Marie-Ange

Manager Clinical Immunology, Emerging Diseases - Malaria, TB & HIV

When I joined GSK Bio in October 2001, I was coming from a pure research background (I'd done my degrees, and had the chance to work in several academic environments in Belgium and in US), and I wanted to apply my skills to more specific goals.

Now of course, I know exactly what I'm working towards, and that keeps me highly motivated. And in a challenging, demanding role like mine, motivation and engagement are both essential. I really enjoy being surrounded by experts too, because it means I'm always learning, which appeals to my passion for research. It's also nice being able to work so closely with R&D and clinical teams, as well as a variety of external collaborators.

I'm currently responsible for managing the clinical immuno readout teams for Malaria, TB and AIDS disease areas . Working with Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical studies on early stage vaccines, I coordinate every aspect of the development and validation of readouts, and ensure they're appropriate to the response we're searching for. The teams themselves are made up of technical experts, clinical and regulatory people, statisticians and others who are responsible for the logistic around clinical specimen. With so much coordination to take care of, it's no wonder I spend so much of my time communicating by email and phone, or attending meetings with third party collaborators and other external organisations.

During my time here, I've found that I'm always being offered new training opportunities that are focused on things like presentation, management and language skills . The only slight drawback is that I often feel that I'm too busy to be able to devote the necessary time to take advantage of them. But I know that the support is always there when I need it.