At Stony Brook University, the students ask anything off the top of their heads! It’s really refreshing. I teach science, but I think they teach me more science than I teach them. What is most enjoyable about your job? The students, definitely. The students are fun because they’re always willing to ask questions. While teaching at Columbia medical school, I got a lot of, “What questions are going to be on the exam? What do I need to do to get my A?” At Stony Brook University, the students ask anything off the top of their heads! It’s really refreshing. I teach science, but I think they teach me more science than I teach them. What hobbies do you have? My very favorite thing to do [besides being with my girls] was running. I was a really serious long distance runner until I [messed] up my knee. I love sports, and I also love the cold, so winter sports are definitely huge. Otherwise, it’s art. I really enjoy sculpting. I think that if I hadn’t gone into medical research, I would have gone into architecture or some form of art. I love it because it’s actually similar to research. You look at a rock or a piece of metal and you have to see what it forms itself into. You may guide it a bit, but it evolves. I like when you see something and it finds its way out.
Despite the connotations associated with smoking, for schizophrenics, smoking can actually be beneficial.
Out of all your accomplishments, which one do you consider your greatest? I am most proud of my daughters, without question. One is a clinical psychologist and the other is finishing medical school to be a psychiatrist, so they’re [both] studying the brain! They’re really neat, but I don’t think I had much to do with that—I just watched them become awesome. In regards to science, I’d say it’s a toss-up. The one that’s been the most fun was getting the Pioneer Award because it’s a huge amount of money: half a million dollars per year for five years. It’s given to people for crazy ideas, and if there’s anything I can do, it’s have a crazy idea! I think the most surprising one was when I got the Distinguished Investigator Award from NARSAD. I had never done anything related to schizophrenia, but I was looking for regulators of the [acetylcholine] receptors that bind nicotine
in the brain, and I found that the regulator was this gene that is a major schizophrenia susceptibility gene. If you’re missing one copy of this gene, called neuregulin, it messes up some of your cholinergic receptors. The real problem that schizophrenics have is that the sensory information comes in and it’s all equally vital. Most people know to ignore certain things, but for schizophrenics, everything is important. They cannot sort between necessary and not necessary. [For example], the noise of the air conditioners would be just as important as our voices or as a flashing light going off outside. Smoking apparently helps them focus and enables them to attend to the essential rather than the nonessential information coming into their brains. So schizophrenics are basically self-medicating when they smoke! That’s how I got the award for innovative research on schizophrenia. It was a real surprise. I never expected a gene that regulated nicotinic receptors would have anything to do with schizophrenia. I remember thinking, “Really? This isn’t even what I was researching!” That’s why you have to keep an open mind. It’s the stuff you don’t expect. The stuff that makes you go, “What? I don’t get that.” That’s the cool stuff. How would you advise a student who also wanted to go into neurobiological research? First, I’d tell them to read everything that they could get their hands on and see what parts of it they gravitate towards. And then I would tell them to find a doctor, lab, or hospital job and immerse themselves in it. Remember, there are a million different ways you could be a neuroscientist. Find out what people you want to be interacting with. You have to find your niche, and then you won’t mind working hard. You want to find where you love it because work really has to be something you love. I got that advice from my dad; he was right with that one. If you had the world’s undivided attention for ten minutes, what would you say? I would make a pitch for people to give science a chance. People think that science is for geeks, but it’s really not. I would really love to talk to people who don’t do science and help them see how much fun it is, how varied it is, and how creative it is. I would try to convey that science is a part of their lives and that they can enrich so much of their life by understanding it and not pushing it aside. It’s hard to communicate the beauty of science to people. Sometimes, there’s this wall and I think it’s partially the fault of the people who do science. We don’t make enough of an effort to convey how fun and interesting it is and the ways in which it relates to everybody. It isn’t just about knowing stuff, but understanding your own self and how you work. And it can be about anything, like why people smoke, why it’s so fun to go dancing, or even why Jello congeals. It can be literally anything! References 1. Role, Lorna. Personal interview. 30 Jan 2014. 2. Thies W., Blieler L., Alzheimer’s Association. 2013. 2013 Alzheimer’s disease facts and figures. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. 2(9):208-245.
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