The pandemic started to resemble the film Groundhog Day for Ciaran Murphy-Royal, a regular researcher in the Cardiometabolic research theme. Having arrived at the Research Centre in June 2020 from Calgary, it was inevitable—he had to devote a good deal of his energy to starting up his laboratory. Day after day, a routine to follow.

For this important step, he was able to count on the valuable help of his team: a master’s and a doctoral student, two people that he had to keep an eye on more than usual, given the health context.

“Even though they’ve been rather isolated from their families in Alberta and Switzerland, they’re managing to get through it pretty well. For sure, I was more attentive to what they were experiencing and I learned to be more patient. To help them stay motivated during this uncertain period, I remained positive and set specific goals and deadlines for them. The idea behind this is that setting up a laboratory is a collective effort, so by working together, we’ll succeed,” he explained.

For his part, Ciaran Murphy-Royal, an independent researcher just starting his career, reminded us that he himself has been able to count on the support of more experienced colleagues such as Thierry Alquier, Stephanie Fulton and Gareth Lim. Handing over the baton from one generation of scientists to the next seems to be working well.

Nor did the researcher hesitate to give his students free time to review their exams while he took care of the laboratory experiments. This was a way of giving them moral support during these difficult times.

“These days, the whole fun part of working in a laboratory is reduced to a minimum for our students: no conferences, no networking, no meetings in the cafeteria. It’s temporary, so I frequently remind them that better times are coming.”