Biologists
From identifying new drug targets and testing compounds for efficacy, to testing the safety of a new drug candidate and identifying how it's metabolised, careers in Biology at Pfizer are as diverse as they are rewarding.
While some graduates enter directly into a specialism, others join our 18-month rotation programme. This not only enables you to broaden your technical skills set in a multidisciplinary environment, but also gives you a valuable overview of the drug discovery and development process.
Around 90% of your time will be spent engaged in supervised laboratory research, which will include designing and conducting assays, as well as carrying out analysis and interpreting data. At the same time, you'll gain practical knowledge of a wide range of biological, pharmacological, physiological and bioinformatic methodologies.
Following the rotation programme, you'll be placed in a group considered the best fit for your skills and personal development. The groups we recruit into are:
Therapeutic Areas:
Pain – Researching new medicines to combat acute pain associated with injury or surgery; chronic pain such as osteoarthritis; and neuropathic pain caused by nerve injury.
Allergy and Respiratory – Researching new medicines to combat hayfever, asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema.
Genitourinary – Researching new medicines to combat female sexual dysfuntion, urinary incontinence and secondary dysmenorrhea.
Antivirals – Researching new medicines to combat life-threatening diseases such as HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C.
High Throughput Screening – Using automated high throughput screening techniques to identify and optimise promising novel lead compounds.
Biomarkers and Translational Biology – Bridging the gap between pre-clinical in vitro and in vivo studies and clinical trials.
Vaccines – A newly created team, which focuses on research into vaccines to prevent and treat a wide range of diseases.
Drug Safety R&D – Safety Pharmacology assess the short-term acute side effects of new compounds, while Toxicology investigate their longer-term safety.
Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics and Metabolism – Studying the fate of potential new medicines within the body, including characterising the absorption and excretion of drug molecules, assessing their distribution into body tissues, and how they're metabolised.
We're looking for graduates with a good honours degree in:
- Pharmacology
- Biochemistry
- Molecular Biology
- Physiology
Or a related discipline. You'll also need experience of completing a lab-based honours project, plus strong planning, organisational and communication skills. An industrial training year or Masters research project would be highly advantageous. Experience of or exposure to in vivo techniques would be an advantage for some roles.
This intake is now closed for this year. Please check back after September 2008 for next year's scheme.
