"Learning every day fills me"
2025/05/02 Galarraga Aiestaran, Ana - Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria
Nekane Martín Mendia is a researcher at the company of personalized medicine I+Med and, as she confesses, has always seen herself as a researcher. “Because I’ve always been very curious and I want to understand everything,” he explains.
“I liked all the fields of chemistry, mate, bio, biochemistry... and I didn’t know very well what to specialize in. It seemed to me that the degree of Pharmacy unites all of them, and besides, I was attracted to doing something applied. I made it all up.I always say that I would learn the same thing again and I would take the opportunity to learn more,” he admits.
In college, he had the opportunity to practice and found that he liked it. So, when he finished his degree, although most of them tend to work in a pharmaceutical office, he took the path of research. A transitional grant allowed him to enter R&D and, after two years working on several projects, he was given the opportunity to pursue a PhD in the company itself as part of a pharmaceutical technology program.
It has been determined that in the field of ophthalmology, controlled release nanoparticles are under investigation. “The goal is to create this technology and then see which active and pharmaceutical form it can be suitable for, for one pathology or another.” According to him, it fulfills a lot to work on something that will be useful. In addition, he works with colleagues, both in his thesis and in other projects, which he also likes very much.
From beginning to end
“If your goal after the thesis is to do work in the company or in the industry, doing it in this way gives you experience, since you internalize the way of doing the work. In addition, the result that is generated through the thesis will be applied in the company itself; it will be part of the knowledge of the company”. Depending on the results and the path taken, one option is to obtain a patent. “The management of intellectual property is another area to consider,” he warns.
On the other hand, he says that he has been working in R&D for four or five years and that, when he joined, there were about 40 employees and, currently, 180. “So we have known how projects are worked in a medium-small company, which has given us the opportunity to work hand in hand with very good senior researchers. We have had a lot of opportunities to learn from them, as well as to take the projects from the beginning to the end. For example, I’ve had a project to make a dental cleaner in compressed form that is currently on sale. It fills me with a lot to do and see that the whole process is really applicable.”
He concluded by saying that he would like to continue in R&D in the future: “We are an R&D cooperative and in the future I see myself as a part of the cooperative. With other responsibilities and other functions, because it is also necessary to evolve a little, but in research, to carry out new projects, to achieve new goals and continue learning. In the end, that fills me: that daily learning and that continuing learning in science.”
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