Fall Insider 2022: Culture in Biology

CONTENTS

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Saltman Quarterly

Volume 20 | Fall 2022

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EUTHANASIA STRESS pg. 2

INTO THE MINDSET pg. 3

VOICES IN BIO pg. 4

E R U LT

IN

B I O LO G Y

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY ANGEL WILLIAMSON

SID N I Q S

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Euthanasia Stress: A Harsh Reality of Biomedical Research Written by Sarah Mirsaidi-Madjdabadi

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eath. Simply talking or even thinking about the subject is taxing, so imagine how emotionally burdensome it would be to constantly deal with death for your job. This is the harsh reality for biomedical researchers who work with animal models to study human behavior and disease because animal euthanasia is a large part of their work. Most often, euthanasia is used in animal research to harvest tissue for analysis or to alleviate animal suffering. Although research institutions like UC San Diego are federally obligated to have an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee that set strict guidelines to ensure quick and painless deaths, euthanasia is not an easy task for many lab workers—so much so that they can develop something known as euthanasia stress.

According to a recent review by Joseph T. Newsome, the Director of the Division of Laboratory Animal Resources at the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues, “[e]uthanasia stress is the concept of being aware and psychologically challenged when faced with the task of euthanizing animals.” The most common symptoms of euthanasia stress are burnout, depression, cynicism, and a loss of motivation and compassion in the workplace.

Jonathan Wang, an undergraduate volunteer in a gene therapy lab at UC San Diego, has experienced some of these symptoms first-hand. Wang euthanizes mice via cervical dislocation—a physical euthanasia technique in which pressure is applied to the neck in order to dislocate the spinal column from the skull or brain—for tissue analysis. According to him, learning how to perform a cervical dislocation for the first time was mildly traumatic.

“It felt really jarring and I was definitely ashamed. It just doesn’t feel great thinking that I had just killed something that was once alive,” Wang said.

Although biomedical researchers like Wang cannot avoid euthanizing animals, they do not have to develop euthanasia stress. Training in stress management techniques, fostering emotional openness in laboratory settings, and acknowledging the benefits of animal euthanasia for the betterment of science and medicine

Editors-in-Chief: Lina Lew & Sharanya Sriram Executive Editor: Anjali Iyangar Editor-at-Large: Nicole Adamson Production Editors: Tania Gallardo & Amber Hauw

2 | Vol. 20 | Fall 2022

Illustrated by Abby Jones

are all preventive measures against euthanasia stress, according to university veterinarians Jordi L. Tremola and Angela Kerton in a recent comment in the journal Lab Animal.

Lynn Tran, a master’s student at UC San Diego who works in a cancer immunology lab, has experienced the benefits of some of these methods. Since starting in her lab in March of 2021, she has euthanized nearly 100 mice via carbon dioxide asphyxiation in order to culture their immune cells for growth and analysis.

Unlike Wang, however, the act of animal euthanasia itself has not had as much of a negative effect on Tran’s mental health.

While self-care activities like exercising and taking time away from the lab on weekends have helped her navigate euthanasia stress, so has the immense support from her lab.

“My lab is extremely supportive about the issues with animal euthanasia and we do often discuss it with another,” stated Tran.

These conversations have greatly helped her process her feelings on animal euthanasia. “In general, my lab is very open regarding our feelings about our work and my PI [principal investigator] has built a culture of helping everyone succeed both in their work and mental health.”

Similar to Tran, many researchers feel supported in their laboratories because their research institutions have already implemented several strategies to help mitigate the development of euthanasia stress amongst lab workers. For example, UC San Diego requires all animal researchers to take courses on how to properly work with animals. Portions of these courses discuss euthanasia’s potential impact on one’s mental health and actively encourage lab members to reach out to one another for support when struggling.

Wang and Tran would like to see even more preventative measures implemented.

Wang suggested providing additional support to animal researchers through therapy while Tran emphasized the need for labs to prioritize researchers over productivity by providing breaks between experiments. Euthanasia stress is an undoubtedly difficult reality of biomedical research, and thus it’s imperative that research institutions continue to do all that they can to protect their workers from it.

Production Team: Dhathry Doppalapudi & Azzaya Munkhbat Head Illustrator: Kristiana Wong Staff Illustrators: Abby Jones & Angel Williamson Head Photographer: Bridget Spencer Staff Photographers: Andrea Farrell Head Tech Editor: Nicolas Bello

Into the Mindset of Biology

with Dr. Keefe Reuther Interviewed by Syni Solanki

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Photo by Andrea Farrell

r. Keefe Reuther has been a lecturer at UC San Diego since 2009. In 2020, he became an assistant teaching professor, instructing courses such as BILD 4 and BILD 5. His research interests are focused on how undergraduates self-identify as scientists belonging to the scientific community.

SQ sat down with Reuther to speak about how the mental health of students affects their development in the field of biology.

Q: What implications does your research have for the culture of biology at UC San Diego?

A: While biology has a large amount of detailed facts, that’s not what makes a biology expert good at what they do. Instead, it is about having a toolkit to problem solve, and think about biology in a holistic way. The biggest new thing in my position is the development of the BILD 5 course: experimental design and analysis for biologists. It allows us to focus on developing skills such as experimental design, information literacy, and also applied statistics and computer programming.

Q: What are some observations you’ve made about the mental health of students in your classes?

A: One part of this is that it is very hard to observe. From the professor’s point of view, with large class sizes a lot of the time our only view of you, if we aren’t seeing you in office hours or directly interacting over email, is largely through your grades. I think that one of the biggest fears that I have for my students is that there is something serious going on, where there are resources where either I or the university can help with, but that issue isn’t visible to me. Students reach out frequently, but I also know that for every student that reaches out, there are a large number that aren’t reaching out.

Q: How should professors accommodate students facing mental health challenges in the classroom?

A: There is the consideration of how we can accommodate students formally, and informally. Formally, there is the Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD), that can organize arrangements such as extended time on exams, having access to a notetaker, etc. Those can only be given through that formal process. We want students to have the accommodations that they deserve. Informally, within reason, I want to give students all the resources and help that they need, while maintaining the integrity and fairness of the class. The first step of all of that, is letting me know what is going on. The more notice we get, the more there is of a possibility that we can help. For me, it’s a case-by-case basis, while also having that structure and fairness.

Q: What kinds of limitations do professors face when it comes to mental health challenges among students?

A: A limitation would be the amount of ambiguous pressure that students have on themselves, but also, and particularly because of the pandemic, their experience of what university, the job market, and a specific class is like is very different. I wasn’t an undergraduate during a pandemic. That experience is completely unknown to me, and none of my fellow faculty have also been in the position that students in this time have been.

What worked for me as an undergraduate is not what it means to be an undergraduate now.

Q: What do you think people should know about the mental health of biology teaching faculty?

A: All of us have our own struggles with mental health and wellness. At the end of the day, sure there are some common things that bind faculty together, but when it comes to mental health, it is as variable as what students experience. I think that one of the differences between faculty and students is that we’re older. Whatever we are dealing with, we’ve likely been dealing with it for a longer period of time. Confronting whatever we are facing is hard, but often is the only path forward.

sqonline.ucsd.edu | 3

SQ INSIDER

Voices in the Biology Community Experiences and Advice on Navigating Student Life Anvita Komarla

4th year Ph.D. student Bioengineering

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Opening up to your peers is a great way to not feel alone when things feel stressful. Find good mentors—maybe people who are in cohorts ahead of you, your lab mentor—that you can talk to about different things. ...[Make] sure to have boundaries between work and life; it’s important to not be working 24/7. Having hobbies to help de-stress [is important]. For students thinking of graduate school, choose a lab wisely to make sure that the work culture is supportive of your mental health and career goals; cool research does not always mean a good lab environment.”

Allison Li

Sophia Madamba

3rd year undergraduate Human Biology major

4th year undergraduate Biochemistry major, History minor

Former organic chemistry content tutor at the Academic Achievement Hub

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A lot of students treat tutoring as their last resort. They go to lectures, they go to office hours; sometimes they even consult the textbook before consulting tutors. I feel like I saw a lot of them, not necessarily at the end of their rope, but approaching the end of their rope.

I would try to convince them that it [tutoring] is not anything bad. You don’t need to stigmatize the idea of going to a tutor; it doesn’t mean that you’re failing.

Maybe you need someone to relate to that probably also had struggles in this course too and somehow managed to overcome it.”

I’ve been involved in research since my first year of undergrad.

I strongly believe that one’s lab experience is shaped by the lab environment, and my current lab provides me with a community of undergrads, graduate students, and post-docs that support and encourage my work. Therefore I believe that the people that surround me positively impact my mental health.”

Reporting by Nicole Adamson, Sharanya Sriram, and Kristiana Wong

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