Dr. Mommy, PhD: Doing Science with Preschoolers

Today, I had the unique opportunity to bring together the two biggest spheres of my life - motherhood and science.  At my son’s preschool, as part of the October curriculum focusing on “community helpers”, I was invited to come talk about being a scientist and to do some science demonstrations with a group of very enthusiastic three and four year olds.  I jumped at the chance.  In fact, I had been preparing for this moment since the day my son was born.  I just couldn’t wait for that seemingly far-off day when I would strut into my kid’s classroom, beakers and Bunsen burners in hand, ready to cultivate the next generation of young scientists.  And I imagined how my son would beam when all the other kids told him how cool his Mom was…okay, okay, so I know I’m not as cool as say, a firefighter or a police officer.  But I thought to myself, “Hey! I have a vanity lab coat buried in a closet somewhere (that’s never been in a lab, of course!).  And I can go buy a pair of safety glasses at Home Depot and have my husband bring home some nitrile gloves.  That’ll look cool, right?”  Right??  I tried on the ensemble for my son and he just rolled his eyes, laughed, and then said, “Mommy, you look like a Doctor but you’re not a real doctor!”  Dear reader, I disowned him.

Not that kind of Dr.

Anyway, for my visit, I came in the aforementioned uniform, which, as predicted, earned many excited squeals and shouts.  My own son may not be impressed but the other kids certainly were, which probably just serves to underline how very far we are now from the medical and science hub that is Boston.  I sat on a teeny, tiny chair that I worried was going to collapse under my weight at any moment, and looked down at a group of eager, adorable, budding scientists ripe for the teaching, sitting in a semi-circle at my feet.  I started by asking the group if anyone could tell me what a scientist does.  Here is a small sampling of the answers:

“A scientist wears glasses and looks at things that nobody cares about, and says ‘Hmmmm, interesting’!” (Alarmingly close to the truth)

“They mix up the chemicals and make them go ‘Boom!!’” (We usually try to avoid the ‘Boom!’)

“They eat ice cream!!” (Well, this scientist sure does.  Lots and lots of it)

So, with that out of the way, I went on to explain that scientists ask questions about the world around us, and that we do it in a very special way.  We talked about the scientific method and practiced saying “hypothesis”, which of course was hilarious since even adults have a hard time saying that word.  We made a hypothesis about what would happen if you put water in the freezer (“You get ice! Duh!”- I may have underestimated these kids).  And we talked about making a prediction about what would happen if you put milk into the freezer, based on what happened to the water (“Milkshakes!!”- I may have overestimated these kids).  With our fresh knowledge of the scientific method, we set out to do a couple of experiments.

Whole milk, food coloring and dish soap.  Eyedropper not necessary, just made the kids feel more like scientists.

I brought out a casserole tin and poured a quart of whole milk to cover the bottom of the pan (you have to use whole milk for this experiment, the more fat the better).  I pointed out that milk has a lot of healthy fat in it, the kind that makes their brains grow bigger and smarter.  I asked for a volunteer to help me add some food coloring to the milk and we made a hypothesis about what we thought would happen when we added the coloring.  Nearly everyone thought the dye would change the color of the milk.  Then we squirted the dye in and watched in amazement as the drops pooled on the surface of the milk, separate from each other, the rest of the milk remaining white.  

 

We got a little overzealous with the purple dye.

Next, I brought out a bottle of dish soap and asked if anyone helps their Mommies and Daddies do the dishes; I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear that nearly all of them do!  There were many shouts and cheers about how helpful they were at home.  As a side-note, none of their parents were present for this demonstration.  The teacher rolled her eyes in her teacher-ly way.  My son looked around ready to chime in in the affirmative as well, then made eye contact with me and decided against it.   
We discussed what soap does, that its job is to break down “grease”, which is just another word for fat, and that’s how it cleans the dishes.  We made a hypothesis about what would happen when we added a little dish soap to the milk.  Most guessed that we would make bubbles.  Using an eyedropper, my volunteer dripped dish soap into the pan, and voila!  The food coloring instantly dispersed and swirled into the milk in a beautiful array of colors.  The kids were amazed.  Some asked if they could drink it.  I objected.  That’s going a touch too far for science, even in my book.  So we talked about how before we added the soap, the fat in the milk was holding the dye together, and that when the soap broke down the fat, the dye was able to mix into the milk.

Adding the soap...

Lovely!

Experiment number two was a classic baking soda and vinegar experiment, except I added some drops of food coloring on top of the baking soda to make it more colorful.  I spread some baking soda out onto a tray and asked if anyone knew what baking soda was used for.  Many clearly stated it was “for baking” and I didn’t need to ask if anyone liked cake or cookies, this information was freely volunteered.  It took a minute to calm everyone down when they realized I was not going to be doing a cooking demonstration.  Ah, the sharp sting of disappointment.  When they all caught a whiff of the vinegar, a heated discussion broke out as to the merits of pickles (Eight “yaes”, eleven “ewwwwww! Nays”).  I was pleased they were so savvy in the ways of ingredients.  

 

I strongly recommend doing this experiment on a disposable tray.  Trust me on this one.

This time I got two volunteers to come up and help me out.  The first kid got to use an eyedropper to dribble some vinegar onto the baking soda and we noted that small, fizzy bubbles were made.  We hypothesized that if we used a syringe full of vinegar we would get even more bubbles, so volunteer number two went to town spraying the vinegar into a foaming puddle.  Finally, I put a couple inches of baking soda into a clear plastic cup and filled a measuring cup up with nearly two cups of vinegar.  I was going for broke with the grand finale.  I added some dye to the baking soda and allowed my son, who was sitting very impatiently the entire time, to come and do the honors.  We counted to three and everyone held their breath as we dumped the entire measuring cup of vinegar into the cup of baking soda.  The room erupted in shrieks of excitement as the foam exploded up and over the top of the cup and all over the tray beneath it.  One kid started bellowing, “Volcano! Volcano! Volcaaaaaaanooooooo!” as he danced around the room gleefully.  They LOVED it.  And again, they wanted to drink it. 

What a pretty mess this makes!

Pour quickly but carefully!

 

We cleaned up our experiments (one of the most important parts of doing science, in my opinion) and discussed the reaction between baking soda and vinegar, and how they combine to make carbon dioxide, a gas, and how this reaction is what is responsible for making cakes rise, nice and fluffy.  One girl asked me why I bake pickle-flavor cakes.  Definitely realized I did a poor job explaining acids and bases to this young group and chose to pretend I didn’t hear the question.  I finished up by saying, “I hope that I’ve shown you guys that science is cool and fun!  You can all be scientists, all you need to do is stay curious about your world and ask good questions!” and then I added, “So who wants to be a scientist when they grow up?!”  Amidst a chorus of passionate cries of “Me! Me!” my son announced that he was going to be a real Doctor like his Daddy (again, disowned), and another smart young man stated that he would rather be an accountant (me too, kid, me too).  Volcano boy was still dancing, and shouted proudly, “I’m going to be a volcano when I grow up!!” 

Shine bright, little volcano boy, shine bright.

Antibiotic resistance got you down? Never fear, paint will save us! …Wait, what??

 

Considering freshening up your walls?  How about Sterile Steel Blue?  Perhaps Bacteriocidal Beige? Antibacterial Alabaster?

At this point, there isn’t a soul on the planet that hasn’t heard about the growing threat of “super bugs”, previously treatable bacteria that no longer respond to antibiotics.  The recent UK Review on Antimicrobial Resistance predicts our antibiotics will be ineffective by the year 2050.  And 10 million people will die each year of previously minor infections and common medical procedures.  C-sections, hip replacements and transplants will no longer be considered relatively safe and routine.  Depressing.  While I originally planned on writing an article highlighting what I think is a very promising avenue of research into antibiotic alternatives called “bacteriophages” (viruses that kill bacteria), a few days ago I found myself in the glowing grip of a TV commercial I had never seen before.  Let me set the scene for you:

            An attractive woman in her late 30’s, early 40’s, is painting a wall in her house a soothing sage green.  The room is bathed in natural light and the woman is smiling placidly as her brush goes up and down, up and down, in a fluid motion.  The voiceover begins and says, “This is how you apply antibacterial paint”, implying that it is just as easy as applying regular paint.  <End scene>

My brow furrowed.  Did I hear that right?  Antibacterial paint?  A few clicks of the keyboard confirmed that what I had just seen on the TV had actually been announced more than 8 months ago.  The paint company, Sherwin-Williams, is now selling a product called Paint Shield^®; a collection of 550 colors of paint infused with a patented antimicrobial compound.  The company is claiming the paint kills 99.9% of bacteria including Staph, E. coli, MRSA, VRE and Enterobacter aerogenes on painted surfaces within two hours of exposure, and continues to kill 90% of bacteria for up to four years as long as the paint surface is intact.  And it will be selling at a ridiculous premium, going for $84.99 a gallon (compared to $29.99 for a regular, old, can of paint at my local hardware store).

I’m not going to take issue with their antibacterial claims.  They have the EPA certification to back it up, indicating that the paint underwent rigorous testing at a third party lab to support those statements.  But the EPA was only assessing the scientific claims at hand; it wasn’t assessing any claims about the usefulness or wisdom of actually using such a product.  And herein lies my problem with it.  Sherwin-Williams’ website says the product was originally developed for hospitals, athletic facilities, schools and daycares, but that it is also an excellent choice for the home, in kitchens and bathrooms and laundry rooms.  What irritated me was when I went digging for more information on Paint Shield^® and came across some of the original news releases.  Each article featured some version of the line “new paint may save thousands of lives”, citing the need to combat the growing number of hospital-acquired infections, a quote which at best is yet another example of journalistic exaggeration, and at worst is utter hogwash (see an example here).

While hospital-acquired infections definitely are a big problem, unless patients are routinely licking the walls I don’t think they are at great risk of acquiring an infection from them.  And I could find no research implicating walls in the issue.  In fact, paints (and other surface finishes and fabrics) incorporating antibacterial compounds have been around for quite some time, and large hospitals like Kaiser Permanente actually recommended against their use a few years ago, citing a lack of evidence that they do anything to prevent infections and a lack of safety data concerning long term use. 

In a hospital chock-full of very sick people, the fewer germs, the better.  It is true that bacteria and viruses can sometimes remain infectious on surfaces for days or even weeks.  We call these surfaces “fomites” for their ability to transmit disease, and this is why regular disinfection of hospital floors, walls, and surfaces is already de rigeur.  But the fomites we’re concerned about are ones that we are in regular contact with, things like counter tops, doorknobs, and sinks, which we touch with our hands and then absentmindedly touch our mouths, eyes, and faces.  Even Doctor’s neckties and their classic white coats have been demonstrated to be potentially dangerous vectors of disease (and being married to a Doc, I can say that I do not allow these items to enter my house). 

What I’m trying to say is that claims that painting hospital walls with Paint Shield^® will “save thousands of lives” are absolutely overstated. 

That said, in a hospital setting, antimicrobial paint probably couldn’t do much harm, though I have serious doubts hospitals will deem this product useful enough to shell out for its hefty price tag.  What is much more concerning to me, however, is the suggestion that this paint should be used in the home.  A quick search of the patent literature reveals that the patented technology in Paint Shield^® is a quaternary ammonium compound (or QAC for short), which they’ve managed to stabilize in the paint.  QACs are nothing new; they have been used for decades in detergents, cleaners and fabric softeners, and are believed to work by disrupting cell membranes.  And they are considered very effective, hence their widespread usage.  But with such widespread usage comes the inevitable: mounting evidence of microbial resistance.

The evidence for resistance is in the presence of genes that enable bacteria to escape the action of antibacterial compounds.  The unnecessary overuse of antimicrobial compounds and chemicals in our homes, which subsequently winds up in the waste run-off in our environment, doesn’t actually manage to kill all bacteria.  Instead, some bacteria see repeated, sub-lethal exposure to the chemicals, which drives the development of resistance genes like the “qac-genes” (reviewed here).  The qac-genes (named for the QAC compounds they function against) encode multi-drug efflux pumps, which contribute to antibacterial resistance by pumping QACs and other germ-fighting compounds out before they have a chance to kill the organism, rendering these chemicals less effective or useless.  Eventually this process results in strains of bacteria that are totally unaffected by these products.  And sometimes this resistance to disinfectants can also result in cross-resistance to antibiotics, making the problem antibiotic resistant infections worse.  This type of resistance is well documented in Staphylococcus aureus for example, one of the organisms Paint Shield^® is touted to kill, and the famous cause of nightmare-inducing MRSA infections.

Making this all the more relevant is the very recent announcement by the FDA of a ban on the marketing of antibacterial soaps and other products containing over 19 different compounds, due to a lack of evidence that these products are safe and actually work.  That’s right folks, there is no scientific evidence that antibacterial hand soaps work better than regular hand-washing with soap and water.  Manufacturers of these products will have one year to remove the chemicals from the products or stop marketing them altogether.  And this is great news, since several studies published over the last decade have demonstrated that use of many of these chemicals, Triclosan in particular, not only lack any benefit, but also contribute to growing bacterial resistance (see here and here).

So, in short, will I be running out and buying antibacterial paint for my home?  No thanks.  If the cost alone wasn’t enough to keep me away, the fact that I may actually be making my home and the environment that absorbs my household waste into a breeding ground for resistant bacteria does.  The reality of the coming post-antibiotic age is certainly frightening, but we would do much more to slow it down by limiting our use of products that may contribute to this phenomenon, rather than by trying to encase our families in sterile, little bubbles. 

And for goodness sake, finish your course of antibiotics!

Stuff My Kids Say About Science

Last week-

3 Year Old:  Mommy, you ‘member that time I got really, really sick ‘cuz the buggies got inside my body?  Then the bright blood cells came to fight them and you said, “Not today natural election, not today!”

This morning-

3 Year Old:  Megalodon was the biggest swimming dinosaur!  And the sharks use to be megalodons!

Me:  Yes, that’s right!  What do we call that?

3 Year Old:  Evolution!

Me:  Very good, buddy!! (Feeling proud)

3 Year Old:  And our grandcestors are monkeys!  Grandma and Grandpa used to be monkeys!!  But now they’re my Grandma and Grandpa!

Me: …wait a minute…

Clearly I'm nailing this whole "scientist-mother" thing...

Attention Cat Lovers! Anti-cancer treatment might be sitting in your litter box!

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AJapanese_litter_box.jpg

     

    Typically when we think of parasites, we tend to envision razor-mouthed, sci-fi monsters wriggling around in our intestines, drinking our blood and siphoning off precious nutrients, causing us to waste away, before our stomachs dramatically burst open to release more parasite monsters into the world <shudder>.  Okay, so I may have confused human parasites with the title villain of the movie “Alien”.  But you get the idea.  Becoming infected with something like Toxoplasma gondii, for example, is not something anybody wants.  And in a truly sinister twist, Toxoplasma is transmitted by perhaps the cutest and fluffiest of mankind’s best friends: cats (dog people, please hold the rude comments!).  But some truly weird and wonderful research has shown that a lab-engineered strain of Toxoplasma may actually be on its way to becoming a powerful cancer therapeutic.

 

 

How do we get Toxo?

     Cats pick up Toxoplasma by eating rodents or other animals infected with the parasite.  Toxoplasma then sexually reproduces in the cat’s intestines and produces millions of microscopic “baby” parasites, called oocysts.  The cat then “deposits” these oocysts (we call this “shedding”) outside in the environment or into the litter box (or if your cat is as uncoordinated as mine, on the floor- I’m looking at you, Charlie).  The oocysts are really hardy and can survive for months under the right conditions.  Unfortunate humans become infected by eating contaminated food (e.g. unwashed vegetables grown in a field where cats wander), drinking contaminated water, or forgetting to wash their hands after scooping the box.*   

What are the risks?  

     In the early stages of infection with Toxoplasma, you usually don’t seem sick, save for minor flu-like symptoms.  Despite an initial rapid expansion of the parasite population (the so-called “tachyzoite” stage, tachy- meaning ‘fast’ replication), our immune systems rapidly get to work eliminating the unwelcome invaders.  But Toxoplasma is tricky, and hides out in our muscles, eyes, and even brains in a protected form called a cyst (the “bradyzoite” stage, brady- meaning ‘slow’ replication).  Cysts are walled-off nodules filled with hundreds of infectious parasites, and can be nearly 50 µM in diameter- about two-thirds the width of a human hair!  And they can hang around in our tissues for the rest of our lives.  In people with compromised immune systems, like infants, the elderly, people with HIV/ AIDS, and people who have had a transplant or are being treated with chemotherapy, Toxoplasma can cause a fatal illness called toxoplasmosis.  Toxoplasmosis is characterized by seizures, brain damage, and blindness, can cause birth defects or miscarriage in pregnant women, and has recently been linked to altering its host’s behavior.  That’s right folks, it’s a zombie plague!  There are even a few rather controversial studies linking Toxoplasma to neurological disorders such as depression, suicidal ideology and schizophrenia (not to invoke the trope of the ‘crazy cat lady’ or anything). 

Wait, so we want to use this bad bug as a cancer treatment?!

     Yes!!  But not quite in its natural, disease-causing form.  One of the things that make certain cancers so deadly is their ability to hide in plain site by suppressing the body’s immune response, a state called “immune tolerance”.  In many cancers, immune cells that should be activated to fight the tumor have difficulty telling the cancerous cells apart from normal cells, and instead get shut off.  As it turns out, Toxoplasma may contain secret weapons that can be used to turn immune cells against tumors.  Using a weakened strain of Toxoplasma that won’t form cysts or cause disease, researchers showed that when they injected it into cancer-stricken mice, the mouse immune cells were activated and the tumor cells could suddenly be recognized and attacked.  Why is that? 

Toxoplasma provokes an inflammatory immune response, which is ideal for fighting off certain cancers

     First let’s consider what happens in a normal Toxoplasma infection.  The parasite likes to invade specific cells of the immune system called dendritic cells (DCs) and macrophages.  DCs and macrophages are what we call “antigen presenting cells” (APCs), since their job is to sample foreign materials in the body and ring the alarm for the rest of the immune system by “presenting” a piece of that foreign material, called an antigen, to other cells.  Toxoplasma invasion of these APCs causes them to release a protein called interleukin-12 (IL-12), which transforms plain, old T cells (another really important cell of the immune system) into specialized Type I helper cells (T_H1), whose job it is to fire up other immune cells such as cytotoxic T cells (also known as CD8⁺ T cells), into destroying the foreign invader.  The now activated T cells multiply like crazy and release another powerful protein called Interferon gamma (IFNγ), the granddaddy of all inflammatory molecules, which recruit even more immune cells to the fight.  This inflammatory assault forces Toxoplasma to retreat and form cysts, which is exactly what it needs to do in order to spread to the next host.  So really, you could think of this as the immune cells playing right into the hands of the parasite.  Clever girl.

My cartoon illustrating the immune response to Toxoplasma gondii.  The parasites invade APCs (dendritic cell in this example), which release IL-12 and induce T cells to release IFNgamma.

     In certain cancers, the APCs are still able to sample the environment, but their ability to present the tumor antigens to T cells and “ring the alarm” is rendered useless.  Targeting these cells and converting them into anti-tumor cells is considered a promising approach to cancer therapy.  A weakened vaccine strain of Toxoplasma, called “cps”, is non-replicating and non-cyst-forming (so it won’t cause toxoplasmosis), but still retains all its immune-modulating function.  This means that in a cps infection, the parasite is rapidly cleared and you are then left with all these hyped up immune cells ready to burn the house down.  A few years ago, researchers at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in New Hampshire reasoned that vaccinating mice that have cancer with cps might be a cunning way to turn the immune system against the tumors, and they set out to test this hypothesis.  

The left panel illustrates immune tolerance.  The APCs are able to sample the tumor, but cross-presentation of antigens is impaired.  The immune response is suppressed.  The right panel illustrates what happens once the APCs have been primed by a Toxo infection.

     Their theory held water; in one particular study, they injected cps into a mouse model of lethal ovarian cancer, and APCs that were normally suppressive were successfully invaded by the parasites and converted into anti-tumor cells.  The immune response that followed effectively attacked tumors and 100 percent of the mice survived!  Vaccination was even effective in a hyper-aggressive model of the disease.  What’s more, it didn’t matter whether the animals had already been exposed to Toxoplasma- good news, since the CDC estimates about 22.5% of Americans 12 years and older have been exposed at some point.  Similarly remarkable results were seen in models of melanoma and pancreatic cancer, as well.  But questions remained about the exact mechanisms at play, what parasite factors were responsible for triggering which immune cells, and whether this treatment could be safe for humans.

     The latest paper from the Dartmouth group published just last week in PLoS Genetics has begun to fill in some of the holes, exploring which Toxoplasma proteins are critical for orchestrating the anti-tumor response.  They selectively deleted individual proteins from the latest-generation parasite vaccine strain genome and then looked at whether the altered parasite could still trigger a potent immune response.  So far they’ve found that live, invasive parasites are absolutely required to elicit the immune response.  And an important parasite structure called the parasitophorous vacuolar membrane (PVM), along with several, specific parasite factors secreted before and during invasion, is also key.  Another cool upshot of this work is that they have been able to use Toxoplasma as a tool to better understand the behavior and function of the immune cells, which is a very valuable contribution to cancer immunotherapy in its own right.

So is this treatment ready for prime time? 

     Not just yet.  The work has only been done in mice, which of course may or may not translate well to humans.  And a ton of safety studies would need to be carried out to ensure the Toxoplasma vaccine strain is not dangerous in any way before we can start treating cancer patients with a live parasite.  But the use of Toxoplasma in a clinical context, and the immunological knowledge gained from these studies, represents a promising new avenue for therapy, and I for one, will be following it with great interest.

The TL/DR Version:

     Scientists have cured several mouse tumors by infecting the mice with a safe, non disease-causing vaccine strain of Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite commonly found in cat poo.  Toxo triggers the right kind of immune response for fighting tumors, in cancers where the immune cells are normally suppressed.  The treatment works even if the mice already have pre-existing immunity to Toxo.  The latest research has identified which parasite proteins are critical to induce a potent anti-tumor response.

*Note that you are more likely to become infected by eating the cyst-laden meat of under cooked lamb or pork, so it’s not all the cat’s fault.

Storytime: Every End is a New Beginning

*Warning: This post is blatantly sentimental.  A total cheese-fest.  In order to explain the inception of this blog, I felt it was necessary to get a little bit personal.  I promise to tone down the schmaltz once I get down to the actual business of this website- writing about science!

Recently I’ve been having the same dream, over and over, night after night.  I’m standing on the edge of a canyon (possibly the Grand One; it featured prominently in the last vacation I took before having kids).  The sun is low in the sky but I can’t tell whether it’s rising or setting.  I feel anxious about something but it’s unclear what exactly is the cause of my unease.  Every time I look down into the abyss below me my stomach lurches.  I am frozen on the edge, unable to make a movement.  But when I look up and out, I am awestruck by the beauty laid out before me.  The feeling of worry lifts and for a moment I am hopeful.  I stand there that way, at turns afraid and buoyant, for what feels like hours.  The strange, dichotomous feelings stick with me long into my waking day, lingering like ghosts as I work.  I don’t need a dream interpreter to explain why I am having this dream; in a little over a week, my time in the lab will be coming to an end, and it is both exciting and terrifying. 

Like many before me, and many others that will follow, I am leaving academia for parts unknown.  I am the “trailing spouse”, leaving my postdoc to follow my husband on his next big adventure.  But my decision to leave the bench encompasses so much more than that.  I am suffering from “bench burnout”, tired of the roller coaster highs and lows of a career in research, and worn down by feelings of inadequacy when I compare myself to my seemingly much more accomplished colleagues.  As a full-time, working mother, I regularly feel like I am doing a poor job juggling both spheres of my life.  Even after three and a half years, I still cry all the way to work if one of my kids has a bad drop-off at daycare in the morning.  I carry the stress of a failed experiment home, bristling through dinner and baths, wearing the mantle of “Stressed Out Mommy”, as my children unfortunately know me sometimes.  And because of the constraints of my husbands career, all 'sick days' fall to me which results in canceled experiments.  I have tried to "have it all", but what I "have" just feels like chaos.  When my husband starts his new job I will have the incredible privilege to take some time off at home with my kids, and I am really looking forward to it.  But at the same time, I love science and it was not an easy decision to leave a career path that has defined the last decade of my life.

I fell in love with research as an undergraduate.  To me, a life spent in the lab seemed idyllic, and somehow I managed to remain blissfully ignorant of any of the potential drawbacks of my choice.  I went off to graduate school, bright-eyed and naïve, probably a little annoyingly over-eager, and anxious to learn.  I was enamored by the idea of doing good science.  Being a good scientist requires the creative flair of an artist, along with an intense mastery of a massive set of technical skills.  And this kind of study appealed to me- the honing of a craft, the practice of a discipline.  It seemed high-minded and meaningful.  But unfortunately, creativity and mastery do not automatically equal success in academia.  Good scientists must also be able to handle failure and rejection, again and again and again, to take a hit from a review committee and get back up to resubmit their grant/ paper/ tenure packet over and over, ad nauseam.  And this tenacity, this persistence, this drive, is not optional.  You either embrace this as part of the lifestyle or you won’t survive.  And sometimes you embrace it and you still don’t survive.  Doing science for a living is a hard road to choose, and ultimately I realized I just wasn’t destined to lead my own lab.  Could I make the jump to industry?  Easier said than done.  Could I go work for the government?  Maybe if I wasn’t geographically restricted.  How about doing a second postdoc in our new city?  For a multitude of reasons I won't get into right now, no thanks.  Ultimately, with our upcoming move, I just decided to walk away from the bench altogether.

So what then?  What do you do when you find yourself leaving the lab but you realize you’ve only been trained to do one thing?  Well, for starters, you scrap the notion that your PhD training has only prepared you for one thing.  The last decade of my life has been filled with pipetting reagents, passaging cells, running Western/ Southern/ Northern blots, countless PCRs, fixing and staining slides for microscopy, etc.  Tasks that have become familiar, a part of “my story”, the only things I believe myself qualified to do.  But buried beneath the technical mastery of experiments, are many other “soft” skills that were acquired almost without my noticing.  Over the last several years, my writing has been critiqued and reworked and returned to me, bleeding and defeated, only to be resurrected and reworked some more, and polished and made to shine.  My seminars have been scrutinized and appraised, and I have endured the sting of being asked the brutal but essential question, “Why should we care?” in front of a whole roomful of people.  While it was humiliating at the time, it forced me to really think about what I was saying, the story I was telling, and it made me a better communicator*.  And despite these sometimes painful experiences, I have come out on the other side, still keen on practicing the fine art of communication.

It occurs to me that, “why should we care (about science)?” has become the refrain of the ordinary taxpayer.  “Why should we give you more of our hard-earned money?  What is the point of studying fruit flies and worms?  What will be the return on our investment?” they ask, with varying degrees of skepticism.  And all of these are valid questions, ones that deserve good answers, delivered without condescension.  The answers may seem obvious to those of us sitting up in the Ivory Tower, but we have to put ourselves in the shoes of those that don't live and breathe science, or those who maybe didn't get a solid scientific education in school.  Our research is only as powerful as our ability to convey its importance to the people it is intended to help.  It is so key that we as a global community become more science-minded.  And perhaps that is where I find my next purpose.  I have always been a high-minded idealist.  I have always loved learning about the science of our world and sharing what I’ve learned with others.  And so The SciMinded Idealist has been created as a place for me to write about research that grabs my attention (during naptimes and stolen moments while raising science-literate little ones, of course).  I hope you’ll check in from time to time to read my thoughts, and share my stories with friends.

So now, as I sit down to write, my fingers itch and my brain whirs to life.  In my dream, the sun is rising, and the feelings of fear and uncertainty burn off in its warm rays.  I’m leaving the lab but I’m not leaving science.  Just shifting my focus to take in a broader view.  And the view from the top is beautiful.

At the Grand Canyon, circa 2012

* Thanks Barb!