St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences shared on LinkedIn:
“When Meghan Ward earned her doctorate in chemistry, she never imagined she would one day be designing a clinical trial for a pediatric brain tumor therapy.
Today, Ward is an associate scientist in the Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy, working in the lab of Giedre Krenciute, to advance CAR T-cell therapies for children with brain tumors while pursuing a master’s degree in the Clinical Investigations program in the St. Jude Graduate School.
Driven by a desire to better connect lab discoveries with clinical research, Ward enrolled in the program to gain the knowledge and skills needed to help design future clinical trials while bridging the gap between preclinical research and patient care.
When Ward expressed interest in enrolling in the program, Krenciute never hesitated.
‘I immediately supported her, because I know what she’s capable of. She’s highly motivated, and I never questioned that she would be successful,’
Krenciute said.
Inspired by the loss of a close friend’s younger sibling to a brain tumor, Ward has dedicated her career to finding better options for children facing cancer. That purpose drives her efforts to move promising therapies closer to the clinic.
That motivation has helped Ward balance the demands of a full-time research role, manuscript revisions and graduate coursework.
For her, the effort is worthwhile because every new skill brings her one step closer to advancing treatments for pediatric patients.”
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