"He encouraged us to interrupt if we had any questions--and we all took full advantage," says Jacqueline Gress, a chemist with MSDRL who attended the lecture. "Unlike a typical college seminar, there was a lot of give-and-take. This made some very complicated scientific concepts much more accessible, and it really shortened my learning curve. The journals are flooded with so many new studies about receptors that it's virtually impossible to keep up--especially when you're working 50 or 60 hours a week. That's why this was so invaluable."
Each year, Merck sponsors dozens of on-site scientific training programs for its staffers. The pharmaceutical firm does not keep statistics on how much of this money is earmarked specifically for funding its scientifically oriented seminars on such subjects as laboratory techniques, technical writing, cell biology, immunology, pharmacology, chemical reaction mechanisms, monoclonal antibodies, and molecular biology. But the company's commitment to science education has ...
