Bringing Chemistry to Life

Flip the script. Meet your host, Paolo.

Episode Summary

In this special episode of Bringing Chemistry to Life, we turn the spotlight on our host Paolo Braiuca and put him in the guest chair. Paolo is not only a skilled bioorganic chemist and a Director of Global Market Development at Thermo Fisher Scientific, but he also has the gift of authenticity and accessibility that shines through his own story. He shares his personal journey from dreams of being an NBA star, to leading a startup R&D team, to switching to the “dark side” and a career in marketing. He also reveals how hosting the podcast keeps him connected to great science and brilliant scientists.

Episode Notes

Bringing Chemistry to Life is as much about the people behind the science as it is about the science itself. We’ve been remiss in sharing a bit more about the creator and host! In this unique episode we flip the script and move Paolo from the host chair to the guest chair to hear his story. 

From Paolo’s childhood memories watching his father fix electronics and his dreams of being in the NBA, he chats about developing into a skilled bioorganic chemist, working in biocatalysis and his contributions to international study programs. He describes the “God-like” powers that organic chemistry gave him, manipulating matter and creating things that didn’t exist before and how this led to becoming an R&D leader in a startup. 

Our protagonist’s story takes a turn when he discovers and becomes enamored with the “dark side” of science finding success in sales, product management, and product marketing roles, where we find him today. The origin story of Bringing Chemistry to Life is uncovered, fulfilling his aspiration of being a podcast host while keeping him connected to great science and market trends. Join us to meet Paolo, your host, learn what he gets from hosting the podcast, and what he hopes listeners get from it!

Related episodes: 

Bonus content!

 

A free thank you gift for our listeners! 

Episode Transcription

Paolo 00:00

This is it for me really, is, you know the realization that there's a profound connection between who the people are and what they do in life. And you can see it, you can really see it in the science.

 

Paolo 00:22

Hello there, I'm Paolo Braiuca, the usual host of Bringing Chemistry to Life. And if you're a keen listener, you probably found yourself wondering what I was doing there at the top of the show. Well, after nearly 50 episodes, our team has decided to flip the script in today's episode and put me in the guest chair to talk about my own scientific career, and the joy I get from hosting this podcast. So, without further ado, I'm delighted to turn things over to our producer, Matt Ferris, who will guide our conversation today. I really hope you enjoy it. 

 

Matt Ferris 01:01

Paolo, thank you very much for the opportunity to play this role. And I got to say, I'm personally looking forward to it. But I know from speaking to other listeners that they're also curious about, you know, the mysterious man that is Paulo, the host. And especially for a podcast that is so much about the people behind the science, it only makes sense in my mind to give a little bit more on who's the person behind the host in sort of the idea of this podcast series. So, thank you.

 

Paolo 01:29

Thank you, I'm sure it's going to be interesting, because for me feels like having a chat with a friend.

 

Matt Ferris 01:35

So, you know how these always start, Paolo. We're always interested in sort of figuring out, you know, what is your relationship to science? How did you get into this space?

 

Paolo 01:43

I think it's fair to say that I'm a failed chemist, or a chemist who decided to move to the dark side of things. I genuinely don't know how I stumbled across science; I have no family history. I've been the first one in my whole family to get to uni, right and get getting a degree, the first time to get a PhD. And my family was always extremely supportive. But nobody provided me with any guidance or any blueprint, right for how you do something like that. I just happen to enjoy, you know, the scientific methods, you know, and you know, science and chemistry and biology, maths, you know, were my favorites and...

 

Matt Ferris 02:24

Starting what age, I'm curious. I know, for me, it was like junior high, where I really started noticing and a propensity for the sciences.

 

Paolo 02:32

Now that, I never thought about it properly. But now that you asked me and you kind of force me to think, the strongest memory I have of me as a young kid is my dad disassembling electronic devices to fix them. My dad is an incredibly smart guy, who didn't have a formal education, formal education, he didn't go to uni or anything, his family couldn't afford it. So, he went to work when I was like 14 or 15. And but he self-taught electronics to himself, right? Which is incredibly hard to do. And, you know, to just kind of passion and interest and to make some a little bit of extra money, right? It was kind of fixing things for himself and for friends and for other people. And yet, like a kind of side business. So, it would mostly...

 

Matt Ferris 03:30

Would you be shadowing him during that? Or just noticing it from afar?

 

Paolo 03:33

I was kind of trying to mimic what he was doing. Yeah. And to this day, my main hobby is I find myself a maker. So, I still build up strange devices at home. And I have a 3D printer and I have 12 different ways of opening my garage door, which is funny and really useless. And I do silly things with home automation that my wife hates because she can't switch on the lights for God's sake. Right? But I guess what that meant for me is that he, you know, my dad somehow knew how these complicated electronic things work. And, you know, this was electronics from the 80s and the 90s. Yeah. So, you know, if you remember what, you know a CRT TV was like, you know, huge devices and you know, with big components. But, you know, what was fascinating to me was the somehow, he understood how things worked. And so, I always had this idea of kind of understanding it and then you know, I was the guy you know, disassembling his little toys and trying to see what was inside. And I guess science gave me this sort of perspective, you know, an explanation, a potential explanation on things. That's what would draw me in.

 

Paolo 03:54

And then was it high school or not until the university where you really got to appreciate chemistry, that molecular, atomic level of how things work.

 

Paolo 04:59

When I went to high school, because of my propensity for scientific learning, I picked, you know, well, what is the top sort of school to get into this, into this direction, which is called scientific lyceum, or Liceo scientifico in Italian, right? Where, you know, most of the attention is a very traditional type of school, but a lot of attention is on maths, physics, and then you're on the applied sciences. At that point, I almost felt as my road was defined. I didn't quite know what I wanted to be as an adult. I used to play basketball, even though I'm not particularly tall. So, you know, I had a dream to play in the NBA one day. Didn't work. But yeah, it didn't last very long. I broke my knee, had an ACL injury when I was 17. And that made everything hard, because that was the moment where you kind of make it or break it right, you know, is, you know, it's the time when, when you start kind of finding out what kind of player you can become.

 

Matt Ferris 06:03

So, you're in high school, you chose a high school where there was a STEM focus, if you will. Were there mentors, I mean, did you always know you're going to the university? Or how did you decide university or choose the university or even choose a major? How did you home in on chemistry?

 

 

 

Paolo 06:19

First of all, at high school, I hated my maths professor. I hated her. Where I excelled, what I found more interesting was the two subjects that are far more interesting were biology and chemistry. So, when I got to the end of high school, I was kind of uncertain. And as you know, what do I pick as a major? Do I pick chemistry? Do I pick biology? I ended up with a sort of middle ground, you know. I picked pharmaceutical sciences, right. There is a little bit of both. It's mostly chemistry, I will say, right, but it does, it has the, it has the biological component. And that's, that's what I did. You know, there is no, back then, there was no bachelors. So, it was already like a master from the beginning, five years studies. And I did it quite easily with very good success. And I ended up regretting it in some ways, because as I was going into it, chemistry that was really what drove me in. I think he benefited me later in my career to have the sort of biotechnology background added to it. But you know, back then, chemistry was my real passion. 

 

Matt Ferris 07:27

We haven't finished the educational path, like your PhD, postdocs or things like that. But I'm always curious, like, what type of chemist do you self-identify as? Like I consider myself a bioanalytical chemist, right. I don't have any piece of paper that says bioanalytical chemistry. I have a degree in biochemistry and a graduate degree in analytical chemistry. But what do you self-identify as?

 

Paolo 07:47

I will say that I'm a strange hybrid between an organic chemist and a biochemist. Organic chemistry is really what I worked on over the years, and what my undergrad and also, you know, grad school, you know, where my research was. But the fact that the main topic was the use of enzymes as a tool for synthetic chemistry exposes me to all the more biotechnology elements, right? Because, you know, how do you develop an enzyme? How do you select it? How do you modify it? You know how you use it, then in a chemical process. That had a lot of biotechnology in it, a lot of your biochemistry. 

 

Matt Ferris 08:23

And biocatalysis was a pretty new thing at that period of time, right?

 

Paolo 08:29

It was in some ways. I feel like biocatalysis is this eternal unmet promise, right? I think it came; it came a long way. But yes, you're right. We're speaking about the early 2000s here. So it was, yeah, over 20 years ago, when I actually started as an undergraduate to more than 25. When I started, when I started to do research in the space, and it was a niche. It's a much, much bigger niche now. You actually start being mainstream, you know, you might see in some of the more modern textbooks in organic chemistry, you know. You can see that back then; no, it was a complete novelty. So, most of the chemists of my generation have never used an enzyme in their life.

 

Matt Ferris 09:18

So, I know there's a question you've asked other folks that are very into organic aspects. Was it just a love of like, thinking about how you can manipulate matter? Was it the applications? What was it that really got you just so into this specific area of chemistry?

 

Paolo 09:35

I think what I like, what I really like still to this day of synthetic chemistry in general is you're really manipulating matter. You are creating things that didn't exist before. Yeah, I was so fascinated, and I thought back then, at least would have been able to do what I would do for my whole life, you know, one way or another. So, I was passionate about it.

 

Matt Ferris 09:58

So, you mentioned that you knew at some point relatively early in your academic path that, you know, it would be important to travel abroad. Tell me about the rest of that career path before, you know, deciding, you know, to move into industry and like the location, societal…

 

Paolo 10:13

I was quite fortunate as I started my PhD program because this was a European funded fellowship. Basically, a research program funded by the European Union to foster collaboration between scientists from different countries. And this was, this was a program it was called ChemBiocat. So, it was the use of biocatalysis, in combinatorial chemistry for synthesizing new types of compounds, right. And it was a collaboration of about a thousand different groups across Europe. It was amazing because all of a sudden, I found myself immersed in an international environment, right. Because these programs are very formally run. So, they fund your whole PhD programs for three years, that's where your money is coming from, you have deliverables the project steering, the state committee and you know, you have regular meetings, like, once a quarter, you travel to all the other places. You have periods when you visit the other labs or, you know, the other, the other scientists visit your lab. So, there's a lot of international exchange, which was scary to me like them, because my English was quite bad then. But it was fascinating, right. And it gave me this opportunity to kind of see what life was about, you know, outside of my own little peanut world in the northeast of Italy. That's how I kind of got my first flavor of an international life in science and it was an incredibly enriching experience.

 

Matt Ferris 11:44

I'm always curious if you feel like having the framework, where the context of science to explore those different cultures interact with people almost made it easier? 

 

Paolo 11:54

Yes, it does. It does. Because at the end of the day, it's all about what to expect, and what to imagine and how to do it right. And meeting people and having somebody who can tell you to speak to you about their experience, you know, visiting these groups, and I could see other, you know, PhD students or postdocs who were, you know, living abroad or, you know, who made the choices that I was considering making. And, you know, I had a lot of opportunities to discuss about these things. And it became something more concrete because I just knew that I was interested and I knew that if I really wanted to do something in science, it would have been unlikely that I could do it where I was born and I grew up, right? I had to move. But I didn't quite know. I didn't quite, I wasn't able to envision it properly, what does it really mean in concrete terms. And only because it started becoming more real, right. And, you know, three years at that age is quite a long time, right? You know, and it's a very hectic time. You work all day, every day, it's kind of like you're immersed in this world and, you know, it's tough. But you know, I remember it fondly. It's been a few good years. Scientifically quite successful, by the way. So, I'm quite proud of what we achieved.

 

Matt Ferris 13:12

You're finishing school, you've been studying biocatalysis. Like many students, at that point, you're deciding, am I going to academia? Am I like going into pharma? Other industry? Talk through that sort of, I mean, that's a big step, and where was your head?

 

Paolo 13:28

I was a dreamer and I wanted, I wanted to be, you know, a free researcher. So, I made an ideal of academic research. And that's what I wanted to pursue, right. Because it felt the most obvious thing to me. And I, you know, I spent like, a short postdoctoral time in Glasgow, Strathclyde University, and then went came back to my original University in Trieste and I got like, a temporary position as a teaching research assistant. And I tried to pursue that until I realized that it wasn't for me. You have to accept things that I wasn't ready to accept.

 

Matt Ferris 14:11

Were those intrinsic to who you are Paolo? Or just something that age wise, you weren't ready to be there?

 

Paolo 14:17

No, I think it's a personality thing. You need to play the game, right, in some ways. And it becomes more about how you play your political game within the academic scientific community, and you needed more attention than I was able to, or willing to give, to these sorts of dynamics, right. Because in my mind, it was all about science. And that's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to, and I was naive in that, you know. I didn't want to have to deal with, you know, everything that was behind or not related to the science. And so, at some point, I came to the realization that wasn't for me. And maybe here you can see the refrain. You know, I didn't have the strength, or courage, or maybe the vision to take a bigger step and say, "Hey, you know, university is not for me, let's kind of look seriously at the industry world. Maybe I can get a job in a big company or something, you know." I kind of got there in steps in some ways. It's almost like waiting for opportunities to happen and then catching them. And that's the way I see it if I look back.

 

Matt Ferris 15:23

We hope you're enjoying this unique episode of Bringing Chemistry to Life. But we'd rather hear from you directly if you are. This is why we've created the hellobctl@thermofisher.com email. That's H.E.L.L.O.B.C.T.L at thermo fisher.com. We hope you'll drop us a note at this new email to let us know what you're enjoying, and what you'd like to see and hear more from the podcast. Stay tuned till the end or check out the podcast notes for information on how to register for a free Bringing Chemistry to Life t-shirt. And now let's get back to Paolo's story of how this podcast series first began.

 

Matt Ferris 16:03

So, I mean industry, like you weren't sure academia was it, you go into industry. Was it a natural fit right away? Were you happy in the lab? Tell us the evolution to where I know, you said you eventually went to the dark side, I hate that phrase. But tell us the path from like doing stuff in the lab to deciding to move into more commercial. 

 

Paolo 16:23

If I look back, I wasn't convinced. I wasn't convinced, right. Because my heart was still with R&D, and I really wanted to be a scientist. So, my role in the company was running the R&D team at the beginning. So, that was it. It was nice, I was comfortable with that. I was working on you know, at the end of the day, our own technology, I was very familiar with it. Now, it wasn't free research projects, it were projects for customers, right. It was, you know, making products for customers. So, the motivations and drivers were different, but it was still kind of nice and familiar, right. But then then, you know, it's a small company. So, you know, everybody does a little bit of everything, which was interesting. And so, I started to have a lot of customers facing time traveling with a sales team, you know, and try and sell our capabilities, right. And then we were running some projects and you know, I was there as a sort of the face of the company from a technical perspective. It was an epiphany, right, because I, you know, it was another world that I would have never considered, you know, I would have never imagined right. But I was enjoying it a lot. I'm quite outgoing, as you know, and, you know, traveling all over the world and meeting customers who were doing real important work, right. You know, in a few years, in a couple of years, I have visited all the top 20 pharma companies in the world, a lot of the most exciting biotech’s, you know, some of some incredible sort of startup companies that over the years have done incredible things. I feel privileged, I've visited all of them, I've, they have been some customers for us, you know. I've worked with them, and I know a lot of people who are now, you know, extremely influential in these positions. And I kind of found that the business element of it was kind of interesting. And until that moment I had never even vaguely considered if you asked me and I said "No, I'm just going to do research." In my career on, you know, between business development and product management and marketing and ahead from that moment onward, I've always kept the technical element very close. And I always think that my ability, or my passion, for the technical aspects of what we do is relatively unique. Too often I've seen people forgetting about their technical skills. And then I, to this day you know running this podcast it's a good example. You know, I love being on top of things and knowing where the market is going and speaking to scientists and you know, I'm still passionate about it.

 

Matt Ferris 19:06

So, I know there's a number of years where maybe jumping but I'd love to get to your current role. I think, I mean, most of the folks that listen to the podcast understand this is produced by Thermo Fisher Scientific for listeners that might not even know who Thermo Fisher Scientific is, how do you explain Thermo Fisher Scientific?

 

Paolo 19:24

Now this is a difficult question because if I don't do it right, they are going to fire me. But I think an interesting way of defining Thermo Fisher Scientific if you are not in science, it's probably the biggest company you've never heard of. If you are in science, you probably know, or you have heard of, Thermo Fisher. Thermo Fisher is a big company that does a lot of things and defines itself as the leader in serving science. And then we are active in a number of different sorts of scientific fields, from the biosciences and biotechnology, to genetics and genomics, to laboratory chemicals, and pharmaceutical development and production, you know. It's very broad and complex, in many ways, right. I am part of the laboratory chemicals business and I have a marketing role.

 

Paolo 20:01

Laboratory chemicals means what to those in the sciences.

 

Paolo 20:25

If you have ever been in a lab, you know of any discipline, you know, there's always some chemicals in there. We sell them. Yeah, we develop and move them around the world. Import, export, you know, we make some, we source and distribute some others, you know, everybody in any scientific discipline, wherever there's research work, you know, needs some chemicals. From some very basic ones, to very sophisticated reagents, and building blocks and catalysts. We basically provide people with, with these types of products. We make research happen. 

 

Matt Ferris 21:05

In your current role, you mentioned that you love that, you know, the podcast keeps connected to market trends and the science. What else do you love about your job? You always ask guests, you know, what gets you out of bed in the morning? Is it you know, solving the world's problems, the people you work with? What is it that gets you out of bed and motivates you?

 

Paolo 21:21

There's a few things. The people you work with are extremely important, you know. Thermo Fisher Scientific is a great place, there's a ton of extremely talented people. I am inspired by a lot of my colleagues in many functions, right. I am fortunate to be able to sort of interact with people coming from different backgrounds and ethnicities at a global level with lots of different experience. That's very enriching. And so, my days are actually quite nice, very hectic usually. Because, you know, with a global role, you wake up in the morning and the, you know, the people in Asia are kind of getting, you know, they're closing their day, and then you know, you have the European time and then the Americans start in the afternoon and you know, you go to bed and the work keeps going, right. And then you wake up in the morning and there's already a pile up. So, it is never boring, which is which is great. I love that they really take care of people here, right. So, I've been given a lot of opportunities to develop myself and my skills and test myself and stretch myself. And, you know, I can really play an important role in the way we present ourselves and what we do to the market, which is fantastic, really. 

 

Matt Ferris 22:36

Let me broaden that question to sort of say, let's say, larger than thinking about Paulo just professionally. If I said, "Who is Paolo Braiuca? What defines you?” What's your answer?

 

Paolo 22:49

What a difficult question. I think more than anything to approach the world with positivity and a smile and a laugh, if possible, right. I like big ideas and big visions. I developed my own but I love it if somebody provides me with one that I can buy into. And I hope that I can provide some vision for the people who around me and you know, so they can, they can maybe buy into contribute to it. That's how I will define myself.

 

Matt Ferris 23:16

That's a great answer. I think it's a great answer. And if I maybe did one quick follow up with you, you clearly said family is up there, you know, at the top of the list, but if you have time to yourself to go do something for yourself a hobby that you enjoy, what sort of things would you find yourself doing?

 

Paolo 23:32

People who know me would probably say that I'm chatty and quite noisy and loud. Quite surprisingly, I like to be quiet in my free time. As I said, I you know, I am a maker. I like to play with my electronics, you know, and build stuff. You know, I think I'm still a scientist at heart in many ways right here, but or I like, you know, reading or even playing video games. I need to be around people to recharge. I love friends, laughing, and going to the pub. But you know what I like doing, you know, besides working, besides the families, is what I've described.

 

Matt Ferris 24:12

So, I'd like to maybe transition to talking about the podcast, Bringing Chemistry to Life, a little bit more. It is obviously the platform we're on right now. How did Bringing Chemistry to Life come about?

 

Paolo 24:24

It was kind of a crazy idea at the beginning. That is what it was. I love podcasts. I listen to quite a few and I think is very successful. We had two needs when I joined the laboratory chemicals team. I saw two needs. First of all, we were going through a profound business transformation, right. So, we were rebranding and trying to integrate acquisitions. We were launching a new brand, Thermo Scientific Chemicals, which is now out and live and thriving. And we had, you know, some interesting thought leadership programs in collaboration with the with American Chemical Society. Then it was called Talented 12. And I thought it could be an opportunity to do a bit more. Well, I'm a firm believer of ensuring that the companies who play an important role in your market need to engage with the market, right. So, you need to ensure that you are speaking to your customer, you're speaking to key stakeholders to the thought leaders in the field so that you know where, where the technology and the market is going, you can position the company for it. So, this was basically the rationale. You know, we had this nice program, we were running with the ACS, we could do something more. So I said, "Well, why don't we do one more thing, you know, we connect more deeply with them. And, you know, we do this in the form of a podcast." And this can position you know, the company as a credible partner in, you know, in a conversation at a decent level providing value to KOL's and to customers. 

 

Matt Ferris 26:03

One of the things that was important to you early on is that it's about the people behind the science as much as it is the science. Tell me why that was so important to you. I think it's one of the things that makes this series so interesting and even popular with people that are not chemists. 

 

Paolo 26:17

It's because when I started doing research as an undergrad, you know, you read all these papers and stuff, and you see a lot of names and talk. And then I was going out to conferences, or I started traveling for work and visiting groups. And I started meeting these people. And then from being names on a piece of paper, they became people with a face and a personality. You know, and some of the, some of the big professors of the time, some of the big researchers I had the privilege to work with, in some ways, or, or at least to meet and exchange some opinions and you're having a beer with them, you know. That was such an incredible experience for me, to this day, you know, when we had Professor Anastas in the podcast, you know, his work was one of the first that I started reading when I started doing, you know, being a young scientist. Meeting him, having him as a guest in the podcasts and speaking to him. You know, it's such an emotion like, same feeling as it was, as we're having back then. This is it for me really, you know, the realization that there's a profound connection between who the people are and what they do in life. And you can see, you can really see it in the science. There's the conservatives, you know, the pragmatic, there's the brave, people who like to push the boundaries, you know, and you see them in their personalities. Once you meet them, you can tell what kind of science they do. And I always had this in mind, say you can't really see it from reading the papers and reading the list of names, but you can really tell when you meet them.

 

Matt Ferris 27:51

What stands out? What are you proud of? 

 

Paolo 27:54

Listen, marketers know how tricky it is to get engagement, right. You put a lot of work in and you know, spend money and then you get like, you know, single, low single digit click through rate on communications. And then you know, you need to go back to the drawing boards. The fact that we have literally thousands of people listening, they’re committing half an hour or more of the time listening to this is mind blowing. I'm proud that, you know, when you get some people are asking "Yeah, I'd like to be in your podcast."

 

Matt Ferris 28:27

It's been phenomenal. I agree. Well, Paolo, I think as we get towards the end, I know there's always the same question you ask at the end of every interview. And we've heard many, many, many answers. But I think it's still worth asking. You know, you always say to guests, you know, you've had a successful career, you're doing a lot of good work. You've had the luxury of years of experience. What have you learned? What would you pass on to your younger self or even to, you know, young scientists that are sort of in that early career phase?

 

Paolo 29:05

Well, I have had a moderately successful career I would say, right. Compared to some of the guests we have here who are changing the world, I don't think I'm not even close. I guess if you asked me just few years back, you know, back when I was an undergrad, you know, "Would you believe that you will be doing what I'm actually doing right now?" I would have never believed you, right. You know, I would say, " Yeah, I would never do marketing, I wouldn't have, I don't care about marketing." You know, I guess if I look back, my recommendation will be to keep your mind open. You know, sometimes we don't see options because they're now in our every day, right. They're not close to us. But, you know, a criticism that I always give myself is that I haven't been in my early years proactive or aggressive enough in pursuing a very determined development of my career. It kind of, it almost feel like it happened to me, right. But at the very least, I was open minded enough to consider opportunities that were outside of my sort of experience of the time. Embracing the dark side, right, the way I describe it, was a difficult and brave thing to do. But you know, it's something that I would have never thought I would do. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't go back. And if anything, you know, in hindsight, I would have done it earlier. And so, my suggestion would be exactly that, you know, keep your mind open, there isn't a blueprint, right. Everybody develops their roles, their path, in their own way. Give every opportunity, even the craziest one, a chance because they might be life changing.

 

Matt Ferris 30:48

I love it. And I'd even add, you know, I mean, you said that, you know, you sometimes think maybe you could have had a more determined path earlier. But I would say having a determined path earlier would have been on preconceived notions where you wouldn't have been open to those opportunities. A very different experience.

 

Paolo 31:04

And at the end of the day, I accept it for what it is. I think I made the best of the opportunity I’ve caught. You know, the fact that I had a lot of diverse experiences made me a better person overall. You know, I could travel the world meeting totally incredible people and working very, very interesting jobs. I've loved every single one of them, in some ways, at least. And I feel like I have plenty of options for the future. 

 

Matt Ferris 31:34

And you might learn something amazing about yourself in the process. Well, Paolo, thank you very much for allowing me to fill this role today. It's been an honor and I hope that listeners enjoy it as much as I have. Again, people have been curious about who is this mysterious man behind the mic? And so, I'm happy to be part of the unveiling. Thank you.

 

Paolo 31:53

I feel like it should have stayed mysterious because it's fine. It's nice. This mysterious Italian guy.

 

Matt Ferris 32:00

Maybe we can apply a voice filter and a shadow. 

 

Paolo 32:10

That was Matt Ferris, our intrepid Bringing Chemistry to Life producer. Before we retreating back into my shadowy shroud of mystery, I want to thank everyone who requested that I share a bit of my story today. If you're a fan of the show and have other guests that you'd love to hear from, please get in touch at hellobctl@thermofisher.com And if you haven't yet this season, please consider leaving us a positive rating or review, wherever you listen to your podcast. As I mentioned during the show, it makes a huge difference. And we really appreciate each one. This episode was produced by Sarah Briganti, Matt Ferris, and Matthew Stock.