At the beginning of this year, we were lucky to offer two Alumni Talks.

On January 13, Dr. Uli Ohmayer visited us and talked about his career and courageous step into founding a start-up. This was followed by a talk on February 17 by Judith Hauptmann, who spoke about her work at a pharmaceutical company and its pioneering work in the development of new therapeutics for the treatment of rare diseases.

Dr. Uli Ohmayer did his PhD at the department of Biochemistry III and graduated 2014. He then went through almost all the career stages that are possible after a doctorate. First, he was a postdoc at the Helmholtz Center Munich for 3 years, where he gained valuable knowledge in mass spectrometry-based proteomics, which later opened the door for him to further career opportunities. In 2017 he switched to industry by starting a research scientist position at a small biotech company located in Bad Abbach before he joined Evotec SE, a globally operating clinical research organization in 2018. In 2022 he left Evotec and co-founded NEOsphere Biotechnologies GmbH, a privately funded Munich-based biotech startup company where he is heading the mass spectrometry department. In his presentation, Uli gave the participants interesting insights into the fields of work as a postdoc, employee of small/medium-sized companies but also of globally operating companies as well as an independent founder of a company. The participants were very interested and the lecture was rounded off with a cozy dinner at Unikat with a small group of doctoral candidates and students.

Dr. Judith Hauptmann  finished her PhD 2015 at the department of Biochemistry I. After a short period of postdoc at the same department she got a position at Silence Therapeutics and moved to Berlin. She was very lucky that the topic of her PhD project fitted perfectly to the position at Silence Therapeutics. It was a perfect match. She started as a scientist and she worked her way up to head of the Drug Design team. During her career, Judith appreciated the company's great support, both in terms of career development and family support. Even during her part-time parental leave, she was promoted to group leader. After the lecture, some doctoral candidates and students had the opportunity to discuss the topics more deeply over a cozy dinner at Unikat.

We would like to thank Uli and Judith for their interesting talks and we hope to see them again in Regensburg sometime!