5:00 am.

The world is still under the heavy covers of a night’s sleep. Fueled by a good a cup of coffee, my best ideas take shape in the quiet of this hour. As time nudges the world into a new day — my dog chews on something, my daughter stirs in her bedroom — that first stint of creativity and exploration jumpstarts the rest of my work.

Word wrangler. Story architect.

I have been communicating science for nearly 20 years and in various roles: as an educator and museum curator in academia, a copywriter and manager in industry, and now as a freelance writer and content strategist. I'm an avid learner of scientific and technological advances. As a storyteller, I follow the rapidly shifting boundary of what science makes possible and help others understand the insights that emerge. That is the reason for my work.

My pleasure of writing comes from creating simplicity. I wrangle words into sentences that convey my thoughts precisely. Like an architect of stories, I design, plan and execute texts and graphics that harmonize into a clear and powerful plot.

Creating reader experiences

For me, engaging information is immersive. You should put down any content feeling like you have returned from a journey; your vehicle a meaningful storyline that calls on your experiences and knowledge to pique your interest with fresh perspectives. Words and images are the scenery and events of your journey and, like a smooth road, carefully crafted text is imperceptible. Bumpy roads where you stumble over words and stall at unintelligible graphics are conspicuous and disruptive.

I deliver high-quality content for scientific pieces (articles, white papers, application and technical notes) and science storytelling (blog posts, interviews, case studies) in biology, chemistry, and data science. Recent topics I have written about include:

  • fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy and phasor analysis
  • validation of CRISPR-based gene editing
  • data integration and mining in the pharmaceutical industry
  • induced pluripotent stem cells as starting materials for advanced therapies
  • factory-like protein sequencing via mass spectrometry

Contact me for a sample of my writing or to inquire about other subject matters.

Contact me

Anja Brunner

Ph.D., M.Sc. Zoology
(Mammalian Physiology, Community Ecology)
Univ. of Minnesota
B.Sc. Biology
Stanford University

  • 5 years research and teaching
  • 4 years experience in biotech
  • 10 years freelancing for industry, publishers & research institutes

"[...] working at ThermoFisher Scientific, we completed several projects that benefited from Anja’s expertise again. Aiming for a more emotional but still crisp and clear communication in our marketing and product materials, she was the person who turned lifeless technical words into something tangible and meaningful."   Read more

Dr. Lennart Suckau
Director Product Management for CRM at Biotronik
 

"Anja is a pro at taking diverse sets of information, including customer survey data, product usage data & qualitative insights, and figuring out what matters to the target audience. She assesses and pulls out what the true customer pain points are, and then builds a strong narrative about how our solutions can address those pain points with customer evidence on top."   Read more

Brendan O'Keefe
Senior Marketing Manager at Elsevier

"Anja is not a copywriter, she generates content. [...] She also developed some much longer pieces of content, which involved taking a very rough concept, delving into and understanding the science behind it, creating a content strategy, interviewing industrial and academic researchers before pulling it together to produce coherent, on-message pieces that brought the science alive."   Read more

David A Evans, PhD
Vice President Digital Operations at Content Ed Net

"Anja draws you into her articles with clever storytelling, breaking down a complex topic into biteable sized chapters full of noteworthy information. Bees and other pollinators was a new topic for Anja, which she approached with curiosity and fascination, absorbing the experiences of our bee scientists and collaboration partners and turning their work into memorable stories. This is what makes working with Anja rewarding and fun!"

Coralie van Breukelen
Head of Bayer Bee Care Center

"Aside from the great work she does with our content, her initiative to drive projects has been extremely valuable. She has stepped in above what was asked to see that projects progress within our own company by reaching out to the other necessary departments to obtain the required assistance to get the job done."   Read more

Phoebe Loh
Associated Director Product Management at PreAnalytiX
 

"During the last four years, we not only appreciated Anja’s in-depth understanding of scientific and technical matters but also recognized excellent marketing and project management skills to get things done in high quality and on time. [...] She can turn the most difficult technical topics into an easy to understand and enjoyable read."   Read more

Marion Lammertz
Senior MarComm Manager at AYOXXA Biosystems
 

"I have always been impressed with Anja's ability to get into any (new) topic, and master it after a very short timeframe. [...] Lately, Anja and I have been working on AI-augmented Biology research. Again a new topic for her, but no problem. In a very short timeframe she delivered a great engagement tool that my team and I are using almost every day with customers."   Read more

Thibault Geoui
Senior Director Biology & Translational Medicine at RELX Group

Let's talk

Are you embarking on a challenging project? Let's discuss your ideas and how to convert them into a customer journey.

Send me an e-mail