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First chemistry PhD candidate to begin experiential PhD co-op this June

“The big thing for me is the experience and being able to work in the actual industry. It should be really great, and I’m really appreciative that I’ve been given this opportunity,” said Westley Tear, Chemistry PhD candidate and recipient of the first experiential PhD co-op working for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). 

Tear grew up in New York and received his bachelor’s in chemistry from SUNY Geneseo. Since then, he’s been working at Northeastern to complete his PhD. Currently, he is a member of Professor and Department of Chemistry Chair Mike Pollastri’s Laboratory for Neglected Disease Drug Discovery. There, he is studying how drugs can be repurposed to treat different neglected tropical diseases such as African sleeping sickness and Chagas disease. 

While he enjoys his work in academia, Tear hopes to someday work in the pharmaceutical industry. With the experiential PhD program, Tear has the opportunity to take his background in medicinal chemistry to the industry workforce and gain new experiences there.   

At GSK, that’s exactly what he’ll be doing. GSK focuses on pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and consumer healthcare and works to create products and medicines to improve health and treat diseases, as well as pursuing discovery research to accelerate in those fields. Tear, while continuing work on his PhD thesis, will be completing a pharmaceutical medicinal chemistry research project developed by the company as a year-long co-op, starting in June 2018. His work will be supported by a GSK scientist industry mentor, Director of Chemistry Nicole Goodwin.  

“Westley has been exposed to the principles of medicinal chemistry and honed his skills in synthetic organic chemistry,” said Pollastri. “This experience will provide him an opportunity to apply and expand these skills in a new environment.” 

Tear is looking forward to the many benefits of this GSK-NU collaboration, including gaining industry contacts and getting rich experiences in the industry.  

“For Northeastern, this is the start of a longer-term relationship with GSK. It’s a really great experience for a lot of the people in the program to be able to get out and do other things, and it’s pretty great that Northeastern has this infrastructure in place to allow people to do this,” he said.  

Chemistry and Chemical Biology