 “Women tend to underestimate themselves – I know I did”, says Dr Paige Maguire, General Manager, Life Sciences at QUT bluebox, Chair of the WiT|Biotech Chapter of Women in Technology and WiT’s Biotech Rising Star award winner at the recent WiT 10th annual awards ceremony.
In 1998, when Paige won a 3-year Research Fellowship in neurology at Harvard and the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard’s reputation for attracting the best and brightest was so overwhelming that Paige spent her first month there not saying very much and reading obsessively in an attempt to ensure that when she did speak, she wouldn’t be thought to be an imposter!
By her second month it began to dawn that the range of people was similar to many other high quality institutions and following a very successful presentation of her research topic, she began to believe that “maybe I do deserve to be here”, and by the end of 3 years, Paige’s self belief and self confidence were firmly in place. Newly wed to husband Ben, the couple’s adventure in Boston lasted from 1998 – 2000 where Paige conducted research into Huntington ’s disease, a nasty condition caused by the mutation of a protein that leaves holes in brain tissue, generally guaranteeing a high level of mortality. Most research in this area tended to concentrate on the effects of the mutated protein, while Paige opted to research the underlying function of the normal protein. She was able to expose important roles the protein played in cell processes and to show that it was regulated by iron levels - the first time this link was seen. The research themes she began remain active at Harvard and Paige keeps in regular contact with the laboratory, co-authoring a paper as recently as 2005 and spending a whole day there during a trip to attend Bio in 2007. Paige was born on the Sunshine Coast and remembers having an abiding interest in “how things work”, recollecting that she (probably not correctly) self-diagnosed tonsillitis at the tender age of two! The family moved to Brisbane after selling their Noosa Hastings Street property (given current valuations, to Paige’s mother’s abiding distress!) and Paige was educated at Kelvin Grove High and the University of Queensland (UQ) where she was awarded a PhD in ‘98. Paige recalls being surprised at the level of cultural differences between Boston and Brisbane. The underlying stress levels seemed significantly higher in the US. Boston rental costs typically ate up to ½ of a general salary – at that time the couple paid US$1000 per month for a 1 bedroom small apartment and the consumer society manifested in a casual attitude to the use of disposable goods. Despite there being ample career opportunities in Boston for Paige, the Queensland lifestyle beckoned and after 3 years, the time was right to return to family and support Ben, who simply “can’t do another winter”. After their return in December 2000, Paige and Ben became aware that they were noticeably more suspicious of people’s motivations until they re-acclimatised to laid-back Queensland. Paige had already been thinking of a new direction that might allow her to play a bigger part in helping to translate research into real-world outcomes when Ciphergen, a Californian biomarker discovery company wanting to setup an Australian office called out of the blue because they had heard of her research. She accepted a position that required extensive travel to Singapore and Malaysia but 12 months later realized that instead of improving her lifestyle, she had gone backwards. She resigned and spent 6 months studying intellectual property before being offered a position with UniQuest in June 2002. Her work there involved identifying and assisting in the commercialization of health and biotechnology research conducted at UQ where she was a director of 2 start-up companies and was responsible for the funding of others eg Rapisure Pty Ltd. In her roles with UniQuest and more recently at QUTbluebox, Paige has come to understand some of the challenges facing Australia in commercializing the research undertaken in our Universities. “Despite Australia undertaking high-quality discovery research, we face an ongoing challenge in commercializing it to realize the huge benefits that are possible”, Paige notes. “We really need a funding pool for the “proof of concept” stage of research. “Unlike the USA where the capital pool is larger and has more appetite for risk, Australian early technology investors require at least substantial proof of concept data in order to consider an investment”, she continued. Paige also commented on the sometimes patchy ability of Universities around Australia to collaborate on commercializing synergistic technologies. “While mechanisms for research collaborations between Universities are well established, it sometimes seems like the heavens and the stars have to align before collaborations for commercial outcomes can occur”. In January 2007, Paige decided to challenge herself with a more senior role at QUT, establishing its more professionally resourced commercialization arm, QUTbluebox. Crucially, QUTbluebox was also willing to negotiate flexibility around working hours so that together with her husband, they could both be active in bringing up their three-year old son. “It sometimes remains a challenge for everyone in the organization to accept my working hours” she said. “I think that it may be a matter of critical mass – if a majority of men and women took advantage of a flexible framework at some point in their careers, it would no longer be seen as remarkable or difficult”. Paige stated that WiT|Biotech’s role as a change-agent, along with the opportunity to be part of a community were two important forces attracting her to become involved. “I am still aware of extremely capable women who are in more junior roles and paid less than they deserve because they need more confidence and better negotiating skills – WiT|Biotech is helping individuals to achieve that”. Over the next six months, Paige will concentrate on aligning commercialisation processes and looking at new opportunities within QUT. In the longer term, she envisages an executive role within a biotech company where she can be close to the science once again. | 