Sade Williams Clayton, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Simon Tang’s lab
PhD, University of Alabama
Briefly describe your project: My scientific focus is how the intervertebral disc stimulates repair and regeneration after injury and to discover which immune cell types play a role in disc repair.
Who is your scientific hero? Katherine Johnson, a mathematician whose calculations were critical for the first US crewed space flightsWhat is your favorite scientific method or paper (if you have one)?
What is your favorite scientific method or technique? My favorite method or technique is anything involving microscopy. Pictures can convey complex ideas in easily digestible ways by serving as visual aids for the audience.
When did you know you wanted to be a scientist? My junior year of undergrad when I took a developmental biology course. I was fascinated by the dynamic yet organized way that development of an organism progressed and knew from that moment I wanted to become a developmental biologist.
If you weren’t a scientist, what would you be? I would have become a therapist because I love interacting with and helping people.
What’s your favorite place in St. Louis? I love the Coma Coffee shop in Brentwood. The coffee is great and its my favorite place to unwind.
What are some exciting areas of regenerative medicine? I am really intrigued by the usage of biologics, or stem cell based therapies, to treat pain and aiding in repair after injuries. I think the field has great potential though there is still much progress to made in perfecting the efficacy of these treatments.
Alexander Chen, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, David Gutmann’s Lab
PhD, Emory University
Briefly describe your project: The goal of my project is to determine whether progenitors capable of forming low-grade glioma-like lesions share a common molecular signature that defines the cell of origin for these tumors, and whether different cells of origin in the setting of specific pilocytic astrocytoma driver mutations dictate the unique spatial and temporal patterning of these pediatric LGGs.
Who is your scientific hero? Galileo Galilei, for he is the father of modern science and the scientific method.
What is your favorite scientific method? I don’t have one. I believe that methods are more a means to an end.
When did you know you wanted to be a scientist? I knew I wanted to be a scientist around middle school. I spent some time shadowing my mother in a basic research lab and loved every minute of it.
What would you be if you weren’t a scientist? A pianist.
What is your favorite place in St. Louis? Forest Park
What are some exciting areas of regenerative medicine? I am excited by the use of human induced pluripotent stems cells as powerful models to study low-grade gliomas and in turn, develop more effective treatment options for LGG patients.
Rowan Karvas, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Thorold Theunissen’s Lab
PhD, University of Missouri, Colombia
Briefly describe your project: My project involves building an in vitro model system of the human implantation process that integrates maternal and embryonic cell types. The goal is to study interactions between the maternal environment and trophoblast cells obtained from human pluripotent stem cells as a basis for understanding the mechanisms of implantation failure and placental diseases.
Who is your scientific hero? I have always admired Rita Levi Montalcini. She had so much bravery and strength to continue her work in her bedroom when Mussolini banned Jewish people from becoming scientists! Not to mention she was a she! My modern scientific hero is Dr. Theresa Woodruff who pioneered the field of onco-fertility. Preserving fertility is rarely a part of the conversation in cancer biology because oncologists are focused on saving the patient’s life and not their reproductive capabilities, but with optimism and innovation, both can be possible! Meeting her a few years ago was an inspiring experience for me and I hope to carry her unwavering encouragement of women scientists further to my own students.
What is your favorite scientific method or publication? The Human Placenta written in 1970 by Hamilton and Boyd. It has a number of great reference images for early implantation-stage development and it’s fascinating to read how far we’ve come since this time! The library should change its location to my desk!
When did you know you wanted to be a scientist? I realized I was completely hooked into science during my undergraduate training with Dr. Danny Stark in Dr. D Cornelison’s lab at Mizzou. I was assisting Danny with implanting mouse satellite cells into quail embryos and I found the quail embryos so beautiful! It amazed me how similar the embryos were, having the exact number of somites and symmetry, I had to keep studying development!
What would you be if you weren’t a scientist? A musician. Pursuing science was my plan B! I’m still able to play music for fun and I love that I get to use my brain in lots of ways, both creatively/emotionally and logically.
What is your favorite place in St. Louis? The bluffs at Castlewood State Park, especially at this time of year when the leaves are starting to change colors. The bluffs overlook the forest and the Meramec river. It’s so beautiful!
What are some exciting areas of regenerative medicine? I’m most excited for the combination of organoid culture with bioengineering techniques that will help to create more in vivo like models in the dish! This will allow for more consistent, intermediate states of stem cells to be isolated and studied. What’s most exciting about this to me is that we don’t know what sorts of states we will find until we study them! The potential for finding these important intermediate states may be key for regenerative therapies in adults.
Past Trainees
Dana Shaw, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow, Mayssa Mokalled’s Lab
PhD, University of Utah
Briefly describe your project: Unlike mammals, zebrafish can spontaneously regenerate their spinal cord after injury. My project aims to identify the cellular mechanisms that support this regeneration.
Who is your scientific hero? George Streisinger. He is widely considered the father of using zebrafish as a model organism. By beginning work on a new model system, he was taking a huge risk. It is so unfortunate that he was not able to see how zebrafish research has given life to entire fields of study.
What is your favorite scientific method or publication? My favorite experiment I think must be the groundbreaking work by Hilde Mangold on the Spemann organizer. Here, she duplicated an entire embryonic axis of a Xenopus embryo by manipulating only a small handful of cells. This was one of the first images I saw in my undergraduate developmental biology courses and I have never forgotten it.
When did you know you wanted to be a scientist? I knew from a very young age that I needed to have a job where I could constantly ask questions. I drove my parents crazy with taking apart my toys to see how they worked.
What would you be if you weren’t a scientist? One of the few things I love as much as science are my dogs. It would definitely be something to do with working with dogs. I think I would enjoy being a veterinarian or running a rescue for stray dogs.
What is your favorite place in St. Louis? Definitely the Enterprise Center for a St. Louis Blues game. I have been a St. Louis Blues fan for my entire life. I even named my dog after their mascot.
What are some exciting areas of regenerative medicine? I think with the advent of single-cell sequencing, we can define cell-types and transition states of which we did not have a clear understanding. Combining these transcriptomes with targeted mutagenesis and functional screens has (and will continue to) allowed us to generate cell types in vitro that will provide therapeutic options that would not have been possible years ago.