Discussions with professors and researchers prior to this summer, faculty discussions hosted by the program, and the tales told to other fellows from their PIs, has led me to the conclusion that the field of scientific research is one typically brought about by these 2 factors: chance or last-minute, impulsive decisions. Dr. Yuan Zhuang, one of the principal investigators for the Duke Department of Immunology, holds and has held the same natural curiosity that stimulates our faculty and researchers into doing what they do every day; however, Dr. Zhuang seems to have been born with the notion of going into research. It seems that during all of his time researching he has never regretted the decision, so of course I had to delve deeper and find out what composes such an ardent researcher.
First, I needed to know: Why Immunology? I was curious to know whether his interest in the subject was similar to mine, an utter fascination at the methods the body takes to care for itself. He answered that immunology was not his first choice. He goes on in detail about other research prospects he considered, and realized that the immune system was a better system to observe when asking and answering questions he wanted to know as a researcher of microbiology. He believed it was a fantastic system for experimentation; this inevitably led to the pursuit of research in the system.
Of course I had to find out were the man that would come to head such a Department got his education. Dr. Zhuang received his Bachelors in Biology degree from Peking Univeristy, one of China’s most prestigious research institutions. I asked whether choosing a major was a big task for him and he began to tell me that back then – 20 years ago – the system at his university and throughout the university system in China had students declare majors as soon as they started college, quite different from the system in China now which resembles the Americans. What would be a hard decision for many American students was quite easy for him; he stated exactly that he never regretted the choice. He pursued his Ph.D at Yale University, focusing primarily on microbiology research, RNA biology to be more specific – at the time when splicing techniques were flourishing – and pursued his post doctorate research in Seattle. When asking about the length of time it took for all of that schooling, he responded it took him into his 30s, but he said it was never about the years in grad school and for his post-doc, simply the number of experiments and amount of research done.
I was curious to see if scientific inquiry ran in the family, trying to find any motivation behind the man other than his own inquisitive nature, to which Yuan (all of his friends and colleagues call him Yuan) said it absolutely did not. “Where they supportive of your decision to go in to science?” I asked. He responded saying they had no problem with it and, reading my mind for the unasked question, “In China, the government paid for school.” If only, America could adopt some of the procedures of other nations… I shared a few stories of my own’s families desire for me to pursue a career in science.
I was curious to see whether what the hardest part of all his research was. I figured it might be a certain college final, maybe a particularly difficult experiment, thinking it must definitely be a thesis. He responded, “Funding.” The research may have hard, but it was absolutely fun and fulfilling. But the stress of getting money for experiments was the hard part. Last week, I talked about how Yuan only saved spending money when it was ABSOLUTELY necessary and he confirmed it. “When it is necessary to answer the question that will buy it, but if not we shouldn’t waste money.” He says its just hard to get money, because people generally don’t seem to understand why they are doing research on ‘worms and bacteria’. I asked him if he heard Sarah Palin’s statement against ‘fruitfly research’. He responded with no comment.
When asking about the most interesting part of research, he says its every time you answer a question. He says science has no single moment, its every little moment that makes it satisfying. So, I asked him, just to get a clear idea what is the Zhuang lab mostly focused on. He says its main focus broadly is T-cell development and more specifically, cell lineage – how a cell chooses the course it will take in the immune system. They are also looking into a genetic techniques that that can be used to study cell lineage.
Finally, I got to ask him my two most lingering questions. “Would you or have you ever considered teaching?” He answers that teaching is nice, but if he was to teach anything it would have to be modern methods, rather than starting off with the basics as so many other teachers do. And lastly I asked, “So when the experiments are done, all glassware cleaned, and you’re at home, is your mind still in the laboratory?” Surprisingly, he says no. He is at home spending time with his family. He says its good to run my lab. He gets to choose his own hours, and everything is really flexible, but he’s in lab every weekend until he feels the goals for the day was accomplished. He closes saying, science is one of those things you can only be good at if you have passion for it, if not it can be boring and frustrating. If you have passion for it, science can be great fun.
If that doesn’t sound like the quintessential scientist, I don’t know what does.
