Over time, she continued to climb the ladder and build a team beneath her. While this didn’t change the flexibility of her career, it did change a lot of what she does.
She now meets with her team to discuss findings about what is happening in the laboratory, and those who work under her, such as the laboratory technician, handle other aspects of the work.
“When you’re in a research lab like mine working with human cell lines and working with viruses or bacteria, there’s a lot of paperwork involved because you’re working with human pathogens,” she said. “So behind the scenes there’s a lot of ethics, compliance and biosafety work that the lab has to do.”
She notes that “research labs are truly entrepreneurs at heart” because they have to do all the work themselves, from finding grants to fund the research, to the research itself.
The highs and lows of a career in medical research
The biggest highlight in medical research, according to Dr. Kaushic, is obtaining grants. It pays for everything from the researchers’ salaries to the time they get to actually come up with a solution to the problem.
“That ensures that we can do the kind of research we want to do,” she says. “It’s a team celebration because that means their jobs and their research are safe.”
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