Feature -- by Mark Sproxton

Some job descriptions just don't do the work justice. Take Matthew Coffey's position, for instance. "I make drugs for a living. My mom's thrilled," he jokes.

Thankfully he does "make drugs." Coffey is one of the Calgary-based scientists behind a promising cancer-fighting pharmaceutical. As the vice president of product development for Oncolytics Biotech Inc., the good natured Coffey keeps daily tabs on the scientific work being done in the lab, and in the clinical tests. One day this discovery may prove to help in the fight against cancer.

"I think of myself as an orchestrator," he said. Daily he reviews the lab science work ensuring new discoveries are ready for patenting, talks with lawyers about patent applications, keeps his eyes on the development of toxicology testing to ensure the drugs are safe for human use, works with the clinicians administering the tests on people and deals with questions from shareholders. "It's a lot of PR," he said.

And it's a long process. Moving from a discovery in the lab to human trials has taken over 10 years. While Coffey was working on his PhD in oncology (the study of tumours/cancer) through the department of medicine at the University of Calgary, he and others proved that a naturally occurring human virus worked at killing cancer cells in tissue samples in a petri dish.

Making a discovery with so much potential upside, Coffey said he was dazed. "It's a little overwhelming because you don't have anything to compare it to." Now that the science has been advanced and tests are showing the technology works on humans, Coffey said he gains similar satisfaction from the encouragement of doctors conducting the clinical trials.

Like many great discoveries, the fact Coffey was around to help in this discovery came about in-part by accident. After completing his masters degree, the scientist decided he needed to expand on his experiences and began to travel. After six months, and facing the prospect of paying off student loans, he returned to university for his PhD.

Helping make the discovery, Coffey also helped establish the company around the findings. And although he has been out of lab work for about two years, he'll never forget the feeling of euphoria that can result from a discovery. "When you're the first person to know something no one else in the world knows, it's pretty amazing. On the lab side, you have to explore. You have a lot of free time to start other experiments. You have a creative job. It's just not doing the same job everyday, everything requires thought."

That's not to say he doesn't enjoy his current position even though he often puts in 10 or 12 hour days, faces numerous, tight deadlines and travels out of town frequently. "When you're developing drugs for people with afflictions that they will, potentially, one day use, it's pretty easy to get up and go to work."

Coffey believes many others will be able to experience the satisfaction he receives from work as the biotech industry continues to grow and expand. "It's really a great industry. It's so cross-disciplinary it's really neat to see. (And) it's hard to imagine a society that doesn't need drugs to better their lives."

His advice to those considering a biotech career: "Keep going to school and do something you like." Sometimes you never know what you'll wind up doing for a living.