Meghan Wright and Xiaoqing Zhang, recent PhD graduates, discuss their experience in the Santerre Lab and how it has helped prepare them for their next endeavours. Congratulations Meghan and Xiaoqing!
Meghan Wright:
“I had an extremely enriching experience in the Santerre Lab as a PhD candidate. There's no easy way to sum it up! I never felt limited in terms of either opportunity or support. The Santerre lab cultures a perfect balance of hard-driving science, interdisciplinarity, translational research principles, and industry collaboration. That culture as well as all the opportunities it fostered prepared me very well for my post-PhD role as a life science & healthcare consultant. My interdisciplinary research background helps me move quickly and confidently between various projects, and there's rarely a time when I don't feel like I have had some level of exposure to whatever industry or subject I happen to be analysing on a given day. I am thrilled with my new role but I will always miss my time in the lab. I am happy that lab mates have become life-long friends so that we can reminisce together about our time in the Santerre lab.”
Xiaoqing Zhang:
“I have always been grateful for having such a great opportunity to do my PhD within Dr. Santerre's lab. Dr. Santerre is a great supervisor and can always inspire us for new ideas. I was lucky to be involved in the vascular tissue engineering project and investigate some of the interesting interactions between immune cells-monocytes and human vascular smooth muscle cells (derived from the coronary artery tissue or differentiated from adipose stromal cells). I had the chance to appreciate how immune cells can regulate vascular tissue regeneration processes, with the conditioning of immunomodulatory biomaterials. This valuable experience in Dr. Santerre's lab has provided me great advantages in finding a researcher job in Chinese Universities during my job hunting. Currently, I am thinking of potentially applying the immunomodulatory biomaterials such as D-PHI polymers in reproductive system tissue engineering. Specifically, I am thinking of using biomaterials for endometrium layer regeneration to solve infertility issues.”
