Yann Tessier

Yann Tessier was already 15 years into his career in drug safety before he enrolled on an online masters at Edinburgh. That decision proved invaluable to his career progression.

Why did you choose the University of Edinburgh?  

I joined the online masters approximately 15 years into my drug safety career. It gave me the opportunity to meet (typically) mid-career scientists from various backgrounds and to put some structure on some of the knowledge I had acquired on the job.

I had previously been trained in France (as a vet with a toxicology MSc, and with a ophthalmology postgraduate certificate), and a job-related stay in Edinburgh was what made me think of the University of Edinburgh to take this course, a move that made sense at that time of my career.

Tell us about your experiences since leaving the University

Since then I have joined a biotechnology company specialising in RNA therapeutics, and I must say that without the University of Edinburgh training I would have struggled to understand much of the current drug discovery and development issues at stake in this environment. Indeed, as a vet, I previously mainly had a whole organism clinical background, but some research knowledge (in particular molecular biology) was critically missing. The Edinburgh certificate greatly filled this gap and helped me to rebound professionally.

The half-life of knowledge is around two years, so prepare to train in a life-long manner!

Alumni wisdom

The half-life of knowledge is around two years, so prepare to train in a life-long manner!