This week I had the pleasure of meeting with and interviewing the Primary Investigator (PI) of the lab I am working in this summer, Dr. George Truskey.
Dr. George A. Truskey
Dr. Truskey is a professor of biomedical engineering and is the interim dean of the Pratt School of Engineering. I have summarized his answers to some questions I asked him during our meeting.
Q: What is your typical day like?
Being interim dean has made his days a little more atypical than that of what they were before he assumed this role. For the most part, his week consists of various kinds of meetings. He meets with staff to deal with issues and has collaboration meetings with administration. Sometimes he meets with alumni and donors as well. He also has a lot of student meetings. For example, he tries to meet with the graduate students in his lab once a week.
Q: What was your career path like?
Dr. Truskey did his undergrad at Penn in Bioengineering, which was relatively new at the time. He began to think about academia and being a professor in undergrad and he carried that idea with him into graduate school at MIT. He remembers graduate school being very hard, and that on his first day his class was told that 1/3 of them wouldn’t be there after that year. Fortunately, he wasn’t one of that 1/3 and upon graduation was offered both an industry job and a job at Duke in biomedical engineering.
Q: How did you get interested in tissue engineering?
It was mostly through collaborations with other faculty such as Dr. Reichert looking at grafts for cells and tissues. Dr. Truskey started off by saying that he wasn’t doing tissue engineering, but was just working on the edge of it. He also had the influence of grant opportunities. One of the biggest influences was a grant focused on microphysiological systems and the idea of “tissues on a chip.” One of the most exciting parts for Dr. Truskey is the disease and drug modeling aspect of creating microphysiological systems that would allow for more effective drug trials.
Q: What is your favorite part of being a PI?
Dr. Truskey really enjoys seeing how student’s ideas play out through out the course of the research. He likes seeing students succeed, whether it is making a discovery, getting an award, or coming up with ideas.
Q: Do you prefer Administration or Teaching?
Dr. Truskey explained that he likes them both and that they both have satisfying elements. In administration he gets to help build a better school. For example, he has helped launch collaboration with the hospital. In teaching, he gets to help people and get them excited about what they are doing. It’s a balancing act.
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