The principal investigator in the Horner lab, Dr. Stacy Horner, is the co-director of the Duke Center for RNA Biology and an associate professor of medicine and of molecular genetics and microbiology at Duke, having opened her lab at the university in the 2013-2014 academic year. I have been working in her lab for about a month now, with multiple opportunities to get to know her better and learn more about her journey into the world of microbiology and host-virus interactions, as well as how she got to her current position. Recently I was able to meet with her to talk about this journey to where she is now.
She grew up in Minnesota, where she first found a general interest in biology and chemistry in school but knew little of the research opportunities in these fields. As she searched for colleges that would enable her to explore her interests in biology and chemistry, she ended up attending Gustavus Adolphus College. She said she wanted to choose this school because it was a small liberal arts college in Minnesota that enabled her to explore both biology and chemistry with a biochemistry major. Going into college, she said that she knew very little about the world of research. She was able to dive into research through her undergraduate classes but did not consider going to graduate school in a PhD program until later in her undergraduate career as she learned that unlike other degrees, many PhD programs in the sciences do not require one to pay tuition and instead pay the students. Through this knowledge and encouragement in undergrad, she began to pursue graduate school for a PhD program in molecular biology.
She joined the lab of Dr. Daniel DiMaio at Yale University, where she began to research human papillomaviruses. Throughout her time in graduate school, she did not believe that she would become a professor or principal investigator in a lab in the future. Dr. Horner said that she thought that she might not be creative or capable enough to constantly come up with the questions and ideas for a lab. It was when she was talking with mentors about her plans for the future that her mind was changed. When she told her mentors that she would not pursue postdoctoral studies and a professorship because of these reasons, they said that they thought she did have the skills to pursue the path to professorship. It was with their encouragement that she decided to pursue postdoctoral work.
In her postdoctoral work, Dr. Horner studied the regulation of the innate immune system concerning Hepatitis C in the lab of Dr. Michael Gale at the University of Washington. She then opened her lab in the Duke school of medicine where she currently pursues research in RNA virus host interactions, often concerning the innate immune system and Hepatitis C. Stacy has been incredibly welcoming, knowledgeable, and enthusiastic as I have gotten to know her in joining her lab. I am very excited to talk more and learn more with her in lab!
