Episode 6: The Equation for Faculty Success & Cancer Genetics at NCI

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Episode Guests

Segment 1: The Equation for Faculty Success

Avery August, Ph.D.

Avery August is the Deputy Provost at Cornell University. He is Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and Professor of Immunology in the College of Veterinary Medicine. He received his B.S. in medical technology from California State University at Los Angeles and his Ph.D. from Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University.

Professor August joined the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Cornell in 2010 as Professor of Immunology and Chair of the department. He was previously appointed Vice Provost for Academic Affairs in 2018, and began his appointment as Deputy Provost in 2022.

Segment 2: Cancer Genetics at NCI

Jiyeon Choi, Ph.D., M.S.

Jiyeon Choi received her B.S. from Ewha Womans University and her M.S. from Korea University in Seoul, Korea, and her Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology from Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 2011, Dr. Choi joined NCI as a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Translational Genomics; she was promoted to research fellow in 2016. In 2019, Dr. Choi was appointed as an Earl Stadtman Investigator and selected for the NIH Distinguished Scholars Program. Dr. Choi’s research focuses on understanding genetic susceptibility to lung cancer and melanoma using functional genomics approaches. Dr. Choi has received numerous awards for her work, including the NCI Director’s Intramural Innovation Award, the DCEG Outstanding Research Paper, and the NCI Outstanding Mentor Award.

Show Notes

Episode Transcript

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

OLIVER BOGLER: Hello and welcome to Inside Cancer Careers, a podcast from the National Cancer Institute. I'm your host Oliver Bogler. I work at the NCI, in the Center for Cancer Training.

On Inside Cancer Careers we explore all the different ways that people join the fight against disease and hear their stories.

Today we are talking to Dr. Avery August of Cornell University who shares his insights on how to support early career faculty and build a healthy research culture.

Then, after the break, we speak with Dr. Jiyeon Choi of NCI’s Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics – she tells us about training and establishing her research team at NCI.

Stick around to the end to hear our recommendations on music, a movie and a book and to learn how you can take Your Turn!

OLIVER: So, it's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Avery August to the podcast today. Welcome.

AVERY AUGUST: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Oliver.

OLIVER: Dr. August is Professor of Microbiology and Immunology and Deputy Provost for Academic Affairs at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York where he studies kinase signaling in the regulation of T-cells in infectious disease, inflammation, and allergies. He's also a Howard Hughes Medical Institute professor. Dr. August I'm always curious about how scientists choose to become scientists, what led you to do this work?

AVERY: Well, this is, you know, I think I was probably like many children very curious about the natural world and I look back, recall sort of doing natural experiments mixing things and capturing, you know, bugs and bees and that sort of thing, without understanding that you know what I was trying to do was science in my own way. But it wasn't really until I was in college trying to get a degree in medical technology that I was introduced to research formally by one of my faculty members who I really appreciated them doing that Professors Costello Brown and Phoebe Dea and that's when I started my formal research experience in chemistry actually.

OLIVER: And now you're--is it fair to say you're an immunologist or … you study T-cells?

AVERY: I think I would say I'm an immunologist, although, you know, some reviewers disagree, but [brief laughter].

OLIVER: So, and what led you to immunology?

AVERY: You know, I too as I was taking courses, you know in college, you know I was doing a degree in medical technology which is sort of a clinical laboratory sciences, and one of the courses that I took was immunology and serology, and what really fascinated me, was the fact that that the immune system has the capacity to respond to anything that it would be exposed to over a lifetime of an animal. And so, that really fascinated me and so I you know that one course in immunology made me want to do a Ph.D. in immunology and so that's what I embarked on.

OLIVER: Fantastic. So, I saw your presentation at the CABTRAC, the Cancer Biology Training Consortium meeting last October, and you spoke about diversifying faculty. I recall that you shared some interesting research published by Way and colleagues in PNAS as part of your presentation. Would you mind telling us what they showed?

AVERY: Yeah, so this is a group that's been analyzing the dynamics of sort of faculty hiring over time. They had several papers published including in Science Advances and then more recently in PNAS. In essence what they've shown is that academic institutions tend to hire very limited--from a limited number of institutions. So, you know, I think the calculation was 24% of all faculty that are hired in academic institutions come from 10 institutions which is a huge number when you think about the number of academic institutions that we have in the U.S. It also tells us something about you know our blinders that we have on when we think about hiring and who we think is important enough for us to hire as faculty at our institutions. So, I thought that that this was quite fascinating.

OLIVER: Yeah, we see a similar pattern when we look at some of our career development awards at NCI. It's a fascinating thing. It seems to be common even in the liberal arts is my understanding.

AVERY: That's correct. Actually, it's even more extreme in the liberal arts where if you wanted to become a faculty member and you're a potential graduate student, there are a handful of institutions in your particular field that will get you a faculty position.

OLIVER: What I also thought was interesting in that paper is the observation that success, if you will, of the faculty member is much more dependent on the institution in which--into which they are recruited, rather than the institution from which they come is that correct?

AVERY: Yes, and actually that's the piece that really struck me, because I think it provides us with an opportunity to perhaps rethink how we look at sort of "pedigree" of individuals that we're trying to hire, and also how institutions support faculty that they're hiring, and you know as you said, what that paper showed was correcting for sort of the background of the candidates, what was more important for their success is the resources of the institution that they were actually hired into as compared to what institutions they actually came from.

OLIVER: So, that suggests that search committees should refrain from using sort of sometimes the classical shorthand that the people employ, right? They look at you know just a very small number of signifiers, public--first author publications in you know so-called top journals and things like that and perhaps consider more broadly who they might add to their faculty.

AVERY: That's correct. I think potential, you know, one can glean that from a number of different approaches, you know, distance traveled, perhaps in candidates--but what, I think again, underlying this idea that the support you know financial and otherwise that institutions provide to the faculty that they hire, is much better a predictor of their success. I mean, one can have the best training, but if you're not an institution that doesn't support you then you won't be successful. I think it's sort of intuitive.

OLIVER: Yeah, and I think well you certainly presented it at CABTRAC, so let me put you on the spot. You presented a mathematical model of that support if you may permit, and I was wondering if you could explain it to our listeners. I remember you put up an equation that says, R-zero equals p times c times d. What is that?

AVERY: Yes. So, I was fascinated by you know so I'm an immunologist, and sort of adjacent to infectious disease in a way we use some infectious disease modeling in our research, but I've been always fascinated actually since I was an undergraduate student, when I took epidemiology, about the dynamics of infectious disease. And for many people who work in infectious disease, they will recognize that formula as a formula that describes epidemics and we've gone, you know, we're sort of in one of those right now and so people, you know, I think the general public is much more aware.

OLIVER: Yeah.

AVERY: Of some of these things, and so R-naught or R-zero is this equation that describes whether an infectious agent will cause an epidemic if it's greater than 1; if it's less than--if it's equal to 1 it's going to be endemic and if it's less than 1 then eventually it dies out which means that the pathogen doesn't replicate enough to maintain itself in a population.

So, p is the probability of infection; c is the contacts per time; and d is the duration of infection. And so, those functions sort of integrate to determine the dynamics of these infections. And so, I was fascinated by that and because I started to think about, you know, scientifically how can we look at--how can we look at the survival so to speak in loose terms, of scientists in a community? And so, I thought about these functions and I thought well, we can convert this formula where R-naught is actually persistence in the scientific enterprise, success however you might define it, and if it's greater than 1 then we then one will persist and be successful; if it's less than 1 than you know we for a given population, they won't be successful if we think about those who were historically excluded or underrepresented, and if it's 1 then it's the status quo; we won't change the dynamics of who participates in science. And so, for those individuals, you know, I took the same sort of formula and thought about p in this case being the probability of the comfort of those individuals; c being the contacts per time that sort make them feel like they belong; and d is the duration of that comfort. And if you think about the parameters that make us feel like we belong in particular place, you know, the interactions that we have, those contacts we have with those around us, increase that and actually as I've been talking about this, I developed a model 2.0.

OLIVER: Okay.

AVERY: Because I've been thinking about and you know those interactions that we have, and so there's 4th function which I call theta and I squared it, and that is, sort of disparaging remarks. So, we can have increased, you know, probability of comfort, we can have increased contacts that kind of make us feel comfort the duration can last, but that can be counteracted by a remark that someone says or an experience that one has that sort of, you know, sort of decreases the effect of those, and so we put those altogether, again, R-naught you know 1 that can be above 1 so that individuals can feel success.

OLIVER: So, you and theta is squared suggesting that that is something that has a profound impact, right?

AVERY: Yes. And again, this comes from anecdotal experience to talking to students, the faculty, and others where they can sort of be in a very welcome environment, an institution in the department, but there's that one thing that happens that makes them question and that can have a profound effect, and so I thought okay, we'll square this. I mean, it could be you know it could be a higher order function.

OLIVER: Sure. But it kind of reframes all the positive experiences, that makes a lot of sense. Now, being a scientist, you went out and got data, so you showed us at CABTRAC a dashboard called Belonging at Cornell which I guess you're using to monitor whether you were able to get above 1 for the R-naught?

AVERY: Yeah. So, this is our diversity initiative here at Cornell. We developed this a few years ago, and what we do is we track--we track elements of belonging; do you feel like you belong at Cornell? Would you recommend Cornell as a place and do you feel a sense of fairness at the institution? I think, a sense of fairness in the literature seems to be really predictive of whether people feel like - even if they disagree with things that might be happening in the institution if they change, that that those have you know been arrived at in a fair manner and they were part of that solution then they're more likely to feel like they belong at an institution. And so, we do regular surveys to sort of monitor that across departments, across particular subgroups, and then of course, we also track you know who we hire and most importantly retention. And we coordinate or integrate retention, parameters of retention, with the sense of belonging that people have and, of course, as you can imagine, I mean, most of this is intuitive but we you know we try to get the data from this; that if one does feel like one feels a sense of belonging, then you're much more less likely to remain in that institution so retention parameters go down.

OLIVER: Yeah. I think that's often overlooked, retention discussions are often about dollars and lab square footage and things like that, but how you actually feel about the institution is obviously also very significant. I'd like to talk to you a little bit about the FIRST award. So, this is a relatively new initiative at NIH, the Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation, abbreviated as FIRST, it's a government program we have to have an acronym, and I know that my colleague Dr. Sanya Springfield at NCI was one of the architects of this program and you were the PI of an award at Cornell in the first cohort if I recall.

AVERY: That's correct. You know, we were--we were fortunate enough and to be in the first, among the first cohort for one of those awards, and we're really, really excited about -about this.

OLIVER: And I should say that I'm being acronym happy, PI here means Principal Investigator, so, not all out listeners will know that. So, tell us please Dr. August, what was your FIRST award and what is it you're--that you are accomplishing with it?

AVERY: So, our FIRST award is you know Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation to translate that acronym. You know, we proposed to hire, using an approach to hire up to 10 faculty in the biological and the social sciences related to health in three areas, in quantitative biomedical sciences, in infection biology, and in health equity. And this is a collaboration across 7 colleges and schools here at Cornell and 20 departments are participating, of course, not all departments will hire, but the idea is we're using the FIRST approaches to pilot an experiment with some interesting approaches to both hire, but more importantly, to think about this piece that we talked about earlier, which is retention and preparing the environment for individuals to be successful; increasing the probability of comfort, increasing the probability duration and contacts, and reducing the aspects of some of disparaging remarks if we look at that formula. So, we've taken the approach to use very clear check-ins with search committees in ways that you know we've done from at a small scale but doing it more broadly here with the FIRST program. What we really look for in individuals who have strong interests and potential for inclusive excellence. We do that by looking at the work that they've done in the space that they think about how they can broadly engage with who participates in science; do they understand the nature of the field to understand, you know, our students who are quite--who come from all over the world? Do they appreciate some of those perspectives of some of those students and some of the barriers that those students might have faced in entering science? And so, we look for individuals who are able to speak to that in these particular areas, so there's a sort of scientific understanding of the culture of science that we’d like to embody here. We have regular check-ins with the search committees that are doing these searches, such that we can sort of underline some of the principles that we're trying to do here, and we started this by bringing in potential candidates in what we call the "FIRST Symposium" for early career candidates and we brought in about 25 individuals. We announced this broadly. We got a number of applications. We selected a smaller number, because we could only accommodate about 25 of those individuals to come, and this was a 2-and-a-half-day event. We spent a lot of time interacting with these individuals. We did some workshops with them on the faculty search, you know, what we do here at Cornell obviously, and then they also spent about a day with the departments that were hiring and then those individuals then got fed into the searches that the departments were hiring. And so, where we are now is we've started to make some offers for some of those searches. I think we have at least 2 offers that have been--that have gone out. We have 3 or 4 more that are being developed as we speak. And so, the idea is by integrating some strong principles of check-ins, by looking for individuals who appreciate the inclusive excellence, and then bringing them to campus and introducing them to the departments, we hope to be able to sort of boost hiring in this area.

OLIVER: So, much more high-touch approach to hiring than I guess is traditionally done, and I guess emphasizing also the cohort nature of the hiring?

AVERY: That's correct. So, and it's very interesting to see how much interest potential candidates have paid to be part of a cohort that has these components in it.

OLIVER: Fantastic. I understand that the FIRST Program also has a sort of national integration of amongst the different FIRST awards is that correct? Is that part of the process?

AVERY: Yeah, that's correct. But I've only told you about half of what we're doing.

OLIVER: Oh!

AVERY: So, the other half.

OLIVER: Please!

AVERY: Which is actually really, really important for us and in terms of how we've come and arrived at this approach, is at the same time as we're doing the hiring piece, we're working with departments to prepare them who they're hiring. And so, departments that are participating in the FIRST search, we're working with the chairs, we're working with the department faculty themselves, we're climate surveys in those departments to both understand the climate that those faculty will come into, but also work with those faculty to say here's who you are hiring. Here's what they bring to your department. Here's how you can support them so that we can you know, because we do--all these resources to hiring and we devote--we want to devote equal amount of resources to retaining those faculty when they come so when they arrive, they have a higher probability for being comfortable, the integration of contacts is high. We reduce that sort of you know disparaging remarks that increase that R-naught for persistence here in the departments. So, that's the other piece that's happening at the same time as we're working to hire faculty.

OLIVER: That makes a lot of sense, of course yeah. So, thank you. Back to the question about the national integration, is there a national integration in FIRST?

AVERY: Yeah, so the FIRST institutions have … meet very regularly once a month or you know depending on the group. We have several you know sort of subgroups that meet, and you know the first cohort started with about 6 or 7 institutions that were meeting; we have now have a second cohort have joined this group. And the idea really is to exchange you know what we're doing, we're all very different institutions, some are medical schools, some are smaller undergraduate focused institutions, some are collaborations between two institutions and so it's really interesting to both see the diversity of approaches, but the diversity of institutions and some of the hurdles that we all have in trying to do this in a way that's successful. And so, we get together regularly. We have an evaluation, a core that's working together. We have a faculty development core that's been working together. And then of course, we are also coming up in May, all of the institutions will meet together, will bring the faculty that we’ve already hired so that they can meet each other and ongoing, these faulty will become you know a part of a national cohort in addition to the local cohort that we’re hiring at the institutions.

OLIVER: That’s fantastic. So, underlying this work is culture change essentially which is not easy. How are you measuring that? How successful is it, has it been at Cornell so far?

AVERY: Yeah, so culture change is you know we can do all these sort of what I call "mechanical" things, but what's really important is if the unit, the department that's hiring those faculty and the institution that's hiring those faculty, is able to adjust its culture to accommodate people who haven't been there before. And that's a long-term strategy. I mean, that culture change comes from both culture change in society, but importantly, you know, how the institution views the climate and the culture at the institution and that's the coming back to our Belonging at Cornell initiative; that's what we're monitoring. So, we survey every 2 years. We've just done--we're just digesting our survey here at Cornell that happened last fall. The FIRST institutions are also participating in a survey that's run out of Brandeis that's sort of doing a similar thing. So, we have both our internal survey that we've been doing for some time, but also surveys across the FIRST institutions that's run out of Brandeis. That will allow us to sort of start to track what you know metrices that change. And one of the interesting things that in looking at this data over time, is that if you look at an institution you can see small shifts of climate, but what's really important especially as institutions get more diverse and hire more diverse faculty, is whether those faculty that are coming in whether they feel welcome, because if you look at the institutional level where still the majority of faculty are, you know, have been there for some time, you know they feel as you know happy and their happiness doesn't change very much, but what is useful and this is where the data comes in that's important, is looking at subpopulations in some, you know, certain in department, at the department level where a lot of the activity is happening so that you can determine whether those individuals that are joining an institution are finding an environment such that they feel like they belong and feel happy. And so, parsing that data is really important.

OLIVER: Fantastic. You also shared with at CABTRAC faculty development work that you're doing. You presented the CAN model. I'm sure that's part of the strategy as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that please?

AVERY: Yeah. So, the CAN model was--is something that our faculty development core developed here, Dr. Yael Levitte, Dr. Cynthia Leifer here who leads that core, and it's sort of a model that's you know is culturally aware network and navigate model, and the sort of core of

this and it's evolved to be a fairly nuanced and complex, is you know, many of our graduate programs use individual development plan model to called and IDP, to sort of try to determine and understand the needs of our students so that we can provide them with the appropriate enhancements for their success. And that will be different for each student because every student comes and arrives at our institution with different preparation and different strengths and areas of improvement. And so, that's a similar model that we're using for the faculty, you know, we hired these all fantastic individuals, they'll be very successful and there are areas where they have where they've spent a lot of time are very good; and areas where you know there could be room for improvement. And so, the CAN model you know we the A stands for advocate, so we have sponsors, we have mentors that support those faculty. The N stands for network. So, we want a network, you know, we want to build a network for those individuals, connect them with program officers, connect them with individuals in their discipline that can support them, and that's sort of at a pair level, at the community level. And we want to cultivate and challenge those individuals by ensuring that they receive rigorous workshops in grant writing and professional development gets really strong feedback. And then help them to navigate and nurture in these environments so, again, supporting this idea of increasing the probability of comfort and that R-naught so it's above 1.

OLIVER: Fantastic. Thank you so much. I wonder if lastly you might share with us the advice that you're giving to the students and the postdocs that are in your own lab, in your own research team who are thinking about their own future, what are you saying to them?

AVERY: Yeah, so I mean, you know, one of the things that we had here at Cornell, and I was also the principle investigator on is the BEST Program which is also run out of the Office of the Director of the NIH. And BEST stood for Broadening Experiences and Scientific Training, and I'm starting there, because you know the idea behind this program, which is now--has now picked up nationally, is to ensure that all of our trainings have the best information that they need to make informed choices about their careers. And so, what that means is to think about where would you like to be in the next, you know, short-term, midterm, and long-term? And how can we provide you with the resources and the information, point you to the right person; it might not be from me, it might be something from someone else who has better information, for you to get that information that can then help you make those decisions. And so, those are the sort of conversations I have with my students; some of my students want to become faculty members and so we talk about you know what would you need to be competitive in an academic environment? Others want to go into industry, you know, what would you need to do that? What sort of experiences would you need to have? And then supporting that and this is all, of course, in addition to being you know sort of providing the mentoring, the scientific mentoring that happens in the research lab. And so, I you know I would love to put--to see my students go on and become successful in academics, but I also would like love to see them become successful in whatever it is that they would like to do. And so, so that's the approach that I take with my students.

OLIVER: That's fantastic. I mean, this podcast, although it's focused on cancer, is focused on all the cancer careers. So, we certainly appreciate that stance, because there are so many different ways that people can contribute. Dr. August, thank you so much for spending time with us and sharing all your experiences and insights with us.

AVERY: My pleasure. This was a fun conversation.

OLIVER: Thank you.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]:

OLIVER: The NCI recently launched a new online seminar series. Here to tell us more is Nas Zahir, Director of the Cancer Training Branch.

NAS ZAHIR: Yes, we launched the NCI Rising Scholars Cancer Research Seminar Series in January to highlight the research and contributions made by NCI-supported postdoctoral fellows and early career investigators at NCI laboratories and NCI-funded institutions nationwide.

The talks are every month on the third Thursday, and you can see them and register for them on the NCI website. There will be a link in the show notes, or you can search for “NCI Rising Scholars”.

OLIVER: What kind of topics are the speakers covering?

NAS: We have a broad range of topics – pretty much any kind of cancer research. We have had basic science topics, clinical research, health disparities, cancer prevention, immunology and many more. Each talk is related to a recent publication by the presenter and there is plenty of time for Q&A.

OLIVER: What if you missed a talk?

NAS: We post a recording of the presentation a few days after the talk, along with a transcript and captions so you can always catch the talks at your convenience.

OLIVER: Thanks, Nas – check out NCI’s Rising Scholars seminar series if you are interested in some great research that’s increasing knowledge right now.

It's a pleasure to welcome Dr. Jiyeon Choi to the podcast today. Welcome.

JIYEON CHOI: Thank you.

OLIVER: Dr. Choi's a Stadtman investigator in the Laboratory of Translational Genomics in NCI's Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics. She studies genetic susceptibility to melanoma and lung cancer. Let's start at the beginning, Dr. Choi. What first led you to think about a career in science, or a career in cancer research?

JIYEON: So, cancer research in specific, kind of came a little later in my career, but for science, I guess I think I liked math a little bit when I was little. Not too much in science, but I -- well, in high school, I had a crush on my biology teacher. So, that led me to biology as a major in college. And it kind of grew on me slowly because I didn't see my career as a researcher right after college. So, I started working for this company, and then which involves actually very high-tech technology back then. Like high throughput sequencing and microarrays and then related to like the boom in the Human Genome Project and then all that. So, I -- that kind of got me interested in science and technology in general. So, that eventually I went back to graduate school to study further, and then started studying genetics. So -- so then, I initially started with neuropsychiatric diseases and then moved over to cancer for my post-doctoral training. And then that was a little more practical decision in terms of choosing cancer field, because compared to neuroscience, the systems that you can study, your subject is very much more, I would say, versatile and available so you can get cancer cell lines from patients, much more easily than when you need to study the brain, where we have to go to mouse models.

OLIVER: So, you're able to get closer to the patient with cancer?

JIYEON: That's true, yes.

OLIVER: Excellent. Excellent. So, then you are doing genetics. You got interested in cancer. What made you pick genetic susceptibilities as sort of -- as a specific discipline?

JIYEON: Oh, yes. So, that's -- I guess it's -- the question that I'm most interested in, so people could -- you can get cancer from environmental factors. People know that -- that contribute to cancer, but even some people are exposed to the same amount of carcinogens, for example, but how the human body reacts to those stimulus is not the same. So, there could be a lot of reasons, but genetic factors clearly is one very particular -- specific factor that contribute to that. So, it always intrigues me that -- how we're sort of designed from the beginning to be susceptible to something versus another. So yes, that's a somewhat intriguing question to me.

OLIVER: Yes, I mean you study lung cancer. I mean, when I was growing up, there was a lot of smoking, you know, a lot of people smoked, and we all knew someone's grandpa who'd, you know, was in their 90s who'd smoked their whole life. Never had a lung problem, and then of course there were also other people who may never have smoked or may have smoked for a short period of time, who had lung cancer. So, clearly just knowing that, you'd think there must be something different in the genetics. Interesting. You also study melanoma. So, how are those two cancers different in terms of susceptibility?

JIYEON: Sure. So, they're different it’s -- for example, you can actually measure the heritability from the populations. So, how much genetics explain the variability in the risk of a certain disease. So, there are different method, and no one method is perfect. But if you use those like multiple measures, melanoma seems to have higher heritability than lung cancer. But both cancers have very strong, well-known environmental factors. Smoking for lung cancer and UV exposure for melanoma. So, since I've studied mainly melanoma for my post-doctoral training, it was a really interesting connection that -- the fact that the -- they have different heritability levels, but there's strong environmental factors. So, I found some similarity between two cancers in that way.

OLIVER: So, you did your bachelor's degree in Korea. You came to the United States for your PhD, to Rutgers University, if I recall.

JIYEON: Yes.

OLIVER: And did your post-doc then at the NCI. What was it like moving from one country, one culture to another, as you did your training?

JIYEON: Yes. Obviously, there are a lot of challenges. And also, it's an adventure, right? And so, the goal is science. So, that's pretty clear. And in the laboratory setting, we speak international language of science. So, in that sense, it's familiar. But since I live in the -- as an adult, I live in a different country, so it -- to me it feels like being a teenager forever. So, you try to define yourself, how to behave, try to read the cultural cues, and you know, I feel less and less over time, but still, it doesn't go away.

OLIVER: Of course. Of course. So, you were a post-doc at the NCI, and of course you were part of the Intramural Research Program. Now, not everybody knows that there's research actually happening at the NCI. Now, you lead a group there. So, what's it like doing research in the Intramural Program?

JIYEON: Yes. So, yes, as you said, a lot of people considered NCI as the kind of money lender. You know, where you get the research funding from. But we have -- in NCI, we have a lot of fantastic intramural research programs. So, I was lucky to be able to discover great post-doctoral opportunities in NCI. So, and then when I was a fellow, post-doctoral fellow here, I was able to recognize a lot of benefits because compared to the university setting, where I was a graduate student, in NCI and in the the bigger NIH, post-doctoral fellows that actually, the majority of, the main people, we don't have too many graduate students. So, actually the institute actually cares about post-doctors -- post-docs a lot and their career development. So, I really felt I had a lot of resources to go for when I need help, and especially in developing my career. And so that's how I kind of knew that all -- there's going to be a lot of benefit even as a PI because we don't really need to write grants to get funding for our research. We do get kind of audited or reviewed from outside scientific community because we're using tax money. So, we have to justify if our research is valid. So, we get reviewed every four year, regardless of tenure-ship. So, but still, it's a very collaborative environment and also rich resources. So, yes, I highly recommend people to take some interest in this area of NIH.

OLIVER: Take a look, yes. So, you're part of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics, which is one of the two sort of groups, if you will, inside NCI's Intramural Research Program. The other being the Center for Cancer Research. Tell us about DCEG. What is it?

JIYEON: Oh, yes. So, I was trained as a molecular geneticist. So, like mainly doing wet lab work. So, it was still -- although CCR, the other part of NCI is much bigger in terms of number. And I think it's better known to kind of lab scientists. But the DCEG is mainly doing epidemiology and epidemiological studies of cancer. So, the -- we care more about etiology and what can lead us for better prevention and prediction and early detection. So, curing cancer in the therapy setting, when you're already diagnosed and then developed a lot, people put a lot more money into that, but catching it early, it saves more lives, obviously, right?

OLIVER: Yes.

JIYEON: So, you could save lives by simple surgery in the early stage if we have tools to find and detect cancer earlier. So, but this is using population scale data, a lot of registry data and then survey data. So, a lot of it is computational and then traditionally the training trajectories were pretty different, but especially in our branch in the division. We also have wet lab space, so we are kind of trying to bridge two areas of experimental science and population study.

OLIVER: So, in 2019, I think you transitioned from being a fellow to being a principal investigator leading your own research group. What was that like?

JIYEON: Well, yes, I transitioned within the same branch. So, that was interesting because all of a sudden now I was a lowly post-doc, and then now like I have a lab. So, yes, it was very exciting because I was a little familiar with the system already. So, now I get to do like a lot of different things, yes, independently. So, that was really cool. And we have a good support system here. All the senior PI's are very supportive, and then we particularly in our branch, we have a very collaborative environments. So, that has been really fun, but also at the same time, it's late 2019. So, as soon as I started, we hit the pandemic. So, lab closed. So, yes. So, starting a lab anywhere is pretty challenging and the pandemic didn't help much. So, yes, it was a struggle, but it's getting much better right now.

OLIVER: I can only imagine. What was the most challenging part of starting the lab?

JIYEON: Yes, so it's a totally different mindset, at least to me, because we -- as a post-doc, I'd never been trained in -- how to manage a lab. How to manage people, how to hire people, you know, and how to spend money, budgeting, and things like that. So, most of what I do is not actually generating or analyzing data. It's more managing part and meetings and networking with other scientists to kind of find our space in the scientific community. So, yes, that's very different. But yes, I'm having fun so far.

OLIVER: Fantastic. Now, I believe you were -- you're a Stadtman investigator. Can you tell us about the Stadtman Program?

JIYEON: Yes. So, Stadtman Program is NIH-wide program to recruit principal investigators. So, it's not just within NIH, but anywhere in the world, people can apply. And we -- the program starts a little early in the game. So, like I think early fall, we collect the candidates and then I think there's a central committee who select X number of percent, and then each institute within NIH could pick the qualifying candidate through interview. So, it comes with a title. So, that's prestigious and also, we have kind of a cohort of people that we can reach out to once you become one. And as I said earlier, like it's -- it's intramural. So, we are given the funding as opposed to write grants every time for each project.

OLIVER: Right, so you have a network of other Stadtman investigators across NIH that you can connect with, is that right?

JIYEON: Oh, yes. You can do that. I mean, there's like no organized official things, but yes, we kind of know at least a few of them, yes.

OLIVER: You know of each other?

JIYEON: Yes.

OLIVER: And I believe you're also an NIH Distinguished Scholar, correct?

JIYEON: Yes.

OLIVER: What is that program?

JIYEON: Okay. So, that's a newer program where each year, out of Stadtman pool and also other route, they select these investigators who are dedicated to promoting diversity and reduce health disparities. So, they collect -- they select the scholars and this is really well-structured program where we're given mentoring from senior investigators regularly. We're given opportunities to network, and also the cohort membership is very strong, and then we have our chat group, and then we meet regularly. So, support each other, and yes, exchange information. So, that has been really fantastic.

OLIVER: What's the most important thing do you think of being part of such a community, such a cohort? How has that helped you get started?

JIYEON: Sure. So, I was saying a little bit about transitioning from post-doc to PI. So, as a post-doc, you have a lot of people in your group. You have a peer group, because like you're large in number. But all of sudden, all the peers disappear and, right? The one thing that -- one of the challenges as a PI in the beginning is you cannot really find a peer group easily. But these are group of people who are in the same stage mostly as you, and also, we have the same goal. Not just get your lab up and going and then making it successful, but we have good cause to -- for more diversity. So, that's really -- that's really a good group in the way of good rapport in our group.

OLIVER: So, it's slightly less lonely at the top when you have a cohort.

JIYEON: Certainly.

OLIVER: Excellent. And just finally then, now you are a PI. You have your own research team. You've got post-docs and students and folks. What advice are you giving them as they work in your group and think about their own futures?

JIYEON: Yes. So, they usually come in with some sort of sense of what to do. So, I -- if they have clear goal, then I try to help them achieve that goal. And -- but if they don't, then, especially some people are debating between, "Should I be a PI or like should I go -- like go other, quote/unquote 'alternate route?'" But in reality, the alternative route is the majority, so I tell them that, "Don't be fixated on becoming a PI. You do it only if you like it." But at the same time, for people who are not confident enough, then I try to make sure to tell them that, "Do not give up just because you like, because of lack of self-confidence." And it's not the most horrible job in the world. So, yes. I try to give advice in both ways.

OLIVER: Yes, fantastic. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Well, thank you very much Dr. Choi for coming on the podcast and sharing your personal journey, and your experiences. Thank you.

JIYEON: Thank you.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

OLIVER: Now it's time for a segment that we call Your Turn because it's a chance for our listeners to send in a recommendation that they would like to share. If you're listening, then you're invited to take your turn. Send us a tip for a book, a video, a podcast or a talk, or anything that you found inspirational or amusing or interesting. You can send those to us at nciicc@nih.gov. Record a voice memo and send it along. We may just play it an upcoming episode. Now I'd like to invite our guests to take their turn. Let's start with you, Dr. August.

AVERY: Thanks, Dr. Bogler. So, you know, I enjoy listening and actually mixing electronic music. So, one of the things I would recommend is one of my favorite artists. He's called Congo Natty. He's a UK artist, and he has a really interesting history, but also some really interesting music. It's sort of a blend of reggae, electronic music, and it's sort of unique in this space. So, I like big up his props whenever I can, Congo Natty.

OLIVER: That sounds like fun. Is he on Spotify?

AVERY: He's on Spotify.

OLIVER: All right, we'll dig out a link and put it in the show notes for our listeners to check. Thank you so much.

AVERY: Thank you.

OLIVER: Dr. Choi.

JIYEON: So, my recommendation is a movie that I watch regularly, it's called Free Solo. It was out a few years ago. It's a documentary of this person, professional climber, Alex Honnold, who free soloed El Capitan of Yosemite. And I'm a climber myself, a beginner, just a few years in, not that good. But just like something about this documentary, both entertaining and also, I don't know, encouraging me sometimes. Yeah, so the best part is that you're watching somebody risking their life doing this extraordinary thing while you're eating potato chips. So that's pretty fun.

OLIVER: [Laughing] Excellent. Thank you very much, Dr. Choi. And I'd like to make a recommendation as well. It's a book I read a few years back which had a profound impact on me. It's called Factfulness, by Dr. Hans Rosling. He's co-authored it with his son and daughter-in-law, who work together with him at the Gapminder Foundation. Dr. Rosling, who died in 2017, was a medical doctor, professor of international health, and influencer. He was famous for a series of TED Talks that described the world through facts. You may have seen his famous animated bubble graphs. The premise of this eye-opening book is that most people answer questions about global trends incorrectly because of 10 instincts that distort our perspective and because of biases that we harbor. It encourages a worldview based on facts. And it's filled with beautiful data. And shows that while there is much that needs urgent attention, armed with facts, we see some progress in the world and can take heart that positive change is possible.

[UPBEAT MUSIC]

OLIVER: That’s all we have time for on today’s episode of Inside Cancer Careers! Thank you for joining us and thank you to our guests.

We want to hear from you – your stories, your ideas and your feedback are always welcome. And you are invited to take your turn to make a recommendation we can share with our listeners. You can reach us at NCIICC@nih.gov.

Inside Cancer Careers is a collaboration between NCI’s Office of Communications and Public Liaison and the Center for Cancer Training.

It is produced by Angela Jones and Astrid Masfar and Edited by Janette Goeser.

A special thanks to Lakshmi Grama and Sabrina Islam-Rahman.

Join us every first and third Thursday of the month when new episodes can be found wherever you listen – subscribe so you won’t miss an episode. I'm your host Oliver Bogler from the National Cancer Institute and I look forward to sharing your stories here on Inside Cancer Careers.

If you have questions about cancer or comments about this podcast, email us at NCIinfo@nih.gov or call us at 800-422-6237. And please be sure to mention Inside Cancer Careers in your query.

We are a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute. Thanks for listening.

Episode 6: The Equation for Faculty Success & Cancer Genetics at NCI

Listen and Subscribe to Inside Cancer Careers

Episode Guests

Segment 1: The Equation for Faculty Success

Avery August, Ph.D.

Segment 2: Cancer Genetics at NCI

Jiyeon Choi, Ph.D., M.S.

Show Notes

Segment 1: The Equation for Faculty Success

Segment 2: Cancer Genetics at NCI

Your Turn: Guests Recommendations

Episode Transcript