Posts filed under ‘Industry’
Ricochet Public Relations Launches D.C. Public Affairs Practice
This week has been an especially exciting one for all of us at Ricochet. On Monday we named Valerie Carter
as Vice President of our Washington, D.C., public affairs practice. Valerie is a 20-year veteran of the public affairs and government relations fields. In the nation’s capital, she will provide a variety of public affairs services to our clients, which include but are not limited to: grassroots and grasstops organizing, coalition building, third party advocacy and congressional outreach.
Valerie began her career at the pharmaceutical company Merck & Co., where she held positions in both public affairs and government relations for 15 years. She managed Merck’s grassroots programs, the Merck PAC as well as Merck’s congressional education and outreach initiatives. In 2005, Valerie managed the government affairs office for the Project Management Institute (PMI), the world’s leading not-for-profit membership association for the project management profession, with more than half a million members. At the PMI Valerie was responsible for strategy and implementation of government advocacy and outreach initiatives with Congress and federal agencies.
Not only because of her extensive experience in Washington, D.C., is Valerie uniquely qualified to lead our public affairs practice. She also has unparalleled expertise across two of our core business units – healthcare and industry — and her insight and experience in D.C. will be a real asset to our clients by helping them to establish a strong presence in the Beltway and thought leadership on vital public issues.
All of us here at Ricochet are thrilled to have Valerie on our team. Her experience and skills will be an important and significant addition to our existing portfolio of expertise. We are certain her leadership will give us the opportunity to grow as a public affairs agency in the Beltway and beyond.
If you would like to learn more about Valerie Carter and the services we offer in D.C. as well as in our New York office, please visit our Web site. Should you have questions for Valerie or about our new practice in the Beltway, feel free to post them as comments to this article or send an email to the webmaster at info@ricochetpr.com.
Written by Patrick Bartosch
Internships in Health Care/Biotech with Ricochet Public Relations
It’s been a while since our last post. The start of 2010 has brought on a lot of changes with our firm. I’d like to welcome students looking for PR internships in health care and biotech to consider our firm and send me applications.
Ricochet is a rapidly-growing business, forging a new industry paradigm in technology and life science public relations. We emphasize collaboration, intellectualism and a sense of humor. Use your life sciences and/or technology expertise in a completely different arena than you thought possible by joining true innovators in the PR industry. Prior public relations experience is not necessary for these positions, but exceptional research skills, social skills and intellectual curiosity are essential.
To find out more about Ricochet Public Relations, please visit our website.
To be considered for this position, please email your resume (single page), cover letter and two samples of written articles to Dr. Nancy Ilaya.
As an intern, you will be working intimately with experienced publicists and will learn many of the core skills necessary to become an outstanding publicist.
Requirements for consideration include strong writing, research and organizational skills, as well as a keen interest in the media, technology and the life sciences.
The following skills are strongly desirable:
- Strong writing skills
- Research and organizational skills
- Strong communication skills
- Adheres to deadlines
- Works well under pressure
Generating transgenic animals
The third arm of the PCP is the division specific supplementary classes (quite a mouthful!) which aim to refine the account executives’ understanding of niche technologies specific to accounts. This week the industry group reviewed the different techniques commonly used to generate trans
genic animals.
It’s interesting to see how reproductive techniques used to generate lab animals have advanced significantly from artificial insemination methods since the early 1930′s. Now the researcher is empowered with more efficient and selective techniques that allow the generation of disease models in certain animals like rats, frogs, and worms.
Transgenic animals have a foreign gene that has been introduced. The methods for introducing these external genes utilize genetic, molecular biological and embryological techniques that include knocking out genes, selection and cloning. Modifying the genetics of an animal causes it to express certain traits that are of interest to the researcher. For example, the presenilin knockout mouse is commonly used in Alzheimer’s disease research to study the effect of gamma secretase enzyme activity and complex formation.
The first part of the supplemental industry classes reviewed the current embryological techiques used to generate transgenics. Students learnt about the artificial insemination, chimeras, in vitro fertilization, cloning, xenotransplantation, and embryonic stem cell methods. Understanding these techniques helped students understand the problems and ethics associated with transgenic animals. The next class will look at the molecular techniques for modifying genes.
