From a PhD in Vienna to a postdoc in Canada—and eventually, to a street corner with a clipboard (a tablet—actually).
Before I tell you about the curious twist my career took when I returned to Austria, I want to celebrate the team effort that defined my time in the lab.
I published this article originally on LinkedIn on (7-October-2026).
The Lab Bench
To my academic and LinkedIn bubble,
In 2019, I obtained my PhD in Vienna, Austria, at the CeMM and as part of Christoph J. Binder’s group at the Medical University. Together we published: Mitochondria are a Subset of Extracellular Vesicles Released by Activated Monocytes and Induce Type I IFN and TNF Responses in Endothelial Cells (Circulation Research, 2019).
In 2020, I moved to Quebec City, Canada, to work in the lab of Eric Boilard as a postdoctoral researcher.
During my time in basic scientific research, I had the opportunity to work with great collaborators, colleagues, and supervisors. Now, in 2026, my last postdoctoral paper (as first author) was published in Circulation Research and even featured on the cover: Megakaryocytes Internalize and Are Activated by Immune Complexes (Circulation Research, 2026).
👇 Check out the official cover artwork attached below!
As I had to leave Canada already in February 2025—thou shalt not be a postdoc longer than five years—I finished writing the manuscript and experiments as far as I could before returning to Austria. So, I am not exaggerating, that paper could not have been published without Éric Boilard, Eric’s group and the collaborators. I especially want to thank Isabelle Allaeys here.
It wasn’t the only study I was able to work on and publish during my postdoctoral period. Because I moved to Canada in 2020, I studied the role of platelets in COVID-19. Again, my first postdoctoral paper published in 2020 (Platelets can Associate with SARS-CoV-2 RNA and are Hyperactivated in COVID-19 (Circulation Research, 2020)) would have never been possible without a team effort and collaborations. Younes Zaid, a researcher in Morocco, deserves the biggest credit here.
Sandwiched during these years, I had the pleasure of writing reviews with Éric, Kellie R. Machlus, Audrée Laroche, and Louis Flamand:
- Platelet Extracellular Vesicles: Beyond the Blood (ATVB, 2021)
- Platelet Extracellular Vesicles in COVID-19: Potential Markers and Makers (Journal of Leukocyte Biology, 2022)
- Diversity of Megakaryocytes (ATVB, 2023)
… and I don’t want to forget to mention the paper, which was honored by an award at the 10th Symposium on Hemostasis in Chapel Hill in 2022: Platelet Activation by SARS-CoV-2 Implicates the Release of Active Tissue Factor by Infected Cells (Blood Advances, 2022). Here, I want to especially thank Alisa S. Wolberg for her valuable input.
➡️ Read Part 2 here: Part 2
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