Innovating Therapeutics: GCI Alumna Sylvia Andrzejewski’s Career from Lab to Industry Leadership

The Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute (GCI)’s distinguished alumna, Sylvia Andrzejewski, has made significant strides in the field of cancer research and drug development. From lab benches to leadership in biotech, we had the pleasure of catching up with Sylvia to learn more about her career in industry.

Sylvia gravitated towards the GCI to pursue her graduate studies, drawn by the world-leading experts and cutting-edge research here. “I was motivated to study cancer during my PhD because my grandmother passed away from breast cancer at an early age,” Sylvia shared. “Seeing how cancer devastated countless families, I was young, confused, and frustrated. I wanted to learn more to help.” Keeping her passion and her promise, Sylvia completed a PhD in the lab of Prof. Julie St-Pierre, later co-supervised by Prof. Peter Siegel. Her research focused on how mitochondrial metabolism affects breast cancer progression and metastasis. Her work involved developing tools to study active mitochondria and collaborating with other labs to investigate how mitochondria and metabolism may be implicated in disease progression. Discover her work here.

A Drive to Develop Novel Therapeutics

After completing her PhD, Sylvia knew she wanted to work in drug development. “I wanted to aid in the discovery and progress of novel therapeutics for patients in need,” she said. Her first industry job allowed her to apply her metabolism knowledge while learning about the processes of running a drug discovery program. Over time, she led programs further from her expertise, emphasizing the importance of teamwork and learning from colleagues in different areas.

From Academia to Industry

Today, Sylvia is the Associate Director of Biology at Cellarity, a Flagship-owned company focused on using transcriptional data paired with phenotypic assays, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to progress drug discovery. “We use target-agnostic approaches to disrupt cellular dysfunction and restore disease,” Sylvia explained. She serves as a program lead for a metabolic program focusing on both rare and common metabolic diseases.

Before joining Cellarity, Sylvia worked at Mitobridge, an Astellas-owned company. There, she led a cardiometabolic program and developed a novel therapeutic with implications in numerous disease areas, including cardiac ischemia. Her work led to a fruitful collaboration with Harvard Medical School, demonstrating the efficacy of her novel compounds in Lupus models. Find out more here and here.

The GCI’s Lasting Impact

Reflecting on her time at GCI, Sylvia highlighted the skills she developed, including a high standard for data quality and integrity, problem-solving, teamwork, and the strength of reaching out to others for her expertise. The skills and knowledge Sylvia acquired at GCI have been invaluable in her current role. “Teamwork and collaboration are just a few of the many skills I gained,” she said. From publications to grants, she emphasizes that “there’s always someone with a different expertise you can either learn from or work together with.” On that note, Sylvia hopes to see more collaborations between industry and academia to advance therapeutics for patients and to reduce the barrier of entry between the two sides.

For GCI trainees interested in pursuing a similar career, Sylvia offers some valuable advice: “Reaching out to your network even if you don’t know what you want yet is okay. You can learn a lot from asking about others’ current careers and decide if it seems interesting to you.” If you would like to reach out to Sylvia, please connect with her on LinkedIn.

Sylvia’s journey from the GCI to leading innovative drug development programs is a testament to the GCI’s impact on its trainees and the broader scientific community. Thank you, Sylvia, for sharing your story with us.