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CU BOULDER BIOCHEMISTRY: THE PLACE FOR ME

I had developed a love of science through my advanced chemistry and physics courses at East High School in Denver. Even though I sat toward the back and was told I talked too much by the teachers in those classes, I found myself drawn to the nature of systematic problem solving and testing inherent in the field. So, knowing that I wanted to pursue something in the area of biochemistry or molecular biology and being lucky enough to be awarded the Boettcher scholarship, I chose to come to CU for my degree and to hopefully gain experience that would clarify how I wanted to use science in my career.

BIOCHEMISTRY AS INSPIRATION

I didn't have a set plan when starting at CU for exactly what I wanted to do. Knowing I liked science and was okay in the classes meant that I thought about a PhD as an option. I also grew up in a family where there were some physicians so that was also in--> on my mind as a possibility. So, in addition to time in the lab, I was able to get some experiences in healthcare volunteer work and shadowing, which I enjoyed but were not overwhelmingly convincing to me for a career as a doctor. What I, for better or worse, found most compelling to choosing a direction during college was the experience of my sister getting sick and my family and personal feelings of helplessness both from a medical and systems perspective. So there was a lot of meaning for me created around the idea of being able to alleviate these feelings of powerlessness. And how could the more direct practice of scientific and biochemical research fit into that? I think what took me a long time (perhaps too long) to fully appreciate was how the scientific discovery and story I worked on in the lab more broadly could be applied to treatment of diseases like cancer or more rare orphan conditions that didn't have treatment options currently available. So ultimately I became most interested in how fundamental discoveries could be translated to the clinical space.
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CONNECTIONS MAKE A DIFFERENCE: GAINING REAL-WORLD EXPERIENCE

A family friend had happened to become an acquaintance with Dr. Thomas R. Cech while he was at HHMI and suggested I look into working in his lab as a form of practical experience when starting my studies. So as a freshman I started working in the lab, dutifully making plates, cell culture media, and buffers, and timidly using the autoclave. Over time I started working with one of the postdoctoral fellows, learning how to perform site directed mutagenesis of plasmids, transforming bacteria, and generating sizeable amounts of mutated enzyme for a variety of assays. A screening process now referred to by Dr. Cech as "obsolete" and "we would never do this now." But the exercise of getting to take exceptional chemistry and biochemistry courses from faculty, paired with the real-world experience of generating hypotheses and designing and running experiments to test relevant and important scientific questions, allowed me to gain a broad appreciation of the field. With more time I was actually able to meaningfully contribute effort and usable data to his project, understanding how multiple years of work and many experimental iterations came together to ultimately form a full scientific story. This is the story that was ultimately published in Nature and served as the basis for my honors thesis, my first real exercise in scientific writing. Others credited from ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ include: Nandakumar J (this was the amazing postdoc I worked with, now on faculty at Michigan), Weidenfeld I, Zaug AJ, Leinwand LA, Cech TR.

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COMING FULL CIRCLE FOLLOWING CU UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM: ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF CARDIOLOGY - CU ANSCHUTZ

So, after a lot more school and a lot more training at different places across the country (Vanderbilt, Dana Farber, Stanford) with that ongoing--> an ongoing interest in scientific and medical research, I'm now back home in Colorado with an actual job as an Assistant Professor of Cardiology at the medical center. I have developed an expertise in an area of medicine called cardio-oncology where I see patients who have experienced cardiotoxic side effects from their cancer therapy, have cardiovascular disease that needs management during their cancer therapy, or cancer survivors looking for guidance on cardiovascular health. This helps to inform my research program that works to understand how and why cancer patients have worse cardiovascular disease even after cure, and ways we can use new and existing therapies to change this. This has allowed me to keep working in basic and translational science, pilot and Phase 1 clinical trial work, and preclinical and clinical biomedical industry consulting work. Though I draw on a lot of different training experiences I've had in my current career, there areÌýfundamentals I learned while at CU that I use every day whether that is troubleshooting a basic assay in the lab with my technician, thinking critically about optimal experimental design, assessing important literature coming out in the field, or thinking about how to best train and prepare future physicians and scientists.
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ON BEING SUCCESSFUL IN BIOCHEMISTRY

Consistently showing up and doing your best is a large portion of the battle. Working in the Cech lab was one of the most formative experiences for me while in college, and it was later revealed to me that half of why I was able to spend a full 4 years there was the fact that I kept showing up and reliably working hard. The other half was that Dr. Cech had forgotten to ask me to stop coming, his words.

Stay flexible, open minded, and reflective, even if you think you have it all planned out. You have likely had and will continue to have experiences that change your perspectives or motivations.

Working in science and research is a team sport; use your time at CU to help think about what excites you about that team sport and what skills you want to bring to the table going forward. Because what you've learned so far is relevant, applicable, and can be transformative.