With a backdrop steeped in history at the oldest English-speaking university, the Annual Research Workshop for the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars and Wellcome Trust Programme was held at Keble College, at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom, June 25-27th, 2019. This year over 120 students, alumni, faculty mentors, administrators, and Alliance Directors traveled to Oxford to attend the Workshop.
On the morning of June 25th, the Workshop opened with keynote Prof. Anna Gloyn, who presented her work on Genetics, Diabetes, and Metabolism. Prof. Gloyn is internationally known for her collaborative work leading multiple consortia involved in genetic and target discovery for Type 2 diabetes, working closely with academia, pharma, and SMEs. While Prof. Gloyn’s work itself was fascinating, her generous sharing and personal commentary truly struck a chord with the Scholars. She spoke candidly about how to be a good collaborator, finding a “champion,” striving to enjoy your life inside and outside of the lab, and selecting high impact/high reward tasks.
The Workshop communicated a continuous theme of meeting challenges as opportunities with talks on impactful research and career pathways from invited guest speakers. In a session entitled “Career Pathways and Career Breaks,” Dr. Cynthia Wright Drakesmith, a data scientist at the University of Oxford, detailed her seven-year hiatus from the lab in order to raise her two children and her triumphant return as a Daphne Jackson Fellow to retrain as a computational biologist. Dr. Charvy Narain introduced a session on science communication, describing her career from Nature journal editor to managing media coverage and public engagement for a variety of scientific research.
Special attention was given to Alumna Dr. Melody Duvall, Class of ’03, when she shared with the audience her ever-evolving career as a physician-scientist working at the intersection of pediatric critical care and research on lung inflammation in children. She shared her tips for the journey and highlighted the importance of mentorship, listening to your heart (and gut), and surrounding yourself with “people you would like to be” in ten plus years. The Scholars were enamored with the very accomplished Dr. Duvall, and scheduled follow-up meetings to talk to her further about her advice and to learn from her experience in the program. Another program alumnus, Dr. Andrew Ishizuka, Class of ’14, discussed his career path from academia to founding a spin-out, highlighting his biotech company Avidea Technologies and speaking about how he became interested in pursuing a career in science. The last talk in the career pathway series was delivered by Dr. Andrew Jermy, a former Nature Chief Editor, who highlighted careers in publishing. He provided the pros and cons of being a publisher including these pros: traveling, being family friendly, having job security, and establishing connections.
As is customary, the centerpiece of the Annual Research Workshop is highlighting student research projects. Over the course of the Workshop, fourteen students in advanced stages of their research, gave formal presentations on their work, followed by a question and answer period. Poster sessions provided yet another opportunity for students to interact around their research and to welcome the new members of the Class of 2019 on their first Workshop experience.
On the final day of the workshop, the morning session was kicked off by Prof. Maureen Kelley who discussed ethical research in developing countries. Later in the day, Alliance Director Tom Heyman chaired the Entrepreneurship and Business Spinouts panel. The panel featured topics across transitioning from academia to becoming an entrepreneur, as well as, learning about the Oxford Foundry and programs they support. Zoologist Dr. Manuel Berdoy discussed the design of experiments in his talk: “How NOT to Ruin a Perfectly Good Idea.” The final talk of the workshop was given by Prof. Richard Wade-Martins who presented: “Parkinsons in a Dish – from Molecular Mechanisms to Target Discovery.” The Annual Workshop concluded with a final poster session and a lively, well-attended Town Hall Meeting for all students and faculty in the program.
In the evening, before the formal gala dinner, students assembled for the traditional photograph of the full cohort on the Keble lawn, as well as some less than serious group shots. Students, mentors, administrators, as well as, members of the Alliance Board of Directors and guests were treated to an elegant dinner reception opened with a warm welcome from Prof. Gavin Screaton, Head of the Medical Sciences Division at the University of Oxford. Prof. Screaton recognized and thanked Prof. Sarah Rowland Jones for her many years of leadership as the Program Director at Oxford. Prof. Michael Dustin was officially welcomed, taking up the leadership mantel at Oxford. Awards were presented with Scholars Taylor Farley and Zinan Zhang recognized as delivering the best poster and best research talk awards, respectively. The much-anticipated annual science recognition awards were announced. Details on the winners can be found in a separate article on this page.
On behalf of the Alliance, the University of Oxford and the Scholars Program, we extend our thanks to Celgene and WCG for their generosity in supporting the Workshop.
On the eve of the NIH Oxford-Cambridge/Wellcome Trust Scholar’s Annual Research Workshop, students were invited to attend the University of Oxford Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics hosted Sherrington Prize Lecture 2019, which honored Dr. Jennifer Doudna, HHMI Investigator and faculty member at UC Berkeley. The Sherrington Prize Lecture was named after Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, who was a distinguished University of Oxford professor and received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1932 for showing that reflexes require integrated activation and demonstrated reciprocal innervation of muscles, a principle now known as “Sherrington’s Law.” Dr. Doudna was in town to receive an honorary degree from the University of Oxford at the annual Encaenia event.
In 2012, Dr. Doudna, alongside her colleagues, described a new way of editing the DNA of any organism using an RNA-guided protein found in bacteria. This technology, called CRISPR-Cas9, is transforming biology, creating the ability to tackle both human and non-human applications of gene editing.
The focus of Dr. Doudna’s talk was CRISPR Biology and Biotoechnology and the future of genome editing. Genome editing with CRISPR technology is transforming biology, CRISPR-Cas9, an RNA-guided enzyme with remarkable abilities to recognize and cleave DNA, operates by mechanisms that both explain its biological function and provide insights into technology development. Dr. Doudna discussed research into this amazing family of proteins: where they came from, how they work, and how Cas9-based technologies are revolutionizing research, biomedicine, and agriculture.
“I’ve been impressed with how Dr. Doudna has responsibly engaged with broad audiences about biomedical ethics and science communication surrounding CRISPR” stated NIH-Oxford Scholar Lauren Wedekind. “After hearing her work and insights featured in Radiolab and Freakonomics podcasts, I was also glad to hear her discuss the various experiments and publications that contributed to CRISPR and CRISPRi methods and applications–and welcome questions from local high school students. This is a great example of how researchers can share their thought processes and findings, and address how complicated the interpretations and applications can be.”
“It was great to hear from Dr. Doudna three years after her talk at the Beyond the Bench symposia at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory” stated Manager Ambrico. “CRISPR technology has advanced immensely over the past few years and it was fascinating to see new discoveries and applications, including highlights of research done by my former colleagues. I was even more impressed with Dr. Doudna, when she took the time to meet with and engage with students from high school to PhD level, after her lecture.” She even autographed a notebook for one OxCam fan of her work!
UC Berkley Distinguished Professor Jennifer Doudna is an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a Foreign Member of the Royal Society. She has received many honors including the prestigious Kavli Prize, the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Heineken Prize, the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award and the Japan Prize. She is the co-author with Sam Sternberg of “A Crack in Creation”, a personal account of her research and the societal and ethical implications of gene editing.
Special thanks to Colin Beesley for the photographs.
Launched in 2018, the Alumni Directors’ position was created so that the Board of Directors of the International Biomedical Research Alliance (“Alliance”) would always include two members from the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program and/or NIH-Wellcome Trust Program. Called to action last October, alumni of the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program and/or NIH-Wellcome Trust Program were invited to nominate themselves for this opportunity. Appointed for two terms, the first Alumni Director would begin their membership in 2019, and the second following in 2020. With exceptional backgrounds and experience, we are delighted to announce the appointments of Drs. Ambika Bumb and Mateusz Maciejewski.
Dr. Ambika Bumb is the Strategic Advisor to the Energy Sciences Area of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and former CEO of Bikanta. Ambika’s area of interest is nanomedicine, the application of nanotechnology for medical diagnostics and treatment high-level strengths. She graduated from Georgia Tech with a B.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering and a Minor in Economics, while being recognized with the Helen E. Grenga Outstanding Woman Engineer and E. Jo Baker President’s Scholar Awards. She then obtained her doctorate from the NIH-Oxford Program while also on the Marshall Scholarship and continued her training with two post-doctoral fellowships at the National Cancer Institute and National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
The NIH recognized Ambika for her post-doctoral work with the Orloff Technical Achievement Award as a “platform” technology with implications that will broadly advance medicine on multiple fronts. Her endeavors in the areas of nanomedicine and diagnostics have led to 16 patents and the spinout of the biotech Bikanta, named 1 of 4 Best Diagnostics Startups of 2015 by QB3. She has received much recognition for excellence in engineering, was profiled early in her career in Nature as a successful young scientist on the fast-track, and named as one of 40 under 40 influential Bay Area business leaders.
Complementary to her scientific and commercial interests, Ambika has also been involved in science outreach/education and national policy initiatives, such as the National Nanotech Initiative, Nano Task Force, Cancer Moonshot Initiative, and as a nanopolicy writer for Techcrunch.
Dr. Mateusz Maciejewski heads up data science-based research at the Inflammation and Immunology department at Pfizer. His research employs machine learning to integrate various types of data and build models that improve our understanding of disease mechanisms, and to aid decision making and patient stratification.
Matt obtained his PhD within the Wellcome Trust – NIH program, where he used computational methods to study the relatively under-explored dynamic nature of biomolecules and therapeutic peptides that play a role in diseases associated with the innate immune system. He was the first official graduate of the NIH-Wellcome Trust program. He completed his first two years of chemistry program on full merit-based tuition scholarship at Silesian University of Technology before transferring directly to the third year of the more interdisciplinary program at the University of Edinburgh obtaining a B.Sc. in Chemistry: First Class Honors. Matt has researched computational/machine learning methods for exploring structure-activity relationships and mitigation of adverse drug reactions during his postdoctoral work at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.
Additionally, Matt has been involved in entrepreneurial pursuits, apart from purely scientific, such as co-founding and serving as the CTO of a startup focused on electronic medical record analysis, or creating a technology used for predicting adverse drug reaction signals in post-marketing data.
The Alliance is thrilled to welcome these exceptional scientists and is looking forward to their excellence and participation on their board of directors.
The International Biomedical Research Alliance recently sponsored eleven scholars in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program to attend a career development field trip at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia. The inspiration for the visit to investigate careers at the CDC originated with Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director of the CDC and 2017 Lasker Lessons in Leadership keynote speaker. The two-day comprehensive experience offered meetings, tours, lectures and a Q&A session with experts from different fields of public health, health equity and community health.
On day-one, the scholars met with two Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officers. The Scholars learned about their work in Mongolia, China to implement practices to address the rise of anti-microbial resistance in health care settings and at the Boston, Massachusetts health department integrating local data with federal resources. The Scholars found the work of EIS officers intriguing and exciting. Aleksandra Ivovic, a third year PhD student, commented how impressed she was by how many senior level people took time out of their day to explain their work to the scholars, especially in regards to the EIS training program.
The Scholars met with Dr. Anne Schuchat and Dr. Becky Bunnell, who is the Director of the CDC Office of Science. The discussion covered a range of topics including career trajectories, CDC recruitment, the differences between CDC and NIH mandates, the diverse programs they implement, as well as their collaborations with non-profits. Over lunch, the scholars discussed how the CDC is working to eliminate new HIV cases over the next decade. They learned about the ways in which the CDC is using data science to analyze the emergence of new infections. This conversation led to the discussion about increasing the number of data scientist positions and how it would uniquely effect the emergence of new HIV infections and understanding their outcome.
Following lunch, the scholars toured both the Emergency Operations Room and Biotechnology Core Facility labs. “Touring the Emergency Operations Center, the epicenter of the CDC’s strategic response to the 2009 pandemic influenza strain that has been a focus of my research, illuminated the broader societal implications of my work” said first year MD-PhD scholar Matt Múle. Two breakout meetings followed where the scholars were presented with the choice to converse with many experts in different fields at the CDC. These individual meeting rotations encompassed two hours, allowing Scholars insight into injury, EIS, fellowship opportunities, viral pathogen outbreaks, vaccine development, and Immunization to name a few. Lawrence Wang, a second year MD-PhD student felt that the most valuable part of the trip was getting to meet and chat with the subject matter experts from various departments and rotating between them, including the work they do and their day-to-day experiences.
On day-two, the NIH OxCam scholars were invited to attend talks from the Office of Technology, reviewing how developers and engineers work with teams at the CDC to develop tools and software and another about how the CDC executes their role as informers for evidence-based policy changes. Key challenges discussed addressed how the CDC is working to recruit candidates who have personal insights on living in rural communities and how to find solutions based on these experiences and those who face health related issues, like the opioid crisis.
“One of the things I am grateful for includes how the Alliance organizes to show us multiple ways to think about a ‘science’ career and applying your training to think about world challenges” remarked fourth year PhD student Sam Katz. “This visit allowed me to explore new opportunities, learn about careers, and see how my research could be applied at a place like the CDC.”
To close out the CDC experience, the scholars attended an “all hands meeting” with visiting HHS Secretary Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield. Secretary Azar discussed three critical areas of focus for the CDC: reducing the spread of HIV, containing the Ebola crisis in the DRC, and addressing the rise in vaccine skepticism amongst parents in the US. He also discussed the need to monitor the rise of e-cigarette use in teenagers and how it might serve as a jump off point to the consumption of combustible nicotine, such as cigarettes.
“Growing up in Atlanta and now working at another HHS agency, I thought I had an understanding of CDC’s mission and where it stands in terms of US healthcare. In visiting the CDC, however, I became aware of how each institute has a separate role to play in human health. In my mind, CDC represents the big picture for our nation’s health: it must gather the data and identify the problems that then scientists at the NIH use to inform and fund more basic and translational research projects. NIH then must work with the FDA for approval of any healthcare interventions. I see these agencies and institutes within HHS as a Venn Diagram. Each is separate but has overlapping goals to help improve human health” stated Hannah Mason, a second year MD-PhD student.
NIH OxCam faculty member Dr. Sonja Best, Chief, Innate Immunity and Pathogenesis Section at NIAID’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories, took great care in organizing the visit and was instrumental in working with the CDC and the scholars to develop a visit itinerary to meet their research and career interests. “Thanks to Dr. Sonja Best’s organization, we, as graduate students, are really fortunate to have gotten to meet in small groups with experts in different fields of public health, about health equity and community health” stated first year DPhil student Lauren Weekend.
The Alliance looks forward to supporting more career-driven events and trips, like this CDC visit, to showcase the incredible work being performed in government, academia, industry, and business and to providing the scholars with the resources and accessibility to learn about them.
Lenardo was among 100 new members and 25 foreign associates in recognition of their “distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” Those elected today bring the total number of active members to 2,347 and the total number of foreign associates to 487.
Lenardo’s research focuses on the molecular regulation of T lymphocytes, particularly as it relates to immunological tolerance, apoptosis, and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, type 1 diabetes mellitus, and similar diseases. His pioneering work uses both molecular biology and cellular immunology techniques to pursue these investigations, with a focus on programs of cell death and survival, including apoptosis, autophagy, and necrosis mechanisms. Lenardo’s approach has been to use contemporary genomic approaches to discover the molecular basis of new genetic diseases of the immune system that affect activation, tolerance, and homeostasis and to develop novel means of diagnosis and immunomodulation of these diseases. He is attempting to pioneer a means of antigen-specific induction of apoptosis of pathogenic T cells for treating autoimmune disease. Such studies could lead to a better understanding of molecular regulatory mechanisms that are important for human immunological diseases.
Dr. Lenardo graduated with a B.A. from the Johns Hopkins University and an M.D. from Washington University, St. Louis. He performed clinical work in internal medicine and research at the University of Iowa and received postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He established an independent research unit in the Laboratory of Immunology in 1989 and became a senior investigator and section chief in 1994. Lenardo serves on several editorial boards and has given numerous lectures around the world on his work on the molecular regulation of immune homeostasis. His work focuses on lymphocyte apoptosis, autoimmunity, and genomics of the immune system.
Dr. Lenardo joins fellow NIH faculty member, Elaine Ostrander, in this achievement. Membership to the Academies is considered one of the highest honors bestowed to a U.S. scientist. There are currently forty eight members elected from the NIH . The National Academies provide expert advice to the U.S. government on issues of science, health, and engineering and, today, comprise three private, nonprofit institutions: The National Academy of Sciences (NAS), National Academy of Engineering (NAE), and National Academy of Medicine (NAM). The NAM is the newest of these, established in 1970 originally under the name Institute of Medicine (IOM).
