桑福德——当每个人都在与COVID-19作斗争时, 由新型冠状病毒引起的疾病, the spotlight has suddenly shifted to people who once worked in relative obscurity: research scientists producing vaccines and medicines to treat disease.

哈利·贾德·普利托就是其中之一. She earned her Associate in Science at 中央卡罗莱纳社区学院 in Sanford before completing undergraduate work at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. After moving quickly through some entry-level positions, 她去了赛默飞世尔科技公司, 一家财富500强的生物技术公司, where she is a senior scientist for research and development.

Pulito now lives in Greensboro and works in a laboratory not far away in High Point, 她在哪里配药, taking chemical compounds that actively treat a disease and combining them with other substances needed to create the final product.

事情并不像听起来那么简单. Pulito formulates drugs that are taken as soft gelatin capsules, which means there are all sorts of variables to consider. "You have a lot of restrictions and parameters you need to work with and work around,她说. "You need to have a drug that is therapeutically effective and also must be stable, because it's sitting on shelves in drug stores and at home. All of the chemical interactions need to have their proper impact in the end."

Pharmaceutical research wasn't the plan when Pulito graduated from Lee County High School. 起初, 她进了一所大学学习海洋生物学, but that field wasn't exactly what she thought it would be. So, she returned home to Sanford and 在线电子游戏网赌 to complete some university prerequisites and chart a new course.

当她到达Dr. Rodney Powell's chemistry class, that direction became clear. "He opened my eyes to chemistry and how much fun it actually was," she recalled. "I started picking his brain after class and decided to focus my career in chemistry.但她并没有放弃自己早期的兴趣. 生物老师. Terry Miller also impressed Pulito with his knowledge and enthusiasm. So when both teachers asked her to become a student tutor, there was no turning back.

在完成她的副学士学位之后, Pulito moved to UNC-Greensboro to take advantage of a well-developed research program that allowed her to complete a research internship with Dr. Terry Nile, helping synthesize molecules used to treat cancer. 这似乎是命运的安排.

“我总是对每件事的运作方式感兴趣, especially in nature -- what plants and animals need to survive and how they utilized these nutrients,她说. "Then, I started getting interested in how humans worked at a chemical level. 我们基本上是机器. We have all of these different pathways and all of those are so interconnected.

"It's all intricate and I wanted to know how all of these work together. I always loved biology and chemistry, so it was perfect harmonization."

Her rise to senior research scientist has been fairly fast. 索雅·戈桑加里，R&赛默飞世尔科技公司的D配方经理, says Pulito is currently the lead scientist on two important formulation development projects and provides support for the company's internal proof-of-concept programs, the process to show that a new drug is effective and safe.

Gosangari believes Pulito's success is grounded in a research environment rich with expert professionals and complex projects that provide an opportunity to learn. But then there are Pulito's personal characteristics, 还有——智力, motivation and the abilities to work effectively with people and solve problems using "out-of-the-box thinking."

“她的学习曲线相当快. She has been able to rapidly pick up on concepts and apply them in real-life scenarios, 这样可以增强理解,Gosangari说.

普利托的未来似乎很广阔. Gosangari believes her colleague could eventually move into a higher technical role, perhaps becoming a principal scientist or senior research fellow, or maybe shift into management to direct research and development teams. No matter what direction Pulito decides to pursue, she's already preparing for the challenge. 现在, she's working on a master's degree in biotechnology through an online program at Johns Hopkins, 全国顶尖的研究型大学之一.

Her rapid success may surprise some, especially when they learn that it all began at 在线电子游戏网赌. 在她念高中的时候, Pulito说, many people saw community college as a fall-back option for students who couldn't make it at a four-year university. 但她根本不这么看. 为她, community college was a different path to the same destination, one that allowed her to save money and enjoy smaller classes along the way.

“时代在变，”她说. "When I speak with people, I make it clear that I went to community college -- and I'm proud of that."

To learn more about 中央卡罗莱纳社区学院, visit www.预备.edu.