From PhD in Plant Sciences to a dynamic career in biotech – Holly Astley shares how her time at Cambridge shaped her path from laboratory scientist to increasingly multifaceted project focused roles.
Studying Plant Sciences at Cambridge can open up a wealth of career opportunities. In this series, we hear from Plant Sciences alumni about their experiences of studying here, how it shaped their careers and what they are doing now.
If you would like your alumni story featured, please email us at alumni@plantsci.cam.ac.uk.
About Holly
Holly Astley graduated in 2010 with a PhD in Plant Sciences from Newnham College, Cambridge. After her PhD, she joined Horizon Discovery, a small biotech startup. She has remained there ever since, transitioning from hands on laboratory work into broader scientific and project-driven roles. During this time, she has witnessed the company’s dramatic evolution: from a team of barely a dozen people to its public listing (IPO), its acquisition by PerkinElmer, and finally its emergence as Revvity – a global life sciences and diagnostics business with 11,000 employees. She now works as a Principal Project Manager for Revvity, supporting host cell line development and licensing for human biotherapeutic production.
What is your favourite memory from your time in the Department of Plant Sciences?
My favourite memories from my time in the Department of Plant Sciences all come back to the people. The colleagues I met during my PhD – from fellow students and post docs to my group leader, Julian Hibberd – made an enormous difference to the journey, and several of them (including my now husband!) are still central in my life today. As any PhD student knows, there are long hours and moments when nothing seems to work, but the support, humour, and shared determination of the people around me carried me through. The conversations we had – in the lab, with custard creams in the tearoom, during Friday beer hours, or on walks to the plant growth facility at the Botanic Garden – were often where ideas sparked and where camaraderie was developed.
One particularly vivid memory is an experiment investigating seedling conformation during germination in different Arabidopsis knock out lines. It required manually photographing plates every few hours, including throughout the night, for several days. It was exhausting, slightly surreal, and completely absorbing – the kind of task only a PhD student would willingly take on. I still remember the relief when the results finally came together. It’s a perfect snapshot of that time: challenging, collaborative, and ultimately rewarding.
How did your time in the Department influence your career journey?
My association with the Plant Sciences Department – beginning as an undergraduate and continuing through my PhD – played a defining role in shaping my identity as a scientist. I loved the variety of lab work and the satisfaction of seeing hypotheses tested, but what truly energised me was the sense of achievement that came from getting a new technique to work or creating something entirely from scratch. Those moments made it clear that I was drawn to environments where science is applied and translated into real world impact, rather than remaining purely academic.
A memorable ‘sliding doors’ moment came when I was offered a position at Horizon. A close post doc colleague advised me against it, convinced that a services focused biotech position would be repetitive and leave little room for innovation. I took his perspective seriously, but ultimately chose to trust my instincts – and I’m very glad I did. More than 15 years later, my experience has been very different to what he predicted. The work has been dynamic, creative, and full of opportunities to innovate. I have to say that there hasn’t been a dull moment.
What have you gone on to do since leaving the Department?
Since leaving the Department, I’ve spent my entire career at Horizon, joining initially as a laboratory scientist. At that time, the company operated primarily as a services business, focused – in the pre CRISPR era – on introducing disease associated mutations into mammalian cell lines for drug discovery and development, using recombinant adeno associated virus as the gene editing technology of choice. As the company grew, my role grew with it – I progressed to leading a small team of scientists and subsequently to managing the entire group.
In 2017, I relocated to rural Shropshire – not exactly a biotech hub – which meant fully stepping away from lab associated work. I first moved into a client and project management role within the same gene editing group, before transitioning into a similar position in the bioproduction team, where I had to learn an entirely new scientific area from the ground up.
Today, although my title is ‘Project Manager’, the role is wonderfully varied. I’m involved in client and supplier management, regulatory affairs, scientific guidance, documentation collation, and logistics support, among many other responsibilities. The breadth of the work keeps it constantly interesting, and there is always something new to learn – a theme that has carried through my entire career with the company.
What do you enjoy most about what you are doing now?
What I enjoy most about my current role is the rare combination of intellectual fulfilment and flexibility. I feel incredibly fortunate to still be working in a position that draws deeply on my scientific training and experience – I still think of myself as a scientist at heart. Being able to do this while working fully remotely, with hours that fit around family life, is something I appreciate every day, especially living in a part of rural Shropshire where scientific roles are few and far between.
I also love the sheer variety of the work. My role brings me into contact with an extraordinary range of teams across the company – from legal and operations to trade compliance, finance, and scientific groups around the world. I really enjoy making connections, learning from others, and tapping into the huge breadth of expertise that comes with being part of a global organisation.
Finally, having been at Horizon for more than 15 years, it has been fascinating to watch the company evolve and transform. Being part of that journey has been incredibly rewarding, and I’m genuinely excited to see where things go next.
Image: Holly and the view from her home office in Shropshire. She’s grateful to be able to work remotely while building a fulfilling, intellectually engaging career that continues to draw on her scientific training and expertise. Photo provided by Holly Astley.