Inez Lam, a first-year biomedical engineering PhD student, has been selected to participate in an innovative PhD program through the Johns Hopkins-MedImmune Scholars Program that will prepare her for a career in the biopharma industry. The five-year PhD program, a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and MedImmune and the first-of-its-kind in the United States, is designed to provide a traditional PhD with a solid understanding of drug discovery and development.

Lam, a PhD student in the ICM lab of Feilim Mac Gabhann, will focus on building computational models to better understand how drugs work in the body. Lam is currently working with Mac Gabhann, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and MedImmune to determine where their scientific interests overlap in order to identify precisely the focus of her thesis. Still, Lam believes that this arrangement will further biological understanding, improve therapies and treatments and, ultimately, produce better patient outcomes.

“Industry is known for having large amounts of data, and they often don’t have the time or investment to make full use of it. In academia, we have more flexibility to look into that data,” Lam says. “I think this program will play to each of our strengths, making the best of all our resources.”

Lam was recently featured in Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures for her recent accomplishment.