This past Wednesday, I sat down and talked with my PI, Dr. Mike Lynch. By the end of the conversation, one thing was abundantly clear about Dr. Lynch: he absolutely loves science. As an undergraduate at Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Lynch studied anthropology and biomedical engineering, and ended up getting a masters from BME at the same institution. He then traveled to Colorado, where he got his MD from the University of Colorado in Denver, and eventually a Ph.D. in chemical engineering as well at the University of Colorado Boulder. As can be seen by his educational history, Dr. Lynch’s focus and goals have shifted. When he was younger, his main goal was to help people, but over the years, his goal has been to “have enough flexibility and funding to do whatever science [he] wants to do.” He makes the point that if you’re not having fun with your job or your research, there’s really no point in doing it—which is why he is a scientist, because according to him in science, there’s plenty of fun things to research and study.
Here at Duke University, Dr. Lynch has taught BME 244 for undergraduates, as well as a metabolic design course. This upcoming year, he is leading a biochemical engineering and design course that will be integrated year long. Teaching is pretty enjoyable for him, as he says that the students are very engaged in class and care quite a bit—which makes the job much more rewarding.
Though Dr. Lynch is now based at Duke, he did not start out in academia. In fact, he actually started his own company, OPX Biotechnologies, and was working there for seven years. Dr. Lynch points out that in industry, research and science is a lot more goal-directed, with larger teams and more diverse groups to work with (in terms of scientific interests). However, he realized that if he stayed with the company, there would be a lot more management and business responsibilities for him, and less actual scientific roles. Thus, he decided to go back to academia so he could work more in the lab, where there is a lot of flexibility, even if one wanted to delve into more entrepreneurial endeavors.
As a whole, Dr. Lynch remarks that science and technology allows for great versatility. With a degree in STEM fields, one can work in everything from a true science or technology industry or research to the legal aspects of the field. As such, it’s very interesting to learn a lot of different things that result from being a scientist. As a scientist, one can more easily shift into another field or role, whereas it would be more difficult to start with a non-STEM degree and become a scientist. Working in science gives one the potential to make significant contributions to change how people live their lives, says Dr. Lynch, which is one of the motivating factors behind his love of science. It is also fun for him to learn about and figure out new things—even if his specific focus shifts from time to time.
As much as Dr. Lynch likes science, he notes that it is not a perfect field. He expresses concern for the underfunding of academic science, and also indicates that having been in both industry and academia, academia really needs more money to more accurately mirror or prepare students for what they would really do in industry. Additionally, Dr. Lynch says that whereas academia focuses more on training students to become academics or professors, there is an argument for giving students more exposure to team science and collaboration. In industry, science does not “happen” exactly how it would if one was doing research at a university, so it may be beneficial to educate students in more modes of learning to prepare them for industry,
As for a memorable lab disaster, Dr. Lynch recalls an incident back in CO, during which a flaming box of ethanol was launched from a side lab into the main lab space. After describing how the other grad students in the lab seemed dumbstruck and didn’t react in the correct manner, he also adds that there should be more fire safety training for students in science.
My conversation with Dr. Lynch ended with him divulging to me his personal philosophy: “nothing is ever permanent.” He notes that the wide range of his educational and research interests are a result of him always being willing to try something new, because doing the same thing over and over again may get a bit boring. What do I take away from our chat? 1) Though I may be thinking about studying biomedical engineering or chemistry as of now, in a few years I might be doing anthropological research. And 2) there is no such thing as too much safety training.
