Alumni Profile – Shalaka Samant, PhD ‘08
Shalaka Samant, PhD ‘08 Pharmacognosy, arrived at UIC with little research experience and even less knowledge of nucleic acids, proteins and cells. By the end of her first year at the College of Pharmacy, however, Samant was well-positioned for a productive scientific career thanks to lab rotations, seminars and interactions that had sparked new skills and fresh perspectives.
“Studying at UIC introduced a sea change into my way of thinking and analysis,” Samant says. “I learned to critique and analytically think about experiments, to troubleshoot and to function as an independent researcher.”
After a pair of post-doctoral fellowships, first at Yale and then at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Samant returned to her home nation of India in 2010 and joined Anthem Biosciences, an upstart contract research and innovation service provider.
Samant spent her earliest days at the startup tackling a diverse array of projects – bench research, scouting clients and designing standard operating procedures among them. With Anthem’s robust growth, however, Samant embraced a more defined role. Now a manager of discovery research, she guides a team of four scientists developing cell lines and microbial strains for various small molecules, therapeutic proteins and industrial enzymes.
Leveraging the molecular biology skills and strain engineering principles she began honing at UIC under the direction of Dr. Alexander Neyfakh, Samant investigates various bacterial, fungal and mammalian host systems. The cutting-edge work has spurred results for clients and produced three peer-reviewed publications, a rare accomplishment among industry personnel.
“This work is challenging and rewarding at the same time,” says Samant, who draws scientific inspiration from journals such as Nature and Science. “Failures are integral to science and not every project results in success, but keeping at it with an undaunting spirit and making rational amends to experiments and approaches is always exciting.”