“The presentation is not as important as the conversation.” – Ismael Zamora, Molecular Discovery
Ismael Zamora’s Everyday is an enlightening discussion on the changes in the life sciences industry during the pandemic, especially while many of us learn to balance life while working from home. Balancing not only life, but the relationships we have in the workplace. Isma has a team of computer scientist that can now code from home, producing more code than they ever have. However, although productivity went up, he found that some of the normal conversations that we have in the office were missing – to where it created competitions that did not exist previously, as well as other seemingly small nuances that turned out to be bigger than originally thought. With the observation of these changes, he asked his team to plan coffee meetings where they just talk – and not necessarily just about work. It is really important to stay connected, even as we all work from home. Isma finds this conversation parallel to the CPSA events. A place where people can feel like they can just talk, to get to know each other, and to work together to solve complex challenges.
During this Everyday, Jinming Xing describes his personal experiences that drive his passion for microsampling. As a pharmacist, he was influenced by the understanding that some children are simply scared of needles – a 5 second shot could take an hours conversation. He was also personally influenced by the amount of blood that was drawn from his own sick son. Now, Jinming works closely with the early stages of clinical research related to sick children, focusing on microsampling. He puts all of his efforts, Everyday, into reducing the burden for paediatric clinical trial participants.
“We don’t want everyone to come stand in line. Just do it yourself at home.” – Christophe Stove, Ghent University
Christophe Stove talks about training the next generation of researchers that will drive microsampling and improving patient care. He has never felt like he is doing work, enjoys what he does, and gets to work on his hobby – feeling lucky that he has great students and collaborators. His lab designs new workflows with microsampling that can often be translated to hospitals or the clinic. Christophe has 20 years of experience in microsampling and can see increased adoption during the COVID-19 crisis. He asks the question: Why would you want people to come to an area to meet, if we can get the same sample at home at a micro level? Especially those that are at high risk. Acknowledging that not every condition can be tested in this way, but why not simply convert if we can?
