GW’s Researchers behind the Scenes

September 19, 2024

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Postdoc Appreciation Day at the George Washington University is an opportunity to recognize the dozens of postdocs who advance scholarly projects and contribute to GW's standing as a top-tier research institution.

At the Science and Engineering Hall early Monday morning, Suresh Subramaniam, vice provost for graduate and postdoctoral affairs, acknowledged GW's postdocs as a vital presence in the university community.

"You work tirelessly, often behind the scenes, pushing the boundaries of knowledge in your field," he said. "From the early mornings in the lab, to late nights writing, revising and debating, you involve the true spirit of inquiry. Your work has a ripple effect that goes beyond the walls of this institution. It impacts industries, informs policy, advances medicine and shapes future technologies and the lives of people worldwide."

Many GW postdocs, like Ruchi Gupta, who lost her father to a heart attack when she was 10 years old, come from other countries spurred on by a desire to improve conditions at home.

"I don't like anyone suffering from any condition or serious disease. It cost me a lot," said Gupta. "That made me choose life sciences as an art to benefit mankind and ease the suffering of mankind."

Gupta said that is why she was drawn to the profile of Bao-Ngoc Nguyen, associate professor of surgery at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) who is studying wound healing in diabetics, a disease on the rise around the world and in the United States.

Nguyen said about 20% of diabetic patients develop wounds in their legs and have amputations above the knee. "As a vascular surgeon," she said, "I perform bypasses for them to get more blood flow to the leg to help save the leg."

Gupta is assisting Nguyen in trying to understand the angiogenesis, or process of forming new blood vessels, in wound healing by knocking out a particular gene in different cell sites in mouse models to determine what role it plays in diabetes injuries.

"Endothelial cells are the cells of blood vessels, one of the most important kind of cells in the wounds," Gupta explained. "You need enough blood supply for the wound to heal properly. So, if we silence this gene in the blood, what happens."

The answer to the question could one day lead to prevention and control of such wounds, avoidance of amputation and loss of life. Gupta not only assists in the research, but she also helps run the lab for Nguyen.

Bao-Ngoc Ngyuen (l) and Ruchi Gupta. (Sarah Hochstein/GW Today)

"She is really my one and only person," said Nguyen. "Postdocs are essential. I wouldn't be able to do any basic scientific research without a postdoc."

This year's Postdoc Appreciation Day provided an opportunity to reflect on the impact these years in training will have on their careers with assists from the deans of several GW schools and colleges. The day offered professional development on leadership, bridging science and business, discussions on turning research into marketable ideas and more.

Robert Miller, interim vice provost for research and SMHS vice dean, noted that their time as postdocs would be a springboard to whatever lies ahead. Miller urged them to be open to careers in industry and commercial enterprises as well as academia.

"Use it, exploit it, enjoy it and take every advantage you can," Miller said.

Keynote speaker Evangeline Downie, a professor of physics and the associate dean of research at the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, gave a detailed account of the twists and turns her postdoc experience took after she completed her Ph.D. A lack of funding for research in the United Kingdom compelled her to leave her home, locating first to Germany and then the United States, with the expectation that she would return to Scotland.

"There's just this myth in academia we talk about," she said. "You have to know where you're going from the very beginning. You have to know where you're going to end up. Most of us don't really. I got to do the things I loved, but they hadn't been on my radar."

Downie offered several recommendations for the postdocs to keep in mind since most decisions about their careers will be beyond their direct control:

*Identify your priorities and what you need to be successful and feel free to communicate that to your mentor, because they may not know what you need from them.

*Figure out what you control and measure yourself by how you do on the things you control and decide how you can take steps in the direction that you need to go.

*Reset from the Ph.D. mindset, where you're aiming to get your thesis done and get out the door and so focused on that, you will sacrifice life, limb and eat [from]Tupperware.

*Establish working and life habits that will serve you for the next decades.

"Take time off," Downie said. "The less you feel you can do this, the more important that you do. The more stress you're under, the more responsibility you have, the more important it is to look after your body and your health."

Camila Queiroz-Glauss (l) and Pedro Gazinelli-Guimaraes. (William Atkins/GW Today)

In discussions throughout the day, it was clear the scariest and hardest part of being a postdoc is their concern for what comes next, finding a job and, for some, dealing with the U.S. immigration system.

Brazilian Camila Queiroz-Glauss worked with assistant professor Pedro Gazinelli Guimaraes at the National Institutes of Health and followed him to GW when he set up his Translational Type 2 Immunology lab in SMHS's Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Tropical Medicine. She has found opportunities at GW to mentor Ph.D. students and help in writing grants, all of which is going to be useful, she hopes, in managing a lab one day.

She is currently investigating the immunological response to infection with the helminth parasite and allergies-separately as well their potential interaction since both have a unique immune response. The study aims to determine what the immunological outcomes or clinical consequences are for someone who has an allergy and travels to an area where the helminth parasite is prevalent.

"It's something that is very common in underdeveloped countries (affecting more than 1 billion people worldwide)," Queiroz-Glauss said. "It would help [Brazil] to control these infections, that can be really annoying to say the least and very risky."

Gazinelli, who also supervises postdoc Fabricio Marcus Silva Oliveira, said Glauss did brilliant training as a human immunologist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As a mentor, he wants to help postdocs' career development, whether they choose to become faculty, have a lab in an academic environment, a job in government or industry or become editors of scientific journals.

"The role of the university and the reason we transitioned from NIH to GW is because GW offered us all the resources that we need to succeed," Gazinelli said. "Equipment, infrastructure…the faculty, the research programs that they've established here. And GW has a collaborative environment."

GW Today photographers William Atkins and Sarah Hochstein captured images of the Postdoc Appreciation: