster partnerships between trade and academia, in addition to with our expertise and reagents suppliers, all of which assist to advance our science.
ELRIG performs a pivotal function within the scientific neighborhood by fostering collaboration and innovation. Are you able to talk about any particular initiatives or packages which have been carried out to boost these elements inside the group?
Our innovation technique, which is new this 12 months, is led by our innovation work group, chaired by my fellow board members Del Trezise and Sarah Lupton within the ELRIG crew. They’ve put collectively a method to make ELRIG occasions accessible to new start-ups and corporations with breaking innovation, however those that could not have reached a scale but can have a full sales space for the assembly or giant talks. There will probably be a devoted exhibition house for these corporations at our Drug Discovery and Analysis and Innovation occasions, in addition to an Innovation Award. It is actually geared in direction of corporations with lower than 25 workers, so small start-ups. We actually wish to nurture that neighborhood, assist them entry scientists who can present suggestions and assist embed their concepts into the trade, and provides the ELRIG delegates entry to their nice improvements as nicely to assist with their work, so it is a win-win.
Picture Credit score: ELRIG UK
In your introductory discuss at Analysis and Innovation 2024, you spoke concerning the significance of early profession professionals at ELRIG and mentioned that 30% of attendees are literally these early-stage professionals. Are you able to discuss somewhat bit about that and simply what which means to ELRIG to foster that neighborhood?
This can be a actually necessary neighborhood for us. Clearly, a giant a part of ELRIG’s mission is to assist folks construct networks, which is extremely necessary once you’re early on in your profession, and likewise to nurture and educate the following era of scientists.
Round 30% of people that come to our conferences are ECPs. We outline ECPs as people who find themselves inside the first 5 years of their profession, whether or not that is after their postgraduate analysis or bachelor’s diploma, no matter that’s. We now have numerous occasions and actions geared to ECPs. I believe my favourite one is our Community Like a Boss occasion, which is like velocity networking that we maintain at each Drug Discovery and Analysis and Innovation conferences yearly. It is nice enjoyable! We even have plenty of devoted ECP webinars and scientific content material like flash poster talks. We now have prizes geared in direction of ECPs, akin to our ECP Affect Awards and our ECP Poster Awards. Lastly, we reinvest a few of our income into the ECP neighborhood, for instance, within the type of journey bursaries, to make our occasions accessible to this neighborhood.
I believe it is crucial that we’ve ECPs represented on all of our committees by way of ELRIG in order that we hear ECPs’ views in our planning and technique. We now have an early profession skilled workgroup particularly devoted to ECP actions, however we even have ECPs embedded in the entire different work teams and on the board. That brings a extremely recent perspective to all of our discussions, they usually all the time add enormous worth to all of our conversations and concepts.
Picture Credit score: ELRIG UK
Given ELRIG’s dedication to scientific schooling networking, how do you make sure the group stays forward of the curve in masking the newest applied sciences and methodologies in drug discovery that you’ve got talked about?
Loads of that’s because of our science programming work group, led by Saleha Patel on the board and Clare Cockerham within the ELRIG crew and with membership from throughout a various vary of establishments and areas of experience from our volunteer normal committee. They arrive collectively each month to debate the newest traits and concepts that they wish to see. We often work out our schedule on an 18-month horizon, so we’re actually occupied with what is going on to be the recent subject in 18 months to 2 years that individuals wish to discuss.
The way in which that we ensure we get all of these concepts in is to have a extremely various group of individuals in these work teams and as a part of the ELRIG neighborhood. So we try to ensure that we have got an actual breadth of contribution from various kinds of organizations, whether or not that is biotech, pharma, academia, start-ups, charities, so completely different views and various kinds of roles that individuals serve in these organizations. By bringing these folks collectively within the work teams and on the committees, we get all of these concepts, and hopefully, that retains us forward of the curve by way of content material.
Picture Credit score: ELRIG UK
You have been concerned with ELRIG for a very long time, and you lately transitioned from director of science technique to chair. How has this transition influenced your perspective on ELRIG, significantly the non-profit administration aspect of issues?
It has been a improbable studying alternative for me. Primarily, ELRIG is a small enterprise. It isn’t-for-profit, but it surely operates as a small enterprise. Clearly, a few of the funds administration and so forth that I do for my day job helps with that. Nonetheless, truly working in massive pharma could be very completely different from working in a small, very agile, and ever-changing group like ELRIG, so I’ve gained a perspective of main a really completely different kind of group than in my day job.
It is improbable to be uncovered to one thing very completely different. I believe that as a chair, what I actually take pleasure in and get the chance to do is contact on the entire completely different elements of ELRIG. So, it’s not simply the scientific programming but in addition issues like our technique round EDI, round environmental sustainability now, and occupied with the monetary sustainability of the group and what which means for a not-for-profit. It’s actually enjoyable to work with the crew. I companion very carefully with Sanj Kumar, the CEO of ELRIG, and we collaborate very nicely.
Seeking to the longer term, what are ELRIG’s key strategic objectives, and the way do you intend to realize them within the context of evolving scientific and technological landscapes?
We now have 4 elementary strategic pillars for ELRIG; the primary one is and all the time will probably be our occasions. So the occasions, and face-to-face occasions truly, actually are the core of what ELRIG does. We want to proceed with the improbable program occasions. We’re actively planning for 2025 and 2026 and attempting to increase the runway and plan as far forward as we are able to and proceed to develop our occasions, and particularly the flagship Drug Discovery occasion within the autumn, and actually attempting to maximise that occasion for the neighborhood.
Past the occasions, the opposite pillars that we’ve are EDI, equality, range, and inclusion. We have had an actual concentrate on that and have developed some guiding ideas for our group. Final 12 months, we had been proactive in ensuring that our contributors to the occasion, our audio system, and our chairs represented the broader ELRIG neighborhood. We had some disparities in earlier years, so we began to seize knowledge from every of our occasions, assessed that knowledge and the crew labored very onerous to deal with the problem. And I am actually blissful to say that we’re shifting in the best route, however there’s all the time much more to do. The opposite facet that we’ll begin taking a look at a bit extra actively this 12 months is the accessibility of our occasions. So whether or not that is bodily accessibility or occupied with how we are able to accommodate these with neurodiversity in our occasions.
Our third pillar is then presence and consciousness, which is absolutely round advertising the ELRIG model, ensuring that we proceed to develop our delegate base and our vendor base, and getting the phrase on the market about ELRIG. One thing that we try to start out doing a bit extra of, and we have got a spotlight this 12 months and going into subsequent 12 months, is round how we are able to host extra of our content material on-line and take into consideration our content material residing past the occasions as a result of though we’ve wonderful scientific content material, it’s presently very centered on occasions for the time being. So I believe there’s a number of alternative there.
The ultimate pillar is round sustainability, which suggests the sustainability of the group and guaranteeing we’re financially sturdy and sustainable. Nonetheless, we additionally have to assume more and more about environmental sustainability. Once more, that is a dialog in very early days. Nonetheless, we’re beginning to have conversations about how we perceive the environmental footprint of our occasions, how we enhance that, and the way we assist facilitate dialogue about sustainability and science. We will play a giant function there.
The subsequent giant occasion is Drug Discovery in London in October. May you discuss somewhat bit concerning the occasion and your hopes for it? What are you most trying ahead to?
Drug Discovery is our flagship occasion. We’re hoping to get at the least 2,000 delegates by way of the door over the 2 days, with round 200 vendor exhibitors within the commerce present. It is at London Excel this 12 months, so alternatives have a extremely massive large-scale occasion. We can have 7 scientific and expertise tracks every day, a lot of that are delivered in partnership with different organizations with whom we collaborate to assist convey a fantastic selection and breadth of science to our neighborhood. There will probably be content material on biomolecular imaging, hit discovery, chemistry, translating concepts into therapies, robotics and automation, and plenty extra. Past that, we’ll have plenty of content material for early profession professionals, networking alternatives, posters, and so forth! There may even be content material on a few of the strategic areas I’ve beforehand talked about, akin to sustainability in science and the breakthrough innovation zone, which will probably be again and even larger and higher at Drug Discovery.
The place can readers discover extra data?
About Melanie Leveridge
Melanie is a longtime preclinical drug discovery chief with a monitor file of growing and provoking various, high-performing groups to ship modern science and expertise. Melanie labored for GSK for 19 years, from 2005 to 2024, holding roles of accelerating duty in early discovery, together with as Head of Screening, Profiling, Mechanistic Biology, and World Pattern Administration. In 2024, Melanie joined AstraZeneca as Vice President of Discovery Biology, a task during which she leads a worldwide crew accountable for reagent era, assay improvement, and chemical biology in help of AstraZeneca’s discovery portfolio. Exterior of AstraZeneca, Melanie is a Society for Lab Automation and Screening (SLAS) Fellow, and presently serves as Chair of the Board for ELRIG UK.