ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½

Anna Kukushkina, part of the ICB-CDT 2022 cohort, was happy to share her EVOLVE placement experience with us. The ICB Social Media Committee asked about her work at Mewburn Ellis, and all the skills she got from this experience!

Could you tell us where did you do your internship? What did you do and which are any skills that you can now add to your CV?

I did my internship at Mewburn Ellis, a patent law firm. My main project was to put together a patent landscape report, looking at statistics on where and when patents around cheminformatics and AI/ML in chemistry were being published. I also worked with partners at the firm to write an article for Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review exploring IP considerations for startups in digital chemistry. This internship gave me the chance to build skills in data analysis and science communication, but also to broaden my network and start building connections outside of academia.

At which stage of the PhD you decided to do the internship, and why?

I chose to do the placement before going into my final year. By that point I had enough of my PhD behind me to feel ready to step away for a few months, but I also wanted to leave plenty of time to finish my project. It felt like the right moment to try something new, explore career paths outside the lab, and see how the skills I’d gained during my PhD could be applied in a completely different environment.

What did you get out of this experience?

The internship gave me a different perspective on how research is valued outside of academia and how intellectual property plays a role in pushing new ideas forward. It gave me confidence in using my PhD skills beyond the lab, and it showed me that chemical biology can open doors into areas like law that I hadn’t considered before. I also enjoyed meeting people with very different backgrounds and career paths, which helped me think more broadly about the directions I could take after my PhD. Overall, it was a refreshing break from my day-to-day research and a chance to see how science connects with the wider world.

''The internship gave me a different perspective on how research is valued outside of academia and how intellectual property plays a role in pushing new ideas forward.''