The University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine
What is your hometown?
Guthrie Center, IA
How or when did you become interested in science?
I developed an interest in science at a very early age. My dad is a veterinarian and my mom teaches conservation education at a state park. I can remember being fascinated with looking through the microscope at tissue specimens with my dad and identifying different plant and animal species while taking hikes with my mom. As I progressed through coursework at the high school and college level, it became clear that I wanted to pursue a career in scientific research.
How or why did you choose the University of Iowa to complete your doctorate degree?
Coming into graduate school, I had a wide interest base. I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in biological research, but I wasn’t sure which specific field. The Biosciences program at the University of Iowa was the perfect fit for me. This umbrella program allowed me to complete research rotations in any lab doing biological research, regardless of program affiliation. The ability to gain research experience in different areas helped me to focus my interests. The outstanding facilities and faculty members at Iowa were also an important part of my decision.
Is there a teacher, mentor or University of Iowa faculty member who has helped shape your education?
I got my start in biological research with Dr. Reid Palmer, a soybean geneticist with the USDA in Ames, IA. I learned basic lab techniques and eventually got to the point where I was working independently in the lab to map soybean sterility genes.
My research mentor at the University of Iowa, Dr. Adam Dupuy, has helped tremendously in my development as a scientist. I am given the opportunity to work independently and come up with ideas on my own, but I can also get help and advice whenever I need it. I have learned how to critically evaluate my own work, as well as the work of others. I have also learned a lot about what a career in science involves.
What opportunities or advantages does being a doctoral student at Iowa provide?
A highly collaborative atmosphere is one of the many advantages The University of Iowa provides for researchers. In my experience, researchers in other labs are generally willing to provide reagents or expertise about a particular subject or technique when asked. The University’s association with the hospital is also quite advantageous. It allows collaboration with MDs, which can be especially helpful with translating research to the clinic. The University of Iowa also has outstanding research core facilities with state of the art equipment and expert technicians, such as the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) facility, gene transfer vector core, and DNA facility.
What are your professional goals and interests?
I am currently conducting research to identify and characterize genes that contribute to the development of cancer when disrupted or overexpressed. After I receive my PhD and complete post-doctoral work, I would like to continue with cancer genetics research in a university setting as the principal investigator of a lab. Additionally, I hope to teach some coursework. I think it would be very rewarding to educate and inspire future generations of researchers.
What are your outside interests?
I enjoy disc golfing, darts, and lawn sports. I also like to play music (I play saxophone and guitar decently, and several other instruments poorly) and go to concerts. Iowa City has a great local music scene and also draws in some big name bands.
Do you have an insight or philosophy that guides your work?
I am a very careful experimental planner, and I always think about why I am conducting a particular experiment and what information can be gained from it. In this way, I try to optimize experimental conditions and make sure to have all of the necessary controls. While this increases the amount of time that goes into planning, it ensures that experimental results will be useful and can decrease the number of times an experiment has to be repeated to get valid and believable results.
If you could change one thing about the world (or the world of science), what would it be?
I would like for the scientific community to be more collaborative. In an ideal world, unpublished findings could be shared and discussed among scientists working in the same field. This would facilitate improved critical evaluation of research and more rapid generation of solutions to scientific problems, ultimately leading to faster development of therapeutic interventions to treat patients suffering from various disease conditions.
In reality, unpublished results are often not shared due to the fear of someone else performing similar experiments, drawing the same conclusions, and publishing first. While I do understand that a certain level of competition can enhance the quality of research being conducted and is necessary for distinguishing achievements of different researchers, it seems that increased collaboration could provide a faster route to shared goals of all researchers in a particular field.
What advice would you give students interested in applying to a PhD program?
Get as much research experience as you can. Not only will this look good on your application, but it will also help guide your decisions about graduate school. A strong research background can make an applicant stand out among others with similar grades and test scores. Reflecting on research experience gained can be very helpful when deciding whether or not you want to continue with a career in science and what field of research you are most interested in.
What do you see as the future of medicine and medical research?
With advances in very high throughput sequencing technologies and an ever-increasing knowledge of how particular gene expression profiles contribute to disease progression and patient response to specific treatments, I believe that treatments tailored to individuals will be common in the future.
Along these same lines, I believe that medical research will be focused on identifying transcription profiles associated with disease phenotypes. The availability of the complete human genome sequence has greatly facilitated this type of approach, but much remains to be learned. For example, we are only beginning to appreciate the importance of genes that do not code for proteins (such as microRNAs and snoRNAs) in modifying expression of other genes and regulating cellular signaling pathways in normal and disease states.