Since graduating last spring, Kelly Hrelja has made meaningful progress in her role as a Scientist at Aspect Biosystems. During her PhD under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Winstanley, she studied gambling, decision-making, and drug use in rats, along with the long-term effects of early-life immune challenges on neuroinflammation.
“I was very lucky to have lined up a full-time job with Aspect Biosystems before graduation,” Kelly shared last year. “It was a seamless transition, and I’m excited to see where my translational research skills will take me.”
One year later, we caught up with Kelly to learn more about where her journey has taken her since.
In what ways has your background in Neuroscience contributed to your current role? Are there particular skills or knowledge from your degree that you apply regularly?
While I did make a bit of a jump going from behavioural neuroscience research to work with diabetic models, the practical skills I use every day are largely the same. Of note, my skills in surgical implantations and animal monitoring/treatment were directly transferable. In addition to this more obvious skillset, my background knowledge in immunology (from various PhD experiments looking at neuroinflammation) has been incredibly helpful.
What does a typical day look like for you as a Scientist at Aspect Biosystems?
One of my favourite things about my job at Aspect Biosystems is that each day can be quite different from the next. Some days I’m at our headquarters writing protocols, preparing presentations, running in and out of meetings, and chatting with colleagues over coffee. Other days I’m in the animal facility performing surgical implantations or other procedures. Often, it’s a combination of in vivo animal work and more administrative work. On rare occasions, my work has even taken me abroad for workshops and meetings.
What aspects of your job do you find most rewarding or exciting?
Translational research is something I’m very passionate about. Thus, the most rewarding aspect of my job at Aspect Biosystems is definitely the temporal proximity of getting our bioprinted tissue therapeutics into human patients, where they have the real potential to be a game changer in managing multiple different metabolic and endocrine diseases. For example, individuals with diabetes require daily administration of insulin, which can necessitate daily injections and the frequent fluctuation between hypo- and hyper-glycemic states. Our bioprinted pancreatic tissues have the potential to modulate blood glucose in a physiological manner, without the need for daily injections. I’m really proud of the work we’re doing at Aspect Biosystems and am so excited that our therapeutics could make such a big difference in the lives of patients. It was amazing to be able to conduct basic research with more theoretical implications during graduate school, but it’s so much more rewarding to (hopefully one day) see preclinical research all the way through to clinical trials and commercialization in an industry setting.
Looking ahead, what are some of your career goals or areas you’d like to explore in the future?
Aspect Biosystems has been my first “real job” and I’ve been very fortunate to have already hit one of my career goals in my two years at the company – landing a Scientist role. I put in one year of part-time work as a Research Associate while finishing up my PhD, before being hired on as a full-time Senior Associate. More recently, I was promoted to Scientist. While I’m not ready to step away from the hands on in vivo/bench work just yet, my role as a Scientist allows me to be more meaningfully involved in the conception and communication of studies being done, while still being fairly involved in the day-to-day in vivo operations. I hope to be able to continue this upwards trajectory at Aspect Biosystems, in order to take on more intellectual responsibilities. A big career milestone for me will be seeing a preclinical therapeutic through to clinical trials, and I am really hoping to achieve this at Aspect.
What advice would you offer to current students/new graduates of the Neuroscience program?
For current students: Graduate school offers such a unique opportunity to learn a wide range of different skills and collaborate with researchers in both similar or distal fields. It can be easy to be pigeonholed into one set of closely related experiments, but it’s so valuable to explore other techniques and areas of research while it’s so easily accessible to you. You may be very surprised at where you end up down the road.
For new graduates: Don’t discount your transferable skills or the connections you’ve made! There is an alarmingly diverse range of careers out there – from bench science to patent law, medical writing to scientific marketing, data analyst to UX researcher, and so far beyond. Reach out to your connections, learn what’s out there, and how you can apply your knowledge and skills in these new settings.
