Life as an early career researcher: interview with Catherine Martel

Catherine Martel speaks to Francesca Lake, Managing Commissioning Editor: Catherine Martel obtained her PhD from the Université de Montréal and pursued a postdoctoral fellowship first at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York (NY, USA), then at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis (MO, USA), and obtained the Junior Investigator Award for Women from the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology council of the American Heart Association. Her postdoctoral work is certainly groundbreaking and brings forward new considerations in the field: she discovered that the lymphatic vessel route, the network that runs in parallel with the blood vessels, is critical for removing cholesterol from multiple tissues, including the aortic wall. In 2013, she joined the Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology Early Career Committee, eager to bring a Canadian perspective to the group and get involved in council activities. Since 2014, she is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Medicine at the Université de Montréal, and a research scientist at the Montreal Heart Institute. Her research program now focuses on characterizing the physiopathologic role of the lymphatics in the initiation, progression and regression of atherosclerosis. Basic and translational research will allow her team to identify the causes of lymphatic dysfunction, and eventually target potential therapeutic strategies aiming at improving lymphatic function at the different levels of the atherothrombotic disease. You can follow her laboratory at @LaboMartel_ICM.