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EMD SERONO'S VETERAN SCIENTIST NOREEN NUGENT INSPIRES YOUNGER GENERATIONS

April 6, 2009   |  

by Lynnea Olivarez

 

Noreen Nugent shows students the Rockland, Mass. EMD Serono facility during a job shadow program.

As a 20-year veteran at EMD Serono, Noreen Nugent hopes to inspire high school students to pursue the path that has provided her and all those touched by her groundbreaking research over the years with immeasurable gratification.

Nugent recently participated in two job shadow days, coordinated by MassBioEd, at EMD Serono’s Rockland facility for students who attend King Philip Regional School in Wrentham, Mass.

“The young adults were so grateful that they had this opportunity because a lot of what they see is shaped by TV or the Internet, and it’s not necessarily based on reality,” she said. “For example, this isn’t CSI. I can tell them it takes 10 to 15 years to develop a drug. It’s not all wrapped up in an hour-long show.”

Nugent has experienced firsthand the process of getting a product from “bench to bedside”—from the lab to patients.

With many years of research, Nugent and a team of scientists saw three molecules transformed into EMD Serono products that helped treat infertility.

“We actually have women or husbands who work here who have had families because they have used our products,” she said. “It’s pretty profound stuff, so I can say that would be my proudest accomplishment on the research side.”

Nugent didn’t always know that working in the biotechnology field would become her passion. It wasn’t until she began her undergraduate senior research project at Harvard Medical School that she found her calling.

Now that she has the opportunity to expose high school students to the workings of the Massachusetts’ biotechnology industry, Nugent has found MassBioEd’s community outreach opportunities extremely worthwhile.

“It’s incredibly rewarding to see the light go off over [students’] heads for some of them, as they’re going around the building saying, ‘Yeah, I could really get into this,’” she said.

Nugent also finds that EMD Serono’s community outreach efforts help form the much-needed link between academia and industry to further the Commonwealth’s workforce development initiatives.

 

“There are not too many places in the country where you have such a dense population of both academic centers of excellence and biotech and pharma companies,” she said. “I’m very grateful, not only to the MassBioEd program, but also to EMD Serono—that they encourage and support this type of outreach.”

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