318: The art of being a nutraceuticals scientist

<div>"It's a good conversation starter," says Dr Miriam Ferrer of her job title. "People say 'food supplements? That's just cheap vitamins'. Then I tell them all about it."<br> <br> Dr Ferrer is Head of New Product Development at <a href="https://www.camnutra.com/">Cambridge Nutraceuticals</a>, a company that makes health supplements with proven clinical benefits.<br> <br> The company says: "If it isn’t supported by data, we won't sell it."<br> <br> In this episode of the Career Conversations podcast series, Dr Ferrer tells us all about her role and how she ended up in the field of <a href="https://foodmatterslive.com/article/nutraceutical-ingredients-market-worth-227bn-by-2025/">nutraceuticals</a>.<br> <br> Her love of science began when she was a teenager and watched a documentary about the double helix. <br> <br> "I wanted to genetic engineering," she says. "I was told I had to study biology, so I did."<br> <br> She studied at the <a href="https://www.ub.edu/web/portal/en/">University of Barcelona</a> before securing a position at the <a href="https://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/">Laboratory of Molecular Biology</a> in Cambridge: "The very first thing you see when you go in is the pictures of all the Nobel Prize winners. So no pressure!"<br> <br> Dr Ferrer decided that she wanted to lay down some roots in Cambridge, something she says is not always easy to do as a scientist.<br> <br> "With science, you end up having to travel, which is great to some extent," she says. "But at some point you might want to start a family and not keep moving from one place to another."<br> <br> She got her current job at Cambridge Nutraceuticals in 2017 and has not looked back since.<br> <br> "The products we develop have a lot of scientific research behind them," she explains. "I am able to read through all of that and say whether or not I agree with the science.<br> <br> "I can also use my expertise to help the marketing team translate the scientific knowledge into layman's terms and communicate that to our customers."<br> <br> List