Biotech Career Profile: Sarita Khanal Paudyal
Sarita Khanal Paudyal, AbCellera
AbCellera develops antibody-based medicines. Sarita currently works on a team that expresses and purifies transmembrane proteins for use in the development of therapeutics.
Has your career path taken any unexpected turns?
I have a degree in business from my home country, Nepal, but I moved to South Korea with my family and lived there for several years. I learned Korean and worked as a language teacher and translator. Eventually, my family moved to a small island off the coast of South Korea. I got a job as a research technician at the Citrus Research Institute. This was my introduction to working in a lab environment.
What education or training did you complete to pursue your biotech career?
When my family moved to the United States, I wanted to get into the biotech industry because of all the job opportunities. I earned a certificate in Biotechnology and Compliance from Quincy College in Massachusetts and have been working in the biotech industry in the Boston area ever since.
What does your current job involve?
My main job responsibility is to purify proteins! I work for a company with expertise in the expression and purification of transmembrane proteins. Transmembrane proteins, like ion channels and G protein-coupled receptors, are involved in many diseases. Being able to express and purify these proteins is essential to developing antibody-based therapies for diseases that involve these proteins.
What advice would you give to someone interested in pursuing a career in biotech?
I was scared to change my career path to a different field, but I am so glad I did. There are lots of great jobs in biotech, and working in this field is exciting. It doesn’t matter what you studied before or what type of job you have now—there are many ways to receive training in the biotech field.
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