MSCA Fellow: Alice Sosic

A Global Fellowship from Padua to New York to work with important and highly innovative techniques for the development of antiviral agents.

Let’s talk with Alice about her experience and ask her how she plans to fulfil her dream of building a laboratory to work with mass spectrometry for nucleic acids.

Alice is a medicinal chemist specialising in drug development and in the evaluation of the molecular mechanisms of drug action. She obtained her PhD in Molecular Sciences in 2013 from the University of Padua, where she later worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. 

Her project BICEPSvsHIV, "Novel strategies for anti-HIV-1 therapy: Small molecules targeting RNA partners of the nucleocapsid protein", focuses on the development of an original anti-HIV strategy that puts RNA in the spotlight, leading to new antiretroviral agents, which are urgently needed to overcome the emergence of resistance to existing drugs.

You are a former MSCA Global Fellowship winner; your project started in July 2017, ended in June 2019 and was about novel therapies against HIV. Can you tell us something about your research path and why you chose to apply for an MSCA-IF?

Before applying for the Global Fellowship, I had always studied and worked at the University of Padua. I graduated in medicinal chemistry and completed my PhD at the Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences. Thanks to my PhD, I began learning new techniques for the development of new drugs. My expertise has always been focused on the development of antiviral agents, namely anti-HIV agents. After my PhD, I continued working as a postdoc here at the University of Padua, but I have always been open to collaborations with external offices and research institutes in a multidisciplinary context. I think open-mindedness is really key to approaching your research and an MSCA research project. After three and a half years as a postdoc in Padua, I understood that it was useful and necessary for me to have an experience abroad. So I planned to apply for an MSCA-IF. I wanted an opportunity to work in a new country, but also to come back with something new for myself and my University.

How did you choose your Host Institution for your Global Fellowship?

I have always had great experiences at the University of Padua, both with my laboratory and with the University Offices: they have always helped me from a bureaucratic and administrative point of view. I already had some connections with my supervisor in Albany at the RNA Institute of the State University of New York, so it was not something completely new for me. I knew they were using important and highly innovative techniques there. I work with mass spectrometry for nucleic acids, a very rare expertise here in Europe. In fact, there are only a few laboratories, perhaps three, working on this worldwide. It was very useful for me to go right there; I improved some specific skills that I knew I could bring back here to Europe. My hope was also to be able to build a similar laboratory here in Padua, and this is what I am doing right now.

What are the main requirements a candidate researcher should have in order to apply for an MSC-IF?

I would like to be very positive about this, because a lot of people think that if you do not already have solid publications in top international journals, you will not get the Grant. But this is not the case. The point of this Fellowship is that you must prove that you are very motivated: you should show that you have a good track record at your career stage and that you have a path you want to pursue. So, do not be shy.

Do you have any particular tips to share with those who want to apply for an MSCA-IF?

Certainly, I think it is really important to plan your proposal well and to take time over it. The template can be complicated, there are word limits, and you need to understand what they are asking for in each paragraph and be consistent throughout the proposal. So, a good tip is to study the template carefully.

Is there a part dedicated to dissemination of your project? What were you expected to do and what did you do?

I tried to explain the importance of my project to a general audience, especially through some initiatives organised by the University of Padua, which is really good at implementing these social impact activities, such as the “Researchers Night” that is hosted every year in the city centre. I also gave both video and written interviews: the University of Padua Communications Office is really active in this area and, for me, it was great fun.

What about the impact of the MSCA Fellowship on your career?

It was really important. I wrote in the research proposal that I expected to learn new skills, both hard and soft. Of course, I learned how to master these new specific laboratory techniques, which will be useful both in academia and in industry and for possible new collaborations in the future. But the Fellowship was also a great opportunity to learn how to manage my own research project, including the budget. I learned a lot from an administrative point of view. On this basis, I feel I can apply for other, even more challenging, grants. Moreover, I obtained a Researcher position thanks to the new skills I have developed over the past few years.