Montréal, Québec
Nathan Marko
Markarian
A curious pharmacy student who wants to help people — whether that’s in the acute setting, or by keeping them out of it.
- Pharm.D. candidate
- Researcher
- NASM-CPT
- Founder, Materos Unidos
Always learning
Biochemistry, then genetics, then pharmacy, then a business I had to teach myself to run. Starting from zero again is the part I actually enjoy.
Better in a mixed room
Six languages, and no real sense of a border between them. A multicultural team isn’t something I adjust to — it’s the setting I work best in.
Creative, not just clinical
I design the packaging, write the copy, and shoot the photos myself. Going into science never meant giving that half up.
Dependable where it matters
In a hospital, being reliable counts for more than being clever. Show up, double-check, ask when you don’t know.
The short version
Five things that look unrelated on a CV and are not, once you know the order they happened in.
I am finishing a Doctor of Pharmacy at the Université de Montréal in 2027. Before that I did a master’s in human genetics at McGill, in Dr. Silvia Vidal’s lab, studying how viruses behave in people whose immune systems cannot clear them.
Research and pharmacy taught me opposite habits, and I like having both. Research is patient: you spend months on one question and the honest answer is usually “not quite yet.” Pharmacy is the reverse — someone is standing in front of you and needs an answer now, in language that makes sense to them. Seven published papers came out of the first, and the second is what I do most days.
Everything else came from things I actually do. I got NASM-certified because I had already spent years under a barbell and wanted to be useful to other people in the room. I started Materos Unidos after a first trip to Argentina, where mate tasted strange to me and then became something I could not leave alone. I keep a blog in three languages, I have a few hundred photographs on Unsplash, and I wrote a book because some things do not fit in a paper.
Seven threads
Where the work lives
Research, clinical practice, a brand, a barbell, a book, and a camera. Each one has its own page.
Seven papers
Research
Seven peer-reviewed papers on emerging viruses — Yezo, Sosuga, AMDV, SARS-CoV-2 — written across McGill and Université de Montréal labs.
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Pharm.D. 2027
Healthcare
Clinical training across psychiatric, long-term care and community settings in Montréal — and mobile clinics in the Panamanian jungle with Floating Doctors.
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Founder
Materos Unidos
A Montréal yerba mate brand built on traceable sourcing — and winner of Gran Oro at the first Mundial de la Yerba Mate.
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NASM-CPT
Training
Certified personal training, and Myokine on YouTube. Train smarter, live better.
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Published 2025
Just Here
A 91-page collection of reflections on mindset, fear, burnout, and growth in the early years of adulthood. Out now on Amazon.
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Since 2020
Writing
Nate’s Blog — reflective pieces written in Portuguese, Spanish and Italian — plus four first-author review articles.
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~250 photos
Photography
Landscape, street and architecture photographs, published free on Unsplash for anyone to use.
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Six languages
The thread
Armenian Canadian, and not much interested in borders. Why the science, the brand, and the barbell belong on one page.
Read moreGran Oro — Mundial de la Yerba Mate 2026
Materos Unidos entered its yerba in the first Yerba Mate World Championship and took Grand Gold. As the brand puts it: the award changed nothing about how the work gets done — every lot still gets inspected, every message still gets answered.
Materos Unidos started with one conviction: a shared mate can bridge any gap.materosunidos.ca