Episodes
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In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we explore international efforts to combat cancer, featuring Dr. Lisa Stevens from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Dr. Andre Carvalho from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), World Health Organization (WHO). They discuss integrating radiotherapy and nuclear medicine into cancer control, the importance of national cancer control plans, and IARC's focus on cancer prevention research. They emphasize international partnerships, improving access to radiotherapy and screening, and empowering low-and middle-income countries. Both speakers reflect on their personal journeys into the field of medicine and public health, sharing insights on the challenges and opportunities they have encountered. They also provide advice for aspiring professionals in global health.
SHOW NOTES:
Dr. Lisa Stevens
Dr. Andre Carvahlo
Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT)
Technical Cooperation Programme
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
Early Detection, Prevention and Infections Branch
International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
World Health Organization (WHO)
GLOBOCAN
International Cancer Control Partnership
UICC World Cancer Congress
CanScreen5 project
Rays of Hope
Islamic Development Bank
WHO Global Initiatives
AD: 13th Annual Symposium on Global Cancer ResearchYOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS:
The Lazy Genius Podcast
The Culture Map: Breaking Through Invisible Boundaries of Global Business by Erin Meyer
The StoryGraphCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Satish Gopal, Director of the NCI Center for Global Health, and Dr. Peter Kingham, Surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Director of the Global Cancer Disparities Initiative at MSK, about the global cancer challenge. They discuss the importance of understanding cancer in different settings, drawing on their own deep experiences in Africa, the challenges of extrapolating from high-income to low- and middle-income countries, and the need for greater investment in global cancer research and care. They also highlight the importance of collaboration and mentorship in advancing the field of global oncology before sharing their career paths.
SHOW NOTES:
Satish Gopal, MD, MPH
NCI Center for Global Health
Peter Kingham, MD, FACS
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Global Cancer Disparities Initiative
Surgeons OverSeas
NCI-Designated Cancer Centers
AD: The Worta McCaskill-Stevens Career Development Award for Community Oncology and Prevention Research (K12)YOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS:
“…my recommendation is don't listen to a podcast or read a book or use a computer or anything with screens and religiously do it for a couple of days, and you'll be ecstatic." My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story by Abraham VergheseCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
Episodes manquant?
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In this episode, we learn about NCI's Intramural Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (iCURE), a program that supports mentored research experiences from diverse backgrounds. Dr. Jessica Calzola, iCURE Program Director and Branch Director of Innovative Programs Branch in NCI’s Center for Cancer Health Equity, and Dr. Stephanie Pitts, an iCURE Scholar and Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Center for Immuno-Oncology in NCI's Center for Cancer Research, share their insights on how the iCURE program works and offer advice on how to apply.
SHOW NOTES
iCURE
iCURE Pre-Application Webinar Recording
iCURE Pre-Application Webinar Slides
Cancer Research Interns Summer Program
NCI Center for Cancer Health Equity
Office of Intramural Training and Education
FDA
Interagency Oncology Task Force
AD: Worta McCaskill-Stevens Career Development Award for Community Oncology and Prevention Research (K12)
Outbreak
NIH Undergraduate Scholarship Program (UGSP)
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease
NIH Director's AwardYOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS
Dungeons and Dragons
The Expanse by James S.A. CoreyCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, Dr. Jill Barnholtz-Sloan, Acting Director of the NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (CBIIT), discusses the intersection of informatics, data science, and epidemiology in cancer research. She also shares her career path and offers advice for those interested in pursuing careers in these fields and so much more.
SHOW NOTES
Jill Barnholtz-Sloan, Ph.D. (email:[email protected])
NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology
NCI Office of Data Sharing
Childhood Cancer Data Initiative
NIH Sex and Gender Differences in Cancer Virtual Workshop Series
- Feb 22, 2024
- March 28, 2024
- May 23, 2024
Cancer Research Data Commons
AD: NCI Cancer Data Science TrainingYOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS
“…set boundaries so that you can keep for yourself some kind of balance in your life” from Dr. Barnholtz-Sloan
3Blue1Brown - neural network courseCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this episode, we hear from Dr. Montserrat Rojo de la Vega, Deputy Editor at Cancer Cell, and Dr. Cansu Cirzi, Scientific Editor at the same journal. They delve into the multifaceted role of editors in scientific publishing, particularly at Cancer Cell. The discussion covers key aspects like manuscript selection, peer review coordination, and author guidance during revisions. Beyond their editorial roles, they also share their personal journeys in science, from studying molecular biology and genetics to earning PhDs, and how they ultimately discovered their passion for scientific publishing.
SHOW NOTES
Montserrat Rojo de la Vega, Ph.D. ([email protected])
Cansu Cirzi, Ph.D. ([email protected])
Cancer Cell
Cell Press
PubPeer Foundation
Trends in Cancer
NCI Postdoc Recruitment Event
AD: Worta McCaskill-Stevens Career Development Award for Community Oncology and Prevention Research (K12)
YOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS
Schachnovelle (German Edition) by Stefan Zweig or The Royal Game: A Chess Story (English Edition) by Stefan Zweig
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race by Walter Isaacson
Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder by Salman RushdieCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In the last episode of Inside Cancer Careers, "Empowering the Next Generation of Women Scientists: The Sallie Rosen Kaplan Fellowship Program - Part 1", we learned about the origins of the Sallie Rosen Kaplan (SRK) Fellowship Program from Dr. Jeff Rosen and Ms. Erika Ginsburg. In this episode, we feature a discussion with two alums of the SRK fellowship program, Dr. Tiffany Lyle and Dr. Kylynda Bauer. Dr. Lyle and Dr. Bauer share their experiences in the program and how it has impacted their careers. They discuss the importance of mentorship, networking, and embracing the unexpected in science, amongst other topics.
SHOW NOTES
Tiffany Lyle, DVM, PhD
Cook Research Inc.
Kylynda Bauer, PhD
Tim Greten, MD
NCI Center for Cancer Research
Intramural Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences (iCURE) Program
Sallie Rosen Kaplan (SRK) Postdoctoral Fellowship for Women Scientists
DiSC Assessment
Comparative Biomedical Scientist Training Program
TEDx Talk with Dr. Kylynda Bauer
AD: NanCI - Connecting Scientists mobile applicationYOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS
The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life, and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
Marine Corps Marathon
The Wrinkle in Time Quintet Boxed Set (A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, An Acceptable Time) by Madeleine L'Engle
Radiolab Podcast
Significant Others PodcastCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this episode, host Dr. Oliver Bogler speaks with Dr. Jeffrey Rosen and Ms. Erika Ginsburg about the Sallie Rosen Kaplan (SRK) Postdoctoral Fellowship for Women Scientists. Dr. Rosen, who helped establish the fellowship in honor of his aunt, shares the program's origin story and its impact on advancing women in biomedical research. Ms. Ginsburg discusses how the program has evolved from a recruitment tool to a retention strategy, emphasizing leadership coaching, mentoring, and skill-building.
They also explore the positive outcomes of the SRK program, including increased self-confidence, improved work-life balance, and the successful career transitions of the fellows. Later they share their career journeys and offer advice to those interested in a career in science.
SHOW NOTES
Jeffrey M. Rosen, Ph.D.
Erika Ginsburg, M.A.
Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH)
Sallie Rosen Kaplan(SRK) Postdoctoral Fellowship for Women Scientists
A Coaching-Based Leadership Program for Women Postdoctoral Fellows at the National Cancer Institute that Cultivates Self-confidence and Persistence in STEMM
AD: NanCI – Connecting Scientists mobile app
Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) Award
Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and NeoplasiaYOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS
Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee or PBS series with Ken Burns
Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Rigor Mortis: How Sloppy Science Creates Worthless Cures, Crushes Hope, and Wastes Billions by Richard HarrisCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we have Dr. Swati Choksi, a Staff Scientist at NCI Center for Cancer Research, and Dr. Christophe Marchand, Deputy Associate Director in the Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis and former Staff Scientist, sharing insights about their roles in cancer research. They talk about the advantages and responsibilities of being a staff scientist, such as mentoring and training early career researchers and conducting their own experiments. They emphasize the importance of staff scientists in fostering collaborations within and outside the research team. Additionally, they delve into the transferability of skills, potential career paths for staff scientists, and more.
SHOW NOTES
Swati S. Choski, Ph.D.: https://ccr.cancer.gov/staff-directory/swati-s-choksi
Center for Cancer Research: https://ccr.cancer.gov/
Christophe Marchand, Ph.D.: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christophemarchand/
Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis: https://dtp.cancer.gov/organization/oad/default.htm
NCI Intramural Research Program: https://irp.nih.gov/about-us/our-programs/nci
NIH Staff Scientists & Staff Clinicians: https://oir.nih.gov/sourcebook/personnel/ipds-appointment-mechanisms/staff-scientist
NCI Staff Scientists and Staff Clinicians Career Enrichment Program (SCEP): https://www.cancer.gov/grants-training/training/idwb/career-enrichment-program
CCR Staff Scientist & Staff Clinician Organization: https://ccrod.cancer.gov/confluence/display/CCRSSSCArchive/By-Laws
NIH Assembly of Scientists: https://oir.nih.gov/sourcebook/committees-advisory-ddir/assembly-scientists-aos
AD—NanCI–Connecting Scientists mobile application: https://www.cancer.gov/grants-training/training/nanci-app
Scientific American: https://www.scientificamerican.com/
And The Band Played On: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106273/
Center for Research Strategy: https://www.cancer.gov/about-nci/organization/crsYOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS
Life is Beautiful: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118799/
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy: https://www.amazon.com/God-Small-Things-Novel/dp/0812979656
Leadership Freak: https://leadershipfreak.blog/
Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick: https://www.amazon.com/Co-Intelligence-Living-Working-Ethan-Mollick/dp/059371671XCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Eytan Ruppin, Dr. Tiangen Chang, and Dr. Yingying Cao, computational scientists at NCI's Center for Cancer Research. They discuss their newly developed AI tool, LORIS, which can predict how a patient will respond to immunotherapy. LORIS analyzes six variables commonly measured in clinical settings to calculate a score indicating the patient's likelihood of response. They also share insights into the future of AI in cancer research and their career paths in science and offer advice to those interested in pursuing careers in biology, medicine, and computer science.
SHOW NOTES
Eytan Ruppin, M.D., Ph.D.
Tiangen Chang, Ph.D.
Yingying Cao, Ph.D.
Cancer Data Science Laboratory
NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR)
Chang, TG., Cao, Y., Sfreddo, H.J. et al. LORIS robustly predicts patient outcomes with immune checkpoint blockade therapy using common clinical, pathologic and genomic features. Nat Cancer (2024)
LOgistic Regression-based Immunotherapy-response Score (LORIS)
Escher, Gödel, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas HofstadterAD
NanCI – Connecting ScientistsYOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS
Intelligence Squared (Podcast)
World Views, An Introduction to the History and Philosophy of Science by Richard DeWitt
New Scientist
Season 2: Episode 1 “The Future of AI and Cancer Research”CENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this special episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Karen Knudsen, CEO of the American Cancer Society (ACS). Dr. Knudsen shares her career journey into science and the path that led her to her current leadership role at the ACS. She shares her story of finding the right mentor, asking the right questions, and being open to new opportunities.
SHOW NOTES
Dr. Karen Knudsen
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research
Cancer Letter interviews with Dr. Knudsen
NCI Rising Scholars: Cancer Research Seminar SeriesAD
NanCI - Connecting Scientists mobile applicationYOUR TURN: GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS
TED Talks by Simon Sinek
New York Times Podcast: Hard ForkCENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Ray DuBois, Director of the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, Associate Provost for Cancer Programs at MUSC, and Executive Chair of the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research along with Dr. Marvella Ford, Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at MUSC and Associate Director of Hollings Cancer Center for Population Sciences and Community Outreach and Engagement.
Dr. DuBois and Dr. Ford discuss the community outreach and engagement work of the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with community organizations and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to train and educate individuals in the field of cancer. They also discuss the significance of their work in reaching underserved populations and addressing cancer disparities in their state. Additionally, they share insights into their career journeys, personal experiences, and more.
SHOW NOTES
Ray DuBois, M.D., Ph.D.
Marvella Ford, Ph.D.
MUSC Hollings Cancer Center
CDC’s Best Chance Network partners with South Carolina
Hollings HPV Vaccination Van
South Carolina Cancer Health Equity Research Training Youth Enjoy Science Program (SC CHEER YES)
South Carolina Cancer Disparities Research Center (SC CADRE)
Mark Foundation for Cancer Research
Emerging Leader Award
Endeavor Award for Team ScienceAD
NanCI – Connecting Scientists mobile applicationYOUR TURN RECOMMENDATIONS
Mobituaries (podcast)
Pivot (podcast)CENTER FOR CANCER TRAINING (CCT)
Inside Cancer Careers Podcast
CCT WebsiteLEARN MORE FROM THE NATIONAL CANCER INSTITUTE
Online
By Phone: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
National Institutes of Health
National Cancer Institute -
In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we are joined by Dr. Elizabeth Jaffee, the current chair of the President's Cancer Panel, and Ms. Daniela Monterroza, an NCI Communications Fellow who supports the panel. They discuss the panel's responsibility in overseeing the National Cancer Program and National Cancer Plan, emphasizing the importance of patient-centric care, community engagement, and addressing social determinants of health in the battle against cancer. Dr. Jaffee and Ms. Monterroza also offer advice to those starting their careers, highlighting the tremendous opportunities in cancer research and public health careers, and stressing the importance of pursuing one's passion.
Show Notes:
Elizabeth Jaffee, M.D. Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center Daniela Monterroza President's Cancer Panel National Cancer Program National Cancer PlanAd: Interagency Oncology Task Force Fellowship (IOTF)
Marie Curie: A Life NCI Communications Fellowship NIH Pathways Program for Recent GraduatesYour Turn Recommendations:
NIH News in Health Newsletter Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan -
In this episode, we hear from Dr. Yamini Dalal, Senior Investigator and Senior Advisor for Faculty Development, and Dr. Sweta Sikder, Postdoctoral Fellow in NCI Center for Cancer Research. They discuss their experiences of moving to the US for their scientific careers, including the challenges they faced and the opportunities and benefits of working in the US. They also share their paths to biology, passion for their research, and much more!
Show Notes
Yamini Dalal, Ph.D.
Sweta Sikder, Ph.D.
NCI Center for Cancer Research (CCR)
Biochemistry by Donald Voet and Judith Voet
NCI K99/R00 - Pathway to Independence Award
NCI Intramural Research Program
Ad: Interagency Oncology Task Force Fellowship (IOTF)
Your Turn Recommendations:
The Worlds I See: Curiosity, Exploration, and Discovery at the Dawn of AI by Fei-Fei Li (book)
Hear the Wind Sing by Haruki Murakami (book)
Behind Her Eyes (Netflix series)
Poor Things (movie)
The Three-Body Problem by Cixin Liu (book) & 3 Body Problem (Netflix series)
The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science by Michael Strevens (book)
TRANSCRIPT
Oliver BoglerHello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI's Center for Cancer Training. May is Asian American and Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month and is dedicated to celebrating the contributions members of these communities make to the United States. One of the things I love about science is that it is an international enterprise, bringing people from all over the world together to focus on shared goals like ending cancer as we know it. As a result, many scientists leave their homes and live and work in another country.
Today, we're talking to two scientists originally from India who have made the NCI's Intramural Research Program their scientific home. And we'll be talking to them about what it was like to come to the US to pursue their science and how it's going and their careers. Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to take your turn.
So it's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Yamini Dalal, senior investigator in the Laboratory of Receptor Biology and Gene Expression in NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. Welcome.
Yamini Dalal
Thank you all of you.
Oliver Bogler
Welcome also to Dr. Sweta Sikder. She is a visiting postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Yamini's research group. Welcome.
Sweta Sikder
Thank you.
Oliver Bogler
So you both came to America during your early careers. Yamini, you came to pursue graduate work at Purdue and Sweta, you came for your postdoc at the NCI. We'll talk about your careers later, but I wanted to start by asking you what it was like to move to another country for your science.
Yamini Dalal
All right. Well, thank you, Oliver, for hosting us on this fantastic show. I've listened to the blogs in the past and I really find it a great way to disseminate what we're doing here at the NCI and share our perspectives. I came to the US when I was, I think, 22 or 23 and I left India on Independence Day, which was sort of a bittersweet feeling. And I moved to the Midwest to pursue graduate school. And the first thing that was the biggest challenge for me was the weather because I grew up in Bombay, which is subtropical, and it's never cold. And the very first thing I discovered about the Midwest is that it gets really, really, really cold in the winter. And then in a way, I suppose that spurred my scientific studies because I didn't want to leave Lily Hall, which is nice and warm all winter round. Sweta?
Sweta Sikder
Yes, so for me, it was a very unique kind of an experience. I came to US for the first time to join Yamini’s lab as a postdoctoral fellow. And incidentally, I landed or my flight landed exactly the day before the government shut down. That is in 2020, where the whole world shut down to say.
Yamini Dalal
On the Ides of March very appropriately.
Sweta Sikder
I just had a day to come to NIH to get registered here. And then we were all like doing the pandemic shutdown and at home. So when I was pursuing my career, there was always this thing that you should, if you are in science, you should always have that US exposure of science. But for me, when I landed finally in the US, it was a very, it was a very different kind of experience.
Things started changing slowly. But what I faced for a long time is like being in a society which is so open, but where you cannot really access people because of the pandemic shutdown. So now I'm more glad that we have like a very vibrant campus. We meet lots of people and, but it was all not accessible when I came to US.
Oliver Bogler
So making a connection with people that may be at the same career stage as you are, and maybe who have some shared background, maybe also coming from the country you were coming from, is that an important element? And obviously, the pandemic made that super hard, right?
Sweta Sikder
Yes, and also when I came to US, I had this open kind of a, I wanted to have an open mind and wanted to get an exposure of other culture, the other society as well. Obviously, you want people coming from the same country like me from India, you want to connect with them and then share your things, but I wanted to have a different kind of an experience. I wanted to mix, see other people, talk to them, have kind of a unique experience, which was kind of difficult. We all met through Zooms and online meetings. And even when we used to see people, when I used to go around for a walk or something, I used to see people walking, but we all maintained that social distancing thing. And it was super, super difficult at that point of time, but now looking back, I feel that it kind of mentored me that the pandemic time when we were all shut down, it also helped me in my inner and my personal growth as well.
Yamini Dalal
I think there's a resilience, right, that we had to reach into during the pandemic. And I think you did a really great job reaching inside yourself to survive those first six months completely alone.
Sweta Sikder
Yes, and also at this point, I would like to mention this, that this lab was super helpful, like all of my lab colleagues, because I haven't met them ever. Like it was the first time meeting them, but they were very, very helpful reaching out because when I came for the first time, I had to figure out like many logistic things, right? Like doing your social security number, having a bank account, like all those minute things.
But I'm grateful in the sense that I got very supportive colleagues, my mentor, Yamini here. And they were always like a text away to help me at any time despite the pandemic.
Oliver Bogler
You mentioned also that I guess the United States is kind of a draw for scientists from across the world. And that's certainly been true over the last many decades. Um, tell me more about that. What, what specifically were you both, uh, hoping to accomplish by moving to the United States?
Yamini Dalal
Yeah, I think, you know, my feeling, Oliver, was when I was growing up in Bombay, I grew up in a very specific, very privileged class of people that all had similar exposures. And it really comes down to, I had no exposure to people that were outside of that little bubble. And we all went to really great schools. Our parents were professionals with advanced degrees. You know, we got exposed to like the best science, the best art, but it was all in this bubble of not knowing really even anything about India when I was growing up. I felt like I didn't know what it meant to be really Indian. I knew what it meant to be a Bombayite, in South Bombay, which is sort of like Manhattan, but I didn't know what it really meant to be from a different social class or from a different culture from what I had been exposed to.
The beautiful thing about going to Purdue, especially, was that it's an extremely international school. I still have friends I've made there from all over the world. They're faculty now in New Zealand and Australia and England and Europe. And I had friends from Gary, Indiana and Montana. Places I had never heard of, maybe I read about them in books. And because Peru had a great ecology department, many of my friends were actually people in their 30s who were coming back to grad school after having worked for a decade in really low paying jobs, principally because they had undergraduate debt, a concept to which I had never been exposed. Because in India, you don't have undergraduate debt. You don't have no debt at all. Indians don't usually, they don't embrace the concept of debt because schooling is generally much, much more affordable there, even the best schools.
The biggest shock to me was to find out most of my friends had thousands of dollars in debt. And as a consequence, they had to wait almost a decade to come back to grad school, which means they took it very, very seriously. It was very different for someone like me who'd just been on this kind of trajectory this whole time. So I got exposed to the poverty, the idea that poverty can really alter your scientific trajectory very significantly and that you've got to be given an opportunity.
And this is where Purdue really excelled because they had RA ships, research assistantships and TA ships that funded almost everybody. Nobody really had to pay for grad school. Of course you had to work really hard. I spent 20 hours a week as a TA. I thought that experience was absolutely transformative. I'd never taught before in a formal setting. To teach 20 hours a week to people from the Midwest, because most of the undergraduates were actually from the Midwest, I had to slow down my speech by at least tenfold, which actually taught me the importance of making jokes when you teach to just sort of get a break, a lull in the discourse, because people are really trying, struggling to keep up with you. And you're operating at this level of information and they're here and you've got to find a way to make that accessible. I found the Purdue teaching experience changed the way that I thought of science as an enterprise in which you have to bring somebody along because they're going to have better ideas than you.
And because the teachers at Purdue, one of whom just passed away, Joann Otto, were brilliant, I learned a lot from these educators. They'd spend their whole lives teaching in addition to doing science, which is again a concept I hadn't been exposed to before. These experiences with teaching in a national setting, learning how to make things accessible rather than holding the information in for yourself, I think it changed the way that I perceive my job as a scientist.
Sweta Sikder
Yes, for me, it was like a slightly different. I came at a much after finishing my grad school. So I initially always wanted to do my PhD from abroad. Somehow it did not work out at that time. I just sat for an exam, which is like super competitive in India, which is which you need to, to get through to grad school. And when I went there, I had no expectation that I will qualify in the first round because usually like 95 % of people don't get through that. So eventually grad school happened in India, but I always had this thing of going especially to US because I used to hear a lot of interview talks from scientists, US scientists, Nobel laureates. And some used to visit India and I used to interact with them a lot. So all these things made me think that my full growth as a scientist or as a person will not be complete unless I go to US. I mean, it was kind of a childish dream which I had during my bachelor's that my career path will not be complete until I reach US.
But coming here, I think it's nothing like that. You grow constantly. You grow all the time. Wherever you are, it doesn't matter. The passion of science should drive you in your career. But yes, in science, I would say that the way we do science here, the way we pursue a question, how to solve it and the curiosity driven science. Like you're curious about a simple thing and you ask that question and you try to find out that answer. So that actually drew me to US. But I would also mention that the training which I got in India was very good. We had like hands -on training, very good course in my bachelor's, master's, and then when I went to grad school. And also like all the experiments, technical skills, I kind of enjoyed that part of my career as well.
Oliver Bogler
So the United States, the science here has the reputation of being like you just said, Sweta a curiosity driven and kind of an idea meritocracy in the sense that the best ideas prevail. And so that's its reputation. Was that your experiences when you both came here?
Yamini Dalal
Yeah, absolutely for me. My thesis advisor, Arnie Stein and I had this ongoing conversation for like five years where we constantly challenge each other with hypotheses and ideas. And he never made it feel like, you know, he's one of the people that started the chromatin field. He trained at the NIH actually, many years ago with Bob Simpson. He never made me feel like I was lesser than him. The only difference between was experience. He had more experience and he was willing to share it.
But he was always excited to hear my ideas. And, you know, we had a little hypothesis book with like thousands and thousands of ideas that we wrote over five years. Our relationship really defined my science because he made me realize just how much fun American science can be because there's this equal footing in the empire of the mind. And when I was coming from India, I felt like back then, now it's not true, but back then India was still very hierarchical in its science. You had the chair, you had the professor, they knew more, you had to be very very respectful, which I think is still important. I think it's important to be respectful. But here I feel like there was an emphasis on challenging ideas and challenging dogma. And that made it very creative, but it also made it really fun.
The fun aspect of science was something I think I truly embraced after coming to Purdue. And also the exposure to people doing just all kinds of science. People working on the smallest microplankton, people working at Purdue on space. I used to go to lectures on physics, gravitational stuff, because Arnie used to be a physicist, so he'd always encouraged me to learn about physics. I had friends working on all kinds of problems, you know, the sexual development of ferns, first species ever to have gametophytes. So these friends really defined my approach to science, which is fun and curiosity driven. And I think that is still the strength of the United States. But other countries have now embraced that principle. And I think it's made science really very strong in India, in Germany and other countries where many of our people who were trained here went back home and are now chairs of departments and very senior in their leadership.
Sweta Sikder
Yes, I also agree to some of Yamini's points. When I joined this lab, actually, I wanted to work in aging, but I wanted to work in epigenetics, chromatin, and that's how I met Yamini. Actually, I met Yamini through another professor who is another chromatin biologist. So he actually recommended me to Yamini.
And we had this long conversations in how to address a simple question of biology, like how do our chromosomes behave when we age? And although we went through a lot of challenges because aging itself is kind of challenging in terms of how you ask the question, what kind of tools you have, what kind of system you want to look into, but I have thoroughly enjoyed this journey for the last three to four years. We go back and forth with the simple question and then find out ways how to defy our hypothesis and then come up with results which is in lieu with our hypothesis. So this is kind of fun.
Also the exposure of the branch as well, like other scientists, other colleagues, other postdocs. I like this environment of NIH especially, especially of the branch where we can just walk around, talk to other fellow postdocs who are doing like cool microscopy techniques, single resolution microscopy, high throughput imaging, and just have a conversation over a cup of coffee. And everyone is like very eager to help you, give you insights, which I think should be a more in the system in India, especially I would say, because we need more of a congenial environment where we can boost each other's science. And that, I think, helps scientists overall.
Oliver Bogler
So at the heart of the science that you're describing, under ideal circumstances, is a, as you said, an open discourse and a sort of slightly rough and tumble exchange of ideas and competing the ideas are competing. To create that atmosphere in a research team, particularly one that has members coming from many different cultures, is a challenge. It's not easy. I mean, we think of ourselves as scientists as sort of being above culture, but it's not true. We're cultural beings like every human. Yamini, as you manage your research team and lead your research team, how do you accomplish that?
Yamini Dalal
You know, as I said, Oliver, I had two fantastic mentors, Arnie Stein at Purdue and Steve Henikoff at the Hutch. The thing that unified both Steve and Arnie was a fundamental, absolute love for science. And that love for science transcended rank. It transcended funding. It transcended who you were, the privileges you came with. You could argue with Steve or Arnie any day about a hypothesis and they didn't care. You know, it would get loud, it would get fractious. But it was all in this intellectual sphere of, hey, let's figure this out. This is going to be fun. I tried to bring that level of fun and intensity to my lab. I'm naturally very intense. I tried to lower my intensity. I think that was maybe the big thing I had to learn was how to titrate myself, my own personality, so that I wasn't overwhelming people in the lab. I have not really succeeded, I think, but I try.
So part of that was learning that it didn't matter who the smartest person in the room was because sometimes the best ideas did not come from who thought they were smartest. Intuition has a very, very big role in science and some of the best ideas we've had in the lab have just intuitively arisen in lab meeting. When we're just throwing an idea back and forth, I'll give you one example. Song Fu was our first summer intern. He's a resident physician at Yale. And when he joined my lab from the University of Maryland, he came for three summers in a row and then stayed as a post-bac. And he got really intrigued by this finding that Rajbir Gill had made, who was my first lab biologist, that all the extra centromeric protein that was being expressed in cancer cells was going outside centromeres. And Song said, hey, maybe it's making these fragile sites because it's making the DNA more open. And, you know, we thought about that idea, but we never formalized it.
And he got so excited by his own idea, he tested it and that became a thing. It became a field. What he discovered became a field. And now, you know, many, many people have worked on it since one of the best people in my field, Genevieve Almouzni, co-discovered it at the same time as we did. And those papers came out like a few months apart. I think that is the power of allowing people to feel comfortable and encouraging them, urging them to speak up in lab meeting. So we go around the lab.
And we're like, what do you think? What do you think? What do you think? Some people find that very uncomfortable actually, Oliver, because people don't like to be put on the spot right away. But I feel like that level of discourse is essential for the lab to function as a team, as opposed to me saying, these are my ideas.
Oliver Bogler
I was gonna say when someone is uncomfortable in that setting, how do you make them more comfortable or how do you encourage them to step outside their comfort zone?
Yamini Dalal
Yeah, I think part of it is just exposure. The more they see others in the lab doing it, the more comfortable they get. We are also generally very small lab. We've never had more than seven or eight people. Our usual number is six. So it's pretty cozy. We're sitting in a small conference room. It's not like 25 people sitting on a large conference table. And that I think makes it a little bit more comfortable because people don't feel as exposed to give their best ideas up. I also have this challenge that I always throw to people in my lab and it's an ongoing joke. Prove me wrong.
My best day is when somebody takes my best idea, what I think is my best idea, and then just totally shows I'm wrong. So I think that kind of humorous challenge to the lab lets people know it's okay to fail and it's okay to be wrong. In fact, it's more than okay to be wrong because that's how we figure things out. So I like to think that approach has worked because if I'm wrong, they know it's okay for them to be wrong. And Sweta can correct me on whether that's a good strategy or a bad one. But it's a strategy I use all the time because I think it's true.
You're never going to be right all the time. It's inevitable you're going to be wrong, but it's fun to use what you've learned from being wrong to educate you on what is actually the truth of the biology.
Sweta Sikder
Yes, I will pick up that thing from where Yamini says that to challenge her and show that she's wrong in her idea. I think that kind of environment or that kind of setting helps you to inculcate more of your scientific abilities because you are under no pressure to showcase something. You are just driven by your curiosity and by your scientific skills, and then you can report anything, whatever you get, whatever your observations are. We, as Yamini mentioned, we are a small group, but we are very intertwined and interconnected. So it's all the time we are talking to each other across our lab tables. We are having conversations of crazy ideas, which even Yamini doesn't know.
And then sometimes the experiments work. And then we come up with results and we discuss that in our lab meetings. So, I think this kind of a congenial environment helps you a lot. And also, I am really happy that here in Yamini's lab, we regularly do extramural activities. It's kind of a must. We go for runs, marathon runs. We go for kayaking.
Yamini Dalal
I don't go for the marathon runs … this is the rest. Yeah, that's not me. The lab hike is my thing, but the rest is all the lab.
Sweta Sikder
Yes, the kayaking, lab hiking. So this kind of friendly environment helps you a lot. It helped me a lot because especially coming from a different background, different kind of a cultural society altogether. And then blending into this society, this activities actually helped me, gave me a lot of exposure of how people lead their lives. And it helped me a lot.
Oliver Bogler
Reminds me kind of of a startup vibe, right? Like a small company startup, where it's not just people you're working with, you're also spending some time with them. It's a more intense and more deeper relationship. So yeah, very interesting. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk to our guests about their careers and their science.
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Oliver Bogler
All right, we are back. Yamini, let's start with you. When did you realize you wanted a career in science?
Yamini Dalal
So I grew up in a medical family and this has been, I've written about it in various editorials. I was always exposed to science since I was a child. My father was a neurologist, my mom's a physician. We have many people in the family who are doctors. And the general understanding was in India, especially in the 1980s when I was growing up, giving away my age here, there were only a few ways to white collar success if you weren’t a business family. So even though we had lots of friends who were business folk in South Bombay, which is very privileged and wealthy. The rest of our friends are all white -collar professionals, doctors, lawyers. And the only way up, you know, you're competing with millions of other humans who are extremely intelligent. The only way up was to excel in something.
I was really, really always very good with biology and writing, English literature. I really loved writing and reading, but I actually wanted to be an archeologist. When I was eight, I don't know, four or five, maybe seven, I don't remember, I had this little Time Life series book on the Indus Valley and Egypt, ancient civilizations, actually I still have it. And I was obsessed with the Indus Valley code, which is on these ancient seals from Mesopotamia that were also in the Indus Valley in India. And nobody has decoded and encrypt this script, nobody knows what these seals are saying, there are thousands of them. And I wanted to be the person that was going to decrypt these. And my dad was like, well, that's not a profession. You're not going to make any money. You’ll be digging, you know, in the sand for 10, 20 years. You'll never find anything. So why don't you focus on your biology? And, you know, we actually ended up having a pretty big fight before I went to college because I really thought archeology was going to be my thing. And then biology could be my second thing. I was good at both, but I really wanted to do that.
But luckily I got into Xavier's, which is a private university that was started by German Jesuits in the 18th century, in the 1850s. And Xaviers has a fantastic combination of art, history, culture, and science, very rare for Indian college. Most Indian colleges, either it's science or it's technology or engineering, and then there's art and the things don't mix. Xaviers was one of the few places where you could actually do all of it. So even though I was in biochemistry and life sciences, which I loved, I mean, absolutely loved my experience at Xaviers, it was fantastic, I could go listen to lectures on archeology and history so I could maintain it as an outside passion. Which helped me, I think, stay healthy in my interests, not be completely obsessed with one thing, which was chromatin. But at Xavier's, I listened to a biochemistry lecture and the professor showed an electron micrograph of chromatin, which I'd never seen before. Despite all the medical books my dad had, I'd never seen an actual photograph with the first electron micrographs of chromatin, which were published in 1974, which happens to be the year that I was born. And these images were from Chris Woodcock, who I got to know later in life when I was at Purdue, because he came to visit. And it just blew me away that these little beads on the DNA in all eukaryotes, whether you are a pea or a human or a whale or a yeast, we have the same chromatin structure, but we're completely different.
And then after the Human Genome Project, you know, we have basically the same number of genes as a worm. And yet we're fundamentally different, right? So that the epigenetics, the stuff that's above the DNA controlling development, controlling fate, controlling disease was just fascinating to me. And that, I think that just made me fall in love with chromatin and I haven't fallen out of love and it's been now 20 plus years. So I think it's fair to say this is gonna be a lifetime obsession.
Oliver Bogler
Okay, very interesting, very interesting. Sweta, how about you? Why did you choose biology as your path?
Sweta Sikder
So yeah, that's kind of interesting, which makes me think that why I really came into biology. I was always a curious kid and like I used to read a lot of crime stories and detective stories and all that with doing with the forensics. So I actually wanted to get go into forensic department, like learn how to extract DNA and then find out your … the criminal who has done that.
I will refer to Yamini's comments here, that when you grow up in India, the society kind of conditions you, like you either have to take up engineering or medical to have a successful career. But I was I was lucky in the sense that my parents were actually very encouraging. They asked me to pursue whatever I liked, which is kind of very uncommon, I would say, like in an Indian setting. They asked me that whatever you're passionate about, just do that. And then I actually wanted to become a biotechnology forensic expert. So I took up microbiology in, I was in, I went to Calcutta in Lady Brabourne College, which is quite a traditional college there for women. And I took up microbiology as, and there I read a lot of books, like one of them was by Daniel [Donald] Voet and Judith Voet, Voet and Voet, biochemistry book. And I was like fascinated by the cover page and like how the microscopic images of like proteins, DNA. And that's how this interest inculcated in me.
But then I took up biotechnology later for my masters. And it was during my masters, in my master's school that actually my teachers or professors who used to teach me like inculcated this interest in me to pursue science, like doing basic science. And I am kind of grateful to them because it's kind of, you know, each of your mentors shapes your career at different stages of your career path. So I'm kind of lucky to get mentors who along this path have helped me to understand my passion and shaped my career path.
So then I, as I said that I qualified for the PhD exam and then I went to grad school to Bangalore, which is like a hub of science for in India. You have the Indian Institute of Science, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre where I did my PhD. And it was a great experience for me, like doing science in India, I would say Bangalore is the best place to do.
Oliver Bogler
So what drew you to work on chromatin specifically? Yamini already explained her impression of that photograph that she saw. Was it the same thing then, Sweta? You also saw images of DNA and that made you want to work on the structure?
Sweta Sikder
Yes, I mean, I did see a lot of like that time sequencing the sequencing thing, the era was coming on and you can sequence your whole genome. And that kind of drew me into unraveling what is in our genome and what actually our chromatin or our genome is made of. So in that way, that kind of … it helped me raise my curiosity. But then when I went for my grad school, I worked extensively in chromatin and especially in the cancer context and in radiation resistance, breast cancer models. And that actually raised or inculcated this passion for chromatin. And I think maybe I'm tied to my whole life now to it.
Oliver Bogler
Also a lifetime passion. Yamini, so I understand that your research program focuses a lot on centromeres. Tell us a little bit about that and what are the key things you're working on with your team?
Yamini Dalal
Right. So centromeres are special loci of chromosomes that are involved in chromosome segregation. So it's where the microtubules bind. So they're fundamental. They're essential. If you knock out any major component of the centromere, you're dead. It doesn't matter what species you are. All eukaryotes have centromeric components that help to segregate the genome faithfully. And this has to happen thousands and thousands and thousands of times over the course of the lifetime of an individual in thousands and thousands of cells.
And in any one of those cells, if it goes wrong, you get one chromosome less, you get one chromosome more. That's called aneuploidy, which is strongly correlated with disease. So it turns out that centromeres are defined by a very special histone, which is a protein that is part of the chromatin. And that histone variant is called centromeric protein A or centromeric histone H3. This particular histone is essential if you knock it out, you're dead because it forms the basis of the centromere.
When I actually started working on chromatin in grad school, and I was not interested in centromeres at all, I was working on nucleosome positioning, you know, how do the genes, how do the nucleosomes that are the beads that are on those DNA fragments, how to get shoved aside so that RNA polymerase can read a gene and stuff like that. Steve Henikoff came to give a talk at Purdue when I was a grad student, and my job was to take him between buildings. That's what you did as a senior grad student in the winter, especially where nobody else wanted to do it. That was your job. It was great because you got to talk to all these leaders in the field. And Steve had just discovered with Harmit Malik that centromeric histones, despite being essential, are fast evolving. It made no sense. This was called the centromere paradox. Despite the fact that centromeres are essential in every species in which they exist, both the centromeric DNA sequence and these proteins that are essential for life are fast evolving. So if you compare a yeast centromeric protein to yours or mine, they're not identical.
And now with nanopore sequencing, we know that centromeric DNA amongst individuals is actually not identical. It's fast evolving as well. So biochemically, this just became like this fantastic epigenetics problem. How would these fast evolving proteins and the fast evolving DNA, do you make the same mechanical structure that pulls, helps to pull chromosomes apart every cell cycle in every species? Because microtubules are conserved. They look exactly the same in every organism. And when we look at chromosomes, they look the same in every organism, but the centromere structure, despite being the same, is dictated by these proteins that are not the same.
I found this to be just such a fantastic puzzle. And even though Steve frightened the bejesus out of me, because he's a very intimidating personality, he's extremely intense, I thought I have to go work with him, because he's going to challenge me. And he did. But I'd like to say I challenged him too, and he will acknowledge that.
So working with Steve on Centermiers, I had the freedom to pursue pretty much anything I wanted. Steve's motto in the lab was, I will give you as much rope as you need to hang yourself. Which at the time, I have to say now we’d never say stuff like that, but it made sense. And his goal was to give you the freedom you needed to pursue your crazy ideas and project. And his job was just to make sure that you didn't completely go off the rails. It was a very difficult project. It was very challenging, but I had a blast.
And that continued then in my lab, we decided to look at why centromeric proteins are overexpressed in cancer. I wrote a K99 when I was still in Steve's lab, which is a funding mechanism. That was the first, I think the first generation of K99 grants in 2003, sorry, in 2007, I think. And what I covered in the grant was centromeric proteins are overexpressed in virtually every solid cancer. And everybody was citing those papers in the grants, but nobody, nobody at that point had looked into why these proteins are of overexpressed, what happens? Because it's obvious that if you have too much of this protein, something bad would happen. That was the basis of my lab and that's why I got hired at the NCI. I didn't get funded by K99, which is also NCI extramural, but I got hired by NCI intramural, which is a better deal, I think, because they funded me for 16 years to figure this out.
Oliver Bogler
Well, that's a perfect segue to my next question, which is, you know, the NCI intramural research program is a little bit different from your typical research institute or university, right? So I wonder what drew you then to that program, Yamini, to bring your research to the NCI, to the Center for Cancer Research.
Yamini Dalal
Yeah, Oliver, that's a great question. When I interviewed for faculty positions, you know, there's some really exciting schools with lots of opportunities to be completely independent and to carry my research forward. What I loved about the NCI and the NIH actually, not just the NCI, was the people I met here. I felt right at home. And I know that sounds odd because when I came to interview here in 2007 or 2008, there were barely any Indian women PIs.
In fact, all the people I met were leaders in my field. I'd read about them in textbooks who had that faculty interview with me or were like, you know, 10, 20 or 30 years older than me. They had all this magnificent chromatin experience, but it was like walking into the library of Alexandria. I felt like I could tap into all their brains and get all this information on chromatin that they had discovered themselves. And that would help me in my program. And I really felt like right at home. It was really strange because at the time I was like only 33 or 34. These people are all like National Academy. They're very famous. But I felt right at home in this sort of group of scholars. So fundamentally what drew me to the NCI was the people that I met during my faculty interview. I felt right at home. They were not at all intimidating. They wanted to know what I thought about their program and their projects.
I think that is the uniqueness of the NIH because we're not funded by grants in the same way that extramural is. I think the interactions you have are very, very collegial because there's no competition inside the NCI for the same program. And as a consequence, people are just used to giving you information completely unsolicited. They're happy to do it. They're happy to give you tools, technology, ideas, and support. And I experienced all of those things as a tenure track investigator here. That's what drew me here. And that's what keeps me here.
Oliver Bogler
Sweta, you were nodding as Yamini was describing the environment. I wonder what it's like when you come into this environment as a postdoc. What are your experiences?
Sweta Sikder
Yes, so actually I will start this from a very early experience when I joined NCI, Yamini's lab. So when I was interviewing with Yamini, I came up with this idea that we should look at aging and senescence. And she said that it's a very cool idea. And I was like, very flattered because you meet scientists and whose papers you have been reading centromeres. And then if that scientist tells you that you have a cool idea. It really boosts you a lot. And I'm happy to say and share that I'm getting this encouragement throughout. It's not only in the branch, but when I give talk at a Chromatin Forum at NCI and outside NIH, I constantly get supportive comments and suggestions, even not only on science, but as a career altogether. It can be from a very new tenure track faculty or a fellow postdoc.
All those things, I think, helps you a lot. And I would also mention that the peer-to-peer mentoring actually has shaped a lot of my decisions throughout my career path. And it is helping me a lot. So yes, it has helped me. And we do get a lot of help in terms of scientific, career-wise, throughout NIH.
Oliver Bogler
Yamini, you wear another hat in addition to being a senior investigator, you're also the senior advisor for faculty development in the Center for Cancer Research. Can you tell us what that role is about?
Yamini Dalal
Yeah. So Oliver, a few years ago when we had the pandemic, I had this sort of existential crisis because I realized when you're not being a lab PI, right, and you couldn't meet the people you're working with intimately every day, you're not really directing their research because we couldn't even come to the lab. And we were the NIH was probably the last to open up its doors completely. I think we were like partially shut down for more than a year, way past even vaccination. I felt like what is my role? What good am I doing for our society?
And I think it just made me really worried that I wasn't maximizing my ability to do something good outside of my own lab. I've always been very interested in the work outside of my own lab. I have a lot of scientific passions. I listen to talks all the time. And one of the things that came up during these chats with people during the pandemic first year was that they felt there wasn't a lot of support for tenure tracks.
And I remember when I was a tenure track, I had just crazy support from all my colleagues here because it was open, you could meet people, you get to know them. So I felt like this is something I could do. So I approached our scientific director of the time, Tom Misteli, who's also a colleague in the branch, he knows me really well. And I said, you know, I really want to do something and I think I could do something like this. And I have to say him and Bev Mock, who was the director of the scientific programs office in CCR were very supportive and they created a position that did not exist yet at the NIH, at least not at NCI.
And as a consequence of me taking on that role and being sort of an advocate for tenure tracks, being an advisor for them, I read site visit documents. If they can't find something, I help them find it. The great thing about having been at the NIH for 16 years and being a friendly person is you know a lot of people across many institutes. And over the years, I've been lucky to make friends across various programs, various departments. I even knew for a while the chief of police because one of my undergrad grad students needed help after a little fracas with the NIH safety people. So I got to know a lot of people and I thought this is something I could do. I could facilitate interactions. And I'd say that's maybe the major goal as a faculty advisor is to help people find answers that they were struggling to find. They already have beautiful science, so the help is not scientific. It's really more how do I find this? Who does this? How do I get this? Who do I talk to I want to do this?
And I think during the pandemic, it was hard to find those resources because you couldn't just walk down the hallway. So I guess I became that hallway and it's been extraordinarily rewarding.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, that kind of implicit information can be vital to survival and success. That's very interesting.
Yamini Dalal
Absolutely. And I want to say every Chief that I've talked to has really embraced this idea of having a faculty advisor. They didn't view it as competing with their domain or their sphere. And that's the other beauty of the NIH. There's not a lot of ego about this. They were like, yeah, if you can help, help. Do what it takes. So I want to really give a shout out to all the Chiefs who supported this notion of a faculty advisor, because after we have it, we instituted a faculty advisor, most of the institutes across the NIH decided to take on an equivalent position.
It's also a nice way to learn a little bit about leadership, because it's easy when you're not in leadership to blame them for everything that goes wrong. It's not until you start talking to leadership that you realize their job is actually very, very complicated and very challenging. So being an intermediary, which by the way, the word Dalal, the meaning of the word Dalal is intermediary, a facilitator. The Dalals are traditionally traders in Gujarat. So I thought it was very fitting, first leadership position for me.
Oliver Bogler
It's fate.
Yamini Dalal
Yeah.
Oliver Bogler
So Sweta, what advice would you give to someone who might be in the latter part of their undergraduate career, maybe in another country, thinking about cancer research in the United States, maybe even at NCI, what would you say to them?
Sweta Sikder
Yeah, I would like what I have understood is that you should first recognize your interest or your passion, especially the field which you want to work on. My PhD mentor Tapas [Kundu] used to say, ask big questions and then find out small answers, like small techniques to answer those big questions. And so I would also echo that and say that one should establish, and once they know that this is the kind of science they want to do, just to reach out to anyone. I know that coming from India, we have this kind of a barrier, I would say, that we think a lot that whether we should reach out to a Nobel laureate or just write an email, how will that be perceived? I would say that nothing. Just if you want to reach out to someone, just reach out to someone.
Oliver Bogler
And Sweta, do you already have a next step in mind? Obviously a postdoc is by nature a defined phase in your career.
Sweta Sikder
Yes, I see Yamini smiling because I think we talk, we are now having regular talks on this. But yes, of course, when, I think before I joined postdoc or within a year, I knew that I always had this passion of doing academic kind of science, like science doing in an academic environment, pursuing your own question.
So yes, I have, I want to ask more questions of how the chromatin behaves during aging. And I am planning to pursue this career. So yes, we have a timeline set up in mind, some plans on how to go about and keeping my fingers crossed for it.
Oliver Bogler
Great. Yeah. Well, I wish you all the success with that next step. Yamini, last question to you. What advice are you giving the early career investigators, the grad students, the postdocs, the postbacs in your lab and around your branch and NCI? What advice are you giving them?
Yamini Dalal
Be happy. I think that's really my fundamental advice. If you're not happy doing what you're doing and it isn't an all-consuming passion for you, then there's no reason to do it. Because those are the only reasons to be unhappy. If you're just obsessed with something so you can put up with pain, then do it. Because you can't think of anything else that's going to make you happy. But if something isn't working out for you, find something else. Find somebody else. And there's no shame in that whatsoever. In fact, you'd be doing yourself and other people a favor if it's not working out that you find an alternative.
My motto always has been, and I think that's just true in life, is you find something that really engages you and motivates you. And if you can do that, then all the external support is just a cherry on the top, but everything else is yours. You built it yourself. And there's a great deal of pride in that kind of accomplishment.
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Oliver Bogler
Now it's time for a segment we call your turn because it's a chance for our listeners to send in a recommendation that they would like to share. If you're listening, then you're invited to take your turn. Send us a tip for a book, a video, a podcast or a talk that you found inspirational or amusing or interesting. You can send those to us at [email protected]. Record a voice memo and send it along. We may just play it in an upcoming episode. Now I'd like to invite our guests to take their turn. Let's start with you, Yamini.
Yamini Dalal
So I read a lot. Some of the things I read are probably not appropriate to share. But I like to challenge myself. And I've been obsessed with the worry that artificial intelligence is going to take over our lives. My spouse is an expert on machine learning and knows a lot about this topic. And in order to educate me, he gave me a book by one of the foremost women scientists in AI, Fei-Fei Li and the book is called The Worlds I See. So I've started reading it and I highly recommend it because it's a biography about her life and how she got to this point where she is the leading voice for AI, for artificial intelligence, all kinds of applications, but also a leading cautionary voice on the strengths and weaknesses of AI. I found this book really great. I'm still reading it and I'm not sure by the end if I'm going to believe that AI is gonna take over the world or not, but I do know that AI is gonna be a big part of NCI's goals going forward in trying to do cancer therapeutics. So I think it's a worthwhile book to read.
Oliver Bogler
Thank you, that's a great recommendation. Sweta?
Sweta Sikder
Yes, so I have actually a book recommendation and also a series. So I also read a lot and reading is one of my passion. So I have I am one of my favorite authors is Murakami. And recently I have read a book of him, which is interesting because it is two books, but in the same cover. And if you read from the opposite covers, you're actually reading two different books. So the book name is Hear the Wind Sing from one side and the other side is the Pinball. And if people really like Murakami's style of writing, I would recommend this as a very good read, although this was written in one of his earlier years. He, of course, has written much better books than this, but I found this is quite good.
I also have, I also see a lot of series and movies when my experiment fails, of course. But this web series, I think it streams on Netflix and it's actually a British web series, but it's called Behind Her Eyes. And it's really interesting because it kind of talks about astral projection and all, which I found is really interesting. And a movie which I saw recently is Poor Things. I think it is like an Oscar nominated one. And it's really cool, especially for biology enthusiast because it has all those, a child's brain fit on to an adult's. So it's kind of...
Yamini Dalal
It was quite disturbing actually. So my recommendation for a Netflix show that was a book I tried to read 10, I don't know, five or six years ago, The Three-Body Problem. President Obama had recommended that book as the best sci -fi book ever written. And so I bought it and I couldn't read it. It was like just dense and impenetrable. But Netflix has made a really great adaptation of The Three -Body Problem, which I enjoyed greatly. So if you're into sci-fi and physics especially, I would recommend the three-body problem.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, that was a, I had the same experience with the book. I forced myself through the entire trilogy. Um, but the, the show is so much more approachable. Um, but, um, those are great recommendations. We're going to add, uh, put links in our show notes for people to find them.
I'd like to make one as well. It's also for a book. It's called the Knowledge Machine by Michael Strevens. Dr. Strevens is also someone who came to the U S to do his work in his case. He came from New Zealand. He's a professor of philosophy at New York University. And in this book, he presents a unifying view of how science is done, building on previous ideas from Popper and Kuhn and others. In Streven's view, at the heart of the machine that has generated knowledge and understanding of the world over the last few hundred years is a shared notion of explanatory power and a requirement that scientific argument appeal only to the outcomes of empirical tests. Under this very powerful scheme, which he calls the Iron Rule, a narrow focus on objective scientific argument is created and it requires us to leave other considerations aside, very human considerations, for example, the aesthetic appeal of a theory. A good example comes from physics, where quantum mechanics has great power to explain the behavior of elemental particles but is not necessarily something that people can easily understand. Streven's reasons convincingly that this shedding of other considerations is what started the scientific revolution and explains why it took so long to arrive.
I think the book's a really interesting read and I'm going to admit that I came across it through my own learning about night science with my thanks to Itai Yanai and Martin Lercher, the guests on our previous episode. And there's a strong connection between this book and night science and those ideas.
So with that, let me thank you both, Yamini and Sweta for joining me today. Really appreciate you spending time and sharing your experiences and your insights.
Yamini Dalal
Thank you, Oliver, for this lovely opportunity.
Sweta Sikder
Yeah, thank you. It was fun.
Oliver Bogler
That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.
We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are welcome. And you are invited to take your turn and make a recommendation to share with our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected].
Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training. It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar.
Join us every first and third Thursday of the month wherever you listen – subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.
If you have questions about cancer or comments about this podcast, you can email us at [email protected] or call us at 800-422-6237. And please be sure to mention Inside Cancer Careers in your query.
We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.
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In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, Dr. Oliver Bogler interviews two guests, Dr. Itai Yanai, who is a Professor at NYU School of Medicine, and Dr. Martin Lercher, who is a Professor at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. They are also co-founders of Night Science, which is the creative aspect of scientific research. They discuss the importance of scientific creativity and explore why it is often overlooked in scientific training and how it can be nurtured. Drs. Yanai and Lercher then discuss their early inspirations for pursuing science, their career paths, and the importance of interdisciplinary thinking.
Show Notes
Dr. Martin Lercher
Dr. Itai Yanai
Night Science Workshops
"It takes two to think" editorial in Nature Biotechnology
Night Science Episode with Daniel Kahneman
Night Science Episode with Albert-László Barabási
The Society of Genes (book)
Ad: NanCI - Connecting Scientists mobile app
The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
Your Turn Recommendations:
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Night Science Podcasts
TRANSCRIPT
Oliver Bogler
Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI Center for Cancer Training. Today, we're talking about scientific creativity, an often overlooked but vital element in a successful research career and how you can take practical steps to nurture it, evoke it and connect with others around it. I'm going to admit I'm really excited about today's conversation.
Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to Take Your Turrn.
So it's my pleasure to welcome two very special guests, Dr. Itai Yanai, professor at the Institute for Systems Genetics and in Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. Welcome, Itai.
Itai Yanai
Thank you, Oliver. It's fantastic to be here.
Oliver Bogler
And Dr. Martin Lercher, professor and head of the Institute of Computational Cell Biology at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. Welcome, Martin.
Martin Lercher
Well, thanks. Thank you so much for inviting us.
Oliver Bogler
So it seems obvious that scientists need to be creative, of course, as well as rigorous and thorough, ethical and informed and probably many other things. But we rarely ever talk about creativity, let alone teach it to early career scientists. Why is that? And what are you doing to change that?
Martin Lercher
Well, we think it's a disaster that it is like that. And we want to make our contribution to change that. Why that is? I think it's partly historical that, you know, it seemed more important to distinguish science from non-science, from philosophy, for example, which is great at generating ideas, but not good at throwing out wrong ideas. So historically, scientists training has focused on what we call the day science part, on the testing of ideas, and not so much on the generation of ideas. So I think that's at least part of the explanation. Itai, what do yobu think?
Itai Yanai
Yeah, well, it may also be that it's more straightforward to teach the day science. We can have a kind of control over the day science part because what is day science? Day science is you have a hypothesis and you're going to test it. You're going to design an experiment. You're going to build in controls. You really are calling the shots in day science and it's harder relatively to sort of wrap our minds around the notion that we cannot control the creative process like that.
Oliver Bogler
So you've both used the term day science that may be new to our audience. What is day science and is there a night science?
Itai Yanai
Yeah, these are terms that were coined by the biologist Francois Jacob, who together with Lwoff and Monod shared the 1965 Nobel Prize for elucidating essentially the principles of gene regulation for the first time. And so this Nobel Prize winning biologist, when he writes his memoir called The Statue Within, he could have taken a victory lap.
He could have said, I'm such a genius. Look at this amazing work that I did. I'm just brilliant. And of course, a brilliant mind will do brilliant things. Instead, what he does in that book is paint a picture of the reality of doing science, where you're in constant confusion. You're in the cloud, as another biologist, Uri Alon, likes to say. And so he distinguishes in this book two modes: day science and night science. Day science is what from the outside, we traditionally call science, which is this march of rationality, this controlled experiments that we talked about before. And so day science is when you put on your lab coat and you know what you're going to do, but night science, that's that part where you're confused. That's that part where you need to be creative. And Martin, don't we think that there's something about this dichotomy. Doesn't it just like cut to the core of what it means to be doing the process of science?
Martin Lercher
Yeah, when we teach workshops about the creative process in science, I think that's the most important message that we give people, that there is this dichotomy, that there are these two complementary processes in science. When we think about how science works, we always think about what we call day science, right? The hero of day science is Sir Karl Popper, the philosopher of science who said, you know, we cannot prove that something's true, but we can falsify something. So that's what we need to do as scientists.
But in reality, there's this flip side that we hardly ever talk about. And we have to constantly switch between those two modes of doing science, between day science where we test ideas, and then we have to transition into night science where we have to think about, you know, is this really how it works? Is there maybe something else that I'm missing? Is there a question that I'm not asking that I should be asking? And then once I found that question, I can move back into day science and test that. So just understanding that there are these two sides is already a big step towards using your own creativity.
Oliver Bogler
So of course, scientists are trained exhaustively in day science, right? I heard you mention Martin that you have a workshop that you teach, you and Itai teach on night science. So what are the skills that you're teaching attendees of those courses?
Itai Yanai
Yeah, we like to say that what creativity is, is essentially a bag of tricks. And we scientists, we pick up the tricks over the years. What Martin and I have been thinking about is whether we can do that in a more straightforward, streamlined way that reduces needless suffering, because the tricks that we pick up along the way are tried and true. They've been tested and they are very teachable. We can all become more creative. And so what the workshop is essentially is a set of sessions where every session we discuss a specific thinking tool that we impart. And these are general tools. It's not to solve a specific problem that a participant comes with, although we do practice on those, but these are general tools that can help you solve any problem really.
Oliver Bogler
Can you give me some examples?
Martin Lercher
Oh well, the simplest and we believe most powerful example seems almost trivial. It's just to talk to someone. We wrote an editorial about that with the title, It Takes Two to Think. And we think that if you're very lucky, you have a science buddy. You have somebody who you know very well, somebody you like, a friend, with who you like to talk about science.
And the crucial thing is, it's not just about talking, it's about how you talk. And there we borrow this idea from improvisational theater. In improvisational theater, actors get on a stage, they don't have a script. And that's the same when we try to figure out something, when we try to figure out what could be the answer to some problem that we have, what could be the question that we really want to ask.
We don't have a script. And if we say an idea, right? If I say an idea and Itai says, no, that's nonsense, right? Then that kills that idea.
Itai Yanai
That's it, the conversation's over.
Martin Lercher
And maybe that idea really was stupid, but I think it would kill it prematurely. We first have to figure out together what's in there, right? Whether we can develop it into something interesting. And...
Itai Yanai
And even if I said something stupid, there might have been a reason why I said it. And if we're curious and if we genuinely like the other person, so it works incredibly better if the participants are friends, then you say, just like Daniel Kahneman said on our podcast, when one person would say something with his collaboration with Amos Tversky, the other person would say, well, you know, on the face of it, it sounds like a silly thing to say. It sounds wrong, but we are programmed to dismiss any idea we hear and there, you know, let's be kind to one another. There must be a reason also why the person said it. Let's, let's try to explore that. And if you have the patience and if you have this sort of really openness in your heart to explore it, then magical things happen. An idea can be born.
Oliver Bogler
That sounds very different from your typical research group meeting where...
Martin Lercher
Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, as humans, we have this general tendency. We like to shoot down other people's ideas. If you say something that sounds strange to me, I'm going to tell you why it has to be wrong.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, it’s a lot of fun.
Martin Lercher
And yeah, it's a lot of fun, especially in journal clubs. And as scientists, of course, we're even worse than the average person, because we're trained to do that. We're trained to falsify everything that comes our way. But we have to. We have to suspend that if we are in creative discussions. We have, as again Daniel Kahneman said, we have to leave our critical weapons at the door and not dismiss something that the other person says just out of hand.
Itai Yanai
I mean, I think the basis of it is that when we're doing science, we really need to have two minds. There's two modes of thought. And it's really the interaction between these two modes of thought that constitute doing science.
There's the hard thinking, very critical, very precise, and that's what we call day science thinking. That's the one that we're trained to do. That's the one where the public expects the scientists to talk like that, to use this kind of hard thinking. And our complaint is just that we are not giving full justice, we're not discussing the other mode of thought, this night science mode that's softer, that's more indulgent, that's more improvisational.
And it's easy to make fun of and yet it's absolutely crucial because that's where the ideas come from. And one facet of modern science is that we really, in the end, expect people to be good at both of these kinds of thinking. You really need both. And so what Martin was discussing before that there's this big problem in modern science is that we only sort of give the glory to the hard thinking without teaching or even acknowledging the soft kind of thinking.
Oliver Bogler
Night science thinking is almost disreputable, right? I mean, if you if you did it in a more public setting, like a lab meeting, that would be really hard. So I understand the need to be in a safe space with a trusted individual.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, you have to pull down your shades.
Oliver Bogler
So I wonder, as you teach this to early career scientists, I imagine, how do they respond? Do they do they take to it readily or is it is it kind of tough to get them past their already existing scientific training.
Martin Lercher
Usually the audience at our workshop is mostly, as you say, young researchers, PhD students, or sometimes post-docs. And they've already been in this research machinery, right? They have some insights in how it works and they know how confusing it can be. So they really appreciate to see that acknowledged, right? And to hear that it's actually a part of the process. It has to be like that. You know, when Itai and I did our first fully independent project together, actually, a long time ago, we were young post-docs. And, you know, we didn't really appreciate that dichotomy ourselves at that time, right? And we were very confused and it was very frustrating that at points in that project, we didn't know anymore what we were really doing. We didn't really know anymore what the question was that we tried to answer. And just hearing that that's normal and that's actually a good and important part of science is already important. So these people really appreciate it.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, I think they are relieved. What I experience when we give our workshops, pardon, when I look at their faces, when we talk to them afterwards, they're so relieved because they've been so confused at how they're admitted to this program of doing a PhD and yet at no moment does anyone take them aside and tell them, okay, this is how science works. This is how you're going to get your ideas.
Instead, they're sort of made to believe that it's going to be obvious. It's not obvious at all. And so I think when we put this label on, you need the night science part, you need then this other kind of thinking, and we teach them the tools of the creative process, I think they're just relieved that, okay, it's going to be okay. We are going to be taught how this is going to be done.
Oliver Bogler
That's fantastic to hear. And I would like to mention that you very generously share the course materials on your website at night-science .org. So anybody who's interested in diving in can find them there.
Martin Lercher
Yeah. So, so really the reason why we put it there is A, because we think it's really important for anyone in science who's not thought about these things before. But B, we really want this to be taught as at many places as possible. We give our workshops, but we can't possibly give workshops to every PhD student on the planet. We really need help with that.
We think it's important that people get this kind of training. And we really want to help other educators to give that kind of training. And, you know, of course they can develop their own material, but they can use whatever we have in whichever way they like, in whichever way they think is appropriate.
Oliver Bogler
You've also been sharing these ideas in a series of editorials in Genome Biology and more recently in Nature Biotechnology. What have you written about?
Itai Yanai
Yeah, so each piece is a thinking tool. It's a trick that we think all experienced scientists know and yet should be taught in a normal way. Right now, what happens is if you're a PhD student, it really depends on what kind of a mentor you have. If you have a mentor that teaches you these tools, then you're lucky.
And if you don't have a mentor that teaches you them, well, then you will not know how to do them and you're going to suffer needlessly. We think this could be taught in a regular way. We think that these pieces are putting these tools out where anyone can get them. And so it kind of democratizes the teaching of the process.
And we hope that these materials, as Martin was saying, are put together in a course that's adopted everywhere. So we think that just like graduate students are taught experimental design and bioethics, they should also be taught a course, perhaps called ‘process’, on what are the thinking tools, what is the way of generating ideas. We think it's just crucial.
And you know what, I think we can't overstate the importance of this. I would go as far as saying that it's a matter of national security. So, Oliver, you work for the government and so I think you'll respond to this. This is a matter of national security for us to have the most creative research possible. And there's been a trend lately in science to have larger and larger groups work together when we know that actually, large groups, while they're good at executing a big idea, are far less good at coming up with the idea in the first place. For that, small groups, as we were saying earlier, it takes two to think, are much more creative. And so I think that what hurts us is that it sounds like this is a soft kind of science, but actually, it's crucial.
Actually, I want to tell you a story. I was in line to check in a suitcase at the airport and I was talking to the person ahead of me and she said, oh, you're at NYU. What do you teach? And I said, oh, you know, I'm teaching this new course about the creative scientific process. And she said, sounds like bullshit. And then she caught herself, but you know, because she was a New Yorker, she said the truth out right away with no filter. And I think she speaks for all of us. You know, it does sound like too soft, but really, you know, we require it. So I think it does catch on because I really believe it's super important.
Oliver Bogler
So you've shared one reaction with me, Itai, quite forthright. I wonder what, in more general terms, the response to your editorials has been.
Itai Yanai
Oh, to that, it's been fantastic. I think, Martin, what do you think?
Martin Lercher
Yeah. No, no, I think, well, the response has been fantastic. But to be honest, there's more people who listen to the podcast than read the editorials.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, yo, these kids today Oliver.
Martin Lercher
Yeah, yes. Nope.
Oliver Bogler
Well, okay. So you mentioned the podcast, Martin, tell us about that.
Martin Lercher
Yeah, so in the podcast, you know, or let's start, let's start earlier. We started writing those editorials. And basically, Itai and I would improvise together, you know, about what should we write the next editorial, like what should be the topic? What do we think is important? And we covered a lot of we think important tools for scientific creativity.
But then we thought, you know, that's just Itai and I, right? There's so many other creative scientists out there who have their own tools, which may be different from person to person. And we need to talk to those people about their creative process. And that's how we came up with a podcast. And actually, initially, I was a bit hesitant. Itai had to repeatedly come with that idea until I finally agreed.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, it wasn't easy, Oliver. It wasn't easy to convince him.
Martin Lercher
But now I love it.
Oliver Bogler
But it was worth it.
Itai Yanai
He's like, I'm going to be one of these podcast people. Oh, my God. You know, I'm going to have to wear different clothes.
Martin Lercher
Exactly. No, anyway, so what we do in the podcast is we talk to these other creative scientists about their process, about how they do science, about how they mentor people, for example, how they discovered what for them was the right way to have ideas to solve problems. And it's really interesting, there are some tools that come up again and again, but there's other tools that are very specific to the person. And so it's been very interesting for us and we get very good response from our listeners about that.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, I've been listening myself. It is endlessly fascinating because as you say, each answer is not the same and you can learn a lot. And you've got some really, you know, very well known scientists on there. So I think you're also making it more respectable to admit that the creativity doesn't just come from the day side, but also from that night side.
Martin Lercher
Yeah.
Itai Yanai
That's right. Yeah, that's right.
Martin Lercher
So, you know, actually, sometimes we have PIs, professors who also attend the workshop. And generally, they also love that. Of course, they know a lot of that stuff because that's what they do, but they hardly ever think about that. That's also something that the guests in our podcast tell us, that they're really grateful for us prompting them to consciously think about how they do things, because it's not something that we ever discuss.
And of course, it's not something that Itai and I invented. It's not that we said, oh, suddenly we have to have this creativity in science, which was totally uncreative for hundreds of years. It's been there all the time. It's just never been discussed. Philosophers of science, for example, have talked about the context of discovery versus the context of justification. But it's not something that's ever filtered into the science world.
Oliver Bogler
So any favorite moments from the podcast that you can share?
Itai Yanai
What's your favorite moment, Martin?
Martin Lercher
Well, one favorite moment you've already spilled the beans on, it was Daniel Kahneman on how to talk with your collaborator. I think that's one of my all-time favorites. So what about you?
Itai Yanai
I really like the one with László Barabási. He said that he doesn't believe in experts, which is such a shocking statement. And he explained, he said that when he was a student, he came to his professor with this idea that he was very excited about. And the professor who was an expert in that field said, no, it doesn't seem right to me. I don't think it's a good idea. And so Barabási dropped it. And then just a couple of years later, what he experienced is that someone else wrote that same idea and it transformed the field. And so Barabási realized that very often the people who are closest to a field, like the experts, you would think the experts of a field, they should be so intimately involved in the field that they would recognize what is the next idea when they're told it, right? That they would recognize, oh, this is important. This transforms the field. Instead, what Barabási says is actually they're too close if they don't recognize it. And I think that's profound.
Martin Lercher
Yeah, and in the same line, actually, Todd Golub, who's the head of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, he was saying that he really likes to hire scientists who he expects to totally change field, where he expects in five years they're going to work on something totally different from what they've ever done before. And because he thinks that those will be the moments when the really cool things happen in science.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, we all think about cross-disciplinarity and changing fields as being important. That's fascinating.
Itai Yanai
Yeah. Oh, can I say, can I say one more moment?
Oliver Bogler
Yeah. Please, of course.
Martin Lercher
There's so many, aren't there?
Itai Yanai
But I remember we talked to Agnel Sfeir. She's at Memorial Sloan Kettering. And she said that when she sits in a seminar and she hears someone present a project, what she's thinking in her mind is something that, that when she does it, it keeps her so engaged and she's like really super present.
So what is that thing that she does? She thinks to herself, what can I take from this? What about this that I'm hearing now, can I import into any one of the projects that's ongoing now in my lab? And it's this kind of thinking, it's really active listening. Normally, we're just passively trying to understand what the person's saying. And if you change that to now active listening, to execute the operation of this thing that I'm hearing, how does it map onto something that I know? Like doing that operation just profoundly changes your relationship to that idea. So I thought that was a really deep insight.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, I mean, I've been listening, as I said, there's so much in there. They're all available on the website again and wherever you can find your podcasts.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, for just $5 .99 a month.
Oliver Bogler
That's not true.
Martin Lercher
No, no, no, that was a joke. Itai, you have to emphasize that that was a joke.
Itai Yanai
No, we'll give people a discount.
Martin Lercher
Stop it. [laughs]
Oliver Bogler
Okay. Listeners of Inside Cancer Careers get free access. So you've been doing this work together for a while. What's the future? Where are you going with your night science endeavor?
Itai Yanai
We didn't intend to do this. The way this project started was from a totally different motivation. We really, Martin and I, we're really just friends. And we wrote a book together before called The Society of Genes that you mentioned. And actually, I'm not sure you mentioned it. We did an earlier event this morning and someone mentioned it.
Oliver Bogler
You have now, so go ahead.
Itai Yanai
So, yeah, so Martin and I, we wrote this popular science book called The Society of Genes, and it was so much fun that we wanted to do another project. So we were just looking for a project. That's all ancient history, because now this project has taken on a life of its own. I mean, it really seems like we've hit upon a need. There is just this empty space in science where teaching the creative process should be. And so we've now made it our mission to address that. And as we've been talking about, we developed a curriculum and we are being we are being invited from all over the world to come and teach it. And so that's not scalable.
What we want to do is provide the material and really train the people that could themselves become the trainers. And our goal is that this is now going to be addressed and it will be taught. And if we're successful, then in a few years, it will just be part of how we train our students, which will be really cool if we can achieve that.
Oliver Bogler
We're going to take a short break. And when we come back, we'll talk to our guests about their careers.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
PubMed lists over 270,000 cancer papers published in 2022 – that is a staggering 750 papers every day. It’s great that cancer research is such an active field, but it makes finding the pubs that are critical to your work a challenge. What if you had an AI that paid attention to the papers you read and suggested others as they appear in PubMed? That is exactly what the NCI is building with an app called NanCI. With me to discuss NanCI are two members of the team that are creating NanCI.
Duncan Anderson
NanCI is an app for cancer scientists and it helps them to discover the research in new ways and connect with each other and build their personal networks and share information and get to know each other. We've just launched the ability to actually chat with a piece of research, so you can actually have a conversation and ask questions about a research paper itself.
JD Wuarin
Instead of having to read the whole paper yourself, you can now simply ask questions and NanCI will answer those questions. One of the cool features we've also added is that it will read the abstract and figure out what questions you might want to ask the paper.
Duncan Anderson
We're using artificial intelligence within NanCI to help to make information easier to find and easier to understand and easier to interact with. The only information we're using is the scientific data. So the research paper, for example, we don't allow our AI to go off and answer random questions that might introduce all sorts of concerns.
JD Wuarin
And so the idea will be that eventually with NanCI straight from your pocket, you'll not only be able to chat with papers and understand what papers are about, but also based on your interest, it will suggest to you what you might want to investigate, maybe which gene mutation you might want to look at, which new disease might be related to what you're doing. And that's gonna be interesting, I think.
Duncan Anderson
If you start working in a field which you don't have a lot of experience in, it can be a bit daunting. There's a lot of information to read. We have this idea that you could tell NanCI what the field is and NanCI would go off and present you the key influential papers in that space so you can very quickly get your head around what this new field is.
So today, NanCI can be used by cancer researchers in the USA. So it's available from the Apple App Store for the iPhone. And there's a restriction on the downloads, which means that you need to have an email address associated with a cancer research institution.
[music ends]
Oliver Bogler
All right, we're back. Let's start with you, Itai. I'm always curious about what inspires people to get into science in the first place. What was that for you?
Itai Yanai
Yeah, for me, it was a book. I know it sounds like a cliche that a book changed my life, but it really is what happened. I was finishing up my undergrad. I had done this ambitious dual degree in both the philosophy of science and computer engineering. And then I was having a kind of existential crisis on what should I do, this or that, when I started reading this book called The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. And I had actually seen it before, but I was under this misunderstanding. And I thought the book was about how genes make us selfish, which is probably also true, but.
Martin Lercher
Yes.
Itai Yanai
But I didn't realize what the book was really about. And then at one point I just started reading it and I just couldn't put it down for a whole week. I just kept reading it and I was just blown away when I put the book down after finishing it. I said, this is what I want to do. I just I for me, it really came from this philosophical desire to know why we're here. I thought, oh, my God, finally I know why I'm here. Like this is biology explains and this and I thought this is what I want to do with my life to understand why we're put on this earth. What happened before we opened our eyes.
Oliver Bogler
So we share that, Itai. I read this book as a schoolboy. And Sir Richard Dawkins attended the same boarding school in England that I did. So the book was popular there. Ah, yeah, you have it leather bound. But this is actually the copy that I had when I was a schoolboy. Yeah, beautiful. It's a phenomenal book. And I was excited to see it featured in your course. So OK, books.
Martin Lercher
Yeah, actually, you know, I know this part is about Itai, but I have to say, I also read that book towards the end of my school days and I loved it. It's just fascinating. I was so interested in biology when I when I read that. So, you know, apparently we have all three something in common.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, that's interesting. So, Martin, was it this book as well or was it something even before the book that got you?
Martin Lercher
No, no, no, it was this book, this exact book.
Oliver Bogler
Okay. All right, solved. We'll put that into every newborn's crib and we've solved the cancer, the biomedical workforce crisis. Well, Martin, let me ask you then. So, after you read this book, you found yourself on a path towards science. I know you did a research fellowship at the University of Bath. You were a Heisenberg fellow at EMBL. What were those early years of your career like?
Martin Lercher
Well, my earliest year of my career were actually not in biology, they were in theoretical physics. So I studied physics and then I did my PhD in theoretical physics. But, you know, it was nice, it was fun to do all those equations, but I felt there wasn't really any interesting, any really interesting questions, right, that I could possibly be working on. And so I went out of science for a while, but I realized that wasn't for me. I wanted to get back, but I didn't want to get back into physics. I wanted to go into biology. There's so many open questions there, so many fascinating things that you can explore. And so I started my postdoc at the University of Bath, working with Laurence Hurst. And initially, I had just started in biology. I knew nothing. I read a couple of books before, a couple of textbooks. So really, I was working like a PhD student. So Laurence was telling me, oh, you know, there's this question, and you could get this kind of data and then analyze it. And I, you know, I dutifully got that data and downloaded it, did some analyses. And, and that way, I very quickly got into a mode of just doing this comparative genomics research, which was very different from anything I had done in physics before. But then a colleague of mine started combining these evolutionary analyses of genomes with a model to understand the function of the genes that were evolving, right? To see how evolution is related to the function. And that was fascinating. And that way I got back a bit closer to my original training in physics by looking at mechanistic models of you know, how organisms actually work, right? And what natural selection acts upon.
Oliver Bogler
Interesting. Physics and biology are quite far apart in the sciences.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, we like to put these human-made divisions between the fields, don't we?
Martin
Yeah.
Oliver Bogler
True, but the way of thinking is also quite different, I find. I mean, you know, or maybe I'm wrong. I'm obviously just on the one side.
Martin Lercher
No, I think you're absolutely right. And I still have a way of thinking that's a bit alien to a lot of biologists. For example, I'm always looking for general patterns. I'm not so much interested in one gene. I want to know something that's true for all genes, or at least for a large group of genes. And a lot of biologists are more of the opinion, oh, no, everything's different. And there's no general patterns. And it's all very specific.
So that's a different way of thinking, but I think it's very good for science to have those differences, right? To have that diversity of thinking.
Oliver Bogler
Definitely. Itai, you earned some frequent flyer miles in your early career, right? After your bachelor's and PhD at Boston University, you did a postdoc at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and then you came back to the US for a second postdoc at Harvard. Tell us about those years.
Itai Yanai
Well. My PhD was so much fun. I really kind of blossomed in my PhD. I found the postdoc stage to be relatively much more challenging. I think that the career path of a scientist has no stage that's as challenging as the postdoc, right? Because a lot of things have to go right at the postdoc.
When on the podcast we talked with Oded Rechavi, he said that the only time that night science is maybe a less good thing to do is during the postdoc. Postdoc should be just day science. Things have to go right because, hey, you got to get a job soon. And I think it was during the postdoc stage for me that on the one hand, I was having a great time going to different labs. I essentially worked in four different labs and it was great because I met Martin in one of them and I picked up different cultures in different labs for how to do science.
But on the other hand, it was very challenging because it's not how you're supposed to do it. And even though in academia, we're so supposed to be open minded, we're really not, you know, we really are conservative in terms of what we expect people to follow in their careers. There's a kind of regimented path. And so I didn't do that path. I jumped around from lab to lab and I published papers that I was fascinated by. I was so excited about them. But it was challenging in the sense that I didn't have like a big Nature paper.
And I think probably Martin could, could say even more about what I was like back then, because he knew me. And I think he would say that I was maybe a creative person, but it wasn't clear that I would make it, because...
Martin Lercher
Yeah, but looking back, you know, I actually while you were talking, I was really tempted to just interrupt you and comment on what you were saying, because you're saying that, you know, maybe the postdoc stage is not when you should be creative. But really, when you look at your postdoc stage, right, so you haven't actually told that story. But you started off with your PhD as doing computational work, right? You were an evolutionary biologist who, you know, did comparative genomics, you're doing computations. And then during your postdoc, you suddenly decided you wanted to be an experimental developmental biologist, right, which was like something totally different, like really nothing to do.
Itai Yanai
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Martin Lercher
Yeah. No, but now if you look back, right, it was challenging, but you're doing some awesome stuff now. That wouldn't be possible if you didn't combine those two different things.
Itai Yanai
And by the way, this is what friends are for, you see? But Martin encourages me like this. Thank you, Martin.
Oliver Bogler
So if you'll permit, both of you have crossed fields. Martin, in a broad way from physics to biology, but Itai, you also within biology, many different kinds of fields, right? Computational science, very different from developmental biology. And you're also champions of night science and this sort of different way of thinking. Is that a statistical coincidence or what are your thoughts?
Martin Lercher
Well, the sample size is small, so it's hard to say.
Itai Yanai
I know what you mean. And I do wonder sometime whether there are other kinds of scientists that perhaps have more discipline and patience than I do and Martin does. And they do stay in one field their whole career and they become experts. And those people are not to be ridiculed, they're actually the ones that get the Nobel prizes. They're doing fantastic work. And I do wonder if they would champion the ideas that we're putting forth far less. Maybe they do think it's something to be said about staying in your lane and not moving around and actually not being distracted by other fields.
Here's one model that we can consider. Science has two kinds of people. There are the specialist and the generalist. If that's true, then I would just argue that you need both. And right now in our funding climate and publishing, schemes and the basic culture of science right now is such that it really is biased in favor of the specialists. You could say we're just a little bit out of balance, out of whack. And so maybe you can see the work that Martin and I are doing as trying to realign the culture so that there are also these generalists.
Martin Lercher
Yeah. I would like to add a footnote, Itai, to what you said, because you said, you know, if you're a specialist in one very specific thing, you know, those are the people who get the Nobel prizes. And it's true, of course, that's a great way to get a Nobel prize.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, you're right.
Martin Lercher
But you can also get a Nobel prize, and that happens also frequently if you cross fields, right, and you bring things together that nobody put together before.
Itai Yanai
That's true.
Oliver Bogler
But I mean, setting aside the Nobel Prize, when you think about, I mean, I'm still rooting for both of you.
Itai Yanai
You're like, what's up with these scientists? They're obsessed with the Nobel Prize. That's all they talk about.
Oliver Bogler
When you think about more quotidian ways that this manifests in our lives, like peer review, right? You have a grant or a paper under submission. I mean, I often feel that the specialists in Itai's classification are, can be sometimes the dominant voices in those kinds of settings, right?
Itai Yanai
Oh yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah. And a lot of times the specialists do not welcome with open arms the generalists coming into their fields with new ideas. And that's something that I experience a lot. I think about it a lot. What can we do to the culture of science? And you know what, I feel it sometimes myself when I work on a problem for a long time. For example, I was thinking for a long time, a long time ago about the relationship between sequence evolution and gene expression evolution. I was thinking about this for a long time. And then I remember this one group, they came at it from a totally different field because they had this technology and they came at it. And I remember feeling a little bit like, oh, they don't know what they're doing. They're you know, who do they think they are? They're not even citing the literature right. And oh, this, this is not new. And I really, I, and so I channel that whenever I come into a new field, I remember what it's like to be on the other side. And I try to be more respectful by reaching out to the experts and talking with them. And just a lot of it is, is psychological and, and you know, good old fashioned human tact.
Oliver Bogler
Yes, yeah, and it's social behavior, right? I mean, we are a group, we know each other, and then here comes this new person. Who is this person?
Itai Yanai
Outsiders, yeah, who do they think they are?
Oliver Bogler
I mean, in my world, that often, the pain point that we're describing is often around physician scientists who are trying to be both on the clinical side and on the science side. And so, we're very concerned about these people who do clinical work and research because they're trying to succeed in two very competitive and very complicated worlds. And so, you know, it's just something we think a lot about.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, there are a lot of different cultures, the MDs, the PhDs, the MD/PhDs.
Oliver Bogler
So another question that came to my mind as you were talking about is reading, scientific reading, right? What kind of science people read? And that's a question that I think about a lot, right? We're all pretty good at reading in our sort of narrow field, but often the best ideas, and this kind of connects back to the night science conversation, right? You can get ideas from other people, but how do you do that? How do you, given that we're all pretty much overwhelmed by the literature and everything else, how do you put interesting papers in front of people that might encourage them to think more broadly or orthogonally about their research?
Itai Yanai
Yeah, you know, I I think there's a there's a big problem that we don't talk so much about lately that people don't read as much anymore in the usual sense. I think I see it with myself. I remember I used to just sit down and read a paper from beginning to end. That's becoming more and more rare. And I think about why that happens. I think a lot of us are getting used to taking in results in a more superficial way, say on Twitter, there'll be like a tweet-torial or at a conference, you just hear a 15 minute talk about it. And so we're gaining breath, but lacking the depth on particular topics. And I don't know so much what to do about that.
I think, you know, Martin touched upon this earlier when he said, look, we were writing these editorials. And we notice actually people listen to the podcast more. So people are taking in information in a very different way. And it's interesting to see what's happening. I think we're in this state of flux where right now what seems to happen is the paper as you publish it is fully read by actually an exceedingly small number of people. And yet the gist of it, the content, the main idea, that can get more traction. So I don't know, what do you think, Martin?
Martin Lercher
I think that's true, of course. But Oliver, your question was, how can we encourage people to read more broadly? At least that's how I understood your question. And I think one way of doing that is to encourage people to read popular science books, which are generally more entertaining than the average paper. So it's easier to read them. And they might not give you all the details and maybe some of the things they say in that book might not be totally accurate. But they still give you a good idea of the kind of things that people think about and the kind of tools that people have in other fields. And then when you come across something where you think, oh, maybe this thing that I read about could be useful, then you can dig into it more deeply and figure out is it really going to help you. But it's a great way to broaden your horizons scientifically.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, but I mean, I think popular science is great. I love popular science. But don't you see that people aren't reading books as such anymore? Like, isn't that, I don't know what, for example, I don't know if it's worth our time to write that many more books. Maybe we just need to realize that that's not what the people are actually tuning into.
Oliver Bogler
Well, I'm not sure we're going to solve that one in this conversation. So let me close out by asking you both, what advice are you giving to the early career scientists, the grad students, the postdocs in your research teams, given everything we've talked about?
Itai Yanai
I mean, I tell the folks in my lab that while there seems to be this urgency that a person feels when they come in to pick a problem right away and start working. You know, we all want to be efficient. We all want to demonstrate that we're doing stuff. But really, what ends up happening is you pick a project over the course of two weeks, and then you work on it for four or five years.
So this asymmetry between the shortness of time that you took to decide the problem and then, and so, and what if you pick the wrong one? So what I really encourage people to do when they come to my lab, as I said, take some time. I don't want you to actually choose any project before three months are up. Just think for three months and then, and, and that seems to make a world of difference because if you choose too fast, it could be a fateful decision. I think we really need to focus more, as we say in our workshop, don't we Martin, focus more on the questions than on the answers.
Martin Lercher
Yeah. So, the advice that I would give to people is don't pick a problem where you know exactly how to solve it, where the path from here to the thesis that you're going to write is all laid out and there's a high probability that you will really follow that path. I mean, of course, there's typically a project plan, but in an interesting project, you're never going to get to the end point of that plan. You're going to get to some much more interesting place.
So the advice I would give is don't pick the first type of problem. Pick something really interesting. And of course, at the end, you'll have to write a thesis and you have to submit a paper or two. But, you know, there'll be something that you can publish. There'll be something, you know, even if the problem, even if the project doesn't go as well as we'd want to, because of course it's risky to do something that's interesting, but there's still going to be something that you can write up and something that's going to earn you your PhD.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, also, if I could just add to that, you know, when you're in this thick of it of the project and you had the plan and now you're confused by the way it's going, I think the most important advice is to just be open to a change, because a lot of us like to stick to the core, stick to the plan. And there could be like some psychological dissonance, psychological dissonance in saying well, I went to all this trouble of getting this data set but now I'm going to do something totally different then does that mean that I wasted my time before? It might look like that, but really it's this openness to realize that there's now a new direction and to go for it That makes all the difference.
Martin Lercher
Yeah, and maybe one more thing that I would like to add is do something that you're really excited about. I mean, if you're not excited about the science that you do, it's not going to be good.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, it's hard enough.
Itai Yanai
Exactly.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
Now it's time for a segment we call Your Turn because it's a chance for our listeners to send in a recommendation that they would like to share. If you're listening, then you're invited to take your turn. Send us a tip for a book, a video, a podcast, or a talk that you found inspirational or amusing or interesting. You can send these to us at NCIICC@NIH.gov. Record a voice memo and send it along. We may just play it in an upcoming episode.
Now I'd like to invite our guests to take their turn. Let's start with you, Martin.
Martin Lercher
Well, we've talked a couple of times during this conversation about the scientist Daniel Kahneman, who sadly passed away recently. And the podcast that we recorded with him was really inspiring. But we felt that we knew him very well before the podcast because we both read his wonderful book, Thinking Fast and Slow.
Actually, Itai recommended that book to me and he was saying, you know, this is the operating manual of your brain, right? That's how he introduced that book to me. And I totally agree with that. I think it's a wonderful description of how humans think, you know, how we have those two systems, the intuitive one where we are creative, where we come up with ideas, which is very fast. And then the rational one where we execute thoughts very carefully, very deliberately, that is much slower. And they both work very well for different purposes. And it's really interesting to see that explained on a scientific level. So, I really love that book and I've given it to a lot of my friends. And so that's what I'd really recommend to read.
Oliver Bogler
Great recommendation. Thank you. Itai.
Itai Yanai
Yeah, so I want to tell you about this book called The Artist's Way that I started reading. It's by Julia Cameron and it was published 32 years ago. So it's an old book. Now the book has a spiritual side that personally for me, I don't really relate to, but I just want to mention two things in this book that really caught my attention. She gives two pieces of advice for how to be creative.
One is called the morning papers. And that is that first thing you do every day is write three pages. Even if you don't feel like writing, even if you have nothing to write about, make yourself write three pages. So I couldn't do it in the morning. I do it more in the evening. That's when I have more time. And I don't know what she means by three pages. So what I do do, and I find it really helpful is I open a Word document, and at the bottom, it tells me how many words I've been writing. And I just try to get to 1000 words. I think 1000 words is about three pages. And I force myself to write. And every time the same thing happens. At the beginning, I don't know what I'm going to write about. I'm so frustrated. And I'm like, how am I going to do it this time? And then a magical thing happens over the hour. It takes me about an hour to do it. Is that I'll discover something. I'll have like an idea and it actually happens because I force myself to write a thousand words.
Then the second thing she says in the book is you should take what's called the artist's walk. Force yourself to just take a walk with yourself alone and you're just thinking about what it is that you've been writing about and just reflect on it. And I've been doing that lately and it's been really interesting. So I don't necessarily recommend the book. But I recommend these two tips.
Oliver Bogler
That's fantastic. I mean, it's how do you get your own mind to work in different ways? Right. Really interesting. Really interesting. I'd like to make a quick recommendation myself as well. I would like to actually recommend the Night Science podcasts. If you enjoyed our conversation today at all, you're going to enjoy those episodes a lot more. That's of course it's hosted by our guests. Each conversation is unique. The focus is not primarily on the science that their guests do, but on their, how they come up with ideas, their creative process and how they think. And that makes them, the conversations endlessly fascinating and universally accessible. You don't actually have to be an expert in the science of the guest in order to benefit and enjoy their comments on creativity. So I recommend that highly and give it a listen.
So let me thank you both very much for your generosity with your time and sharing what you were doing for Night Science and about your careers. Really, really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you.
Itai Yanai
Thank you, Oliver, I enjoyed it too.
Martin
Yeah, thank you, Oliver. It was a lot of fun to talk with you about these issues.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.
We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are welcome. And you are invited to take your turn and make a recommendation to share with our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected].
Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training. It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar.
Join us every first and third Thursday of the month wherever you listen – subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.
If you have questions about cancer or comments about this podcast, you can email us at [email protected] or call us at 800-422-6237. And please be sure to mention Inside Cancer Careers in your query.
We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.
-
In this episode, host Oliver Bogler speaks with NCI fellows live at the American Association for Cancer Researchers (AACR) Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. They share their science, career path, and thoughts on attending the AACR annual meeting.
Show Notes:
· American Association for Cancer Researchers (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024
Wayne Lawrence, Dr.P.H.,M.P.H. , Research Fellow, Metabolic Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "Severe housing cost burden and premature cancer mortality by state Medicaid expansion status"
Sonam Tulsyan, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Fellow, Laboratory of Translational Genomics, Michael Dean Research Laboratory, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "A high rate of episomal HPV16 is present in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma tumors by long-read whole genome sequencing"
Patricia Erickson, M.P.H., Predoctoral Fellow, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "Carbaryl use and cancer incidence in the agricultural health study - An updated analysis"
Katrina Jia, Postbaccalaureate Fellow, Oncogenomics Section, Center for Cancer Research, NCI Abstract Title: "Endogenous HiBiT-tagging of PAX3-FOXO1 reveals downregulation of the fusion oncogene by CDK inhibitors and has synergy with vincristine"
Jazmyn Bess, M.S., Postbaccalaureate Fellow and iCURE Scholar, Clinical Genetics Branch, Trans-Divisional Research Program, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "Impact of delayed processing on cfDNA quantity and quality using STRECK cfDNA tubes: Connect Pilot Study" Connect for Cancer Prevention Study Intramural Continuing Umbrella of Research Excellence (iCURE)Program
Deborah Tadesse, B.S., Postbaccalaureate Fellow, Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology Branch, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, NCI Abstract Title: "Interaction between solvent exposure and genetic susceptibility and risk for bladder cancer"Ad: NanCI - Connecting Scientists mobile application
TRANSCRIPT
Oliver Bogler
Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI's Center for Cancer Training.
Today, we're doing something a bit different – we are talking to people at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. This meeting is one of the high-points of the calendar for people working to end cancer as we know it for all, and it is truly big tent – at the April 2024 conference in San Diego, over 22,000 people registered to attend.
AACR is a strong community of over 55,000 people and 53% are Associate Members who, according to the AACR website, are young laboratory scientists and physicians-in-training (graduate students, medical students and residents, and clinical and postdoctoral fellows). I’ve been a member since my postdoc days – and I am proud of the way AACR welcomes and supports early career individuals.
There is a lot going on at the AACR annual meeting – far too much to cover in this episode – check out AACR.org to learn more. We are going to focus in on one of the most important elements of a scientific conference – the opportunity it gives to scientists to present their work to their peers. And specifically, we will visit with NCI fellows at their poster sessions.
Because of this format we won’t have a Your Turn segment – Your Turn will be back next time.
Let’s start by meeting some of our fellows and hearing about their science.
So I'm speaking with Wayne Lawrence, who's here presenting his poster. You are a research fellow at NCI. Right, Wayne?
Wayne Lawrence
Yes, I am a research fellow.
Oliver Bogler
So tell me, where in the NCI are you?
Wayne Lawrence
I'm in the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, specifically in the Metabolic Epidemiology Branch.
So all my research seeks to understand why are certain people more likely to be diagnosed with cancer, and why is the mortality proportion greater amongst certain populations than others? So what role does the social environment contribute to disparities in cancer outcomes? So part of my work here, for example, is I want to examine the role of severe housing cost burden on premature death due to cancer. So we know that in the United States, more and more people are spending more of their household income on housing. So we've seen that recently, there's been an increase in people expending 50% or more of their income on housing, which we know that if you spend that much on housing, you’re more likely to sacrifice seeking medical care or other basic needs to thrive.
Oliver Bogler
Right, you just don't have money for your medicines or to see the doctor.
Wayne Lawrence
Exactly. So I want to see among individuals that reside in areas with high housing cost burden is that associated with an increased risk and premature deaths due to cancer? So what we did is that we pulled data from the American Community Survey, and we pulled housing cost burden national throughout the entire United States.
We see that in the coastal areas, both East Coast and West Coast and parts of the south areas, they had that highest quintile of severe housing cost burden. So we wanted to see is that associated with increased risk of premature cancer mortality.
What we observed is that compared to areas that the lowest severe housing cost burden, so lowest number of people that spend less than 50% of their household income on housing, compared to them, those who reside in the highest quintile had an increased risk of all-cause mortality.
Oliver Bogler
What are the practical implications?
Wayne Lawrence
So, my work, I guess, at the end of day is to provide evidence to show to highlight populations that are disadvantaged or structurally marginalized to say, hey, this is a group that we have not truly examined, or this is a group that is disproportionately burdened by cancer and disease. And we try to gather information and hopefully to pass on to inform policy or interventions more specifically.
So, my master's and doctorate are in public health in epidemiology and with a focus in cancer epidemiology. But my training at the end of the day is in social epidemiology, so I examine why does where you live, work, age, play, how does that affect your quality of life, of disease risk and long-term survival?
Oliver Bogler
Fantastic. And if I can ask, do you already have plans for your next step?
Wayne Lawrence
Yes, I'm getting ready or am in the process of preparing to apply for tenure track positions. I've been fortunate to get some recruitment letters. So I'm gonna start seeing what's out there.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
Next I caught up with Sonam Tulsyan, postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Michael Dean's lab in laboratory of Translational Genomics in the Center for Cancer Research.
Sonam Tulsyan
Okay, I'm presenting on high rate of episomal HPV 16, which I found in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. I have taken 16 head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. These are fresh frozen tumor biopsies, and out of 10 samples I found 8 to be episomal, and 2 to be HPV negative.
And I've also done the whole genome distribution of the CNV burden. And I found that there is a gain of chromosome 3q and chromosome 5q. And sometimes some activities also going on in chromosome 8, and chromosome 12 over here.
It's causing chromosome duplications, ploidy. And then basically the chromosome integrates at E1 E2, and which is which are responsible for the E6 is E7 gene activation.
Oliver Bogler
And is that then associated with the development of cancer?
Sonam Tulsyan
Yes, especially for oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma. So this is a special subtype of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma, where HPV… it is basically dependent on HPV. HPV infection.
Oliver Bogler
And so this knowledge that you've developed, will that lead to better screening or more prevention, how can you apply this practically?
Sonam Tulsyan
This is responsible for better screening.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
All right, we're talking with Patricia Erickson, who is a graduate student at the University of Maryland and doing her research at the NCI. Tell us about your work.
Patricia Erickson
Yes. So for my, my poster here, and my dissertation research is focused on pesticide exposures, and risk of cancer and specifically, I was looking at carbaryl. And I did another project looking at telomere length, but today carbaryl and it's a pesticide that's used residentially and agriculturally. And so I looked at a host of different cancer sites, I think about 30, and did different analysis for and I found some really interesting findings for stomach cancer and aggressive prostate cancer.
Oliver Bogler
Okay, so this it's an insecticide. So it's primarily coming into our food chain, is that kind of what's happening or food supply?
Patricia Erickson
I'm looking at it in terms of occupational exposure.
Oliver Bogler
Oh, people were spraying it onto the field. Sorry, OK.
Patricia Erickson
Yes, people whore are spraying it, but you could go to Home Depot and buy it and spray it yourself. So oh, there's potential to be exposed through dietary sources to residential sources, and then occupational ways as well.
Oliver Bogler
Okay. And what and what did you find? Did you find that it was a significant risk factor?
Patricia Erickson
Yep. So for stomach cancer, I found that those who are in the highest exposure category had about a twofold increased risk of stomach cancer, compared to the non-users. It is based on small numbers, okay. But there was something there. And then when I lagged the exposure by five years, which means I just count the exposure five years prior to the diagnosis, we're still seeing about a twofold increased risk of stomach cancer.
Oliver Bogler
So I mean, stomach cancers, probably not that common, but a twofold increase is significant.
Patricia Erickson
Yeah, it's a pretty big deal. Yeah.
Oliver Bogler
So what do you think this should lead to? Should we ban this compound? Or should it just be handled with more care?
Patricia Erickson
I think we don't know enough yet. So my next step, there's some evidence that suggests that when carbaryl reacts with nitrate, it forms this compound known as n-nitroso-carbaryl. And that's previously been associated with gastric cancer in rats, and it's shown to be mutagenic. And you can be exposed through drinking water, to nitrates in drinking water and red meat. And so my next step is kind of to look at some if I have enough numbers, to look at dietary exposures to nitrates, and kind of parse out that association a bit more.
Oliver Bogler
You told me just a moment ago, before we started taping that you are defending very soon.
Patricia Erickson
Yes, in five days.
Oliver Bogler
In five days, that is very soon! So by the time our listeners hear this, you will have defended
Patricia Erickson
Yes.
Oliver Bogler
That's fantastic. I wish you all the best with that. And do you already have a next step in mind?
Patricia Erickson
I do. I'm going to do a postdoc at the Huntsman Cancer Institute.
Oliver Bogler
In Utah…
Patricia Erickson
In Salt Lake City. Yeah.
Oliver Bogler
Very nice. Very nice. Why the Huntsman?
Patricia Erickson
It kind of happened. I wasn't looking for it. But a couple people had sent me the job posting. And that was the third time this group came on my radar. And I took it as a sign. I emailed them, they responded. And three weeks later, I went out for an interview and got offered the position and fell in love. And now moving to Salt Lake City.
Oliver Bogler
And you know already what you're going to be working on?
Patricia Erickson
Um, yeah, the group will be joining does a lot with colorectal cancers. So that will be the focus but haven't figured out exactly what projects.
Oliver Bogler
But again, sort of exposure, epidemiology type research, or is it something completely different?
Patricia Erickson
Potentially both? It could be some exposures. It could be shifting gear. Yeah.
Oliver Bogler
So this is the time to shift gear when you're when you go for postdoc, right.
Patricia Erickson
Yup.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
Alright, I'm talking with Katrina Jia. She is in the Center for Cancer Research and you're presenting a poster tell us about your research.
Katrina Jia
So our research is on rhabdomyosarcoma, which is the most common soft tissue childhood sarcoma, and it's on the alveolar subtype, which is most commonly characterized by PAX3-FOXO1. And we wanted to find small molecule compounds that suppress the PAX3-FOXO1 levels, and we to do that we have to directly monitor those levels. So we tagged PAX3-FOXO1 with a HiBiT tag, which is a small fragment of the NanoLuc luciferase enzyme. So when you add LgBiT and a substrate, it luminesces.
And then we validated that it was actually tagged PAX3-FOXO1. And you can see like the HiBiT tagged cell lines are closely related to the parental cell lines compared to like, fusion negative cell lines, by RT-PCR.
Oliver Bogler
So it's kind of a way of screening for drugs, right?
Unknown Speaker
Is makes it easy to screen like a whole bunch of drugs.
Oliver Bogler
Okay, so like high throughput screening? Okay, so where did the drugs come from, that you're interested in?
Katrina Jia
Yeah. So we used the MIPE 5.0 drug library.
Oliver Bogler
OK what is MIPE? I've never heard of MIPE. Sounds like an acronym.
Katrina Jia
I don’t remember the acronym, exactly, but it is a library of compounds with known mechanisms of action mechanisms. And then also, most of them are in clinical trials or FDA approved already.
Oliver Bogler
So, really drugs that you could take to the clinic pretty quickly.
Katrina Jia
Yeah, hoping that it can translate. And then we wanted to narrow down our screen to drugs that downregulated PAX3-FOXO1before the cells died. So we did that in two cell lines. And we found that like a lot of CDK inhibitors were part of that screen.
Oliver Bogler
So, CDK, that's a cyclin dependent kinase right?
Katrina Jia
And then we wanted to combine it with like an already known treatment like either vincristine or irinotecan , but we have more data for vincristine.
Oliver Bogler
So, traditional chemotherapeutics?
Katrina Jia
So you can see like, 0.33 nanomolar and 37 and below for TGO2, there are synergistic at those doses. And those are the doses like right under the IC50s for both, okay, single drugs.
Oliver Bogler
That’s encouraging.
Katrina Jia
Yeah, that's promising.
Oliver Bogler
Tell me a little about your career. Your postbaccing now but you're on your way to medical school, right?
Katrina Jia
Yes, in July.
Oliver Bogler
So where are you going?
Katrina Jia
I'm going to the University of Arizona, Phoenix. That's where I'm originally from.
Oliver Bogler
Okay. Okay, fantastic. And then are you planning a career in medicine or also having medicine and research together?
Katrina Jia
Right now medicine I'm not too sure like, how much research I can get involved in I mean, I would like to but okay, I know. Yeah. And I don't like really know what specialty I want to go.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, you got to give yourself some time to choose. Will it be, might it be oncology, it could be oncology?
Katrina Jia
Yeah, I was thinking of oncology or like cardiology, I'm not sure yet. Those are like the two things I kind of know about.
Oliver Bogler
Okay, fantastic.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
All right, I'm here with Jazmyn Bess at her poster. Jazmyn, tell me about the research you're sharing here in AACR.
Jazmyn Bess
Yeah, so the Connect for Cancer Prevention Study wanted to conduct a pilot looking at how processing time impacts cell free DNA quality and quantity. And so the Connect for Cancer Prevention Study is a prospective cohort where we're looking to recruit participants between 30 and 70, from 10 different health care systems across the US. And so we're hoping to monitor them over time to understand the etiology of cancer as well as being informed about prevention as well as understanding early cancer detection. And so liquid biopsy, of course, is a promising cancer detection technology that Connect is interested in incorporating into our baseline collections.
Oliver Bogler
Why is that? Why is liquid biopsy so exciting?
Jazmyn Bess
So liquid biopsy, of course, can detect cancer in the blood as well as monitor tumor progression over time. And so being able to incorporate this technology is very crucial, because this will help to detect cancer early on, as well as you know, helping us to understand where people are in terms of stages of cancer. And so it's a really big public health impact.
Oliver Bogler
So in the future, there might be you might go to your, your, your general doctor, your family doctor, and they take blood for a bunch of reasons. And then they could also do a test to see if there's any reason to maybe suspect that there's cancer. Is that the kind of scenario you're hoping to? Right?
Jazmyn Bess
Yes, yeah.
Oliver Bogler
And then, of course, also, if you're already a patient, following your progression through through treatment, and how the cancer behaves, right? Correct. So this critical that, you know, when you take a blood sample, how it fares between taking it and testing it, that's what you're focused on. So what did you find?
Jazmyn Bess
So what we found was that processing time doesn't meaningfully impact cell-free DNA quality and quantity, which is good. And so we are underway to do a second pilot, when we are going to look at other pre analytical variables, as well as other tube types, and other QC assays to see the optimal conditions for doing this local biopsy assay.
Oliver Bogler
So lots of details. And I guess the reason you're doing this now is that then when Connect really scales up, you want to make sure that you're doing it in the best way.
Jazmyn Bess
Exactly. Right.
Oliver Bogler
So it's really important prep work. Very cool. Very cool. So you're in the postbac program in the iCure program. What's that, like?
Jazmyn Bess
So iCure has been phenomenal. It is a great program that helps, you know, fellows who are interested in cancer health disparities to explore different research areas. And so it has been a phenomenal experience. I'm on my second year. And so being able to come here to conferences like AACR, because of iCure is phenomenal, right? You get to connect with so many different people learn the research, and just grow as a scientist, but also as a person.
Oliver Bogler
So you mentioned that your second year. So you're thinking actively about what's next. Do you have anything you can share with us on that score?
Jazmyn Bess
Yes. So I do plan to apply to doctoral programs this fall where I will be starting my PhD next fall 2025 in epidemiology.
Oliver Bogler
Okay, so you're going research. Cool. Very cool.
Oliver Bogler
All right, I'm talking with Deborah Tadesse. She's a postbac at the NCI and she's here presenting some of her research. Deborah tell us about your your science.
Deborah Tadesse
Sure. Um, so I'm in the population science, I'm in OEEB. So what I'm really doing right now is looking at the interaction between occupational exposure and genetic susceptibility and risk of bladder cancer. The majority of my work involves bladder cancer within the occupational exposures category.
Oliver Bogler
So, that's things you exposed to at work, like, like I see on your poster solvents and things like that. So if you're in the building industry or something like that,
Deborah Tadesse
Particularly for ours, it would be people who are auto mechanics. People who are exposed to like gasoline, a lot.
Oliver Bogler
Gasoline, right. And what did you find?
Deborah Tadesse
So, we found that in individuals who are exposed to occupational solvents, specifically benzene, toluene, and xylene, and the combined mixture BTX, those who also harbor some of the same genetic mutations have an increased risk of bladder cancer.
Oliver Bogler
Okay, and so what does this lead to? Does this lead to more warning labels or changes in policy or …?
Deborah Tadesse
This could definitely lead to more restrictive policies. So you … I mean, you can't change your genetics, right, you can definitely change the policies related to where you work. And when results like these come out that say that there are certain places that can increase or like certain occupations that can increase your risk of bladder cancer, it's really important for those who are in charge of creating like these, these regulations and rules, that they can understand these risks, and then implement strategies to kind of decrease these occupational exposures.
Oliver Bogler
And does it also lead to time when people might be able to do like a test to see if they're more at risk than maybe the average person?
Deborah Tadesse
That definitely could be a thing? I don't I'm not really sure as it relates to this, this study, but there definitely would be a time where you would be able to do that because it involves genetic testing. We already… since we already know that occupational exposures do, can increase your risk of bladder cancer. Doing genetic testing could also be beneficial, but it's a lot of extra work and so in individuals who are in high-risk occupations, that would be more beneficial.
Oliver Bogler
Right. Makes sense. So if you have the exposure risk, then also know if you have the genetic risk. And if you have both, then I guess you could be more vigilant. Exactly. Fantastic. So you're a postbac? Where are you going next? What's your next step for yourself?
Deborah Tadesse
So right now I'm in the current application cycle for medical school. So I'm not really sure as to where I'm going. I just know that it'll be medical school.
Oliver Bogler
OK. And do you already have an idea of what kind of medicine you want to do?
Deborah Tadesse
Yes, I want to practice oncology. But more specifically, pediatric, pediatric oncology.
Oliver Bogler
Okay, fantastic. And are you thinking of combining research with medicine in your career?
Deborah Tadesse
Definitely in the future, because I feel like that's the best thing to do translational medicine. So I am thinking of possibly adding a PhD onto it, or any sort of research component along the way, maybe even during medical school. Definitely, a possibility, because now I'm a little bit more interested in it. More experienced in it.
Oliver Bogler
You've caught the bug.
Deborah Tadesse
Exactly.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
PubMed lists over 270,000 cancer papers published in 2022 – that is a staggering 750 papers every day. It’s great that cancer research is such an active field, but it makes finding the pubs that are critical to your work a challenge. What if you had an AI that paid attention to the papers you read and suggested others as they appear in PubMed? That is exactly what the NCI is building with an app called NanCI. With me to discuss NanCI are two members of the team that are creating NanCI.
Duncan Anderson
NanCI is an app for cancer scientists and it helps them to discover the research in new ways and connect with each other and build their personal networks and share information and get to know each other. We've just launched the ability to actually chat with a piece of research, so you can actually have a conversation and ask questions about a research paper itself.
JD Wuarin
Instead of having to read the whole paper yourself, you can now simply ask questions and NanCI will answer those questions. One of the cool features we've also added is that it will read the abstract and figure out what questions you might want to ask the paper.
Duncan Anderson
We're using artificial intelligence within NanCI to help to make information easier to find and easier to understand and easier to interact with. The only information we're using is the scientific data. So the research paper, for example, we don't allow our AI to go off and answer random questions that might introduce all sorts of concerns.
JD Wuarin
And so the idea will be that eventually with NanCI straight from your pocket, you'll not only be able to chat with papers and understand what papers are about, but also based on your interest, it will suggest to you what you might want to investigate, maybe which gene mutation you might want to look at, which new disease might be related to what you're doing. And that's gonna be interesting, I think.
Duncan Anderson
If you start working in a field which you don't have a lot of experience in, it can be a bit daunting. There's a lot of information to read. We have this idea that you could tell NanCI what the field is and NanCI would go off and present you the key influential papers in that space so you can very quickly get your head around what this new field is.
So today, NanCI can be used by cancer researchers in the USA. So it's available from the Apple App Store for the iPhone. And there's a restriction on the downloads, which means that you need to have an email address associated with a cancer research institution.
[music ends]
Wayne Lawrence
Yeah. I love AACR, the energy, the excitement of folks here who are all dedicated to understanding cancer to develop interventions to both prevent cancer, but also increased cancer survivorship over time. So we're all here with one common goal, and that is to help people stop to reduce the risk of cancer and reduce mortality to cancer and being here with other folks from various fields. It's exciting, it's motivation, and I'm excited to get back to it.
Oliver Bogler
What's it like to be here?
Patricia Erickson
I think it's really exciting. As cliche as maybe that sounds. It's cool seeing all the other work and just getting exposure from I've been deep in the trenches with carbaryl for the past couple of years. And so just to take a step back and see all the other research that's being done. I think it's inspiring and just I don't know it gives me hope.
Oliver Bogler
That's fantastic. You have a lot of energy, right?
Patricia Erickson
Yeah. Great.
Sonam Tulsyan
Oh, it's a huge conference and so much science, good science to learn, and so much to see. It's awesome.
Oliver Bogler
And is this your first time at AACR or …?
Katrina Jia
This is my second your second time?
Oliver Bogler
So you are an old hand at this? What's it like to be here?
Katrina Jia
It's really like, at first it was a little overwhelming last year because I like just started and then I was here. But now like, I feel like it's crazy, just after a year, how much I've learned and like I can actually understand some of the talks. I'm like, oh, like, we do stuff that's kind of related to this. So I think that's really cool. Yeah.
Jazmyn Bess
It's been amazing. This is my first time in California. So no better way to do that. Right.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah. And the energy here. I mean, it's amazing, right?
Jazmyn Bess
Amazing.
Oliver Bogler
And are you getting lots of people stopping by your poster and asking you hard questions?
Jazmyn Bess
Yes.
Oliver Bogler
Fantastic.
Jazmyn Bess
Yes.
Oliver Bogler
Alright. So tell me, what about AACR is this is your first time?
Deborah Tadesse
My very first time.
Oliver Bogler
And how's it been?
Deborah Tadesse
It's been wonderful. This is like one of the biggest conferences I've ever been to. But it's been really fun to see kind of like, a possible future in cancer. That's everybody. I mean, a bunch of the speakers that I was listening to are MDs, or MD PhDs. So it definitely shows like the avenues and opportunities that are yet to come.
Oliver Bogler
That's great, very inspirational. Well, I wish you all the best with the applications to med school and the continuation of your research and your future. Thank you so much.
Deborah Tadesse
Thank you.
Oliver Bogler
My heartfelt thanks to our guests for allowing me to visit them during their poster sessions, for sharing their science and their career plans and their enthusiasm for the AACR Annual Meeting. Maybe I’ll see you there next year?
[music]
That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.
We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are welcome. And you are invited to take your turn and make a recommendation to share with our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected].
Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training. It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar.
Join us every first and third Thursday of the month wherever you listen – subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.
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We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.
-
In this episode, we hear from Dr. Khadijah Mitchell, an Assistant Professor of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center and a former NCI fellow. Dr. Mitchell discusses her research on lung cancer and health disparities. She highlights the importance of the menthol cigarette ban in reducing health disparities and shares her experience in advocacy work. Dr. Mitchell shares details on books she has co-authored that emphasize the significance of inclusive instruction and mentoring in science. She provides advice for those interested in careers in cancer health disparities and more.
Show Notes:
Khadijah A. Mitchell, Ph.D. Fox Chase Cancer Center Office of Community Outreach What Inclusive Instructors Do? Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching (book) Enhancing Inclusive Instruction (book)Ad: NCI Data Science Training
NCI Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis
NCI Sallie Rosen Kaplan Program
Your Turn Recommendations:
LEGO for Adults
For All Mankind TV series on Apple TV
TRANSCRIPT
Oliver Bogler
Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and we hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI’s Center for Cancer Training. Today we're talking to Dr. Khadijah Mitchell, Assistant Professor in the Cancer Prevention and Control Research Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center and Temple University in Philadelphia about her work, her professional engagement and launching a research program in an academic setting. Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make an interesting recommendation and where we invite you to take your turn.
Dr. Mitchell, welcome.
Khadijah A. Mitchell
So thank you so much, Dr. Bogler, for the invitation.
Oliver Bogler
So you joined Fox Chase in July, 2023 to pursue your research on cancer health disparities. What prompted the move?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Well, previously I was an assistant professor at a small liberal arts college and there I balanced my time with research as well as teaching. And it was just the natural evolution as my research program grew, I knew I had to shift to a research institution that would accommodate future directions that my research was going in. And so here, I'm really fortunate that we, because I'm at a comprehensive cancer center, designated by the NCI. We have an Office of Outreach and Engagement, and a lot of what I do engages underrepresented populations. And so to have that research and infrastructure to allow my work to go in any direction was really appealing to me.
Oliver Bogler
Please tell us more about your research.
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Oh, sure. So recently, I've focused my energy on lung cancer because I think a lot that we can consider lung cancer an underdog of the cancer community. We have a lot of stigma associated with this particular cancer type. So I think that there's not as large of a survivor advocate community as you may see with breast or prostate cancer. So more people actually pass away unfortunately from this type of cancer than some of those other ones can bind and we know a huge risk factor is smoking and so I have an interest in that particular type of environmental exposure but also radon which is odorless colorless gas that causes lung cancer and so right now I'm really interested in the environmental exposome and how that impacts our genome so thinking about these interactions. And, you know, I think that one powerful thing about the radon is we see that that is actually the leading cause of lung cancer in never smokers. And so I hope that these projects will help us to find either new smoking-related or radon-related biomarkers that could be risk factors and that we can change, for example, lung cancer screening guidelines and policies that will help a lot of people.
Oliver Bogler
You used the term exposome. It's not a term I've heard before, but I guess it's another “omic” . What is the exposome?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Exactly, so that's a great question before I delved into this I also did not know that So we have internal and external exposure and it literally is the sum collections of all your exposures. So whether it's chronic or acute and how that changes your biology. I've looked at genomics transcriptomics proteomics in the past and I never have integrated this exposome. So really excited about where that's going.
Oliver Bogler
So the exposome is a sort of, how should I think about it? Insults to the body like radon you mentioned, or I guess ultraviolet light or toxins. But is it also beneficial things like vitamins or is that not considered to be part of the exposome?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
It is considered to be part of the exposome. Interestingly I think it is a net-sum game. So some of the things are good and you can think of them as pro, and some are anti. And sometimes even a little exposure to things that we may think, oh, that's probably not the best for our body to be exposed to. In fact, it can prime you to repair that later on.
Oliver Bogler
So last year, the new National Cancer Plan was unveiled by the President's Cancer Panel, and in response to President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden's Moonshot goals of reducing cancer mortality by at least 50 % over the next 25 years, a big part of that will be cancer prevention. And that in turn includes further reduction in tobacco use. You've already mentioned your interest in lung cancer. In connection with that, there's been public discourse about menthol cigarettes recently. In particular, that's been a spark point. What's that debate about and what's your perspective on it and the National Cancer Plan in general?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
One I have to say I'm very excited that we are revisiting the menthol cigarette debate and the National Cancer Plan because this is not the first time we've had this debate in public discourse. And the issue is that although cigarette smoking has gone down for decades, in fact, menthol cigarette smoking has actually increased. And it's actually a third of the market. And so there have been statewide bans and some citywide bans who are trying to put forth the menthol ban. We've been successful with other types of flavorings and additives, but for some reason, the menthol has been tricky. So by the federal government stepping in and saying, we're going to protect the health of Americans, that was very significant. And so I think that it's very timely that we're having this discussion again right now because a lot of our conversations center on vaping and thinking about flavoring there and not so much in combustible tobacco. And that is still the leading cause of death and disability. And so by targeting that, we have a huge opportunity for public health.
I think that in particular for the populations that I study, the most vulnerable, they're more likely to smoke menthol cigarettes compared to others. So for example, when we look at African Americans who do smoke, 85 % of them smoke menthol cigarettes. It's a very high, when we look at veterans, youth, LGBTQ, so there are all these populations that are basically have been targeted with the menthol tobacco. And so we have a great opportunity to help reduce the risk and save those lives targeting the menthol debate. You know, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the social justice aspects of this. How do we enforce this ban? Of course, the FDA, the NIH is not an enforcement body. And so we have to think about how to be delicate and sensitive to that to those populations who are at risk.
Oliver Bogler
So I'm curious about how you pick the topics that you work on in your science. What's your creative process? How do you settle upon, as you have at this point in your career, lung cancer as the point of emphasis?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
So that's interesting. So I actually have the same process I use for creative writing. So in my spare time, I generate ideas. And so I try to use this with my science. So that includes when I am idea generating, appealing to all of my senses. So I make sure that, you know, sight, you know, smell, taste, those type of things. So that's for the aesthetic.
But then I actually like to think of big questions that maybe individuals haven't considered or new approaches. So I think that a lot of science is interdisciplinary. And sometimes we have to think of who is not at the table or what perspective is not being brought in. And maybe that's my default as a health disparities researcher. I think what am I missing? So I guess I have deference for my own knowledge. And so it tends to be that I go to the literature and I see what people are thinking about, but maybe what colleagues in different silos are looking at and how I can bridge that gap.
So, you know, I think that is something that has happened many times throughout my career is that I look at what another discipline or approach or friends in that way. And in fact, it's not just science. Sometimes I think about how humanities and social scientists view problems and whether its in salons and cafes and the way they exchange ideas and that generates energy. So I'm a high extrovert so I very much enjoy group discussions and that really gets my juices going. So that's my process.
Oliver Bogler
That's really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, so I mean, you really connect with all kinds of different inputs to try and, I guess, I don't know what the right word is, but you kind of take a bigger perspective rather than always being in the details where I'm sure you are when you're doing your analysis and things like that. And of course you do all kinds of other things. And I want to just touch on one of those right now. You've also co-authored two books. One called “What Inclusive Instructors Do? Principles and Practices for Excellence in College Teaching”. And more recently “Enhancing Inclusive Instruction”, which came out mid -March. Please tell us about these books.
Khadijah A. Mitchell
I'm a first generation college student and I had a very supportive family who poured into my love of science, but it was until I became a college student that it was my instructors that really helped guide me and kept me in the STEM pipeline. And so I guess this was my way to pay it forward by thinking about as a scientist, a full-fledged card-carrying cancer geneticist. And I will say that my experience at NIH also poured into this because I had the opportunity to participate in the science and teaching science certificate program, and I also had opportunity to teach at the FAES graduate school. And so because of that, I thought about how there was a diversity of students and learners, ages, backgrounds, visible and invisible attributes of their identity. And so that is what helped inform my desire to do the work for these books.
And these are evidence-based because as a scientist we like data. So they're nationwide studies. And in one study we asked instructors and in the other studies we actually asked the learners. And so that is what's different with the two books. The first one is getting principles and practices from instructors and the second is asking the impact of being able to assess those efforts from a learner's perspective and also as individuals who want to continue with making sure that we're being effective in our inclusive teaching and that everyone has an opportunity to learn.
Oliver Bogler
So what are the key take home messages from the two books if you might indulge me?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Sure, so I guess there are a ton of… they’re chock full of… The first one is that inclusive teachers or inclusive instructors, I should say, that they actually have a growth mindset, not a fixed mindset. And I think that translates whether you're an instructor at undergraduate, graduate, health professions. We even had lawyers and legal scholars review this book and use this in professional practice. So that is the one thing that was throughout the book, throughout discipline, stage training, adjunct, tenure track, so many different type of institutions, that they had this growth mindset and that they were willing to acknowledge the differences in their students.
And so we think about from the student perspective, they really appreciated having choice, which I think is somehow sometimes against dogma. They really loved having a choice of the type of assessment, type of learning, the way that they wanted to be addressed. But I think what bridges the two is relationship building. So both of them talked about having positive relationships in a classroom, in a laboratory setting, and how that was important.
Oliver Bogler
So in addition to doing research and writing books, you also speak on health equity quite a lot. You serve as a subject matter expert on health disparities for the American Lung Association and the LUNGevity Foundation. And you've guided government health policy in the Pennsylvania Department of Health in various roles, Office of Health Equity Advisor and so on. So tell us about the advocacy work. That sounds really important as well.
Khadijah A. Mitchell
It's wonderful when we are working in our labs and we're working with colleagues and collaborators. But I think what is really powerful is when we see that work being translated at a policy level, whether we at the local, state, or federal. And so that has been really rewarding for me. So in the last few years, like you mentioned, I've had the opportunity to lend my health equity expertise to these different divisions. And I think what has been so powerful to me is to see in real time health metrics change and health outcomes. And so particularly throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, I was able to give advice to our governor and these evidence-based recommendations were actually taken up so we could see in real time, not only the general population, but in particular cancer patients because healthcare resources were allocated in different ways. So I think that has been wonderful to me to see the way that our research is directly applied into public health practice and particularly for disease control and prevention. So it's been very exciting also to speak to my earlier point. I'm able to collaborate with colleagues from totally different backgrounds and we have points of synergy. And so there's been new collaborations that have come from even in that service for from our research. So that has been really amazing.
Oliver Bogler
Well, let's take a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk to Dr. Mitchell about her path to her current position.
[music]
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[music ends]
Oliver Bogler
And we're back. Dr. Mitchell, my favorite question. What first sparked your interest in science?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Oh, so that’s an easy question. When I was 12, a family friend went into sickle cell crisis and I asked my mother, I said, you know, his name was Phil. I said, well, how can Phil is in so much pain? And so my mother, she was my first PI. She said, look it up. Why couldn't she just tell me? So I decided, and this was before the internet, so I probably dating myself. I had a word book, encyclopedias. I couldn't find it. So I called the local hospital.
And I remember the operator said, I said, I would like to talk to someone about sickle cell, please. And she connected me with the genetic counseling clinic. And the genetic counselor that I spoke to happened to be very empathetic and kind to a young Dr. Mitchell-to-be. And she said, you seem very interested in understanding this disease. Would you like to come down and talk to me? So my mom took me to the hospital and went to the clinic. And, you know, it just so happened she was an African American woman. So that was the first African American woman geneticist that I ever met. And she said, well, if you're interested, you can volunteer here in our clinic. And so she said, you have to be 14. So two years went by, she probably thought I might not see her again, but I came back a-knockin'. And so from the age of 14 to 18, I actually volunteered in a genetic counseling clinic. And that's when I discovered my love for human genetics.
I thought, and even to this day, it's absolutely beautiful that one change can just impact our life. So I asked them all where can I go to be a great human geneticist and they said Johns Hopkins, they have a human genetics clinic and I learned about Victor McKusick who is a hero of mine. And so I said well I'm going to go to Johns Hopkins and I grew up and actually did go to Johns Hopkins and get my PhD in human genetics because of that formative experience so that's when I knew I wanted to be a scientist
Oliver Bogler
That's a phenomenal story. So I guess kudos to your mom for not answering your question.
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Exactly.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, fantastic. So you went to Johns Hopkins and you studied human genetics for your PhD. What particular aspect were you focused on?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
So I had developed a passion for cancer epigenetics and I was fortunate enough I worked with Dr. Steven Baylin… who had always read his research and even, you know, I guess one thing, our neighbor… I worked at the National Human Genome Research Institute right before I started my PhD. And I called, one day I sent him an email and I said, can I come work with you the summer before? And he said, sure. And it was just a wonderful experience that this world renowned scientists, right, would take this post-bac and start early, basically. And so I really had a great experience and I joined that lab. And so I focused on colon cancer epigenetics when I was a graduate student.
But also when I was at Johns Hopkins, because I was in our, another NCI Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, we had a center to reduce cancer health disparities there. And so I was able to get, become a trainee in the center. So although at the lab I was learning a lot about colon cancer epigenetics, I was learning about screening and engaging that population in the community in Baltimore. And so I ended up getting, along with my PhD, a certificate in health disparities and health inequality from the School of Public Health. So it was this beautiful mashup of what happened in the bench and going from bench to the bedside and understanding the translational work from Dr. Baylin. But going from the bench to the community block is what I learned to do from our Center to Reduce Cancer Disparities in our School Public Health.
Oliver Bogler
That's fascinating. And obviously that experience had a profound impact on what you're doing today, right? But I don't want to get too far ahead. I want to note that, again, while you were a graduate student and doing this health disparities work, you were also doing other things. I noticed on your CV, you were engaged as an officer of the Biomedical Scholars Association there, right? What was that about and what drew you to do that work?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
That was great. So that's another wonderful memory that I have. So one of my closest friends, Dr. Jennifer Cohen, she had founded this organization the year before I started graduate school in the School of Medicine, but there weren't any members. And so she said, you know, I've tried this last year, I had a couple people we kind of fizzled out and said, oh, we should try again.
And so I actually paired up with Dr. Cohen and we expanded the membership to include school of public health and school of nursing. So we became a tri-school organization. And I realized that there are people involved with research and cancer outcomes in these other schools as well that we should work together, Again, these disciplinary silos. And so I was the first vice president and the second president. And really, that was, I guess, my claim to fame is making us a tri-school organization. But I also started what was called Junior Biomedical Scholars, which is a mentorship program with the local high school. And so this went on to be a nonprofit organization and very, very impactful for the Johns Hopkins community. So I did a lot of mentorship in that way, mentorship that was near-peer, but also mentorship with our peers. So we had mock comprehensive exams and things like that. So we really helped one another grow from student into scientist. And I think that is.. and I've had the opportunity now as an alum to actually work with the current biomedical scholars, and we have kind of like this alumni mentorship program. So that was really great to be able to give back to my alma mater in that way.
Oliver Bogler
Fabulous. I mean, everybody acknowledges that mentoring is important, but not everybody takes the kind of action that you've taken, particularly at an early stage in your career. What drew you to that?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
So, well, to be honest, I realized that there were some mentoring relationships that I very much thrived in, and others not so much. And I started wondering, what's the secret sauce? What is the ingredient, and how can we replicate that? And I think, of course, the National Academies has a really great report on this.
But thinking about evidence-based mentorship, so the same way we think about this with our science and I think about this with teaching, is that there is evidence-based practices with mentorship. So similarly, it started with my own experiences and then wondering how can we maximize the best mentoring outcomes.
And I will say another, I guess, transformative experience for me is that when I was in graduate school and as I transitioned into my postdoctoral fellowship at NCI, I was a part of a research program, a national research program with Dr. Rick McGee, who is very well known for establishing wonderful mentorship programs at Northwestern. And this program gave me a science coach and my science coach was outside of my institution. And I also had nine other colleagues that were part of this program with me. And so we have this virtual program. We meet together in person once a year. And that was really great for me to get peer mentorship, but also to understand that our careers aren't linear. My mentor told me that. And I think there was a time where I thought it very much was rigid and had to go...
So I think that advice stuck with me throughout my career so I really much listen I guess… it's I think about my due North and what is my… and I try to follow that. Sometimes it may go around but as long as I'm guiding towards it, I need to be, I think that was great mentorship advice that I got.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, that I think makes sense. Very few people follow a logical path. And maybe in retrospect, it looks like it was natural or logical, but it doesn't feel that way necessarily while you're on it. So you mentioned you came to NCI for postdoc. And I believe at that point, you started working in health disparities full time, right? Tell us about that. What was it like to be at the NCI as a postdoc?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Yes. It was great. So I can say it was very intentional that I wanted to do a postdoctoral fellowship at the NCI because I did a fellowship previously at the NIH. And so, and again, that was when I was at the Genome Institute and I thought, well, it's such a great experience as an IRTA that I would love to go back as a postdoc. And because I was
because I was a full-fledged cancer researcher at that time. I thought, what better than the NCI? So I was very fortunate to join the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis under the helm of Dr. Curt Harris, but particularly my leader was Dr. Bríd Ryan, and Bríd was just a really great mentor to me. She was a Stadtman investigator and you know, when I told her that I had, I kind of felt like I was a cancer geneticist moonlighting as a health disparities person. And during the postdoc, I would love to marry these two. And so she truly taught me how to be an integrated molecular epidemiologist. And so I'm always grateful for that opportunity.
But more so she really encouraged my passion for science leadership. So she suggested I participate in the Sallie Rosen Kaplan program and she supported that application, and anything that really helped me grow and develop as a scientific leader. And so I just had a really great experience at the NIH. And it also allowed me to nurture my mentoring passions as well as the teaching passions. So I mentioned I taught precision medicine at FAES. I also won the NIH mentorship award. I had a summer mentee. And so it allowed that to grow and develop. So I just had all around… I think that the NCI helped me develop in the areas that are important to be a leader in science, not just the research, right?
Learn about mentoring people to manage teams, to work with groups, to collaborate. I think all of those are lifelong lessons that I carry with me now.
Oliver Bogler
You mentioned the Sallie Rosen Kaplan program, so tell us more about that, please.
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Yes. So I am a proud alum of the Sallie Rosen Kaplan program. In fact, I keep in regular contact with my cohort. So within my subgroup, we actually still meet quarterly, even though we're all around the world now. So we're in Germany, Ireland, some are still here in the US and DC. We are in academia, industry across the board. But that I guess that bond and that experience was so wonderful that we have maintained that in our professional careers post post-doc.
So I think that some of the things that were great about that program, it helped me identify strengths, but also areas to work on. So I guess it's a permanent SWOT analysis. And the one thing that stuck with me about that program is I worked very hard, you know, and sometimes I'm really really tough on myself. So I remember one of the workshop facilitators they said, you know, you should name that trait and whenever that trait comes up you should like call it out. And so my traits name is Bootcamp Betty! And sometimes when I have a million things due and I maybe not get to that one, but I did 80, Bootcamp Betty would say I can't believe you didn't get that one and I have to say Betty sit down. And I actually teach to people in my lab that I say we all sometimes have you know, these own interpersonal like conversations. And sometimes we over, I guess, look how much we're accomplishing in the impact that we're making.
And so I thought that program was great. And even my trainees now, they say, well, we would one day like to thank that facilitator from your post-doc program because it really helps them put things in perspective. And so to be honest, to realize why we do this. Like I am living my dream out loud in color. There's nothing else I would rather do on this earth. And I have to remember that, that this is something that I'm privileged to wake up and do, right? And so you may not get everything done, but there's always tomorrow.
Oliver Bogler
Given your broad experiences and your enthusiasm for your work and all the things you've done, this very, I mean, not just broad in terms of your science, but also in terms of engagement with your colleagues, what would your advice be to people listening who are maybe thinking about a career in cancer research or even a career in health disparities research?
Khadijah A. Mitchell
That’s a great question. I think two things come to mind and they're actually quotes. So I think of these quotes often. So one is from… there is, and not many people know this particular scientist. Her name was Dr. Roger Arliner Young and she was the first black woman to have a solo author Science paper. And, but so many people don't know her work. She kind of, went the way of obscurity. But one of her surviving quotes, she says, “it's not failure, but low aim that is a crime”. And I think that was so impactful to me, because there are so many people that may not feel like they can do something or are not welcome to do something. And I think that what is important is that she persisted and continued to aim high. So I think that is one thing that would be important.
And then, because of my time in Baltimore, I've actually met when he was alive Representative, Representative Elijah E. Cummings. And this is, he just was always so supportive of getting youth into science. Even the Junior Biomedical Scholars Program that I founded helped us get funding and support. And one thing he used to always say is “you must have confidence in your competence”. And I think that that is critical. So you have to know that you can do this even if nobody else has given you that confidence and I think those are the things that really stick with me.
And I guess I have to do one more bonus. Barbara McClintock. One of my favorite scientists of all time. And I think about Barbara McClintock… for so long people thought DNA does not move. There's no way. And it was decades and people didn't believe her. And she never once wavered in what she understood and in trusting her work. And I remember interviewing somebody said, well, what do you say to the people said that you couldn't do this after she got the Nobel Prize? And she says, you know, if you know you're on the right track and you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off no matter what you say. And I think that that is something that we all can resonate with all of us and we all can, you know, utilize in our careers.
Oliver Bogler
Thank you so much. Thank you. Really appreciate you sharing your science and your journey and your advice. Thank you.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
Now it's time for a segment we call Your Turn because it's a chance for our listeners to send in a recommendation that they would like to share. If you're listening, then you're invited to take your turn. Send us a tip for a book, a video, a podcast or a talk that you found inspirational or amusing or interesting. You can send these to us at nciicc@nih .gov. Record a voice memo and send it along. We may just play it in an upcoming episode.
I'd like to invite our guest to take her turn, Dr. Mitchell.
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Well, I recommend, and this is something that a new hobby of mine is Lego building for adults. And so I have a ton of Legos now. And sometimes when I'm not doing science, I'm trying to build scientific things. So double helix, I'm trying to build my favorite scientists. And so I think that has been a really great creative outlet for me. And I can actually do this with my family. So, my husband and I also go to Lego conventions now, so that is definitely a fun tip that I recommend. And I even found my neighbor has a ledge in her office, and she has a bunch of different women in science Lego vignettes.
Oliver Bogler
I think we'd love some pictures of some of those LEGOs to include in our show notes if you are willing.
Khadijah A. Mitchell
Definitely.
Oliver Bogler
Thanks. I'd like to make a recommendation as well. It's for a TV series called For All Mankind, which portrays an alternative reality with a focus on space exploration. No spoilers, but by changing a few key events early in the space race, it sets up an environment in which space exploration is faster and more continuous than it was in reality with significant impact. I found the portrayal of NASA fascinating. And while much of the so is entertainment, and in my opinion very watchable at that, the tension between this government agency and the society in which it exists is portrayed in an interesting way. You can find it on Apple TV.
[music]
That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.
We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are welcome. And you are invited to take your turn and make a recommendation to share with our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected].
Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training. It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar.
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We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.
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In this episode, we get insights from three guests - Dr. Brigitte Widemann, Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch (POB) and Special Advisor to the NCI Director for Childhood Cancer, Dr. Andrea Gross, an Assistant Research Physician, and Sneh Patel, a Postbac Fellow in the Pediatric Oncology Branch within NCI’s Center for Cancer Research. They share their perspectives on the unique challenges faced in treating pediatric cancers and why research on pediatric oncology is crucial for the overall treatment of the patient. They also emphasize the importance of collaboration and the role of patients and advocacy groups. They also share their career journey and advice for aspiring physician-scientists, and much more!
Show Notes:
· Brigitte C. Widemann, M.D.
· Andrea M. Gross, M.D.
· Sneh Patel
· NCI Pediatric Oncology Branch (POB)
· NIH Clinical Center
· My Pediatric and Adult Rare Tumor (MyPART) Network
· Cancer Moonshot
· Childhood Cancer Data Initiative (CCDI)
Ad: NCI Rising Scholars: Cancer Research Seminar Series
Your Turn Recommendations
· Ologies: Ask Smart People Stupid Questions
· The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness by Dr. Jerome Groopman
· OncoDaily.com
TRANSCRIPT
Oliver Bogler
Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute, where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler from NCI's Center for Cancer Training. Today, we're talking about research on pediatric cancers and about combining medicine and research to make advances against these devastating diseases. Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to take your turn.
So it's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Brigitte Widemann, Chief of the Pediatric Oncology Branch in the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute. She's also the head of the Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics Section and serves as special advisor to the NCI Director for Childhood Cancer. Welcome.
Brigitte Widemann
Thank you. It's great to be here.
Oliver Bogler
I'm also very excited to welcome two members of Dr. Wiedemann's research team, Dr. Andrea Gross, former heme/onc fellow, now assistant research physician in the Pediatric Oncology Branch. Welcome.
Andrea Gross
Thank you.
Oliver Bogler
And Sneh Patel, who is currently doing a post-bac and is also on the research team in pediatric oncology. Welcome.
Sneh Patel
Thank you for having me.
Oliver Bogler
Dr. Widemann. Brigitte, what are some of the unique challenges in treating pediatric cancers compared to adult cancers and how does your team address these challenges?
Brigitte Widemann
Thank you. I think the challenges are multiple -fold, but we also have made a lot of progress. One of the challenges is it's a very small patient population. It's about 1% of adult cancers. There are only around 15,000 or so cancers that occur in children and adolescents per year. Biologically, cancers in children are very different from adult cancers, but pharmaceutical companies focus on the common cancers and that makes drug development and new clinical trial sometimes very, very difficult. There are many different types of pediatric cancers, some where the progress has been tremendous and we have very high cure rates, but others where unfortunately the progress has been really lagging for the last two or three decades even, and in particular for pediatric and young adult cancer patients that have metastatic disease that has spread or that have disease that has come back after frontline treatment.
At the NIH, we work in a space where we focus on areas that may not be done by the big cooperative groups. We want to complement and synergize, and we very much build on developing intramural - extramural collaborations. And the last point I want to make, we have the wonderful NIH Clinical Center where we can bring patients from anywhere in the world. And that has been a very unique resource to study some of the very rare cancers that would be difficult to study elsewhere.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, and you mentioned the Clinical Center. So there's quite a lot of history there, right? In fact, some of the earliest breakthroughs in chemotherapy and combination chemotherapy at the clinical center in the middle of last century was made in pediatric diseases, right?
Brigitte Widemann
Absolutely, absolutely. And including leukemias. And for me, one of the big learning lessons was the researchers that then treated young kids with leukemia, they were destined to die. They used combinatorial approaches and people said, you are killing these patients with the treatment. But this was what led to combinatorial therapy, which is a lesson I always try to think of because I'm more an incrementalist. Sometimes we have to think big and be brave.
Oliver Bogler
So that work is still influencing the way the Pediatric Oncology Branch does its research today?
Brigitte Widemann
Yeah.
Oliver Bogler
Dr. Gross, do you want to elaborate on that? Andrea, please.
Andrea Gross
Just to add exactly what Brigitte said, that pediatric oncology is its own unique universe and absolutely the types of advances we've seen in the, especially in the leukemia world are the ones that we're hoping to see now in the solid tumor worlds, because, you know, as Brigitte mentioned a little bit, the survival rate for pediatric leukemia when they first started doing those studies that you mentioned was very, very low, almost zero. And now the overall survival rate for all comers of pediatric leukemias over 80%, which obviously isn't perfect and we want to do better, but it's amazing compared to what it was.
Unfortunately, some of that same progress hasn't been seen in the solid tumor space where for patients with the metastatic or relapsed refractory solid tumors and sarcomas, the outcomes are much poorer in general. And so, you know, I think we're hoping with some of the exciting advances in the last decade or so with immunotherapies, cellular therapies.
many of which have been driven by work here at the Clinical Center and elsewhere to try to make progress in some of those more difficult tumors.
Oliver Bogler
So why do you think that is? Why were leukemias more initially tractable to these sort of combinatorial approaches? And was that just lucky that people started with those diseases? If they'd started with the solid tumors, the successes would not have been the same, right?
Brigitte Widemann
No, I don't think the successes would have been the same. And we actually tried to adapt what was done in leukemia with high doses and multi-agent chemotherapy. We've made progress in solid tumors, but the one tumor that one could highlight, neuroblastoma, where we give multi-agent chemotherapy to stem cell transplants and radiation and surgery, it is a boatload of very toxic treatment and still the rates of survival are’nt nearly as good. And I think it's the biology of the disease that is different, but also getting access to the sites of disease is a very important question. One of the reasons, maybe brain tumors in particular, we haven't made much progress. So I think understanding the basic science and the biology and then using this to develop innovative treatments, it's a key component. But yes, you're right, Oliver.
Andrea Gross
You're talking to a couple of people who are focused on the solid tumor space, you know I think from the leukemia side, one of the big advantages they have is they can look at their tumor all throughout the course of treatment. It's much easier to access a piece of the tumor. You can get it from blood, from bone marrow, to really see what's happening at every stage of treatment. And they've been able to use that knowledge and learn about the biology of what happens in response to treatment, what's happening in resistance.
With solid tumors, that becomes much trickier because you have to do a biopsy, which is often an invasive procedure. And until recent years, honestly, unless it was for clinical diagnostic purposes, we often didn't do research biopsies for children because it was considered not necessary. But I think there's been a real shift in the understanding of how important getting an understanding of that basic biology is. And so even when there might not be a direct clinical indication having, for patients who are on research protocols, regular biopsies at the time of progression or on treatment so we can really get a better sense of the biology of what's happening is something that I think is going to be more and more important and maybe one of the reasons the leukemia side has been able to make more progress than the solid tumor side.
Oliver Bogler
You can close the loop between what you're doing clinically and the response in the biology more quickly. So, Sneh, let me turn to you. You are doing more foundational research and investigation on these tumors, and I think you're focusing on NF1. Can you tell us what is NF1 and what's the focus of your work?
Sneh Patel
Yes. So NF1, which is neurofibromatosis type 1, is a cancer predisposition syndrome that affects about one in 3,000 to one in 5,000 children in the U.S. And it is a disease that is caused due to a dysfunction of this gene called NF1 that leads to the overactivation of this specific pathway that causes these solid tumors to grow.
NF1 has been characterized by a spectrum of benign tumors to the really aggressive malignant peripheral nerve chief tumors, MPNST, which are the highly aggressive sarcomas, which have really low survival rates. Dr. Gross and Dr. Widemann are experts in NF1 along with the team that we have here at the NIH, but it's a disease that we've been working on and I've been doing some clinical research to understand the spectrum of these tumors and understand the clinical indications of malignant transformation and how we can risk assess and intervene at certain stages to prevent the disease to progress into the malignant form.
Oliver Bogler
So when a patient presents with NF1 or when you have, maybe they have knowledge about their genetic inheritance, right? And so maybe they know their risk. I guess what you're saying is one of the questions is how will this individual patient progress or what will be their fate, so to speak? And that's what you're trying to understand to how you can more accurately predict it. Did I understand that correctly?
Sneh Patel
Yes, I think the main question, the fundamental question in the NF space is to risk assess and determine which lesions are going to turn malignant. And that's a very difficult thing to do because of a multitude of reasons. But correct, that is something that we're trying to understand more from the biology to the clinical phenotypes that we see.
Oliver Bogler
So how does that NF1 work fit into the bigger mission of the branch? I think there's a general emphasis, right, Brigitte, on predisposition syndromes and similar things.
Brigitte Widemann
Yeah, so we try to, at least that's how I look at it, we would not want to do things that are done at the outside. We would not want to reduplicate and we couldn't, you know, trials for newly diagnosed leukemia patients where there's standard therapy. We try to focus, I think, very much in line with the mission of the CCR to solve problems that are neglected, they have an unmet need, where we can make a difference. So that would include genetic tumor predisposition. And in particular, I think because these patients need follow up over time. And that's one thing we can do so well at the NIH with natural history studies, where we indeed, like we have followed patients, I've been here so long for 20 plus years. I've seen them when they were three years old and when they've become young adults. And I've seen a number of patients where the benign tumor very quickly turned to malignant tumor. And that's devastating to see. So for us being able to follow, like with longitudinal volumetric MRI and things that would be very expensive at the outside, there would be no clinical indication. And there's no grant that gives you 20 years to study something. I think we have to really look at how can we use the resources that we have to advance and so genetic tumor predisposition is one example.
Oliver Bogler
So I know that you're also a founding member of the NCI's Rare Tumor Initiative and co -leader on the Cancer Moonshot that was funded for pediatric and adult tumor, the My Pediatric and Adult Rare Tumor Network, MyPART. Can you tell us about that initiative and how that fits into the bigger picture?
Brigitte Widemann
Yeah, it kind of a lot of what we learned with NF1 getting after really hard work to the success learning that yes, we can understand the natural history, this helps in drug approval. In finding the first medical treatment for these tumors, we thought we have to expand this to other rare tumors. And so we developed the natural history study for other rare tumors and have built some impressive cohorts with Dr. Wedekind in chordoma and Dr. Del Rivero in adrenocortal carcinoma.
I firmly believe you need champions. Like it takes a lot of work to do NF1 alone. So the more champions we can have, the better. And a new effort that we're currently working on with the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative is to develop a national study where hopefully there are multiple national champions that take on the more than 200 rare cancers that we have so that we can make more progress.
Oliver Bogler
Right, you mentioned the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative, which is another big initiative.
Brigitte Widemann
Yes, yeah, it's to provide like the foundational infrastructure needed so that this can actually be meaningfully studied and we don't redevelop natural history studies for every, every single tumor. Yeah.
Oliver Bogler
So, Andrea, I know that part of the MyPART is also patients and advocacy groups. I wonder if you could comment on their role in the work that you're doing.
Andrea Gross
Patients and advocacy groups are just an essential part of everything that we do in POB and in MyPART and in all of our work. I work particularly with the NF community and the patient advocates are an integral part of every step of the way. We work closely with them when we're in the design phase of trials. I'm part of a group where we work with patient representatives who help us design endpoints and determine what is meaningful for them, right? Because if you're going to design a clinical trial and you want to measure something, you want to make sure that the thing you're measuring is meaningful to the patient, right? Obviously, tumor shrinkage is an easy one, but what if you're trying to measure and see if the pain improves or if overall quality of life improves? Well, what measures are you going to use and are they asking the right questions?
And so getting the patients involved in the process early on in research has been hugely important in our rare disease community because these patients and their families are really the experts about these rare diseases, right? They are the ones who are living it and experiencing it and we are learning from them constantly.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, and I imagine that in the realm of pediatric cancers, there is a very strong advocacy community. I mean, nobody wants to see anybody with cancer, but seeing a kid with cancer is many, many times worse. And of course, their parents, I'm sure, and their families are engaged, right?
Andrea Gross
Absolutely, absolutely. And I will say, pediatric cancer in general, because all pediatric cancers are rare, but especially in some of these rare disease communities, I think there's just a tight network of patients and families, because again, they end up having to be the experts in many cases. If you have a physician in the community who sees one case of something in their entire career, those patients and those families really end up having to advocate and learn about their condition and are such a valuable resource for us as we're trying to learn about how we can help them.
Oliver Bogler
So Sneh, as I'm going to say, the newest member of the pediatric oncology field in this conversation today, I wonder what your perspective is on the biggest needs and areas of investigation?
Sneh Patel
Yes, as you mentioned, so I recently joined the pediatric oncology branch and I've been very fortunate to work under the mentorship of Dr. Widemann and Dr. Gross. And I think I've been very fortunate to be exposed to the research and the clinical side of things and how they're combined here at the Clinical Center.
And so I think to answer the question, one of the biggest needs that I've seen, I guess would be the CCDI initiative that you mentioned about the data pulling and working and collaborating with other institutions to increase the number of samples that we have and the data that we have on these patients. We've already mentioned the point about these being really rare diseases. And I think for a lot of the analyses and experiments that we try to do, we sometimes don't have the statistical power or just enough numbers to draw meaningful conclusions and inferences. And I think these different data initiatives and different institutions coming together has been a huge need that I've seen. And the collaboration in the pediatric oncology space in general has been very inspiring.
Oliver Bogler
Brigitte, the same question to you, given the unique sort of perspective that you've described for intramural research at NCI. Where do you think that the Pediatric Oncology Branch should be, let's say in five years, where are you focusing your energies?
Brigitte Widemann
I want to see progress in some of the tumors that I have not had progress in before I retire, ideally, but like MPNST, I think we're getting close.
Oliver Bogler
Sorry, can you expand that acronym for us?
Brigitte Widemann
Malignant peripheral nerve sheat tumor, these are these very aggressive sarcomas. We've done multiple clinical trials and patients typically do not respond. It's extremely, extremely rare. But I do think we're learning more about the biology and I believe we're getting closer. We're also getting closer at potential prevention strategies. I think one thing that I would like to mention is the cell-free DNA efforts. Like Andrea mentioned, we can't do biopsies easily. It's just, and in kids, it's really hard. But, you know, Dr. Shern in our group with Dr. Sundby they have pioneered for NF1 cell -free DNA. So from a regular blood sample, they can now distinguish benign pre-malignant, malignant tumors. And we currently do in patients at risk, we do MRIs every six months, but it may still escape us. So this is a technology that I think will revolutionize how we can monitor not only NF1, but other tumors. And I hope this will inform our solid tumor clinical trials.
And then the other area, you know, that I think we will hopefully make a lot of progress is by not only targeting the tumor cell, but the tumor microenvironment. And we have researchers here in the POB, Dr. Kaplan, Dr. McEachron, who look at the microenvironment that is immune-suppressive. How can we make the microenvironment more active that tumors can be, you know, treated effectively?
There's a lot more work, but I really do think within the next five to 10 years, we will make breakthroughs in solid tumors. It may not be cures directly, but I think getting deep remissions for some time at least, that's what I want to see.
Oliver Bogler
That's fantastic. Sounds like a really exciting time to join this field. And we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk to our guests about their career paths.
[music]
Nas Zahir
The NCI’s Rising Scholars Seminar Series is a monthly seminar series we started about one year ago.
We cover topics of all areas of cancer research, including data science and molecular mechanisms of tumor biology, as well as behavioral science.
We invite the speakers to discuss their career path as well as talk about their research highlights.
The goal of the NCI Rising Scholars Seminar Series is to highlight the research and the contributions that are being made by postdoctoral scholars who are funded by NCI through career development awards or fellowships, and also those who are conducting research at the NCI in the Center for Cancer Research, for example.
Talks are the third Thursdays of every month from two to three p.m. Eastern Time.
The presenters for the NCI Rising Scholars Seminar Series are selected by a variety of means. The first set of measures is looking to see whether there's a first author publication in the prior year. So for 2024, we examined for all of 2023. And then we ranked papers based on their number of citations as well as the field citation rate. And we also looked at balance of demographics of the speakers, geographical location, as well as gender, race, and ethnicity to the extent possible.
We'll put a link in the show notes to the events page for the NCI Rising Scholars Seminar Series so you can register as well as look up recordings for past webinars.
[music]
All right, we're back. Sneh, let's start with you. What first got you interested in science?
Sneh Patel
I would say, so I grew up in India. So I grew up in India until I was 14. My dad used to own a pharmaceutical business. And when I was really little, between the ages of eight and 10, I would kind of tag along with him and go to different hospitals and and emergency rooms where he would go and pitch his products and sell. That was my initial exposure to medicine, but obviously I was too young to really understand the intricacies and what it really meant for me. So for me, I think what really got me into medicine and to pursuing a career in academic medicine specifically was first my hospice experience in college when I was a nursing assistant. Just being able to work with terminally ill patients and seeing then how the research that I was doing at my institution and then the research that I'm doing now, how it can truly impact the patients and really being able to provide care in the most challenging moments. And I think so those were some of the key moments in me becoming interested in a career in medicine.
Oliver Bogler
Now, I know that you did some research with a good friend of mine, Krishna Bhat at MD Anderson. So was that your first experience of sort of cancer research at a cancer center?
Sneh Patel
Yes, so prior to that, I was doing genetics research at Emory. So doing glioblastoma research at Dr. Bhat’s lab was my first experience in cancer research space. And it was such a positive experience that I decided to do that for my gap year. And now due to the tremendous mentorship and what I've been able to see and learn, I really do foresee this in my future and in my career as I go into medical school.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, Krishna is a great mentor. So currently you're a post-bac at NCI. So on your way, I think, to medical school, right?
Sneh Patel
Yes, correct.
Oliver Bogler
Why the post -bac? What drew you to doing a post -bac?
Sneh Patel
The reason was twofold, I wanted to take some time off before going to med school to gain more experience, whether it was clinical or research or a combination of two. And so for that reason, I when I applied for a position in Dr. Widemann’s and Dr. Gross's lab, it was the perfect thing for me to to experience in my gap year, because I just needed to, I just wanted to gain some more exposure and experience and kind of, you know, pediatric oncology spaces of unique experience that I was able to get from this gap year. So all of that combined was the reason for me to take this post-bac year.
Oliver Bogler
Is your plan to stay in pediatrics and are you going to be combining research and medicine? Is that your goal?
Sneh Patel
Yeah, so I'm still deciding between the pediatrics and the different, the medicine space, but I definitely do know that I want to do research and want to integrate research into my clinical practice. So something in academic medicine is the goal at this time.
Oliver Bogler
Fantastic. Andrea, the same question for you. What first got you interested in science and what led you to medicine?
Andrea Gross
Yeah, gosh, so I come from a family of medical professionals. So my father's a physician. My mother's an occupational therapist. So from a young age I'm one of the very few very odd people who knew from a very, very young age that I wanted to be doctor I think in kindergarten when I was asked what I want to be when I grew up. I said pediatrician.
Oliver Bogler
That's impressive.
Andrea Gross (24:47.278)
It's a little strange but… And then, you know, actually subsequent to that, I had some personal experience in the medical field and really saw what a difference an amazing physician could make in one's experience. Also what a difference a less amazing physician could make, you know, a little bit of what not to do. But, you know, it was really eye -opening to me the way that a good physician could just take whatever situation one was in and help you through it and frame things and make even really difficult situations less so. And I really always wanted to be that person to be able to help people get through those difficult times and be able to help people even though we know there are going to be difficult times knowing that there's someone with them going through it.
So I actually applied for medical school as a combined program. So out of high school, I combined, I went to the University of Connecticut combined program in medicine, which was an eight year program. So it was four years of college, four years of med school. But essentially, I like to describe it as you were you were already in unless they kicked you out of the medical school. So you still had to take the MCATs, but we had to maintain a certain GPA and score. And the really nice thing about that was that it allowed us some flexibility. I didn't have to be focused on just taking the classic pre-med classes and worrying about that. I was able to really explore other interests and also get to have some experiences shadowing and doing things during college that I wouldn't have otherwise.
Then I went to residency at Cincinnati Children's Medical Center, which is an amazing, amazing institution for my pediatric residency. Totally biased opinions Sneh, but pediatrics is the best. We've been trying to convince him. And spent a year there as a chief year and then came out to Children's National Medical Center to do my pediatric hematology oncology fellowship. And there the fellowship director, Holly Meany, as well as one of my clinical mentors, Shana Jacobs, had actually both done research with Dr. Widemann. And when I told them I was interested in doing clinical research, they pointed me in Dr. Wi demann's direction. And so that was back in 2015. And she's been stuck with me ever since.
Brigitte Widemann
I'm very fortunate about that.
Oliver Bogler
That's a fantastic path. Brigitte, the same question for you. When did you know you wanted to be a physician, a scientist?
Brigitte Widemann
You know, I don't actually truthfully remember. When I was little, I would always play a nurse because that seemed to appeal to me a lot. But I don't have anybody in the medical field in my family. But I do think this interest in helping people and learning how to do that was a big drive for me. I studied medicine in Cologne in Germany. I also was very fortunate to spend a year with a scholarship at the University of Glasgow, where there was a lot more hands-on. And I could see that I was not a good medical student clinically. I was very humbled. I really learned a number of lessons. It was an amazing, amazing year. And then during my residency at Cologne, really enjoyed pediatric oncology a lot. There are relationships you establish, and dealing with a family, not only one patient, but you have a whole family and how the relationships develop and establish and become very close. And then the next step was that I knew there was this fellowship in the United States at the NIH where you do both clinical work and research. And that seemed like a dream. So that's what got me here.
Oliver Bogler
So you came over and you're still here....
Brigitte Widemann
Because it's the best place. I haven't really worked anywhere else, so I can say it, but the freedom to pursue research questions, there's so many wonderful aspects of being here.
Oliver Bogler
Sneh is on his way. Andrea and Brigitte, you already are physician scientists, right? You are people who combine clinical care with foundational research, clinical research as well. What is that like? What are the biggest challenges? What are the joys? And what are the difficulties of such a career? It seems like a lot.
Brigitte Widemann
So I would say I appreciate the physician scientist because I think even when you do clinical research is still science, but I don't run a basic science lab. We have some people who do both and I think it's quite challenging and you can, I believe only do it, be an 80% bench scientist and 20% effective clinical researcher if you have help in the clinical translation.
I very much admire these physician scientists, but I can say from my observation, it is challenging because as a clinician, you always want to be committed to your patients. And that typically takes more time. So you can get really pulled into different directions. I would say being in the pediatric oncology field, if I was just a clinician… the clinical research is what inspires me to continue. So having this aspect is really important and the balance that we have with that. Andrea, I don't know what your thoughts are.
Andrea Gross
Yeah, I, you know, obviously to echo Brigitte, so I'm her staff clinician. So one of my main roles is to help enable and move forward the research that we do together in the clinical space. So just as Brigitte, I don't have a bench space or a free clinical aspect to my work. But it is an amazing, amazing privilege to be able to work with these patients and families who volunteer to participate in clinical trials. Again, they are the experts in these conditions. And so we are just constantly learning from them. And I think that aspect of it, it's very humbling. You know, every time we start to feel like we know what we're doing, you know, a new patient comes along with something we've never seen before. And it's really, it's never boring. It's always an exciting, and again, very humbling sometimes experience.
But again, overall, I think that's one of the great things about pediatric oncology is that early on people recognize that because it's a rare disease, we had to collaborate to do research and everything is based around research, both here at the NCI, but also really out in the general academia. And so it's really part of who we are as a profession to pursue research in the pediatric oncology space, and so I just feel very privileged to be part of that.
Oliver Bogler
So to close, what advice would you give to our listeners who are thinking about their own futures, their own careers, or maybe are inspired by what they've heard? Sneh, let's start with you. Someone who's perhaps following you a few years behind, what would you say to them about your own experience?
Sneh Patel
Yeah, I've since I just graduated college, I think something that I would tell someone who is following my footsteps is to, to take their time and try to get as much exposure and experiences as possible. I think oftentimes nowadays it's very common for people to take gap years, multiple gap years between college and med school. And I've reaped the benefits of it getting exposed to these different experiences doesn't just help you decide if medicine is for you, but also just grounds you in the sense that you really do understand the profession that you're getting into and it kind of motivates you and inspires you to continue this for the rest of your life.
So I think for me, the greatest advice would be to take time and invest in experiences where you get these diverse opportunities and mentorship, I think, is another thing. Dr. Gross and Dr. Widemann have been great mentors, and I've been very fortunate to have amazing mentors even in college. And I think I'm forever in debt to everything that they've done. And I think they've really carved my path into medicine. So just reaching out and having these people who support you in life is also really essential. So those would be my two points.
Oliver Bogler
Thank you very much. Andrea, what advice would you give?
Andrea Gross
So I would echo what Sneh said, and it's been such a pleasure getting to work with you, Sneh, over this past year.
I think one thing is it's not a race for sure. I think there's often this feeling of, oh, you've got to get to the next thing. You've got to speed up, combine things, move things more quickly. And I totally agree. Taking your time to find what you're passionate about, what excites you, what makes you want to get up and go to work in the morning is absolutely essential.
And I think just as a secondary, to that once you get into the medical field and when you're trying to figure out what it is you want to do in medicine and how you want to get there, keeping your mind open. I joked that I said I knew I wanted to be a pediatrician since I was six, which is absolutely true. But I had no idea about pediatric oncology. I went, I looked at all sorts of different aspects of subspecialties and other things and really enjoyed many of them, but I've ultimately found my way to the place where this felt like home. And, where I felt like this is where I could make the most difference. And so just keep your mind open as you're going through every part of the experience, you can learn something. I was never going to be a surgeon. I learned a ton from my surgery, rotation and medicine that I still use and think about. So just absorbing everything you can, even if you know that's not going to ultimately be your path.
Oliver Bogler
Great advice. Brigitte, what do you say to the generations coming up behind you?
Brigitte Widemann
Yeah, maybe from a lesson that I learned not to let fear be the decision maker. Don't think, oh, this is difficult. This is complex. I can't do this. I don't know if I can handle mice or whatever. Really be OK to pursue something that sounds really difficult or challenging, because maybe you end up actually liking it. And I definitely remember thinking, OK, pharmacology and running assays, that's something I'm surely can learn but all the basic stuff, I wasn't so sure. And I think, well, yeah, maybe I would have done it and would have enjoyed it. So give it a try and don't be afraid. That would be my recommendation.
Oliver Bogler
Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you all of you for sharing your work and your stories with us. Thank you.
Brigitte Widemann
Thank you, Oliver.
Andrea Gross
Thank you.
Sneh Patel
Thank you.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
Now it's time for a segment we call Your Turn because it's a chance for our listeners to send in a recommendation that they would like to share. If you're listening, then you're invited to take your turn. Send us a tip for a book, a video, a podcast, or a talk that you found inspirational or amusing or interesting. You can send those to us at [email protected]. Record a voice memo and send it along, and we may just play it in an upcoming episode. Now I'd like to invite our guests to take their turn. Let's start with you, Brigitte.
Brigitte Widemann
Okay, so when I grew up in Germany, my spices that I knew were salt and pepper. And that was about it. And coming to the United States, and of course this is different in Germany nowadays too, there's so many spices and diverse dishes that I so much enjoy. And while you can get them in a restaurant, you can actually cook them by yourself. Pick a new spice, look at a recipe, and enjoy the many different types of food that are there and share them with your friends.
Oliver Bogler
That's great advice. I love to cook myself and yeah, trying something new is just so fun. Andrea, please..
Andrea Gross
Yeah, well, so during the pandemic, I, or right before the pandemic, I actually got a dog and while walking my dog, I listen to a lot of podcasts. And one podcast that I have really enjoyed in the last year or so is called Ologies. It's a podcast that the host is Alie Ward and the slogan of it is ask smart people, stupid questions. And it's really fantastic. Each week she kind of dives in with an person who's an expert in some very esoteric fields. Last week, or recently, there was one about black holes. And just ask anything you could possibly want to know. And it's just a really approachable, really fun, really interesting podcast that I highly recommend.
Oliver Bogler
I'm gonna go look that up. We'll drop a link in the show notes as well. Sneh, please.
Sneh Patel
Yeah, I would like to share a book that I read recently when I was going through this application cycle. It's a classic in the medical space. It's called The Anatomy of Hope by Dr. Jerome Groopman. He's a hematologist oncologist who talks a lot about the role of hope in a physician's role in taking care of patients and the balancing of presenting this realistic possibility of overcoming the disease but being honest about the prognosis and the risks involved. And I think he does a tremendous job using case studies to explain the role of hope and the science of it in medicine. So I would recommend that.
Oliver Bogler
That sounds like a great read for someone who is planning on going into medicine. Great. I'd like to make a recommendation as well. Mine is for a website OncoDaily.com. It brings daily cancer related news items that are curated from all across the web, as well as some inspiring stories. And it celebrates a broad range of cancer professionals highlighting their work and fosters a community. The person behind this great work is Dr. Gevorg Tamamyan, a professor and chairman of the Department of Pediatric Oncology and Hematology at the Yerevan State Medical University in Armenia. I had the pleasure of meeting Gevorg and visiting him when I participated in global cancer work in a prior job. And I was inspired by his vision and leadership and love to read OncoDaily. So you can find it at their website, on LinkedIn and other social platforms. Take a look.
That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.
We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are welcome. And you are invited to take your turn and make a recommendation to share with our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected].
Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training. It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar.
Join us every first and third Thursday of the month wherever you listen – subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.
If you have questions about cancer or comments about this podcast, you can email us at [email protected] or call us at 800-422-6237. And please be sure to mention Inside Cancer Careers in your query.
We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.
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In this episode, we hear from Dr. Jennifer Couch, Chief of the Biophysics, Bioengineering, and Computational Sciences Branch in NCI's Division of Cancer Biology, and Dr. Manu Platt, Director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. They discuss the importance of integrating physical sciences, biology, and engineering in research. They highlight the benefits of collaboration and the formation of transdisciplinary teams. Drs. Couch and Platt also offer advice to those interested in pursuing a career in science and those who are early in their research careers. You can expect to learn all this and much more!
Show Notes:
Jennifer Couch, Ph.D. Biophysics, Bioengineering, and Computational Sciences Branch NCI Division of Cancer Biology Manu Platt, Ph.D. Center for Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration (BETA Center) National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NBIB) Physical Sciences - Oncology Network (PS-ON) NIH Clinical Center NIH Peer Review NIH Intramural Research Program Forum to Advance Minorities in Engineering, Inc. (FAME Inc.)Ad - NanCI by NCI mobile application
You Turn Recommendations:
· NCI Cancer AI Conversations
· The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research by Martin A. Schwartz
· Do It Now by Steve Pavlina
· The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
TRANSCRIPT
Oliver Bogler
Hello, and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute, where we explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler, from NCI's Center for Cancer Training. There's ample evidence in the history of science that connecting across fields can stimulate innovation and produce advances. One fruitful connection has been between biology and the physical sciences and engineering. And today we are talking to two leaders at NIH involved in this work.
Listen through to the end of the show to hear our guests make some interesting recommendations and where we invite you to take your turn.
With us is Dr. Jennifer Couch, Chief of the Biophysics, Bioengineering, and Computational Sciences Branch in the Division of Cancer Biology at NCI. Welcome.
Jennifer Couch
Hi Oliver, thanks for inviting me.
Oliver Bogler
I'd also like to welcome Dr. Manu Platt, Director of the Biomedical Engineering Technology Acceleration or BETA Center at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. Welcome.
Manu Platt
Great to be here with you.
Oliver Bogler
Let me start with the question of why and how different disciplines in STEMM can be brought together to accelerate progress. Jennifer, what are the strategies and goals of your branch and how do you accomplish them?
Jennifer Couch
Well, I think, you know, one of the key things about cancer is that it's complicated, it's multi -scale, it's impacted in many different ways and it has impacts on the body at many different levels. And so for that reason, I think cancer researchers are often adopters of new technologies and collaborate broadly. And we've seen over the past, you know, many decades that bringing physical sciences approaches and tools and thinking into the cancer research space can really enhance the way that we address and develop ways to understand the basic mechanisms that underlie cancer initiation and progression and the way that it responds to therapies.
Oliver Bogler
So one of the programs in your branch is called the Physical Sciences Oncology Network, or PSON, I think people call it. Tell us about that.
Jennifer Couch
Yup.
Oliver Bogler
What does it do?
Jennifer Couch
So the Physical Sciences and Oncology Network has been around for about 15 years now, and it brings together explicitly partnerships between physical scientists, people with physical sciences expertise, and cancer research to address a broad range of cancer research questions, challenging things like spatial temporal dynamics and multi -scale effects of cancer, thinking about it through a physical sciences lens. And so all of the projects are collaborations between cancer researchers and people with these other expertise areas.
Oliver Bogler
Have you got some examples for us of what kind of physical sciences are brought together with what kinds of biology to try and work together on the cancer problem?
Jennifer Couch
Sure. So, we know a lot about the way that cancer develops and, and progresses at the molecular level. But one of the things that's been a real challenge is understanding the kind of mechanical forces involved in the way that cancer both initiates and progresses throughout the body and, um, when it metastasizes and whether or not those metastases survive in the new environment. And a lot of that has to do with the interplay between mechanical forces and molecular signaling. And so physical sciences have been key to both mathematically and computational and modeling those processes, but also developing the tools that we need to actually measure things like stiffness and fluid flow and adhesion strength and under different conditions, really designing the systems that we need to test out those hypotheses.
Oliver Bogler
So the scientists you're bringing together probably have somewhat different languages, scientific languages, I mean. They have maybe slightly different mental models of how things work, right? I mean, I grew up in a very reductionist and deterministic age of biology that is slowly fading away into, you know, to be replaced by a more systems level and chaotic view of how it works. How does that manifest itself in the work that these different groups of scientists do together?
Jennifer Couch
Yeah, you know, collaboration is really the key. And I think you said something critical here, which is that we're moving away in cancer biology, I think, from that reductionist view into thinking about a more integrated systems kind of approach. Again, this multi-scale phenomenon, the way that different scales impact emergent properties, all of those things. And when people trained in the physical sciences and engineering come together with cancer researchers, the way that they speak about a problem is often different in the way that they think about approaching it and the timeline, right? So for example, biology can be expensive. Doing experiments isn't trivial to do over and over again in the way that perhaps a physicist or a statistician might want. And so often they have to spend some time sort of understanding each other's, not just language and jargon, but approach to answering a question. But when they do that, when they walk… when they go through those, that difficult, conversation with each other they can really approach a problem in a way that they can't do separately.
Oliver Bogler
And just for the sake of our audience, Jennifer, your branch is what we call extramural, right? So it works primarily by funding research that goes on outside the NCI, outside the NIH, across the country, right?
Jennifer Couch
Yeah, and in fact entirely. So we support fundamental technology development and resource development that develops the tools and the approaches and the methods that cancer researchers will then adopt and use to answer research questions. And that's done almost entirely through extramural research grants through a variety of different mechanisms. The physical sciences program that you mentioned is one critical program, but we get a lot of our projects through what we call investigator-initiated research. That's just the standard way that NIH solicits and supports research.
Oliver Bogler
That's when a research team out in the community has a good idea and they put in a grant just of their own accord to compete for funding, right?
Jennifer Couch
Yeah, and I would say, you know, for teams like this that where physical scientists and biologists might be coming together, that's particularly challenging to sort of think about how peer review will handle those projects and how to think about sort of selling it, if you will, right, to a group of your peers that might be a combined group of physicists and biologists. And so talking to one of us in my branch or across the NIH is always a good idea ahead of time, just to get a sense of how peer review might react to a different project and of a different scope and that sort of thing, or whether we might have a specific funding opportunity that suits the project that they're considering.
Oliver Bogler
Dr. Platt, Manu, you're leading a new initiative at the NIBIB, which has a role across the NIH, the BETA Center. What is that all about? Please tell us.
Manu Platt
Great question. No, so we are an NIH-wide center. We're housed in NIBIB. And one thing that's great about my institute is we are disease agnostic, right? We help develop technology tools that can be used to cause health medicine and even basic research. So in that way, that's what allows us to reach out to investigators all across the NIH. And I'm in the Intramural Research Program. I have a research lab here that I moved here last year, about a year ago now.
And so what we are doing is first finding the engineers and biomedical engineers that are in all of the other institutes because they're out there helping to bring them together to build communities, but also so that we can share the tools that we are using, the principles that we're applying so that bring in other clinicians and basic science researchers into kind of lowering those barriers so they can use the tools as well.
Oliver Bogler
So you mentioned that you're in the intramural program. That is the program that lives within the NIH. Each of our institutes and centers, or the majority of them, have their own research teams. Some people say that the kind of research that the intramural program does has some distinctions from what is more common extramurally because of the way it's funded. Sometimes people say it's more long-term, some projects are more higher risk. Is that your experience?
Manu Platt
So I've been here one year, so I can't speak on the long-term piece. But a big draw for me to come to the NIH from an academic lab was the idea that we could do more higher risk research without having to get it approved through the review committee that I you just mentioned with Jennifer. Because big ideas, I study disease that cut across lots of methods and organ systems. And to be able to then be able to test those diseases here is quite fantastic.
What I also think is the other big drawback for all the people in the outside world to think about is the Clinical Center here. You know, it's stocked with clinicians that are willing and eager to work on the cutting edge. And so they're willing to look at the rare diseases or the rare complications and talk to those of us on the research side who also don't have answers. I think that puts it in a really unique or a rarefied air to ask some really difficult questions.
Oliver Bogler
So the BETA center will be assembling teams. I understand that correctly?
Manu Platt
We're letting groups self-assemble and self-organize. We are bringing people together so they can hear what are the latest, greatest that's happening, what do we have access to on campus that people may not have been aware about that's in another institute. And so through that way, we're building teams across research institutes that then can push in different directions. Or bring more people into pushing in the same direction, but you bring your clinical buzz, you bring your clinical samples, or you bring your particular molecule of interest that we can help you probe in the physical ways, mechanical ways, and optical ways that may not be appreciated.
Oliver Bogler
So you're both kind of in the business of forming these transdisciplinary teams. And I wonder, what are the secret ingredients? What's the recipe that you use, Manu, to bring those teams together and have them work together effectively?
Manu Platt
Well, this is a simple thing that's true about human nature. It works at NIH just like it works in the extramural world. Food. Right? You can have people come together around food. But also, I think we are all nerds, right? I think once you are in higher science and you're pursuing a research career, the nerd part of you cannot be denied. And so when you are showing people there are new things that are happening in science that you may not have heard about, people become interested.
And also, one of our characters also, we want to lower barriers of resistance for you to come along and try something new to kind of, again, de-risk it. Hey, you read something in that paper that had this amazing engineering technology that you don't know anybody around you that does. Well, come and talk to us. We may know people that do it on campus or with some of the shared resources here, they may be able to help build it so that you and your lab can now bring this technology back home. Again, opening up new doors and then tell all your friends about, oh, I'm doing this new thing. You should go and check them out. They're really able to work with you and be helpful and they were actually right next door all this time.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, I think that's a common thing, right? The people you don't know are not far away physically. They're just not in your daily routine. And so it's hard to do that. Jennifer, any insights from your side? What's the secret sauce?
Jennifer Couch
Yeah, I think that is the secret sauce, that we're all curious people. And, you know, the real secret is sort of patience and an ability to be willing to admit that there's things that you don't know and to listen to other people's description of those from a very different perspective and kind of struggle through that initial conversation. That struggle yields real rewards in the end.
And I would say sometimes those people are right next door and sometimes they aren't. And so we have in the past developed some programs that we call things like innovations labs or ideas labs that specifically bring together people from very, very different fields to form those kinds of collaborations to start to build out their networks. It's another thing that we do with our junior investigators meetings is try and sort of create those larger networks for people. Cause I think it can be difficult to step into a wonderful multidisciplinary space when you don't know where you're stepping.
Manu Platt
I’ve done one of those innovations labs and they are fantastic. So I just want to put in a plug if anyone gets an invite or sees an advertisement for one of those NCI innovation labs. I learned a lot in the one I was participating in and I hope that I also gave a lot to it as well. It was fantastic experience.
Oliver Bogler
That's a great tip also for our listeners. Manu, so you just mentioned you have been here almost a year. The Center is a year old. What are some of the early goals that you pursued and what are some of the things you feel you've already accomplished?
Manu Platt
Oh yeah, so it's been a great year, a lot of doing new things, but a big goal. The biggest one is getting a group of people. So far we have over 85 investigators across 16 different institutes and centers here at NIH that are affiliated with the BETA Center and have become regular attendees of, we have these research meet and greets where people give rapid fires to talk about what they do. And so that's been huge.
And we're also now funding some summer students through the BETA Center and NIBIB that will work again in other institutes and labs here, because as bioengineers, we're still bringing in people from other disciplines to do bioengineering work because we are, again, as a field, are multidisciplinary. And so that openness that I've seen and the willingness to participate and be involved has been really exciting and refreshing. And so that's been a big win for this first season.
Again, the other part is learning the administrative rules and regs here at NIH. And that there are ways that you can still cross institutes and that can flow smoothly. And then ways that are not so smooth, but that we are able to actually get lower those barriers to make it easier for people to come together.
Oliver Bogler
You mentioned outreach and workforce development. That's another component of the BETA center, right? And of course of NIH overall. So tell me, what are your goals in that domain?
Manu Platt
Right. So great opportunity here. We're federally funded, U.S. government, which is fantastic. And for those that don't know, I'm actually, I'm African-American. And so as an African-American professor in the university world, about 2 % of professors were African-American in science and engineering. At NIH, it's a little lower. I didn't know it would go lower, but it is for the, at the investigator level. And so there's room for improvement in growth.
I'm trying to help again, break down the barriers and myths. I think a lot of investigators in the extramural world aren't aware of the rich opportunity that are available in the intramural campus, right? So helping to bring in postdocs who may be done an engineering PhD out in the world, you should come to this campus and actually see how close you can interface with clinicians because maybe you didn't think that's what a federal lab resource is able to do, but we are.
So again, in my work about outreach, it's about changing people's perceptions of what's happening here and let you come to campus, but also helping investigators on campus recruit from the outside world to find the type of talent that they want.
And we all know this, the most creative solutions come from the most diverse teams. And so really helping people to access people from different backgrounds, research disciplines, and so they can see that fruit kind of blossom here.
Oliver Bogler
Great, thanks very much. Okay, let's take a quick break and when we come back, we'll talk to our guests about their own career paths and what wisdom they have picked up along the way.
[music starts]
Oliver Bogler
PubMed lists over 270,000 cancer papers published in 2022 – that is a staggering 750 papers every day. It’s great that cancer research is such an active field, but it makes finding the pubs that are critical to your work a challenge. What if you had an AI that paid attention to the papers you read and suggested others as they appear in PubMed? That is exactly what the NCI is building with an app called NanCI. With me to discuss NanCI are two members of the team that are creating NanCI.
Duncan Anderson
NanCI is an app for cancer scientists and it helps them to discover the research in new ways and connect with each other and build their personal networks and share information and get to know each other. We've just launched the ability to actually chat with a piece of research, so you can actually have a conversation and ask questions about a research paper itself.
JD Wuarin
Instead of having to read the whole paper yourself, you can now simply ask questions and NanCI will answer those questions. One of the cool features we've also added is that it will read the abstract and figure out what questions you might want to ask the paper.
Duncan Anderson
We're using artificial intelligence within NanCI to help to make information easier to find and easier to understand and easier to interact with. The only information we're using is the scientific data. So the research paper, for example, we don't allow our AI to go off and answer random questions that might introduce all sorts of concerns.
JD Wuarin
And so the idea will be that eventually with NanCI straight from your pocket, you'll not only be able to chat with papers and understand what papers are about, but also based on your interest, it will suggest to you what you might want to investigate, maybe which gene mutation you might want to look at, which new disease might be related to what you're doing. And that's gonna be interesting, I think.
Duncan Anderson
If you start working in a field which you don't have a lot of experience in, it can be a bit daunting. There's a lot of information to read. We have this idea that you could tell NanCI what the field is and NanCI would go off and present you the key influential papers in that space so you can very quickly get your head around what this new field is.
So today, NanCI can be used by cancer researchers in the USA. So it's available from the Apple App Store for the iPhone. And there's a restriction on the downloads, which means that you need to have an email address associated with a cancer research institution.
[music ends]
Oliver Bogler
And we're back. Let me start with you, Dr. Platt. Manu, what first got you interested in science and engineering?
Manu Platt
So funny story, so my mother, she retired in 2012, but my mother is a health and physical education teacher. Okay, so she is a very fit woman and was always talking about your body and do this for your body and drink the water in your body. And so that was nice to hear her say, but then how does it actually work used to really always interest me. So that's where the bio side came from.
Then for the engineering, my dad was in the Air Force, so he did 20 years in the Air Force, moved around a bit. But he retired in Dover, Delaware. And there in Dover, Delaware is Delaware State University, Delaware State College at the time, but it's a Historically Black College and University. And they had this program there, it was a Saturday academy for middle school students and then in high school, you could say on campus, called FAME, Forum to Advance Minorities in Engineering. And so we would go every other Saturday and they'd do math and science and talk about engineering. And I was like, I don't know what this is, but it's about thinking about how things work. And I love the health and phys ed that I was getting from my mom and those interests together were the tools that then said you can use engineering to understand how our bodies are working.
Because again, physical education teaches a lot of impact, movement, motion, and how your bodies change when you do these things. And that was the spark that kind of, when I heard about biomedical, I'll tell you this story, one more story. Also in my textbook, in my AP biology class, the textbooks used to have those career highlights in them, remember? It's quite useful. And one day there was a career highlight on medical technologists. And I was like, whoa, medicine and technology, these are the things that I'm really interested in. And my friend sitting next to me said, you know, that looks like something my aunt does. She's like a biomedical engineer or something. And I said, that's it. Because I was doing FAME, I love biology. That sounds amazing. And I've been on the path ever since.
Oliver Bogler
That's fantastic. Jennifer, how about you?
Jennifer Couch
Well, I'm a fair bit older than Manu. So I stumbled into this world, you know, down a bit of a rocky path. So I came to the world of cancer biology via molecular evolution and sort of the early years of genomics and the genome project. And so that idea of kind of doing things at a large scale and thinking about things as a system and thinking about cancer as an evolving system or system of systems was really appealing to me intellectually. And then coming to the extramural space where I can work with smart people who are putting their brains towards solving real cancer research questions just felt important. And so that's what drew me to this space. I like to think about the bigger picture and I'm really keen to help the extramural research community get us there.
Oliver Bogler
That's great. I still want to know what made you want to become a scientist in the first place.
Jennifer Couch
Oh, gosh, I don't know. I think, all right, I'm gonna go back to something else Manu said, he said curious nerd. And I think that is what I have always been. You know, I come from a long range of curious nerds. My grandmother was a woman who was deeply curious and knew everything about every weed and every plant out in the forest and that sort of thing. And she had a sixth grade education, but she was one of the smartest people I ever knew. And her son, my father, was sort of also that way. And so I just sort of grew up in that environment where we're allowed to be curious about everything.
Oliver Bogler
So Manu, let's pick it up for you. So you heard about this idea of biomedical engineering when you were in high school or thereabouts. So where did you go next?
Manu Platt
Right, so applying to colleges, leaving Dover Delaware and I have this, I'll try to tell the shorter version, but I have this award from my high school. It was the RPI Medal, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute medal for the top science student of your junior year. And so senior year, they had us come up to the RPI to get this medal and award. And it's in Troy, New York, which they told us how cold it would get.
But they began to talk about undergraduate research and that that's what they wanted undergraduates to do. And I was like, oh my goodness, we could actually start like touching and doing things with human stuff. But then in their program book, but they actually had these dual degree engineering program. And one of the schools they had a partnership with was Morehouse College, which is a Historically Black College all male in Atlanta, Georgia. And growing up when I did in the 80s, 90s, we all knew about Morehouse and heard about Morehouse and Spelman. And I was like, oh my goodness, I could go both.
So then when I finally toured Morehouse in Atlanta, spring break of my senior year, I mean, I had to go just to be on that campus with all Black men. And again, growing up a child in the nineties, there were different impressions of Black men in the nineties. And it was just very reinforcing to be there where what that allowed was being a Black man, like wasn't what your daily experience was. You could find all these other things that you are because everybody here is a Black man. And there were scientists and engineers and biologists.
That was my professor who had been out in the world and making sure we got the science part. So then what happens, I got a NASA scholarship when I was at Morehouse and I was on this dual degree engineering path thinking I would go to RPI, went to do these NASA internships as well with the scholarship. And so seeing how mechanical forces influence biology, when astronauts go to space, they have all of these other physiological complications, was really just mind blowing because in biology, I think we learn what happens, but I think the engineering and the mechanical aspects tell us why they happen. And that our biology obey all the same physical principles. It was amazing to me. So I was all in and that NASA experiences, several of them, maybe decided when to get a PhD in biomedical engineering so that I could stay on this research path. Medicine was not for me and I have been happy and excited and all the things the nerds ever said.
Oliver Bogler
So you did your PhD at Georgia Tech, right? And then you did a postdoc at MIT in biological engineering as well. And then you went to the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory for your faculty work.
Manu Platt
I did. Yes. So I was the hometown boy right now. Once I moved to Atlanta, I couldn't leave. And so right in my PhD, I worked on mechanical forces more in a cardiovascular space, but at the root were these enzymes, these proteases that remodel tissue. And I still study them today. Then during my postdoc, I switched over to orthopedic tissue engineering, biomaterials and systems biology. And I was in a lab where we're applying systems biology to cancer and other spaces. And again, as Jennifer mentioned, cancer is, it's such a complicated problem. And when you first start thinking about cancer, it’s one cell that goes wrong but it's so much more than that. And using mathematical and computational biology to help understand things that we can't directly test for, at least currently, also added another set of tools where computational biology and math with biology is another way of opening up doors to help solve these problems.
And again, those things don't mix, I think earlier in your educational career for some reason, maybe things that we could change. But when you start hearing about them, I was resistant and I fought a few of my professors at first until the idea that we could save one experiment by using math to predict what the biology would do. Okay, now you've made it practical. Now let's talk about it. And so I went to do a postdoc to really get computational modeling and system biology experience so that when I started my own group back at Georgia Tech, I could be all of these things that make me this unique person.
And the proteases that I started with cardiovascular, they are highly active in cancer and they play a lot of functional roles, but also they become biomarkers for when thinking about diagnosis, prognosis, and so we push in those directions.
Oliver Bogler
So I want to pick up on something you just said, which intrigues me. And also because the two of you, you took very different paths into your current roles, right? Manu, you kind of went what might be now described as a well-established bioengineering pathway, right? That sort of, for you, bio and engineering was almost always there. And for Jennifer, it sort of came a little bit more circuitously. So are we preparing the next generation of cancer biologists? Because I only care about cancer. No, a biomedical scientist, let's be more general here. Are we preparing them well or should they be exposed to more of a mixture? Like you said, Manu, that you don't always get that mixture early on.
Manu Platt
I think yes. My undergrad degree was straight biology and then I switched to biomedical engineering. And I enjoyed having a hardcore biology education that then when I got to grad school hearing the engineering ways that apply because I think it's… oh, you're going to get me in trouble with my engineering colleagues, you're going to get me in trouble. I think what I have heard and I think there's a general stereotype, is that engineering is hard, biology is easy, right? You just have to learn things in biology. But engineering has math and it's hard. But I think that's not true. I think there, what engineering has done, it relies on physics and chemistry and math, but they've established laws and principles and rules that we know work, right? Biology, we don't have equations for everything that happens. And as cells are living, they change. With cancer, not every cell changes the same, even within the same tumor.
And so the rules aren't so established. But I think what biologists are trained as we raise, you know, we learn about evolution, ecology, how things work in different ways. If you're not raised in that, I've met engineers who say, if I tell a cell to do this, it's going to do this. And because I told it to. And you're like, that cell…
Oliver Bogler
Good luck.
Manu Platt
Right. It might start doing it and then it's going to try to get back to homeostasis and do 15 other things that you can't even measure to get to where it needs to be and there's your disease and the complications. So that's why I think let the experts teach it and then have a few integrative classes that help cross those bridges. And there can be a strength in having the person forge from their own views how both worlds kind of can make. I think that was my graduate education, which biologists were taught alongside traditional engineers and then we as students collaborated with each other to help each other understand what was going on. And I think that was stronger than a fully integrative approach throughout the entire education. But that's me, I'm one person. Clearly I love my program. I went back and started my lab there. So that's my long answer to that question.
Oliver Bogler
Thank you. Jennifer, what's your perspective on that? Are we teaching people in undergraduate even the right way?
Jennifer Couch
You know, I suspect we are teaching them in a variety of different ways. And I think Manu and I both sort of show that you can come at this problem in a very different, through a very different route. You know, the time at which I was taught biology and things, I think they were even more separate. And we were taught things in a distinct order and they didn't sort of necessarily integrate.
I agree with you Manu that sometimes when people teach things like as is, completely integrated, people lose the beauty of individual fields and the views that you can take. As you said, for example, sometimes when the biologists collaborate with engineers and physicists and things that mathematicians, right, the first year or so is highly frustrating because those mathematicians want, they want the data they want. And the biologist says, well, you know, I can't get that. We can't measure that. I can't do that. It can't happen. Or I'll measure it, but you know, you're not going to believe the data that comes out of it because biology changes and things happen. And those that that struggle is, is difficult.
But I think maybe going back even earlier in education, I would love us to educate people much earlier that they can pursue a variety of different careers and that biomedical research isn't all about becoming a medical doctor and understanding how to deal with patients. There is a lot that you can contribute if you are very analytical person, if you're a very logical person, if you're the kind of person that builds teams really well, or you're the kind of person that is the translator between different fields, all those people are really critical in the biomedical research enterprise across the whole spectrum from basic biology to translational research and population science. And I just think the more different voices and lived experiences and perspectives that we have coming at difficult problems like cancer, the the more progress we'll make.
Oliver Bogler
So thank you. That's a perfect segue into my last question, which is what advice do you have for people listening who might be, you know, they might be in high school or even or undergraduates or even in graduate school, they might already be on a science path. But what advice do you have for them in terms of your both of your experiences of sort of combining different areas to bring to bring new ideas together? Jennifer, what would you say?
Jennifer Couch
I think, you know, it is difficult and just giving yourself the patience and, you know, the fortitude to sort of stick with it and take criticism for what it is. It is just suggestions on making your work better and take advice for what it is and try and build out that network of peers that will support you and work with you and help you build your work forward and will give you critical advice when you need it.
Oliver Bogler
Manu, what do you say to the young scientists in your team?
Manu Platt
I love talking to young scientists. I love the Tim Cook line, right, about bring your whole self to work. And so when I talk to young scientists, I want to remind them you can be exactly who you are and be a scientist. You can look any kind of way, come from whatever kind of background and be a scientist. You do not have to look like what you've seen in textbooks or TV or whatever how a scientist or an engineer looks.
Because I think that can make a lot of people think, I would never want to be that, quote, lame, so I don't want to do that. But that's just a stereotype. But I think that's important because every experience that you have, even while you're even at, before you start learning about science or before you're even when you're not in classes, help you view the world and questions and problems in a unique way that the person next to you will not view it, even if you all took the same classes forever.
And your ideas matter. Right? And from your perspective, your ideas matter. And so I go back to Jennifer about building good teams. When you're on these teams and you look different than everyone in the room, put your idea out there on the table because I promise you they have not thought of it. And that idea that you have could be what saves the day. Right? So that's why we need people from all these backgrounds and who look all kinds of ways to come to that table and you belong.
Oliver Bogler
Thank you both. That's fantastic advice and really appreciate you spending some time with us.
[music]
Oliver Bogler
Now it's time for a segment we call Your Turn because it's a chance for our listeners to send in a recommendation that they would like to share. If you're listening, then you're invited to take your turn. Send us a tip for a book, a video, a podcast or a talk that you found inspirational, amusing or interesting. You can send these to us at [email protected]. If you record a voice memo and send it along, we may just play it in an upcoming episode.
Now I'd like to invite our guests to take their turn. Let's start with you, Jennifer.
Jennifer Couch
Well, I know one of the things that people are really excited about and really worried about and really struggling with is artificial intelligence. And so the National Cancer Institute is running a series of what we're calling AI Conversations, right, designed to get at topics in AI where there's maybe there's not consensus yet. There's sort of emerging discussions to be had. And so those occur bi-monthly and I can put a link wherever it is that I put links.
Oliver Bogler
We'll put the link in the show notes for you.
Jennifer Couch
Thank you.
Oliver Bogler
That's a great recommendation. I'm personally very excited about AI, but also anxious. So I do try to listen into those conversations. Manu, what kind of recommendation do you have for us?
Manu Platt
Yes, I have two quick reads. One kind of goes with one of the things that the topic Jennifer and I have been talking about. And it's written by Martin A. Schwartz. But it's called The Importance of Stupidity in Scientific Research. And if you meet Martin, he's a highly accomplished but also very cerebral scientist. And he stresses here that the more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and more likely we are to make big discoveries. I think young scientists get afraid of being wrong, but that's not where you want to be. You don't want to be where everything I do is right because you're not at the edge of knowledge. So check that out.
But the other one that's more personal is it's a time management piece that, you know, when I was a first, second year professor, time was just crazy. And a lot of people I know struggled with time management, particularly in these times where you can zoom and triple book yourself. But it's this piece that I reread and I share with my trainees. It's called Do It Now by this gentleman, Steve Pavlina. It's a 13-page read, so if you don't have time to read it, the time management is really screwed up. But it really talks about this person. He graduated from college in three semesters. Not three years, semesters. But he talked about all the different ways he had to manage his time in order to do that. And it turns the way you think about time management kind of on its head and challenges some of the ways that we normally function. And maybe those things are actually not the best use for us. So I challenge people to read it, run the experiments yourself and see what works. I have to reread it myself about every two months because I slip in the old habits. But there's some other things that have stuck good and really helped me out in the long run. So do it now. Steve Pavlina.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, I'm going to go check that out. It's maybe it's not too late for me.
Manu Platt
Never too late.
Oliver Bogler
Great, thanks. I'd like to make a recommendation as well. It's for a book from a while ago. It's called The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. It was first published in 1976, and I came across it as a schoolboy in the 1980s. And it's a significant part of why I wanted to become a biologist. He uses very strong anthropomorphic concepts and looks at biology and evolution at the level of the gene, exploring the idea that an organism is just a way for a gene to get itself into the next generation with as many copies as possible. It actually makes for fascinating reading. And it was criticized at times for being very anthropomorphic, for ascribing these human motivations to a gene. However, he acknowledges that that is just a tool. And my interest in the book has recently been rekindled by reading the works of Dr. Itai Yanai and Dr. Martin Lercher whose exploration of night science was in part inspired by the works of Prof Dawkins. If you haven't read The Selfish Gene, it's a classic. I recommended it, if only because of its importance in science and culture and the history of biology and evolution. And, spoiler alert, the last chapter talks about memes and how they propagate. So he saw that long before we had social media. Take a look.
That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.
We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are welcome. And you are invited to take your turn and make a recommendation to share with our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected].
Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training. It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar.
Join us every first and third Thursday of the month wherever you listen – subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.
If you have questions about cancer or comments about this podcast, you can email us at [email protected] or call us at 800-422-6237. And please be sure to mention Inside Cancer Careers in your query.
We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.
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In this episode, Dr. Chanelle Case Borden, an Associate Director of Training Programs in the NCI Center for Cancer Training, Office of Training and Education, interviews Ms. Sigourney Bonner, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and CEO of Black in Cancer. They discuss the mission of Black in Cancer, which aims to increase the number of Black cancer researchers, provide visibility for them, and bring awareness about cancer to the community. Ms. Bonner emphasize the global impact of Black in Cancer, highlighting that the organization is not limited to the UK or US. The upcoming Black in Cancer Conference is discussed, along with opportunities for individuals to get involved with the organization. Ms. Bonner shares her career journey, interest in science, experience in industry, and much more.
Show Notes:
Sigourney Bonner
Chanelle Case Borden, Ph.D.
Center for Cancer Training
Black in Cancer
2024 Black in Cancer Conference
Ad: NanCI by NCI mobile application
Cancer Research UK (CRUK)
CRUK Black Leaders in Cancer PhD Scholarship Programme
Paula Hammond, Ph.D.
Your Turn Recommendations:
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
The Basement with Tim Ross Podcast
Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less by Tiffany Dufu
TRANSCRIPT
[MUSIC]
Oliver Bogler:
Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers. Before we get to the episode – a quick announcement. In the conversation between my colleague Chanelle Case Borden and our guest Sigourney Bonner you will hear about the Black in Cancer Conference which will be held at NIH in June 2024. At the time we recorded the interview a couple of weeks ago, the registration for this in-person event was still open, but in the meantime due to overwhelming support, it is at capacity and registration is now closed. You can join the waitlist – find the link on the Black in Cancer website. Now, let’s listen to the interview.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute where we will explore all the different ways people fight cancer and hear their stories. I am your host, Chanelle Case Borden from NCI Center for Cancer Training. Today we are talking to Sigourney Bonner, a PhD student at the University of Cambridge and CEO of Black in Cancer. Listen through the end of the show to hear our guests make an interesting recommendation and where we invite you to take your turn.
Sigourney, for those listeners who may be unfamiliar with the organization, can you tell us a little bit more about Black in Cancer?
Sigourney Bonner:
Sure. So we started in the summer of 2020 as a result of a number of things, but we don't have to mention that there was lots of social justice movement during that time. But really it was an opportunity to bring together community. So when I started my PhD, I didn't know anybody who was a Black woman who'd done a PhD.
And that visibility piece was really important to me. So in the midst of that, I was looking for community. I found my co-founder via Twitter and we connected and just had a really big chat about what it meant to be Black and a cancer researcher and kind of found that it was twofold. So there was the visibility piece in finding it difficult to find people to aspire to. But on the other side, it was being this font of knowledge for our community and having, you know, our parents or our friends be like, “oh, my uncle's brother's sister's got breast cancer. What should I do?” And I'm like, “I don't know. I work in children's brain tumors”. So wanting to bring a community together that meant I did have the resource to be able to point them in the right direction and give them the right information. I really, that's what we do. So we're twofold increasing the number of Black cancer researchers and providing them visibility, but also bringing awareness about cancer to the community so they can be informed and empowered about their healthcare decisions.
Chanelle Case Borden:
That's wonderful. I remember being in a very similar position myself. So my inspiration and wanting to be a PhD scientist was actually as a result of two white women, which is excellent mentorship. I thank them, I think that I had them in my life. But to your point, there was no one that looked like me that I could really point to. And I think things might have gone a little bit differently if I had that resource. So I think having an organization like Black Cancer is a wonderful resource for scientists going through their journeys now. So can you talk a little bit more about the UK and US connection? I think some people think that it's only in the UK. So can you tell us a little bit about how that works? So its really an international organization.
Sigourney Bonner:
Yeah, so we've always, I guess, wanted to make sure that we could spread the information as widely as possible. When we started, my co-founder, Henry, actually was a postdoc at Vanderbilt, and we were just talking about how similar experiences we had, you know, being different genders and across an ocean. And it was therefore a global issue. So we didn't want to start in one place and assume that all of the issues only occurred in one place. We speak so much and there's so much known about disparities, particularly when it comes to cancer within the US. But actually we don't talk about it a lot in the UK. And there's an assumption that because we have a national health service that it's equitable care. And actually a lot of work coming out is saying that that's not the case. So what we wanted to do is to continue to highlight that as a global issue and not just as a one place or another issue because they're things that we can cross-link and do in both places that will impact both communities.
So yeah, that was what we really wanted to do. So we've been growing. We've had, so most of our programs occur across the US and the UK, but actually people who've come to our conference, as well as people who connect with us, people who work as part of our board of directors and our volunteers, are very international. So Canadians, people from the Netherlands, from across a number of African nations. We've had people connect with us from Australia and Brazil. It's really, really broad and shows that these issues of visibility or whether that's information about cancer that it's not just limited, it's really a global issue.
Chanelle Case Borden:
I’m surprised but at the same time not surprised. Yeah, so speaking about the conference, there is a Black in Cancer Conference happening and it's happening right here at the National Institutes of Health this summer. So will you tell us a little bit more about what attendees can expect if they choose to participate?
Sigourney Bonner:
Yeah, sure. So what we wanted to do was we had a conference last in October of 2022, and we wanted to continue that work. But, you know, our next step is always how can we do it bigger? How can we do it better? So our next step was to see if we could move it to the US because we didn't want it to just be a UK thing and have this incredible collaboration with the Frederick National Lab and working with NCI, which is absolutely incredible.
So what we've really been doing the last few months, actually over the last year has been putting together this program of incredible researchers who were doing brilliant work in a number of different areas, but who are really pushing innovation and the forefronts of science for cancer patients. But we also never want to forget those that we're working for. So we also have patient advocates involved in what we do and they'll be speaking at the conference about their experiences.
So, pushing for more research within particular areas that particularly impact Black communities, whether that's thinking about things like triple negative breast cancer and the difference in diagnosis rates with those from the Black women and that community. So really just pulling together all of these incredible researchers, allowing them to network and really providing a space where no one can say.
“Oh, well, I didn't think that there was anybody who was Black, who was in this space. Otherwise, we would have brought them in for this panel or we would have invited them for this interview” or whatever it's like. They're here. They're thriving. They're doing brilliantly. We're providing visibility for them and really just a space where they can feel a sense of belonging more than anything.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Yeah, that's amazing. I think that awareness is really key and I'm actually really looking forward to being in a room like that. So are there other opportunities for folks who might be interested in Black in Cancer to get involved, maybe for the conference, but maybe just for the organization itself?
Sigourney Bonner:
Yeah, absolutely. So there is room for everyone. We have more things to do than we have hands being able to do them. So I guess this is a moment where I really want to shout out to our board and our volunteers, because all of this stuff that you see happening is actually from a really small set of really, really dedicated people who all have full-time jobs.
So whether they are early career researchers, just starting academic careers or just starting industry careers or PhDs like I am, or working in their outside of work hours, which as many people know, PhD hours don't really exist anyway.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Not at all.
Sigourney Bonner:
So, are doing all of that incredible work to keep the organization moving, to keep our mentorship program going, to support our PhD students that are now in their second year and we've got another cohort starting. So yeah, just a huge shout out to them. And also we've just got so much more space, there’s so much we wanna do. We wanna grow our community impact work and making sure that people can be informed, but we need more people to be able to do that. We're a small team, but we want people in the spaces where these communities are to give that information, to answer the questions because that's how we, that's how we start to reduce disparities in the best way that we can on the ground.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Right, so that is through your two programs. So it's the Black and Cancer Pipeline Program and the Cancer Awareness Project. So do you want to tell us a little bit more about those?
Sigourney Bonner:
Yeah, sure. So, the pipeline program aims to support basically from undergrad all the way up. So, we have a mentorship program for undergraduates, both in the US and the UK. We have now had 80 students come through our program over the last three years who have gone on to do incredible things, whether masters, PhDs, gone into industry.
And we're just incredibly proud of the work that they're doing. And some of them are still investing and pouring into the organization and volunteering. And so that's been really great. We have a collaboration with Cancer Research UK with their Black Leaders in Cancer Scholarship Program. So, we're supporting currently four students who started their PhD in October and bringing on another two this year.
At the postdoc level, we have our postdoctoral fellowship awards. So those are $75,000 a year for three years for postdocs to continue their work. If they transition into a tenure track position in that time, it goes up to $100,000. And we'll be announcing this year's awardees at the conference, which we're really excited about. We also have Brilliant Young Investigator awards for those who have just started labs. So, we have announcing another one of those this year, and then our distinguished investigator award, which we gave out three years ago which went to Dr. Paula Hammond, who's now on the White House science advisory council and all of these things, so it's really brilliant.
So that's how we are kind of supporting the pipeline all the way through on that side. But then on the other side, we really have been trying to just engage the community as much as we can, whether that's seminars, outreach, collaborating with other organizations and getting people tested. Whether that's prostate tests, et cetera, encouraging people to go for screenings. So we've done some really exciting work around that. And our seminar series worked incredibly. We tried to bring together the whole other cancer journey in that. So we'll have a patient who will talk about their personal experience. We'll have a clinician who talks about kind of the practicalities of what that looks like. And then somebody who is either a survivor, who is on the other side of that journey and who could just say like, this is me on the other side. I'm thriving. I'm doing great. This doesn't have to be a death sentence.
So yeah, the programs coming together, they're still growing and moving. And yeah, we're just, our hope is always that people are impacted and that if we can help to change, save one life, that's enough.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Yes, I definitely agree with that. So if folks are interested, they would be able to just go to the Black in Cancer website to volunteer.
Sigourney Bonner:
Yeah, yeah, there should be like a little volunteer tab. But either way, just drop us an email. Or if you would like, I want to reach out via Instagram or Facebook or Twitter, however you want reach us, we're here and ready to bring you on board.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Excellent, excellent. Okay, well, it's time for a short break and when we come back, we'll talk to Sigourney about her career path, her science and her future plans.
[music starts]
Oliver Bogler:
PubMed lists over 270,000 cancer papers published in 2022 – that is a staggering 750 papers every day. It’s great that cancer research is such an active field, but it makes finding the pubs that are critical to your work a challenge. What if you had an AI that paid attention to the papers you read and suggested others as they appear in PubMed? That is exactly what the NCI is building with an app called NanCI. With me to discuss NanCI are two members of the team that are creating NanCI.
Duncan Anderson:
NanCI is an app for cancer scientists and it helps them to discover the research in new ways and connect with each other and build their personal networks and share information and get to know each other. We've just launched the ability to actually chat with a piece of research, so you can actually have a conversation and ask questions about a research paper itself.
JD Wuarin:
Instead of having to read the whole paper yourself, you can now simply ask questions and NanCI will answer those questions. One of the cool features we've also added is that it will read the abstract and figure out what questions you might want to ask the paper.
Duncan Anderson:
We're using artificial intelligence within NanCI to help to make information easier to find and easier to understand and easier to interact with. The only information we're using is the scientific data. So the research paper, for example, we don't allow our AI to go off and answer random questions that might introduce all sorts of concerns.
JD Wuarin:
And so the idea will be that eventually with NanCI straight from your pocket, you'll not only be able to chat with papers and understand what papers are about, but also based on your interest, it will suggest to you what you might want to investigate, maybe which gene mutation you might want to look at, which new disease might be related to what you're doing. And that's gonna be interesting, I think.
Duncan Anderson:
If you start working in a field which you don't have a lot of experience in, it can be a bit daunting. There's a lot of information to read. We have this idea that you could tell NanCI what the field is and NanCI would go off and present you the key influential papers in that space so you can very quickly get your head around what this new field is.
So today, NanCI can be used by cancer researchers in the USA. So it's available from the Apple App Store for the iPhone. And there's a restriction on the downloads, which means that you need to have an email address associated with a cancer research institution.
[music ends]
Chanelle Case Borden:
And we're back. So now we're going to start to get to know Sigourney a little bit better. And to first start out that career journey conversation, we're going to talk about how you first got interested in science. So you want to share some details about that?
Sigourney Bonner:
Sure. So I guess my interest in science was kind of in, mainly in high school. I think I'd always been like kind of interested in science, but I wasn't the kid who had like the science kit and the microscope and was like digging for worms in the garden and looking at like, I would, that wasn't me.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Oh, you weren't like me then. Okay, got it.
Sigourney Bonner:
I was the classic, like I want to be a pop star or an air hostess type vibes, like that was me. So yeah, I guess I, as I kind of went through high school, I was like, actually, I'm pretty, I'm okay at science. And I'd been thinking about like, you know, what I wanted to do. And originally I wanted to be a medic. So I was like, yeah, okay, this is a good path to go down. And then when it got to like my final year, so in the UK, you take A levels, which help you to get into university.
And I was that person that picked all three sciences, because I was like, I'm set. And then I actually missed my grades to get into med school, but it was the biggest blessing because it meant that I went to do physiology as my undergrad degree. And there I just, that was when I like really fell in love with like being in the lab and like getting to answer questions and like really like delving deeper into science where I didn't have to do the science I wasn't interested in either because I was a very people biology person.
I had an opportunity to spend my time just throughout my kind of the second half of my first year of university in a lab, just getting to work on experiments and things in a neuroscience lab. And that was when I was like, wow, I sat in front of the microscope, I'd just done an experiment and I knew that nobody else knew the results but me. And I was like, this is so cool. I'm the first person in the world to do this. I was just there like secretly hoarding my science, but like, I was like, this is amazing.
And that was the moment when I like, I really fell in love with it. And I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to be the first person to find this out. I want to be the one answering questions and figuring out what to do next. So it kind of just grew my passion and from there, it just kind of spiraled. So yeah, it was an unexpected path, but I'm really grateful that I get to do science every day now.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Yeah, that sounds really exciting. So you also spent some time in industry too. So after university, you went to industry, which is becoming an increasingly popular career choice. So can you tell us a little bit about your time there? And then also if you have any advice for early career scientists who are thinking about making that transition.
Sigourney Bonner:
So I actually had a little bit of industry experience before I finished my undergrad. So I did a year in industry, which is reasonably common in the UK. So, I took a year out of my undergrad to go and work for a pharmaceutical company for a year. So gained lots of skills, basically had my own standalone project. And there was, you know, I had supervisors, I had some guidance. But yeah, I just got to do science every day for a year.
And with you know, being in pharma, there was a bit more kind of money to be able to just do stuff, try stuff out. And I actually managed to do lots of animal work, which was amazing and kind of unexpected. So, yeah, I spent a year doing that, kind of got some industry experience, which meant when I came out of my undergrad, I was like, oh, I've already kind of been in this for a year. And then they were like, oh, OK, you know what this is like. So that kind of helped me to break in just because I already had some industry on my, on my CV, which was really helpful.
I guess thinking about the tips that I would give to people who are maybe thinking about industry - just think about the different ways in which academia and industry work and how they can be helpful either way. So for example, me starting my PhD after working in industry, I worked on a whole bunch of projects and I was really able to switch out and be like, okay, this isn't working anymore. And they've decided to close this project. I just need to move on to the next. Cool. So having less emotional attachment, especially within the context of now doing my PhD has been really helpful. So if something isn't working, I'll do the troubleshooting, I'll do as much as I can, but my heart isn't broken and I'm not pursuing dead ends, trying to make things work that maybe won't work or prove a hypothesis that everything else I've done says that's not what it is.
So it's really helped me to kind of sharpen like, cool, this isn't working, but what is which other avenues can I go down? How can I make the most of what I do have and expand the knowledge that way? So that's been really helpful. So I guess just thinking about which ways do industry approach things versus which ways that academia approach things and which skills you have that play into the different viewpoints and therefore progressing projects forward in those different lanes.
Chanelle Case Borden:
I think that is a very valuable skill to have because we tend to get very tied to our projects and tend to have a difficult time being able to break away when things aren't working or not having the vision or the foresight to know that it's a dead end project. So I think that kind of experience is definitely invaluable and something to work on if it's a skill that you don't totally have.
Okay. So in addition to running an international organization, you're also defending your dissertation too. So snaps, snap, snap. You want to tell us a little bit more about what you're working on now and how you do that. Because that's something we talked about. PhD hours are like not totally a thing.
Sigourney Bonner:
No. Yeah, it's been challenging. But what I will say is the attitude that we just spoke about, so being able to be like, this isn't working, cool, drop this, move on, has been really helpful. There's also been just like a lot of up and downs in the context of my project, just because I started in 2019, and then six months in, there was a pandemic and all sorts.
So that's been challenging, but I am also really blessed to have a really successful project. So there aren't many things that I've done that haven't worked. So it's been really good in that manner to just be able to, where there are dead ends, just stop. But I've got so much other data that I'm not too concerned.
I'm also in a really well-funded lab. So being able to use things like multiomics approaches means that you've got lots of data all at once. And so that's been really helpful, but. I guess for context, I work on a rare children's brain tumor called supratentorial ependymoma. It's caused by a fusion gene, happens in early development. So my work has been making a mouse model and then characterizing that over development and then using that to understand how these tumors develop, when they develop, and actually we understood lots of new biology about it since we've made this model, which has been really exciting. And hopefully we'll change a bit of the trajectory about how we think about some of these tumor types, which is exciting.
So yeah, it's coming together. I'm literally writing my overall introduction and discussion and will be done by the end of this month.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Congratulations.
Sigourney Bonner::
So it's super exciting and I'm just, I'm ready to, I'm ready to progress with the next science topic. I actually miss being in the lab. So I'm like, I'm done with writing this, can I just do some more science now?
Chanelle Case Borden:
Okay, okay. So what's next for you? So speaking about getting back into science, so what are you going to do next?
Sigourney Bonner:
I guess it's kind of multifaceted. I'm staying in my lab to continue on as a postdoc for a number of reasons. And I know actually within academia, that's mildly controversial because it's the whole thing of like, don't stay where you are, move on to another lab. And it's one of those things where in a in a very practical manner that doesn't work for me unless I change field, which makes it really difficult. And I am, I love my science, but I'm determined that actually, my science shouldn't have to change the life I want to live either. So being like, if there are only other, the only other labs doing what I do are in Germany or the US, I don't want to be forced to move country to continue doing the science I want to do.
Chanelle Case Borden:
That makes sense.
Sigourney Bonner:
So there's that. But also, I mean, I love the project and being able to move forward with other angles of it is really exciting to me anyway. And the other big thing is that we as Black in Cancer now have our official headquarters within the building where I do my PhD. So Cancer Research UK have given us an office within the institute to have as our kind of global headquarters. So moving away from here also seems seems a little strange to do. So yeah, I'll be kind of continuing with both things. I continue with my science and then also Black in Cancer as it continues to grow beyond all I had imagined. And yeah, just see where we go from there really. I'm like the world is an oyster at this point. I had no idea I'd be at this point when I started so.
Chanelle Case Borden:
I mean, that's usually how it goes. I remember back in, I guess undergrad, but also grad school, when you hear scientists, they're like, I had no idea this was the path I was going to take. The journey is always the circuitous path. And you always, at that time, you're like, that's ridiculous. How did that ever happen? But now like sitting on the other side of it, it definitely feels surreal. And it's very exciting to hear about the amazing work you're doing both in the lab and in Black in Cancer.
[music]
Chanelle Case Borden:
Okay, so now it's time for a segment we call Your Turn, because it is a chance for our listeners to send in the recommendation that they would like to share. If you are listening, then you are invited to take your turn. Send us a tip for a book, a video, a podcast, or a talk that you found inspirational, amusing, or even interesting. You can send these to us at ncicc@nih.gov. Record a voice memo and send it along, and we may just play it in an upcoming episode.
So now I would like to invite our guest to take their turn. Sigourney, is there anything you'd like to share?
Sigourney Bonner:
Um, this is probably really classic and I don't know whether other people have said it before. Um, but I feel like if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably some form in some realm of the cancer space. And if you have not read or watched the movie that is the immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I, I, I don't know what else to say to you other than please log off now and, and invest in the book or the movie or something, please.
Sigourney Bonner:
But I mean, outside of that, I mean, I also think about like fun things. I do listen to a bunch of podcasts. My favorite right now is probably called The Basement, which by actually by a pastor called Tim Ross, and he talks about a range of different topics. And I usually find that pretty good to tune into. They are pretty long, but yeah, present lots of different things from lots of different angles. So that's usually my like my throw on podcast. That's not science related.
Chanelle Case Borden:
I mean, hey, every can't be science all the time anyway, so that's perfectly fine.
Sigourney Bonner:
Hey, right, absolutely. Absolutely.
Chanelle Case Borden:
We're well, well rounded around here. So I'd like to make a recommendation. So my recommendation is actually a book, it's called Drop the Ball by Tiffany Dufu. And as a professional being away from all those things, it always feels like there's not enough time in a day. However, I realized that there are a lot of that has to do with my expectations. And I realized that whether it be childhood trauma or whatever the case may be, my A-type personality, I tend to have these very, very high, very lofty goals that it ends up carrying, creating a lot of weight on my shoulders. So by reading this book, I've learned to kind of evaluate those expectations and set more realistic goals, ask for help when I can and do a lot more with less, which is really coming in handy with all the different hats that I wear, both at home and at work. So it's really helped me lighten the weight and thinking that I had to do everything all the time. So that's my recommendation.
Sigourney Bonner:
Well, I will be jotting that down for myself, so thank you.
Chanelle Case Borden:
Yes, yes, yes, please do. With that, thank you for your time Sigourney. It was a pleasure speaking with you and I look forward to seeing you in June at the Black and Cancer Conference. And I hope to see some of our listeners there as well.
[music starts]
Oliver Bogler:
That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.
We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are welcome. And you are invited to take your turn and make a recommendation to share with our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected].
Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training. It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar.
Join us every first and third Thursday of the month wherever you listen – subscribe so you won’t miss an episode.
If you have questions about cancer or comments about this podcast, you can email us at [email protected] or call us at 800-422-6237. And please be sure to mention Inside Cancer Careers in your query.
We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.
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In this episode of Inside Cancer Careers, we hear from Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, Senior Scientific Officer and Senior Advisor for Clinical Research in NCI’s Center for Global Health. Dr. Ginsburg discusses the published article Women, power, and cancer: a Lancet Commission, which focuses on the social determinants of health and the power dynamics that affect women's access to cancer care. She shares the commission's key findings, which highlight the high incidence of cancer in women and the potential for prevention and early detection to save lives. Dr. Ginsburg gives her thoughts on the importance of women's leadership and representation in cancer care and provides recommendations for creating a gender-equitable cancer care system. She then discusses her career path and offers advice for those interested in pursuing a career in global oncology.
Show Notes:
Ophira Ginsburg, M.D., M.Sc.
NCI Center for Global Health
Women, power, and cancer: Lancet Commission
Ad: NCI Cancer Data Science Training
World Health Organization (WHO)
WHO Cervical Cancer Elimination Initiative
WHO Guide to Cancer Early Diagnosis
NYU Department of Population Health
Royal Society of Medicine
London Global Cancer Week
African Organization of Research and Training in Cancer (AORTIC)
Your Turn Recommendations:
Ikigai
Book: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh
Podcast: Night Science with Dr. Itai Yanai and Dr. Martin Lercher
TRANSCRIPT
Oliver Bogler
Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute. I'm your host, Oliver Bogler. I work at the NCI in the Center for Cancer Training. On Inside Cancer Careers, we explore all the different ways that people join the fight against disease and we hear their stories. Today, we're talking with Dr. Ophira Ginsburg, Senior Advisor for Clinical Research in NCI Center for Global Health and leader of a recent Lancet Commission on Women, Power and Cancer. Listen through to the end of the show to hear her make some interesting recommendations and where we will invite you to take your turn.
Dr. Ginsburg, Ophira, welcome.
Ophira Ginsburg
Thank you so much.
Oliver Bogler
So you've done a lot of things in global health, but I wanna start with one particular recent initiative that you led, which is this commission for the medical journal Lancet. And the commission was called on Women, Power and Cancer. It sounds like a lot more than simply looking at the incidence of cancer in women, for example. Why “power”?
Ophira Ginsburg
Yeah, it's a great question. And thanks so much for having me on the show. I guess I'll start by setting it up with a previous series we did in the Lancet. It was a three-part article, mostly reviews, with some recommendations called Health, Equity, and Women's Cancers, which I had the good fortune to lead with a 40, a compliment, 40 authors from 18 countries. We published online in 2016, in print 2017, when I was at WHO, actually, as a medical officer. Circle back to that if it's of interest. At that time we focused just on breast and cervical cancer, and we did try to dig in a little bit into the social determinants of health that we all thought were influencing, and of course there's enough evidence, there's more than enough evidence to support that we have much more to do to close this gap and reduce cancer health disparities for women at the national level and of course at the global level. Several years later we hadn't really progressed as far as we had hoped to. And I had a conversation with Richard Horton, as you know, the editor-in-chief of The Lancet in London 2019 just before the pandemic hit, and he asked me what did I think of progress. And I could say something about the emerging efforts on breast cancer, now part of the global breast cancer initiative at WHO and cervical cancer, of course, the elimination strategy that many of your listeners, I hope, are aware of. But we really still hadn't cracked through that barrier, that global barrier that seems to affect women in every setting and not just with respect to access to care, access to prevention when it comes to cervical cancer, let's say girls getting vaccinated and women getting screened, et cetera. So we kind of stepped back and looked at what is the big picture here?
And if I might just draw on my own career point, when I was doing more hands-on global health work, I co-founded a small breast clinic, breast cancer center in rural Bangladesh, and women were coming in with these large, fungating masses, for those who are clinicians, you'll know what I mean, for those who aren't, just desperate situation of terribly advanced cancer, the likes of which you see maybe once a year or never really. This was sort of the norm. And we started asking these women, and I was working with qualitative researchers, why did you come so late? First of all, it's a really loaded question, right? It places the blame on the woman. And also without asking, we really made wrong assumptions. So understanding the power dynamics within their families and within society led them to say to us “We're making a choice. I can't make this choice. I have no choice but to have used the little bit of money I had to spend on school books and uniforms for the kids”. “I'm not the person who decides on my own healthcare”, they would say in some other way, which is typical in that particular setting in the South Asian conservative community, that it's the mothers-in-law and mostly the husbands, fear of being ostracized, fear … anyway.
I'm going on and on, but to say the element of power dynamics and patriarchal systems as they pertain to opportunities for equitable, high-quality, respectful care for people with cancer as well as other elements we can talk about really spoke to me. And when we started the commission, the concept note I wrote and shared with Richard Horton and then to the editorial board, there's a process for how these commissions come about. And then eventually started inviting people to join me - we saw that power was really central. And the name of the report eventually became not Women and Cancer, but ‘Women, Power and Cancer’. That by the way is inclusive of women as healthcare providers, as well as people with lived experience of cancer.
Oliver Bogler
So would you then say that power is a new social determinant of health? Is that a fair comment?
Ophira Ginsburg
You know, that's a terrific question. And I think you're the first person to ask me this. All the interviews we've had since the report came out. I don't know that we're inventing it. It certainly is an element that is discussed in other domains, but I haven't seen it, what's the word I'm looking for?
Oliver Bogler
Explicitly called out or…
Ophira Ginsburg
Yeah, I haven't seen it really framed in terms of cancer with one exception. And I should mention her. When we did the series, there were a couple of commentaries. One was by our colleagues at the American Cancer Society. This was the series, Health Equity in Women's Cancers that I referred to. And the other was by then president of Chile, Dr. Michelle Bachelet, co-founder of UN Women, who went on the next year after that to become the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. She wrote an editorial about our series and she called it . So there you go. We can't own it. That's the great legendary former president, Dr. Bachelet.
Oliver Bogler
So what are the key findings that you published in this commission report?
Ophira Ginsburg
Right, so first what we set out to do was to look at power in three domains, in knowledge, decision making, and economics. So we had our working groups. The first working group really was the one I was attached to as a scientist working with our colleagues at IARC and others on the burden. So one of the main quantitative findings was that cancer ranks in the top three causes of premature mortality - death under 70 - for women in every country except two. That's out of 185 countries. It's rather mystifying that more people don't know this and in fact we weren't really aware the degree to which cancer ranks in that few top causes of death under the age of 70 and so what does that mean for the society, what does that mean for the children of these mothers etc. especially when they when they die, when they still have young children. So that was a key point.
And when we broke it down by country, we saw there were huge differences depending on where you lived, the degree to which cancer deaths are premature, right? Largely because population structure and other factors, but also different types of cancer that are more or less prevalent according to geography and also income level and what's called the Human Development Index. And so the other thing we broke down was of the 2.3 million women who died in 2020 prematurely of cancer, 1.3 million women's lives could have been saved if they had appropriate access to what we already know works in terms of prevention and early detection. And another 800,000 women could have been spared death prematurely under the age of 70 if every woman diagnosed with cancer of any kind, right? All taken together had access to the optimal care. These are really important data points. That's just a couple of the quantitative findings. I'll stop there for a second.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, that's fascinating. So I mean, the problems you're describing seem, to someone like myself who's not in global health, quite overwhelming. You know, the infrastructure, the socioeconomic circumstances. So does the report also have ideas on how these challenges can be tackled?
Ophira Ginsburg
Absolutely. So the point of these reports is not just to highlight a problem, which would be horribly depressing for all of us. And I mean, there's enough other ways to express and analyze and publish on such a paper. You know, many papers could have come out of this work. But to do this as a commission meant that what we were tasked with was coming up with a set of evidence-informed, evidence-based recommendations, and specific enough that they could then be advanced, which is what we're working on now.
We started actually about a year ago to look at what we call in public health policy, monitoring and evaluation. How are we going to see that these recommendations can be actioned? And who are we aiming this for? How can we help them develop a set of, let's say, metrics? Are there baseline data, baseline statistics? Doesn't have to be that we as a commission come up with these. I'll give you an example. We know that breastfeeding is an important contributor to reducing the risk of breast cancer. It's underutilized as a prevention strategy. Of course, there's other really good reasons for people to breastfeed if they're able. But what are the upstream factors that determine whether a woman or whoever is available to be able to breastfeed their child can do that? Also has to do with policy around, right, a private space, etc. The rights and enablers enabling factors to be able to breastfeed.
So do we have to make up that data? No, there's a whole global breast cancer observatory. There's a lot of global health data out there of great quality from World Health Organization and other partners. And so tapping into those was key. Another one would be looking at the existing laws like the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which is one of the few legally binding health-related treaties globally. There are gender responsive policies around tobacco, such as the targeted marketing, what's called pink washing, that was very effective in the 1950s and onwards, you know, tripled the number of women who were taking up tobacco smoking because of that very cynical marketing, which by the way, you know, abused concepts of feminism and empowerment to encourage women to smoke as a sign that they've made it, that they're successful. We're seeing the same thing with alcohol. So,there's a set of 10 recommendations we encourage people to look at. And there's a table at the back of the report that gives just one example for each of those where we say, who is this aimed at? Is it multilateral, like UN organizations? Is it for countries to do, subnational governments, civil society, the private sector? And guess what? Research funders like us at the NIH and the National Cancer Institute. Some of these recommendations are aimed at several of these. And then we just took one example for each of the recommendations to give people a chance to sort of hang their hat on that, think about it, and then help move the needle forward individually and on behalf of their organization.
Oliver Bogler
So you've already mentioned one dimension, if you will, of power, the example you gave of a woman in Bangladesh not being able to maybe determine her own health care future or pathway. Another element that you, I think, point to in the report is that of leadership and representation, and also, of course, in cancer health care and also in cancer research. So I'm curious, why is that important? And how can we do better?
Ophira Ginsburg
Yeah, that's particularly important for us to think about here at the NCI. And I would say that we are on the leading edge, I think, of improving that situation for women as leaders. As we can see now, we have a woman as a leader of the National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute. But by and large, historically women have been underrepresented in pretty much everywhere in terms of research funding organizations. We took a look at a couple of parts of this. We looked at the editors in chief in the top 100 cancer journals by sex. And we found that only 16% of editors-in-chief in those top 100 journals were actually female, which is kind of shocking. We thought it would be maybe a third. So that's a low-hanging fruit, by the way, that we're gonna push the editors-in-chief, we've had discussions with Elsevier or with The Lancet, and they are discussing with their publishers. The Lancet actually does well, but many journals do not.
So that's one aspect. Another is looking at the principle investigators on research grants by sex and ideally by gender as well as other domains such as race. We haven't really done enough, I think, in this regard globally or even nationally in the US to help ensure that equity is achieved if it hasn't already occurred in every domain of health, including cancer. So there's a lot we can do. I mean, you obviously lead all these training initiatives, the whole division at the NCI. There are ways to help give a leg up in terms of unique opportunities for women, mentorship and other scholarships. On the global scale, a number of our partners like ASCO, AACR and others have been offering specific scholarships for additional training for women in low and middle income countries. As a scientist, I know AACR also has that. So these are really doable things and we need to act and we need to measure and hold ourselves accountable for how we're doing in a short period of time. There's a lot that could be achieved in that regard.
Now why is it important? I think our listeners probably know this, but women are more likely to come for care, to stay throughout their health care course, especially for women with breast or gynecologic cancer, if they have gender concordant care. We've seen this in many different countries. It's not just in South Asia, for example, or in African countries. There's a certain degree of stigma, taboo, and disrespect, really disrespectful care, including for women of color in this country, in the US. So there's, you know, representation matters. And I think enough said on that topic.
Oliver Bogler
No, that's really important. You've mentioned this really important aspect. Are there other things that we could do maybe that are also in your report in order to create a more gender-equitable cancer care system here and across the world?
Ophira Ginsburg
Absolutely. In our healthcare workforce group, we had actually the workforce group and also the team of scientists on the commission who looked at with a deep dive into the literature, the health systems across countries, across cancer types, especially looking at non-sex specific cancers like lung cancer and colorectal cancer. We really wanted to take a deeper dive into those two as an example of where things might be problematic. We didn't know what we'd find. We found a lot of problems. Women were more likely to present with an emergency presentation of colorectal cancer in a number of countries. So together with the workforce group, we present in the report a template for what we call a gender competency framework that could be adapted, evolved in different settings to make it culturally appropriate, etc. that is not only about gender, but again, intersectionality, inclusive of people of diverse gender orientation, gender expression, sexual orientation, et cetera. And we'd like to see that taken forward by the big cancer societies, as well as health systems throughout the US and elsewhere.
Oliver Bogler
So I think you're coming up on your second anniversary of having joined the NCI. Why did you come to the NCI? What are you hoping to achieve in your current role?
Ophira Ginsburg
Well, I'm thrilled to be at the NCI. I still am pinching myself. First, for people who don't know, I'm a Canadian national, hoping to become a US citizen very soon. And the idea of working with such incredible people, really dedicated to the best science and to be of service nationally and globally. And particularly working at the Center for Global Health, I was very fortunate to have, well, leadership, as you know, Dr. Satish Gopal, to give me the time I needed to complete this big report of the Lancet Commission and start to take the recommendations forward as part of my work. One of the other priorities that I have is to help advance a new programmatic area to advance capacity building for cancer therapeutic clinical trials in low and middle income countries, which is very exciting and timely. Also goes along with the equity principles that are so close to our hearts.
Oliver Bogler
Fantastic. We're going to take a short break now. And when we come back, we'll hear all about Dr. Ginsburg's career path and what advice she has for our listeners.
[music]
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Oliver Bogler
And we're back. I'd like to turn to your career path now. Let's start at the beginning. What got you interested in science?
Ophira Ginsburg
Oh wow, I can't remember a time when I wasn't interested in science. And apparently, supposedly, when I was six, the first time somebody remembers anyway, asking, what do you want to be when you grow up? And I said, a zoologist. I wanted to be Jane Goodall or, you know, Diane Fossey. I was absolutely mad about animals. And funnily enough, now if I could retrain, I would be a marine biologist. But… yeah, so I've always been fascinated by genetics. I think when I was 13, I was in grade nine, I skipped a grade and ended up, and then took a course above my year. So I was really young for the course and presented something about, now it sounds silly, but gene splicing based on what little we understood of that back then. This is a long time ago.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, no, those were exciting times when so much was being discovered. But you then … you did a bachelor's of science and I think you did a master's in human genetics, right?
Ophira Ginsburg
I did, I was actually a genetic counselor. I was the first cancer genetic counselor in like full time, just doing cancer genetic counseling in Canada in the early nineties and before I went to medical school.
Oliver Bogler
I mean, that's a field that's exploded, genetic counseling, as we've discovered more. Interesting. So what prompted you then to go to medical school?
Ophira Ginsburg
Well, I was really enjoying what I was doing, but I was all of whatever 23 years old and I didn't see a big opportunity to expand and grow as a scientist. I was working, I was fortunate to work with Dr. Steven Narod, who's one of the co-discoverers of the BRCA2 gene. And we were recruiting families for the linkage analysis. That's how long ago that was. But I was getting frustrated already and I thought I need to learn more and do more. I thought about going to medical school or doing a PhD, and in retrospect, I wish I had done both. But I chose medicine because I loved patient care as well, and then ended up sort of developing cancer genetics as a specialty within the specialty of medical oncology.
Oliver Bogler
And so then what sparked your interest in global health? What was your first experience in that space?
Ophira Ginsburg
Well, when I think about why I got involved in global health, it really comes from my passion for social justice, which again, I sound like a super geek here, wanting to be a zoologist at six. And my first radio interview was when I was 12 years old about children's rights.
Oliver Bogler
Wow, okay.
Ophira Ginsburg
Yeah, so I was really involved in social justice and I was an activist since, again, almost since I can remember.
But I really truly did not know anything about global health until I was already well into my medical training. And some of my friends were involved in infectious disease and maternal health. And that was sort of the obvious route. But I was so passionate about becoming an oncologist. I couldn't really see those two things lining up. So I chose to sort of evolve them in parallel. And I took time out. People who are listening might find this a bit strange, but in my fellowship in medical oncology, I asked for time and I took two and a half months with a backpack and really like roughing it in rural Southeast Asia and asking people what they thought about cancer and going into clinics with permission obviously. Also doing a lot of meditation and sort of soul searching to find my path and somewhere in rural Cambodia I found it.
Oliver Bogler
Remarkable, remarkable. And you also, I think you mentioned this a little bit earlier, you worked at the World Health Organization. So how did your path take you there?
Ophira Ginsburg
So in 2014 or so, I was already working on that Lancet series, Health Equity in Women's Cancers, and I was the director of a cancer genetics program in a part of Ontario where I was living, working at the University of Toronto on faculty. And I got a call from someone who some of the listeners should know, I hope, Dr. Ben Anderson, who was then a surgical oncologist at Fred Hutchison. And he was asked “do you know anybody who might be interested in helping us out with women's cancers at WHO in Geneva”? And he thought of me. So I literally got a call out of the blue, which was completely unexpected, obviously, and I had never really considered what the World Health Organization was doing in the domain of cancer. And boy, am I glad that he called, because that turned out to be an incredible opportunity. I mean, of course it was a competitive process, et cetera. but I was selected for the position, and then I went and spent a year there, where they were in some ways building up this cancer program. I was working with just one other person, if you can believe it, all of the World Health Organization at the headquarters level in Geneva was just myself and another who many people know now, he's such a star, Dr. André Ilbawi, who was junior to me, which seems funny now, because he could be, he could be the director general one day of the World Health Organization. So a lot has happened since then. I'm happy to share that with people if they're interested.
Oliver Bogler
Yeah, tell me before we do, can you tell us what is the World Health Organization? Maybe not all of our listeners think about the WHO a lot.
Ophira Ginsburg
Mm-hmm. So the WHO is the only truly multilateral global health organization we have. It is made up of member states. It's part of the United Nations. It's made up of 194 member states, of which the U.S. is one, and has three sort of parts to it. I mentioned headquarters. People think of the WHO in Geneva, which is correct, but it also, in fact, even more importantly, is comprised of its regional offices. There are six world regions, each with an office, with staff and country level offices, which is really where the rubber hits the road. So, you know, some people are a little bit cynical nowadays and they can say, well, “what is the WHO doing?” and “how come they're not doing more?”. And we had a lot of critique around the COVID pandemic, having worked inside the organization, even though it was just one year. I've worked alongside and helping support WHO. And by the way, the Center for Global Health at the National Cancer Institute is a WHO collaborating center in cancer control. So in all these efforts, I've come to understand the tremendous importance, especially in low income and middle income countries, when it comes to their opportunities to get buy-in and financial support locally or otherwise through grants and other mechanisms.
It matters that the WHO has developed or endorsed a policy or program such as, a good example would be the Cervical Cancer Program that is now several years old.
Oliver Bogler
So tell us more then about the beginnings of the cancer work at WHO that you were part of.
Ophira Ginsburg
Yeah, so I worked on a couple of major products, products as we call them, deliverables. One which is the WHO Guide to Cancer Early Diagnosis, which has proven to be a really important guidance document for countries that are looking at the burden of cancer that's growing in their countries. There's many things that they lack as we all know, including things like pathology services.
But even if you could help downstage cancers which are detectable at an early stage and if detected and if treated properly, even with basic, you know, basic services. WHO has an essential medicines list that includes cancer chemotherapeutics, et cetera, surgery, even in the absence of radiotherapy, but ideally with radiotherapy. Those cancers, which when detected early and treated promptly, have a huge survival advantage. You know, that is important for countries to know. But how do they do that?
So the principles of early detection and distinguishing between early diagnosis versus screening was a really important piece of work I'm very privileged to have contributed to. The other main thing that I worked on was providing direct technical support to countries at the member state’s request. For example, I went to Myanmar at one point in my brief time at WHO, on behalf of the World Health Organization, was invited by that government at the time. They were in transition to, unfortunately, it hasn't played out the way we'd hoped, but they were transitioning to a democracy at that point and very eager to engage with multilateral and other UN organizations to improve the health and wellbeing of their population. So I had an opportunity to take a look at their national cancer plan and its implementation, et cetera, et cetera. And.
Oliver Bogler
Interesting. So then you returned back, you went back to Toronto, I think, and then soon after that moved on to NYU, to New York University, where you ran a high-risk cancer genetics program. Sounds almost like back to your earlier role as a genetic counselor. Is that a fair connection or?
Ophira Ginsburg
Oh, sure. So I'd actually been, all told I was the director of a cancer genetics program, two in Canada and then one in the US for about 15 years. So most of my clinical career has been in cancer genetics. And from that, by the way, if you look at what we're doing in cancer genetics on the prevention side, it fits nicely into risk reduction prevention overall, not just for women and men with genetic conditions that predispose them to cancer.
So that was my segue into public health, by the way, in Canada. I was also medical director for cancer prevention and screening for a part of the province. So that gave me a real education into public health. I didn't just go to WHO without having had that experience. But yeah, NYU was great. I was the director of the high risk cancer genetics program there. We quadrupled the size of the program in the four years, four and a half years I was there. And the other half of me was in global health. So I was on faculty in the Department of Population Health in our section for global health and writing grants like other extramural scientists. It's fortunate to have a couple of NIH grants that were wrapping up as I joined NCI.
Oliver Bogler
So it seems to me like you've really consistently in your career combined these multiple interests, right? Cancer genetics, medicine, global health, and really woven them into something amazing. And I've read that you described yourself as a “Jill of all trades”. I find that hard to believe. It seems to me like you're mastering these different domains.
Ophira Ginsburg
No, definitely not. I feel I had adequate expertise to be able to do the work I've done, but for folks who focus on one key area and do that for their whole career, for example, the brilliant cancer genetics researchers out there who've dedicated all of their work clinically and whether it's bench work or implementation research, et cetera, all on that one broad topic have far more expertise than I would say I have.
But, you know, like some people pointed out, well, why did you then go back to academia? For people trying to navigate careers in oncology and particularly in global health, it is virtually impossible to have a career in solely in global oncology without also having a clinical practice, if you're a clinician or having a, you know adequate salary support from NIH or other grants which are incredibly competitive and there's not many really that exclusively allow you to focus in global oncology. So I was lucky to be able to balance about 50-50 over many years until I finally found the right place where I could, you know, work exclusively in global oncology and that's here at the NCI Center for Global Health.
Oliver Bogler
So I'm interested in, you know, creativity in science and medicine. And I wonder if your connections to multiple different disciplines was an asset to you in that regard.
Ophira Ginsburg
I think so. One of the sort of ways I phrased it is that I like to look at problems from the bottom up and the top down. And so the bottom up part, the literally being in clinic, seeing patients, talking to it and listening to the lives and experiences of the women who were coming for care, rural Bangladesh and Vietnam, I worked for many, many years, over a period of years. Having that experience made me reflect on what was the reason they weren't coming or what were the elements that could improve care even by simple structural things within the health system as well as of course seeing what the problems were in terms of patriarchal systems that would keep holding women back from career development in their own countries and having those decision-making authority within their families.
Then going to WHO gave me sort of the 30,000 foot view. I sometimes said, I kept taking a step further back. What am I missing? What's really the problem here? But what else is the problem? And moving further back, I went all the way up to Geneva into the mountains, which was a little bit too high up because I lost sight of the ground. So I wanted to have that kind of balance. But yeah, I think it does matter having the opportunity to draw from different disciplines, different domains. And look, with the Lancet Commission, I didn't do a commission. It was a collective effort of 21 commissioners, 10 mentees, an advisory board, a six-person patient advisory committee from many different countries. And in the commission itself, the disciplines ranged from anthropology, social sciences, health systems, health services research, gender scholarship. It wasn't just oncologists with clinical or epidemiological expertise.
Oliver Bogler
Very interesting work that you're doing. And so I'd like to sort of turn to what advice you might give to our listeners, particularly people who are like, Oh, that sounds interesting. How do I get to do the kind of work that Dr. Ginsburg does? What's your advice?
Ophira Ginsburg
Well, there's a couple of places that I always turn to when I'm asked this or when I ask myself, have I, you know, did I fall off the rails at different points in my career? Did I lose sight of what my goals were or where my passion is? And one of those things is the concept, the Japanese concept, ikigai, has been sort of modernized and is now promoted by the Japanese government as loosely translated to ‘finding meaning in everyday life’. And so looking at that sort of, it's an intersection, it's a Venn diagram that has what you are good at, what you can be paid for, what the world needs, and what you love. So roughly it's passion, mission, vocation, and profession. Not in the order I just said, by the way. That wouldn't make sense.
But having an opportunity to really reflect on that, which I do often, I find it really important. And I have been told by students and also by peers, as well as people senior to me over the years who said, gee, I'm really, I'm fascinated by what you do. And I'm thinking of taking a sabbatical or I'd like to rework my career now to find a way to do that. It's rare that you can find that all in a job, right? It may be that you're also an artist as well as a clinical researcher or a musician, and you do that knowing you're not gonna make a living at it, but you carve out time to make it happen for you if you're able to. And that's really important, is finding that meaning as well as a vocation, something you can make a living.
That would be my main piece of advice. And the other is when people say something seems too hard or you can't do it, right? I always question who is saying that to me and what possibly are their motivations for saying that? And often in my own lifetime, it's not always been the case, but it sometimes comes from a position where the person asking that question is feeling a lack in their own life, about what they're doing. And so it's a way of sort of even inadvertently trying to spin something in a negative light because they don't feel they can do that. Like, how come she gets to, I've been asked that. It may sound a bit negative to say that here on the podcast, but I'm being realistic here. There's been people who frankly tried to undermine what I was doing and just keep your head down, keep doing the good work, you know, you'll find your way and seek out mentors, including peer mentors, people who are doing things you find interesting and learn how they got to do it.
So I was fortunate to be invited to the Royal Society of Medicine in London during what we call London Global Cancer Week, which sounds kind of funny. It's based on London Fashion Week, but it consists of many different webinars and in -person events. And we did an event around our Lancet Commission on Women, Power, and Cancer. And on the Friday, there's always a day dedicated to global oncology. A lot of people come who are interested in careers in global oncology from very different parts of their career. Some are medical students, some are very experienced or already retired oncologists throughout the UK and elsewhere. And I was asked to talk on careers. And in it, I had the pleasure of having just been in Senegal for the AORTIC meeting. I know Oliver, you know this meeting, the African Organization of Research and Training in Cancer. I was blown away by a panel discussion by three eminent scientists, from different African countries, including an anthropologist, someone who's sort of a cultural anthropologist. And there was this phrase that he was quoting as a proverb, no one should enter their home through another person's gate. No one should enter their home through another person's gate. And it really got me thinking. So I included it in my discussion. I test drove it at the career talk at the Royal Society of Medicine. And it apparently had an impact. People really were inspired by that, it's not my words, but to look at that from the career perspective, don't do what I did. I mean, I followed my nose. I also recognized my privilege in being able to make some of the choices I made along the way in my career, but find your own unique path because you have something to offer that no one else does.
Oliver Bogler
That's fantastic advice. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
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Oliver Bogler
All right. Now it's time for us to turn to a segment we call Your Turn, because it's a chance for our listeners to send in a recommendation that they would like to share. If you're listening, then you're invited to take your turn. Send us a tip for a book, a video, a podcast, or a talk that you found inspirational or amusing or interesting. You can send these to us at [email protected]. If you record a voice memo and send it along, we may just play it on an upcoming episode. But I'd like to invite our guest to have her turn, Ophira.
Ophira Ginsburg
Wow, okay. Well, I think I just gave one. So if you look up Ikigai, I think, you know, and there's books being written on this. It's so important. And it's just a simple image. I keep, it was my pin to tweet for a while when I was more active on, I'm still gonna call it Twitter. And for me also to find something that's really inspirational for myself, it's really, it's been Zen Buddhism. So a book that a young Vietnamese Canadian medical student gave me some 30 years ago called Peace is Every Step, really was transformative for me. And it seems almost too simple, but it's very deep. And I've shared copies of that book so many times over the years, and I welcome other people's ideas also that are inspirational. And just being open to different cultures and different ways of living is very important.
Oliver Bogler
Well, thank you for sharing that. I'd like to make a recommendation as well. It's a podcast I've started listening to recently called Night Science. It's by Dr. Itai Yanai of New York University and Dr. Martin Lercher of Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany. In the podcast, they interview scientists about their creative process and how they come up with new ideas for their research. And the guiding principle of this is so-called Night Science.
So, Day Science is what we commonly think of as science, right? That's when you test a hypothesis, you do an experiment, you analyze some data. But Night Science is ideation and thinking across areas and connecting disparate concepts and creating ideas, it is much more intuitive and artistic in a way. And these two modes work together. Night Science can suggest things that you can then test in your Day Science and then the information from the day science can flow back into the night science. The concept of this Day and Night science comes from the autobiography of Francois Jacob, a Nobel laureate early on in the days of the molecular revolution. And Drs. Yanai and Lercher have a great website with lots more info and resources that you can find, including their pod. So we'll post that in the show notes. Thank you very much, Ophira, for sharing your time with us and your insights.
Ophira Ginsburg
Thanks so much, Oliver. It's been a pleasure.
Oliver Bogler
That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.
We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are always welcome. And you are invited to take your turn and make a recommendation to share with our listeners. You can reach us at [email protected].
Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training.
It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar.
Join us every first and third Thursday of the month when new episodes can be found wherever you listen – subscribe so you won’t miss an episode. I'm your host Oliver Bogler from the National Cancer Institute and I look forward to sharing your stories here on Inside Cancer Careers.
If you have questions about cancer or comments about this podcast, email us at [email protected] or call us at 800-422-6237. And please be sure to mention Inside Cancer Careers in your query.
We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.
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