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Alice Moscovici spoke with Beth Schoen, a Fulbright Postdoctoral Research Fellow as well as American Association for University Women Postdoctoral Fellow in the lab for Cancer Drug Delivery & Cell Based Technologies at Technion in Haifa, Israel, about the importance of collaboration in scientific research, in particular for young scientists. 

How did you get interested in your current research project?

Ever since I can remember, I used to say I wanted to do cancer research. I do not know exactly what sparked my interest, it could be a combination of things. My father had renal cell carcinoma when I was 10 and he had one kidney removed. Just before that I had started to read books about children with life-threatening diseases by Lurlene McDaniel. When I was 13, my father’s cancer returned in his liver. They gave a prognosis of 2 years, but he only had 2 months. I guess you could say all that had some type of impact on me.

My current research is focused on the development of Nanoghosts (NGs), derived from mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), and retaining their unique surface-associated tumor-targeting capabilities, which present a novel class of nano-particulate drug-delivery devices. They can efficiently encapsulate chemotherapeutic agents, protect these drugs from damaging healthy tissues, and improve their efficacy by increasing specificity towards desired locations.

How has collaboration impacted your career?

Collaboration is my favorite thing in academics. During my Ph.D, my PI, Professor Andre Lee, gave me a lot of independence. My Ph.D was in chemical engineering, and my PI was a professor of materials science with a degree in physics. I fell in love with organic chemistry (quite rare for a chemical engineer) and he allowed me to take all the organic chemistry Ph.D level courses so that I could do my own synthesis! This, of course brought me to the majority of my collaborations. I was sent to the Edwards Air Force Base in California for 3 months to learn synthesis from the inventors of the silsesquioxane molecules that I used during my Ph.D. When I returned to Michigan State University (MSU), I had to seek out my own collaborations to continue with the organic chemistry aspect of my research. I got in really close contact with the chair of the chemistry department at MSU, Professor Robert Maleczka, and even took part in his weekly 3-hour long group meetings. I owe so much of my knowledge to him. I cannot say enough how much this collaboration influenced me. He provided me with a huge amount of lab space and my own desk in an office with other organic and inorganic chemistry students. I introduced him to my PI and together they have submitted proposals to the NIH with my results.

I also made some great collaborations in chemical engineering with other professors in my department. Professor Carl Lira, a specialist in thermodynamics, taught me how to use thermodynamics equations to numerically model my results on Matlab. There are more collaborations, as MSU is very fond of them, and this list continues.

At the Technion, I established a collaboration with a professor in chemistry. My lab invented a very novel drug delivery device derived from the membrane of mesenchymal stem cells. It can efficiently encapsulate chemotherapeutic agents, protect these drugs from damaging healthy tissue, while improving their efficacy by increasing specificity to the desired location. I started a collaboration with a chemistry professor that was looking for a more efficient and less toxic way to deliver a drug they had developed.

I also have a collaboration with a professor in mechanical engineering on my second project. We create tissue engineering scaffolds, and have recently submitted a patent. It is nearly impossible these days to do anything without collaboration. It is the first thing that a new professor needs to do to start their career.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received from a collaborator?

The best piece of advice was from Professor Robert Maleczka, “If you have an opportunity to do a post doctorate fellowship abroad, especially when you are still young and single, then cease this opportunity because it may not arise again in the future.”

What is the biggest challenge for young scientists today and how could a collaborative environment solve that challenge?

As a young scientist, if we are speaking about students, there is so much that can be solved from a collaboration. If the scientists’ PI is not an expert in an area of the research, that the student would like to pursue, a collaboration becomes a necessity. Sometimes it is good just to get two opinions on one area of research, and a collaboration is beneficial. There are so many different reasons.

What was the best collaborative experiment/project you’ve ever been a part of?

Of course, this would be my collaboration with the chemistry department at MSU during my Ph.D. Not only because Professor Robert Maleczka had such a huge influence on me, but all the other faculty in the department as well. Dr. Daniel Holmes, the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) facilitator at MSU, taught me the ins-and-outs of NMR. In fact, my very first publication was based on NMR spectroscopy of silsesquioxanes. I still keep in good contact with him. Also, Dr. Richard Staples, a renowned crystallographer at MSU that also worked at Harvard for many years, helped and taught me tremendously.

Who inspires you? Is there someone you strive to emulate in your career?

When I was a kid, I used to say Thomas Edison was my idol. I wanted to invent cures for cancer research, and he was an excellent inventor of his day and age. I used to read all that I could about him.

What’s next for your career?

I am actually on the job market now. I am looking for a position that suits me. This is a difficult question, because I am not exactly sure where this will take me. I am looking at researcher positions in industry as well as in academia. Sometimes I feel like a “jack of all trades.” I have experience in organic chemistry, chemical engineering, materials science, and biotechnology. So, we will see where this brings me.