Bob

Bob:

Professor

Weiss Lab

How did you get involved in cancer research?

“I did my undergraduate, bachelor’s degree, in biology. I was very interested in molecular mechanisms but didn’t have any exposure to cancer research. Then, I went to graduate school thinking I was going to study infectious diseases. However, I went into a program that focused on molecular virology. It turns out there are a number of viruses that induce cancer. I got really interested in this area and joined a lab with a similar focus. That’s when I started studying viral induced cancer and got very fascinated with cancer as a whole. I continued working on cancer research as a post-doc and now as a faculty member. “

Do you have any personal connections to your research?

“I think most people have had friends and family suffer from cancer. My father passed away from cancer in 2014. My mom has had benign breast lesions. I think that it touches almost everybody.”

What’s the most rewarding part of your research?

“Discovery is something that really motivates me on a day-to-day basis and makes the job very worthwhile. The idea that there is some unknown and that our laboratory is figuring it out to understand how things work. When you do an experiment, there’s often a moment when you get the result, an x-ray film or an image of a gel, and it’s such an amazing feeling to understand something from the experiment that you just did and that nobody else knew before.”

What’s the hardest part about your research?

“The hardest thing is that science is difficult, a lot of experiments don’t work. My strategy was always to work as hard as I possibly could and do as many experiments as possible because a lot of experiments are not successful. I think that the biggest challenge is dealing with what we call the ‘rollercoaster ride’. There are days when you develop the gel and you get an amazing result and you’re on cloud nine. But, there are also a lot of days when nothing works and you have to do it again. Being able to deal with the ups and downs in research is probably the biggest challenge. “

Has your research changed any of your viewpoints about cancer?

“This partnership with the cancer resource center definitely has changed my viewpoints, in terms of having a much better understanding of what patients experience when they have cancer. Studying in the lab is very different than interacting with an actual person. This has had a very big impact on me and it has changed how I think about my research in my lab. Now, I think more about side effects of therapies and potential toxicities. If your just thinking about killing cancer cells, then you only worry about killing them. But if you think about killing them in a patient who is going to suffer from the side effects of your therapy, then you factor the toxicity into your thinking. Some of our research is geared that way. We are looking into replacing toxic chemotherapies with other strategies that are non-toxic.”

What is your stance on public engagement of science in cancer research?

“I think that it’s tremendously important. I think this has come into focus more recently in the current political climate. I think that even before the change in the administration, there was a sense that the public was becoming more skeptical of scientists and the quality of their research. Until very recently, there was not much public engagement by scientists. The challenges brought on by doubt from the general public and a political environment that seems to undermine science has motivated a lot of scientists to get involved on the public side, to get their views known, and to advocate for science. In the last six months, I definitely see a lot more colleagues engaged in the community and in the political scene than before."