Introducing the Class of '25 Apprentices

Our sixth class of Octant Apprentices just wrapped up their year with us. Every class brings smarts and drive, but this group had something special—they were incredibly driven and spirited. They formed tight bonds with each other and brought this contagious energy that lit up the whole company. Their work ethic was so intense that some of our seasoned Octonauts had to step up their game just to keep up. In a biotech rut, every headcount decision feels really critical, but this class demonstrated the high value of investing in OAs.

If these apprentices are any sign of what's coming, science and medicine are in great hands. Congrats to our Class of 2025 Apprentices—we can't wait to see what you do next!

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– Naomi Handly, VP Platform and Director of the OA Program

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Why did you decide to join the Octant Apprenticeship?

Alexa — It took a lot to pull me away from my beloved undergraduate research projects, but pretty much everything on the Octant website completely sold me on the Octant Apprenticeship—biotech industry work experience crafting precision medicine for rare genetic disorders, a 1:1 mentoring experience by a scientist with expertise in the disciplines that I want to pursue long-term, and a close-knit work culture of scientists and RAs alike? Done deal! Fortunately, Octant followed through with their end of the deal and I got to learn more in a year than I ever have while contributing to important projects from day 1.

Calvin — As someone who is passionate about science, drug discovery, and real-world patient impact, there is no better place to be than at Octant. After speaking with members of the chemistry team prior to joining, it was apparent that Octant’s research division is an innovative operation filled with dedicated and energetic individuals. Moreover, given my background in organic synthesis, analytical chemistry, and patient advocacy, Octant seemed like the perfect environment where I could unite those experiences to drive meaningful progress in translational, patient-focused research. 

Liam — As my time in undergrad ended, I was looking for opportunities that would push me to take what I’d learned in school and directly apply it to meaningful projects bigger than myself. I was drawn to the Octant Apprenticeship because Octant was unlike the other biotech companies I had been exposed to. I felt like the dynamic of a platform company would be a special opportunity to contribute to meaningful drug discovery efforts while exposing me to entirely new fields of research and developing my skills both in and out of the lab. Octant’s emphasis on platform-driven science and innovative chemistry made it an ideal place to learn and grow early in my career so I jumped on the opportunity to join as an apprentice.

Sam — After a year of undergrad research investigating GPCR activation via computational methods, I wanted to continue investigating the fascinating pathways of cellular activation & signaling in a more hands-on context, and with a direct translation to patient care. I was inspired by the investigative cellular biology research that Octant excels in, along with the innate scientific curiosity that was obvious in both conversations with Octonauts and through the variety of disease targets that Octant explores. I wanted an opportunity to receive mentorship in the wet lab skills that I had been itching to get my hands on. 

Alexia — After being accepted into the OA program, I had several discussions with current and former apprentices to learn about their experiences. All of them spoke enthusiastically about the projects that they worked on and the level of autonomy they had in their roles. They highlighted how mentorship at Octant is hands-on and tailored to the individual, which I thought would be helpful in my growth as a young scientist delving into biotech for the first time. Additionally, the startup culture at Octant seemed like an ideal environment to push myself and develop into a more adaptable scientist. Overall, the company culture combined with the opportunity to contribute to breakthrough therapies made the OA program seem like the perfect fit for me. 

What projects did you work on as an Apprentice? What skills did you gain while working on those projects? 

Calvin —  I had the privilege to work on a range of R&D projects and discovery programs in the pipeline over the course of the apprenticeship. In particular, it’s been quite rewarding to contribute to the Fabry program through both LC-MS method development and high-throughput chemical synthesis. This research is particularly meaningful as I am friends with someone living with a lysosomal storage disorder (LSD) and, having had previous research and advocacy experiences focused on various LSDs, know full well how devastating these conditions can be and how profound the unmet medical need remains. Outside the lab, I build data analytics and visualization dashboards to improve platform chemistry and decision-making efficiency, chat with coworkers about biotech business development, maintain a patient-centric focus through patient advocacy work, and enjoy taking on miscellaneous side projects such as speaking with subject-matter experts outside of Octant to help inform our clinical development plans. More recently, I joined the OpenADMET consortium—a fascinating collaborative effort between Octant, UCSF, and several other stakeholders—which has allowed me to gain experience working with state-of-the-art automation and analytical instruments.

Liam — I have had the opportunity to be the lead synthesis operator for the p53 program, which involved developing and delivering compound libraries under tight timelines. I also became a key contributor to the HTChem platform, helping to refine synthesis workflows and pilot batch-scale synthesis capabilities. These experiences helped me build technical expertise in synthetic chemistry and reaction troubleshooting, as well as collaborative skills through close work with cross-functional teams like screening and compute.

Sam — In my first six months, I worked on investigating an immunology target with a high unmet patient need. This project involved characterizing a complex chain of protein interactions using multiple specialized assays. I began the project learning basic wet lab techniques with a goal of iterative cellular assay design and implementation. Along the way, I picked up protein purification and biochemical techniques for identifying protein abundance, stability, and target engagement. These initial techniques became the building blocks for designing and testing increasingly precise methods for characterizing our target of interest.

In the second half of my apprenticeship, I shifted to the OpenADMET program. As part of this program, I focus on creating, characterizing, and implementing cellular assays in a scalable and translatable context, to allow us to generate massive biological datasets that are diverse and expansive enough to feed to a machine learning model.

Alexia — During my apprenticeship, I worked on the p53 cancer drug development program alongside a talented team of chemists and biologists. Our team is developing a novel glue corrector aimed at rescuing multiple high frequency variants of p53. I gained significant hands-on experience in tissue culture while characterizing our engineered cancer cell lines through our cell-based assay pipeline. This pipeline offers functional readouts on transcriptional reactivation, caspase activation, and cell viability. In addition, I helped optimize an RT-qPCR assay to detect target gene expression, which allowed us to better understand the pathways activated by our compounds in mutant p53 models. Beyond cell-based work, I have led the development of biochemical assays for the p53 team to study mechanism of action and structure-activity relationships of our compounds. The apprenticeship did not only help me refine my technical skills in assay development; it also taught me how to think critically and independently as a scientist. There are also “soft” skills that I learned along the way. From time management (e.g., balancing meetings with benchwork) to effective communication with team members across disciplines, these experiences have been and will continue to be beneficial throughout my scientific career.

What are you most proud of accomplishing during your apprenticeship? Who helped you along the way? 

Alexa — I’d consider my development of one of our drug program primary screening assays from the ground up alongside my mentor, Conor Howard, to be the magnum opus of my apprenticeship. It was definitely to my advantage that I had my mentor Conor’s assay development experience to guide some important decisions and routes of production, which enabled me to grind through engineering about a hundred cell lines, utilize new tech like CRISPR to build knock-out cell lines, and leverage state-of-the-art instruments along the way. Before I knew it, we were onboarding our benchtop bootstrap project onto our platform for high-throughput screening of thousands of house-made compounds. I’m proud to take some ownership of this unforeseeably complicated project that accurately reads out on a mysteriously convoluted intracellular trafficking pathway. 

Calvin — Diving into an incipient drug program has been more exciting than I could have previously imagined; I find myself eager for each result and exhilarated with every new set of promising data. From a platform development perspective, onboarding complex chemistries with novel chemical matter onto high-throughput systems has been an invigorating and gratifying endeavor, with one example being successfully carrying out multicomponent syntheses across thousands of molecules on platform. The mentorship at Octant is profound as I have always had the support of my fellow Octonauts, especially my scientific mentor, Daniel Szczepankiewicz, and program medicinal chemist, Deepali Waghray, among many others.

Liam — I'm proud of the ownership I took over the p53 synthesis pipeline and the role I played in sustaining the momentum of that program. As part of the work for p53, I piloted the first batch-scale parallel synthesis at Octant which was an important milestone for me, personally and the platform as a whole. These accomplishments were made possible through the guidance and support of my teammates, especially those on the p53 and OpenADMET teams, and my mentor, Terry Lou. Their openness to collaboration and mentorship created an environment where I felt empowered to take initiative and grow.

Sam — I am most proud of implementing a screening cascade of cell-based assays that allowed us to screen thousands of chemical compounds for our immunology target. I was able to fit the stories told by each assay into a comprehensive picture of cellular activity induced by each compound,narrowing down our search of chemical space to a shortlist of exciting chemical matter for further investigation.

Throughout the project, my mentor, Connor Ludwig engaged me in the work via open scientific dialogue and a willingness to together identify resources available to me so that I could investigate the science as far as needed. This enabled me to take independent ownership over the work and execute on our shared scientific vision with confidence.

Alexia — I am extremely proud of my work in leading the development of a fluorescence polarization assay for the p53 program. This was a critical need for the program and it was the first major project where I had full ownership.While it was nerve-wracking at times, it was equally exciting to see it through. The assay required months of optimization and troubleshooting with several challenges along the way. However, I was fortunate to have tremendous support from my scientific mentor, Carter Barger, and the p53 program lead, Jonathan Asfaha who helped me navigate the technical difficulties and brainstorm next steps. I also received guidance from Conor Howard, an expert in protein biochemistry, who helped me interpret unexpected results. Thanks to their mentorship and collaboration, I was able to make considerable progress on the assay, which has since become an important tool for the p53 program and can be useful for other programs as well.

What are some of your favorite memories? 

Alexa — The best part of being an apprentice is getting to mooch off fellow Octonauts — whether it's mentorship, wisdom, or even Berkeley Marina sailing access! Learning the literal ropes with my apprentice cohort, thanks to one of our mentors, Marco, was a definite highlight and set us up for a year of smooth sailing.

Calvin — It’s hard to narrow down the many amazing aspects of the Octant Apprenticeship to just one favorite, but a few do stand out. On a career-development note, it has been quite valuable to have the opportunity to give lots of presentations and practice effective public speaking for various audiences within the organization. From participating in the small-group OA journal club (where we take turns presenting novel research articles) to giving chalk talks and scientific presentations to the wider company, I have greatly improved my ability to communicate science and illustrate my vision for the future. Another favorite aspect of working at Octant has been patient advocacy, which has been an incredibly insightful experience to engage in now from an industry perspective on behalf of an organization developing innovative therapies for patients. From participating in community walks (e.g., VisionWalk for retinal diseases and the Annual Fabry Awareness Fun Run/Walk) to speaking with advocacy groups and patients themselves both at Octant and patient conferences (like Fall 2024 Bay Area Vision Connection), I’ve greatly deepened my insight into the critical role that patients play in all stages of the drug development process and how an organization can be truly patient-centric. Finally, Octant has a culture like no other, and it’s been awesome collaborating and spending time together, both within and outside of the office. If you are interested in learning more about these experiences, feel free to check out my Twitter.

Sam — Pieing my coworker in the face at Halloween Happy Hour while dressed in a hazmat suit for the biohazard theme.

Any advice for future OAs? 

Alexa — You can think you’re super prepared—you won’t be and you can’t be! There’s an undeniable thrill that comes with the chance to navigate novel biochemical space with fancy equipment along with some of the brightest minds, and the only thing that’s going to directly translate from your undergrad research to your Octant apprenticeship is your passion for science and discovery. Some advice:

1. Treat your apprenticeship like your freshman year of undergrad and say ‘yes’ to any and all new experiences and opportunities as they arise (and they arise often!).
2. Work hard and play harder! Because it’s rewarding to produce successful projects that have your name stamped on them and even more fun to take a step back and celebrate how impactful they are.
3. Be confident in your abilities, your potential, and yourself—you were hired for a reason and Octonauts rely on you! Participate in meetings, ask hard questions, and take up space!
4. Have a list of a few fun facts about yourself ready at all times...

Liam — Approach every task with curiosity and a willingness to learn—especially when things don’t go as expected. Take the time to understand how your work connects to broader goals, and don’t underestimate the value of clear communication and documentation. The apprenticeship is a great time to push beyond your comfort zone and develop habits that will serve you throughout your career—so ask questions, take ownership, and stay engaged in the “why” behind the work.

Alexia — Dear future OAs, 

Give yourself grace while overcoming challenges in research. The apprenticeship program is meant to be a learning experience, one that allows you the space to make mistakes and grow from them. Do not be afraid to experiment and get creative in designing your approaches. Failure and iteration are part of the process, and it is important to view setbacks as valuable lessons and not as personal failures. It is easy to feel discouraged when things go wrong, but this is an essential part of scientific discovery. Embrace challenges head-on and make sure to leverage all of the resources and mentorship that the apprenticeship program offers. Take advantage of this opportunity as a way to develop as a scientist and as a person. Good luck and enjoy the journey!

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Congratulations again to our Class of 2025 OAs! Thank you for a great year!

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