Issue 131 July-August 2016 A NEWSLETTER OF THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY What Else Inside? Ten Minutes with... Click the Clock, While It’s Ticking! Sohail Tavazoie Senior Attending Physician, Leon Hess Associate Professor NYU’s “Street Science” CourtesyCompany Some of Photo FIlm F ERNANDO B EJARANO STEM and Younger Generation 3 Imagine that you are just out of graduate high enough? Will I publish in good jour- B Y J OHANNES B UHEITEL school and about to embark on a biomedi- nals fast enough?” Faster, Higher, Stron- cal science post doc in a world-renowned ger... And you dive in, that moment when The RU Nobel Prize Laureate research institute. You have your Ph.D., the Olympic motto expresses the career Paul Greengard you feel self-assured, confident, and cer- aspirations of a well-driven scientist. 5 tain of your path in life. You are excited Most would agree if I said that many B Y J OSEPH L UNA about this next step and don’t care how of us dreamt from the start of achieving demanding it could be compared with greatness in our careers, and embraced All Aboard the BioBus your Ph.D. But in a moment of doubt, you this motto just as if we were getting ready pause to consider what it might mean to to run the Olympic marathon. Science 6 B Y A ILEEN M ARSHALL be an academic scientist: what have you can be compared to endurance running, gotten yourself into? Many thoughts and where the stamina of researchers is tested CrossFit: unanswered questions about your future and culminates with the ultimate goal, a career will run through your mind. “Will groundbreaking, game changing publica- 7 Everything You Need to Know I be strong enough to withstand the pres- B Y F RANCESCA C AVALLO sure? Will the impact of my research be CONTINUED TO P.2 Free Summer Park Events 8 in NYC B Y S USAN R USSO Culture Corner The Violent Brilliance of Peaky 11 Blinders B Y B ERNIE L ANGS For Your Consideration 12 Ones to Watch, Vol. 1 Edition B Y J I M K ELLER INTERVIEW 15 NYSOM: Brian Fabella B Y G UADALUPE A STORGA A Piece of Our Mind BY GEORGE BARANY AND NATURAL SELECTIONSNATURAL CHRISTOPHER A DA MS 16-17 Wobegon BY ROBERT MARK AND GEORGE BARANY Life on a Roll Venetian Holiday 18 Fernando Bejarano/ B Y Q IONG WANG Sohail Tavazoie, M.D., Ph.D. 1 CONTINUED FROM P.1 time he would let me do research. That was great to do experimental science again Editorial Board tion that will help them secure a top aca- during college, but looking back I would demic position or that sought-after indus- really say that it was my high school ex- EDITORIAL BOARD try job. perience, when I was 16 and worked with Jim Keller Our guest, Dr. Sohail Tavazoie, is a John, who made bacterial genetics super Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor great example of a top player achieving exciting, that is what definitely got me Aileen Marshall greatness in this scientific field, breaking hooked on science and I could never go Assistant Copy Editing Manager records every step of the way. He received back from that. Susan Russo his Bachelor of Arts in Molecular and Cell NS: Explain your work to a five-year- Copy Editor, Distribution Biology at the University of California, old. Qiong Wang Berkeley. He also has an M.D. from Har- ST: When people get cancer some- vard Medical School and a Ph.D. in Neu- times the cancer can spread to other or- Copy Editor, Webmaster, Public Relations Manager Nan Pang roscience from Harvard University. Dr. gans in the body and that is called metas- Tavazoie then spent time as an oncology tasis. When it is spread to other places, Production Designer fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Can- the cancer cells can grow in those organs Peng Kate Gao cer Center and conducted postdoctoral destroying them and patients can die. The Copy Editor research in Joan Massague’s lab. During biological question is how is it that some selections.rockefeller.edu this time, he changed fields from develop- of those cells that belong at the primary [email protected] mental to cancer biology where he began tumor site can colonize other tissues. Ex- to focus on the control of breast cancer by periments have shown that out of every microRNAs. This was a fortuitous tran- ten thousand cancer cells in circulation, sition, because shortly after, he crossed roughly one is able to ultimately form a tions. Manhattan’s York Avenue to start his very metastatic colony. We are trying to un- NS: Scientists are not only focused on own lab at The Rockefeller University. Dr. derstand how this single cell is able to do science. They are usually passionate people Tavazoie’s lab has been trying to under- that and how it can shift its gene expres- devoted to other extra-curricular activi- stand different cellular situations where sion program to be successful in coloniz- ties. Do you have any other passions be- cancer cells are being regulated by small ing other tissues. We have seen how those sides science? RNAs. Every project in his lab poses a new cells are able to change the lifespan of their ST: I used to. Right now my free time challenge. As a result of his continued suc- RNAs. By increasing the stability of those goes to my children...I used to play sports, cess, Dr. Tavazoie has received much rec- RNAs of genes that promote growth and I love[d] to run track and field, played a lot ognition and many honors: ASCO Young metastasis, and suppressing the genes that of basketball, skiing, rock climbing. Once Investigator Award, Emerald He Founda- negatively impact on them, they are able to you have children, things change and kids tion Young Investigator Award, and the form the malignant colonies. We are inter- become your hobby. Right now, the kids Pershing Square Sohn Prize among others. ested in better understanding the process drain all my free time, but every now and I met Dr. Tavazoie at his office, and by which those cells are able to shift the then, my wife and I take some time for what was supposed to be a ten minute level of those genes’ RNAs and we have ourselves and enjoy this beautiful city. chat turned into an afternoon of riveting seen that this can be achieved post-tran- NS: What would you be if you weren’t conversation. Whether it was because scriptionally by diverse small RNA types. a scientist? I also work in microRNAs and tumor We have observed that similar gene regu- ST: … I trained as a physician, I am a progression, or perhaps it was because I latory mechanisms also operate in normal medical oncologist and I am still seeing enjoyed his fascinating responses to our cells to control the levels of gene expres- patients at MSKCC. If I wasn´t a scientist questionnaire, or maybe even, because sion normally. Probably not for a five year I think I would do that full time. In my he mentioned a fondness for Madrid, my old kid though. opinion, medicine has become … more hometown, I sat there enthused by his NS: If you could sum up the most im- and more scientific, and medicine and sci- passion for science and his wonderful portant characteristics of a scientist in ence have a lot in common. We need more achievements in such a short career. three words, what would they be? effective cancer therapies for patients and ST: A scientist should be passionate, that motivates me to continue to under- NS: Who, or what, inspired you to en- rigorous and hard working. stand how cancer behaves. I think being a ter your field of achievement? NS: How does creativity play a role in scientist is the best job one can … have, ST: It happened during a science sum- science? and being a physician would be the second mer program when I was in high school. ST: I think that creativity plays two best job. John Roth, who was a bacterial geneticist, roles. The first is that creativity is impor- NS: Did you have any big rejections in exposed me to science for the first time tant in the initial inception of what you are your life? and that was what hooked me. Later, when going to study and what you want to pur- ST: Absolutely. As you grow up, there I was in college, I got a job in a lab wash- sue, the biological question that you are are things you aspire for that you don’t ing the glassware to pay for my college tu- interested in. Creativity also comes into achieve. In track and field, there was al- ition. While I was there, I made a deal with play by enabling you to utilize new tech- ways someone faster than me. During high the scientist from the lab I was in, half the nologies and creating new approaches in time I would wash the glasses and half the order to specifically address your … ques- CONTINUED TO P.3 2 CONTINUED FROM P.2 school and college there were rejections. When I applied for grants there have been many rejections. There have been rejec- tions also in paper submissions. I think re- jections are key, because you want to know that not everything is easy and you need to NATURAL SELECTIONS get a sense that you can’t have everything you want.