From Potatoes to Pharmaceuticals: Idaho INBRE Alumni’s Diverse Careers

Posts by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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Jenny Durrin. Credit: University of Idaho.

Jenny Durrin says she would never have become the director of the Seed Potato Germplasm Program at the University of Idaho, Moscow, without the experience she gained through the Idaho IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) program. Another Idaho INBRE alum, Steve Van Horn, credits the program with enabling him to start a career in the pharmaceutical industry.

Providing undergraduate students with research opportunities and preparing them for STEM careers in biomedical sciences are key goals of INBREs across the country, including Idaho’s program. Here, we share Jenny’s and Steve’s stories and the pivotal role that INBRE played for them.

February 9, 2022January 2, 2024

Career Conversations: Q&A With Neuroimmunology Researcher Jingru Sun

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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“If you want to pursue a career in science, it’s very important to foster a hardworking attitude, a creative mind, and critical thinking,” says Jingru Sun, Ph.D., an associate professor of translational medicine and physiology at Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine in Spokane. Our interview with Dr. Sun highlights how her career path led her to research the way the nervous system regulates immune responses.

Q: How did you become interested in science?

A: In high school, I had an amazing teacher who introduced me to the scientific world, guided me to ask the right questions, and encouraged me to find answers by myself. I asked questions like: How do trees produce oxygen? How can we see bacteria through a microscope? Why are humans smarter than other animals?

February 2, 2022December 19, 2023

Photographing the Physics of Cells

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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Dr. Lakadamyali sitting behind a large, complex microscope in a lab. — Dr. Melike Lakadamyali with a microscope. Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Lakadamyali.

“It would be a dream come true if I could look at a cell within a tissue and have a Google Maps view to zoom in until I saw individual molecules,” says Melike Lakadamyali, Ph.D., an associate professor of physiology at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia. Her lab is helping make part of that dream a reality by developing super-resolution microscopy tools that visualize cells at a near-molecular level.

Blending Physics and Biology

Science and math fascinated Dr. Lakadamyali since childhood, and she felt especially drawn to physics because she enjoyed using logic to solve problems. After graduating high school in her native country of Cyprus, she chose to study physics at the University of Texas, Austin. She never gave much thought to applying physics methods to biological
questions—a field known as biophysics—until her third year as an undergraduate, when she gained her first research experience in the lab of Josef Käs, Ph.D.

January 26, 2022January 25, 2022

In Other Words: Not All Tissues Are For Runny Noses

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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When most of us hear the word tissue, we think of something we reach for when we have a runny nose. But in biology, a tissue is a group of cells that act together to carry out a specific function.

Below the title “Tissue: In Other Words,” two images are separated by a jagged line. On the left is a box of tissues, and on the right is an image of brain tissue showing individual cells. Under the images, text reads: “Did you know? In biomedical science, tissue refers to a group of cells that act together to carry out a specific function in the body.” — Credit: NIGMS; and Tom Deerinck and Mark Ellisman, NCMIR.

Your body has four basic types of tissues:

Muscle tissue provides movement. Types include voluntary muscles, like those in the arms and legs, and involuntary muscles, such as those that move food through the digestive system.
Nervous tissue carries messages throughout the body and includes the brain, spinal cord, and nerves.
Connective tissue supports other tissues and binds them together. Examples include ligaments, tendons, bones, and fat.
Epithelial tissue creates protective barriers and includes the skin and the linings of internal passageways.

Together, these different tissues form organs. For example, the stomach contains all four basic types of tissues.

January 12, 2022October 3, 2022

Career Conversations: Q&A with Structural Biologist Lauren Parker Jackson

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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Dr. Lauren Parker Jackson. Credit: Vanderbilt University.

“A confusing experimental result almost always means you’ve stumbled upon something interesting and maybe even exciting. I think that’s what makes science fun,” says Lauren Parker Jackson, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biological sciences at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee. Check out the highlights of our interview with Dr. Jackson to learn how she became a biologist and what she studies in her lab.

Q: What sparked your interest in science?

A: I credit my high school chemistry, physics, and biology teachers with getting me interested in science. They were quirky, they were talented, they were energetic, and they weren’t afraid to push us. As a teenager, I did a lot of science fairs and quiz bowls, where two teams compete to answer academic questions. As a high school junior, I took part in the Governor’s School for the Sciences and Engineering, where I spent a month at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, studying chemistry in a lab. That exposed me to research for the first time.

January 5, 2022January 4, 2022

From Music to Mathematics: MARC Scholar Pursues Career as Biostatistician

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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Raven standing in a desert landscape. — Raven Delfina Otero-Symphony. Credit: Julie Custer.

At 9 years old, Raven Delfina Otero-Symphony wanted to be an astronaut. As a fourth-year statistics student at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, she still dreams of working for NASA—but as a statistician. You might be surprised to learn that she spent high school and her first semester of college preparing for a career in music, convinced that science and mathematics weren’t for her.

Strings to Stats

Raven enjoyed and excelled in both STEM and humanities classes as a child. As she got older, her interest in STEM wasn’t encouraged, and she began to believe she “just wasn’t a science person.” She concentrated on music because she felt very supported in that pursuit. She played the viola—a stringed instrument slightly larger and deeper in tone than a violin—and performed in symphonies throughout high school.

December 29, 2021March 2, 2022

A Roundup of 2021’s Quality Quotes

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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Happy almost New Year! Throughout 2021 we spoke to more than two dozen NIGMS-supported researchers for the Biomedical Beat blog. They shared their work, career journeys, experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. Here, we’re showcasing a few of their outstanding quotes. You can learn more about these scientists by checking out the links to the original blog posts.

Quality Quotes

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Chandler.

Credit: West Virginia University.

Photo Credit: Colorado State University.

Photo Credit: Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Dr. Ramos-Benítez.

"The more diversity you have in your lab, the better the science, the stronger the science, and the more creative the ideas."

Read more: Career Conversations: Q&A with Microbiologist Josephine Chandler

“When folks participate in the science, when there is good community discussion about the trial designs and the results, then I think those populations may be more trusting of the results.”

Read more: COVID-19 Vaccine and Therapeutic Trials ACTIV-ate in West Virginia

“Having a career in science is really the best way to rechannel the inner child, to remain forever curious about the world.”

Read more: Career Conversations: Q&A with Biological Engineer Brian Munsky

“There’s always uncertainty associated with science: whether a project that you propose is going to take off, whether you’re chosen for a certain job, whether you get the grant that you applied for. Learning to embrace that uncertainty is an important skill.”

Read more: Career Conversations: Q&A with Biologist Akhila Rajan

"The importance of research in people’s day-to-day lives has never been so exemplified as during the pandemic. You could see how a basic science observation, something that was done in the lab, could translate in a matter of weeks into a public health recommendation and then shape how people were behaving."

Read more: Researcher Shares Science en Español and Builds a Community

December 22, 2021December 21, 2021

Stitching Together Basic Science and Surgery

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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Sepsis researcher Dr. Philip Efron standing with his arm around Dr. Darden, who is giving a thumbs-up sign.

Dr. Darden with her mentor, Dr. Philip Efron. Credit: Courtesy of Lyle Moldawer, Ph.D.

“I’m an African American woman from Memphis, Tennessee; you don’t see very many people like me in medicine or in science,” says Dijoia Darden, M.D. She’s working toward becoming an academic physician, which will allow her to treat patients, teach, and conduct research. “I’m hoping that as an academic physician, I can inspire other women, especially women of color, to pursue things they’re passionate about.”

A Path to Medicine

Dr. Darden was drawn to science from a young age, inspired by her microbiologist mother. She recalls that her mom often helped her create science fair projects, including one where she grew penicillin-producing bacteria taken from a lemon. Later on, during her high school summer breaks, Dr. Darden worked in a lab that studied how certain genes might contribute to cancer.

December 15, 2021February 9, 2023

Science Snippet: The Marvels of Membranes

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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Like skin that covers and protects our bodies, membranes surround and protect cells and organelles. Membranes are semi-fluid barriers composed mainly of lipids and proteins. They provide structure; control the import and export of molecules such as ions, nutrients, and toxins; and support cellular communication.

An illustration of a cell cut in half with gray lines indicating its borders and borders of adjacent cells. The cell contains a variety of round and oblong structures in several colors. — A cross section of a cell with its membrane and adjacent cell membranes outlined in gray. The colorful structures are organelles with membranes. Credit: Judith Stoffer.

The lipids that compose membranes are primarily phospholipids. (Cholesterol is another lipid often present in membranes that helps regulate their stiffness.) Phospholipids have hydrophilic (water-loving) “heads” and hydrophobic (water-fearing) “tails.” Within the human body, a water-loving environment, they line up so that their tails face one another and their heads point outward. In membranes, this alignment makes a bilayer barrier that is two lipid molecules deep.

December 8, 2021August 22, 2023

Career Conversations: Q&A With Biological Engineer Brian Munsky

by Abbey Bigler-Coyne

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Dr. Brian Munsky. Credit: Colorado State University.

“I think having a career in science is really the best way to rechannel the inner child, to remain forever curious about the world,” says Brian Munsky, Ph.D., an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at Colorado State University, Fort Collins. Check out the highlights of our interview with Dr. Munsky below to learn how his childhood practical jokes led to him running a research group that uses computational and experimental methods to study complex processes inside cells.

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Author: Abbey Bigler-Coyne

Posts by Abbey Bigler-Coyne