Senior Scientist, Drug Development Training Program
Genentech
Erick Velasquez is a senior scientist as part of the drug development training fellowship at Genentech. He focuses on clinical pharmacology and applies machine learning and pharmacometric techniques to inform decision making in the drug development pipeline. He graduated from Pomona College with a B.S. in Chemistry where he focused on developing riboswitch assays to quantify pollutants in water. He then had the opportunity to develop peptide bioconjugates in early stage research to support Genentech’s work in antibody drug conjugates. Afterwards, he then started his Ph.D. at UCLA working with Dr. Torres on elucidating the mechanisms of cell cycle checkpoints. Before finishing his Ph.D. Erick had the opportunity to go back to Genentech for another internship applying machine learning techniques to do quality control on targeted proteomics data. He was able to leverage some of these skills to finish his work at UCLA in which he developed CANVS, an easy-to-use Shiny App that allows you to visualize and analyze non-targeted mass spectrometry experiments. Additionally, during his time at UCLA he and Dr. Torres were awarded the prestigious HHMI Gilliam fellowship meant to recognize great up-and-coming scientists of color in the field. As a first generation college graduate Erick stresses the importance of investing in yourself and finding great mentors that believe in your potential.He believes that this has allowed him to reinvent himself at every stage of his career and has helped him develop into the scientist he is today.