After finishing her postdoc in chemical biology at Stanford University, California, Leslie Cruz took a job in regulatory affairs at Alexza Pharmaceuticals in Mountain View, California. She explains how she continues to use the skills she learned in the laboratory.

What does it take to leave the bench?

Credit: Sarah Goertzen

The hardest thing for me was to realize that I wasn't happy. In graduate school, I would occasionally question my career path but was always led back to research in the laboratory.

What changed?

My postdoc adviser directed me to the university career office, which recommended Career Opportunities in Biotechnology and Drug Development (Harbor Laboratory, 2008). I read it cover to cover and took every quiz about how one's personality would be suited to different areas of the pharmaceutical industry. To my surprise, my results were the worst for discovery research and highest for regulatory affairs and project management.

Does your role use your scientific training?

I use it every day. I read a lot of 'quality documents' — regulatory submissions to establish that our pharmaceutical products are made using exacting procedures and have passed rigorous tests. I can see the trends in the data, read the graphs and methods and understand them.

What lessons did you learn from the lab?

It's not only what I learned but what I did: I wrote numerous grant applications. The important part of that was that I loved it, the reading and reviewing and documentation. That's what I do now, only with submission documents for regulatory agencies. The other part that I learned was working with people. At my job interview, people kept asking what I did outside of conducting experiments — they wanted to know that I had the skills to influence others. In my graduate programme, I was always the lab's contact for environmental-health and safety compliance, and worked with everyone to make sure that they were doing their training and paperwork. I had no idea that this would help me to get this job. I just did it because I enjoyed it.