Putting others first to find your path

Proud to be graduating with a PhD in a life-saving research area, this University of Otago graduand believes helping others is the way to find a purposeful path.

Growing up in a rural Taranaki town, Chelsea Tyler will cross the graduation stage on Saturday grateful to have even gone to university, much less achieving a doctorate.

Chelsea says being raised in a small community meant tertiary studies and research weren’t things she was exposed to at a young age, but she’d always known she wanted to help others which is what led to her completing a Medicinal Chemistry PhD on the topic of tuberculosis.

Graduating from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, Chelsea’s PhD focused on the development and synthesis of small molecules to inhibit an enzyme in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium which causes tuberculosis.

With the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, her research aims to produce new molecules that could potentially combat this and contribute to a future where there are more treatment options for people.

“Tuberculosis is a serious and potentially lethal disease with treatment involving multiple antibacterial drugs over six months or more,” Chelsea says.

“This can lead to significant side effects and have a substantial impact on patients and healthcare systems, so we need new drugs and drug targets to improve the treatment of tuberculosis.”

While Chelsea had loved working in labs during her undergraduate and Honours years, she wasn’t initially interested in tuberculosis research or pursuing a PhD at all.

“I’ve learnt there isn’t necessarily one set pathway for a person; I certainly didn’t know exactly where I would end up when I started university. However, I knew I wanted to play my part in people’s healthcare and so following the things I enjoyed eventually led to my PhD.”

Chelsea says the path forward can be daunting for students, but if people place helping others at the centre of what guides them, they’re bound to find themselves in a place that is truly rewarding.

For her, this was taking on a PhD grounded in work that could have a tangible impact on the health science community.

She says things rarely work the first time when researching and so she developed a great deal of persistence during her four years of investigations, eventually troubleshooting and adapting quickly and even beginning to enjoy the unexpected discoveries.

Chelsea encourages others to be open to research and postgraduate study as they can meet like-minded people, develop independence, and grow both personally and professionally.

She credits reaching this milestone to her family, friends and supervisors who kept her challenged in the best possible way, and grounded in the confidence she needed to pursue this journey.

– Kōrero by the Division of Health Sciences Adviser, Kelsey Swart