Lauren V. Wood, M.D.

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Dr. Lauren Wood is a Senior Clinical Investigator at NCI's Center for Cancer Research ². As a member of the Pediatric HIV Working Group of the Vaccine Branch ³, her clinical research involves investigation of antiretroviral and immunomodulatory therapies in children, adolescents, and young adults with HIV infection.

Dr. Wood received her M.D. degree from Duke University School of Medicine and completed clinical training in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine Affiliated Hospitals in Houston, Texas.

Lauren V. Wood, M.D.

Did you know you wanted to go into research when you started medical school?
My interest in research goes back to the time I started working, which was the summer after eighth grade. It was then that I attempted to get summer jobs doing research or in biomedical research institutions. In fact, I applied to NIH for a summer position every summer from that point on all the way through college.

Because of this interest, I chose to attend Duke University School of Medicine, where they have a fairly unusual curriculum. They cram two years worth of typical med school coursework into one intense, 10-month period during your first year, and then you go directly into your clinical rotations your second year of medical school. That means that by your third year of med school, you're able to participate in research. You can do a year-long research project or some combination of coursework and research. I spent my third year doing immunohematology research in the laboratory of Wendell Rosse and took additional classes.

I originally thought that I was going to do pediatric hematology oncology, but while I was in med school, they were just starting to describe the first cases of AIDS, and by the time I was in my residency, researchers had identified HIV as the cause of AIDS. There were a lot of similarities between AIDS and cancer—the immune system is compromised, and both cancer cells and HIV are able to hide and escape from the immune system. In addition, patients with AIDS often end up getting cancers. So during my residency years, my interest in HIV really started to peak, especially because it was a disease that disproportionately affected African Americans. I didn't see a whole lot of African American investigators back then, so that's where I decided to focus my career.

Do you think there are common characteristics that you see in successful researchers and promising research students?
For many people who aren't sure whether research is for them, particularly if they don't come from a research background, bench-related research can seem intimidating. But many people who do not have that kind of basic experience do have a desire to be involved in research in the sense that they want to be working with patients, testing agents, studying diseases, and studying interventions to see what therapies are going to make a difference in people's health.

The term that's very popular right now is "translational clinical research," that is, research that goes from the bench to bedside and back to the bench. You can be involved anywhere along that spectrum when it comes to biomedical research involving human subjects or studying an aspect of a disease that may impact clinical outcomes in patients. The key is to have a passion for what you do and the endurance to keep asking difficult questions and trying to solve hard problems.

I know you also didn't take off your pediatrics hat when you chose to go into HIV. You've been doing most of your research work around children and adolescents and young adults.
I trained in both internal medicine and pediatrics before completing my fellowship training in allergy and immunology. Although my HIV research focused more on the pediatric population since joining the Vaccine Branch, I've been treating more adults and expanded into oncology. My focus now is immune-based therapies, including vaccines for adults with cancer as well as adolescents and young adults with HIV infection. We now generally have very, very powerful drugs that we can give in combination that will shrink away most, if not all, of a patient's tumor, depending upon what tumor it is. But even if we can make all of the tumor go away, as measured by imaging studies, we know that microscopic tumor cells still exist that we can't detect. It's these hidden cells that are responsible for a tumor coming back, which is why we want to try to harness the immune system to get rid of them and to ultimately "cure" a person of cancer.

You joined NCI in 1992. Was it odd to be at NCI while working on HIV or was there cross-pollination with NIAID at that time?
There was cross-pollination with NIAID, but from the very, very beginning of the epidemic, NCI has always had a huge effort and a commitment to HIV and AIDS research that was totally independent of NIAID. Part of the reason for that was the expertise of scientists studying viruses that cause cancer, like Dr. Bob [Robert] Gallo, who was the chief of NCI's Laboratory of Tumor Cell Biology and a co-discoverer of HIV, or what was known then as HTLV-3. It was a natural fit.

Do you still get to do as much research as you'd like?
It is harder, because as a citizen of the NIH intramural community, the more senior you become, the more administrative responsibilities you take on. But the good thing for me is that I'm still able to see patients regularly, which is important to me.

What kind of patients are you seeing now?
We have a Phase I study open in patients with malignant melanoma that is investigating a monoclonal antibody called GC-1008, which is directed against a protein of the immune system called TGF-beta. Another protocol that was just approved and that I'm very excited about will examine the immunogenicity of the FDA-approved quadrivalent HPV vaccine in HIV-infected and HIV-negative adolescents and young adults. We will also be initiating a study of a TARP-peptide vaccine in patients with stage D0 prostate cancer. The TARP protein is expressed in most prostate cancers and is an excellent target for immune-based therapy.

Is your career still as exciting to you today as it was when you started?
Yes, it is! I never get tired of the intellectual stimulation, and there are always surprises, always chances to discover something new, especially in clinical research. Even though we do our very, very best to come up with good laboratory assays and good animal models that will predict how a drug or a compound or a vaccine may potentially behave in patients, humans are not monkeys or mice.

What one piece of advice would you give to a med student who was interested in a career in research?
Be passionate, be persistent and take advantage of research training experiences, especially those available through NIH—both intramurally (in Bethesda) and extramurally. There are programs specifically for underrepresented minorities—one in particular is called the Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in the Health Research Professions. I frequently tell medical students, "Every single person should consider applying for a research loan-repayment training program." Because the bottom line is that, even if you don't think you want to pursue biomedical research as a career, the kind of training, discipline, and exposure that you will get from conducting research is going to make you a better practicing clinician. In fact, any kind of research training will make you a better physician because it will sharpen how you think.