Dr. Rebekah Gundry on her career as a research scientist.

Transcribed automatically and lightly corrected.
Michael Lyon: [00:00:00] This is Heartbeat, conversations about medical science, research, the discoveries that touch all of our lives in collaboration with the University of Nebraska Medical Center. I recently spoke with Rebecca Gundry, PhD, director, UNMC Center for Heart and Vascular Research, about medical claims and misinformation.Along the way, I noticed that Dr. Gundry had a very, very interesting bio. Welcome, and thanks for coming back.
Rebekah Gundry: You're welcome. Thanks for having me again.
Michael Lyon: Starting with your story, your life in rural Wisconsin with what you describe as being a bit of an outsider.
Rebekah Gundry: Yes. I grew up in a rural area, and in a great family, but wasn't always, or ever, popular. I didn't really feel like I fit in very much. And I think my mom was always trying to find ways to help me boost my self-confidence, as moms do. [00:01:00] And, she had read an article in the newspaper, I believe it was the Leader Telegram from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and there was an article about Sigma Chemical Company looking for fireflies.And so that was one of the things that I did as a middle school student in the summer, was I collected fireflies in my rural Wisconsin, I mean, summertime, 80 degrees in July, and, you know, fireflies everywhere. And that whole process of thinking about why their little backend glows? We didn't know what the chemical was at that time. That's what Sigma was trying to understand, ? And so for me, you know, very humbly, or not humbly, thinking that I, would make all this money, but more importantly, that I as this small human in the middle of nowhere that nobody knows about could make a difference? That I could collect materials that were going to be used for science, and then Sigma would go save the world. And of course, , the knowledge that we learned, or the scientists at the time learned from the chemical that makes the fireflies glow has been, impactful worldwide.
Michael Lyon: It's interesting that you can look back and make that connection because I'm sure at that time you had- I had no idea ... no idea- Yeah, yeah ... that this would in some way shape- Yeah ... the scientist- Right ... and leader that you became.
Rebekah Gundry: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All, all of our experiences, good and challenging, are what make you later on
Michael Lyon: You described some elements of bullying as you grow up, and you had to develop a tough skin. You called it rhino skin.
Rebekah Gundry: Yes.
Michael Lyon: Looking back now, did that teach you about resilience?
One thousand percent.I realize now how much time I wasted as a kid and an early adult thinking about all of the bullies and all the treatment and all of the harassment, and, putting my effort into thinking about, how can I stop it?And if I could tell myself something, my younger self would be, "Don't waste your time on that. Think [00:03:00] about what you can do that you're interested in, that you're excited about, and the strengths that you can build on." But for, for sure, it has helped prepare me for significantly more challenging bullying that I've experienced as I've gone through the rest of my career.Absolutely. And, as much as we'd like there to not be ever, that sort of interaction, as we are adults, we're all, we're all adults, right? We should all know how to act. That's just not the reality. So, you have to have this balance of what would be nice versus, this is the reality that you have to deal with, and you have to move on, and you have to not let it stop you.And I think that's ultimately, in the end, you have to make a decision. Do you want how others treat you to limit what you want to do and how you approach your goals, and approach your dreams? And I knew that I didn't ever want to look back and say I made a decision that affected the trajectory of my life, because of somebody else's opinion or, actions.Since I was little, my parents have reminded me that I've always been very, [00:04:00] independent. And I don't like to be told what to do. So I knew that I couldn't live peacefully if I had let someone else control my destiny.
Michael Lyon: You talked about other challenges along the way, other types of bullying. Is this related to research as a career, or was that specifically because you're a woman?
Rebekah Gundry: All of the above. Sometimes the competitiveness, can often bring out maybe somebody's not their best qualities and sometimes folks have different ways to approach stress that negatively affects people around them.And so, I experience that. I think jealousy also can play a role in that, and I try to not think about the things that I do, and I want to achieve and the successes in the context of other successes but not everyone's like that. So, I think there's that.And I do know that there's an element. I remember distinctly one time in graduate school when a super famous person in my field came to [00:05:00] visit me at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, and all the graduate students were going around the room talking about what they were doing.And, my discipline is a, type of analytical chemistry, so it's a really high-end type of complicated instrument that I work with. And I remember describing to this visiting scientist that I was really excited because I was doing these experiments. And ... So he was asking everyone else around the table really insightful scientific questions, and his only question to me is, "Well, are you operating the mass spectrometer by yourself?"
Michael Lyon: Because that was unheard of?
Rebekah Gundry: If I'm one of the few women at the table, and you're asking everyone else insightful questions, and I get asked an uninsightful question, I just felt really bad.And certainly that colored my view of others. And, I think also as women, there's- Many different, types of, I would say harassment or bullying that we face, in life, but also sometimes in science, too. There's bad behaviors everywhere. And what can make it really challenging is when there's someone who is in a position of influence, and we're, you know, have to [00:06:00] experience some type of harassment from them.I am a super independent person. I really have very thick skin, but it's really hard even for me to go to somebody and say, "This person is behaving inappropriately," because I know the outcome of that will never be a win for me. And so then do we choose to report it?Do we choose to not report it? Do we just move on with our lives? What do we do? And that, unfortunately, takes up time in my brain and space in my brain away from the thing that I love, which is the science.
Michael Lyon: So, over the arc of your career, how have you turned that into an advantage, a positive?
Rebekah Gundry: Yeah. So yeah, so in some ways, I, I've used that to hone, my investigative skills and my ability to collect and present data. So, when I, was doing my master's degree, I did that in forensic science, and I did all my research at the FBI in Quantico, and I learned a lot about the investigative process.And so I had a particular example [00:07:00] of, of someone who was sexually harassing me at another institution and was not someone that I could just go up against in a room. But I educated myself on the topic. I became so much more of an expert on this topic than that individual. And so, the next time I had to be in a room with a group of individuals, you better believe I was ready, I was prepared, and I got my revenge.
Michael Lyon: Let’s just talk about the evolution of your scientific interest. The fireflies sparked it. But was there a moment after that at some point where you realized that science wasn't just an interest, but something that might become your life's work?
Rebekah Gundry: Yes. So, in college, I, studied, you know, biochemistry, molecular biology, but I also took courses in forensic science and investigation. And so after college, I thought, "Well, this is going to be the thing. I'm going to do forensic science." And I [00:08:00] had this amazing opportunity. I, did a master's degree and was able to do all my research at the FBI.And in that process, I learned that- There is a lot of the forensic science process that is application, and you have to, you know, follow strict protocol, and if you want to change the conditions of an experiment, there's a, kind of a, long list of things that you have to do to even be able to change one variable.And I felt that that kind of discipline maybe wouldn't give me the ability to be as creative, and I might get a little tired of it soon. So, then I definitely had a little bit of a crisis in my own mind because I had paid money for this master's degree, and now I'm sitting in basically Washington, D.C. with some bills, and now I feel like I can't use my degree. But this is where mentoring comes in. So, I had, a colleague of mine who was also doing her master's degree at the same time, and she [00:09:00] worked in a mass spectrometry lab, which is this analytical tool that now is the thing that I do.And I was talking to her mentor about I felt very pigeonholed. I felt like I had really focused on this specific discipline and put all my effort and time and money into that, and now I can't use it, and now I'm terrified. What am I going to do? And it was at that time that I got to learn more, a, a little bit more about this very specific type of, analytical instrumentation, and learn that if I could become an expert in that, I could get a job anywhere because this type of analytical science is used in airports, it's used in the food industry, it's usedevery baby that's born has the heel prick, and that little blood spot test gets analyzed by this type of instrument. And so, I very much felt like if I could do this, then I wouldn't be backed into a corner, and that's one of the reasons why I pursued that specific discipline in graduate school for a PhD.And that was something that ultimately would lead you [00:10:00] into having more intellectual freedom? Correct. So, a lot of what has driven me has been do I want to be told what to do every day, or do I want to decide what I do every day? And it really boiled down to that for me. And I knew that if I could get a PhD, I would have more freedom, and freedom to choose what I wanted to study, what I wanted to think about, where I wanted to put my energy.And it doesn't mean that I wanted to have it without constraints or without interacting with other people, I just wanted to have more control over my future.
Michael Lyon: You described in the article getting excited about discovering something unknown, and then inventing technology- Yes ... to explore it further.
Rebekah Gundry: Yes. Wow. That's a lot of what we do. So, what gives you that sense of excitement today? This ... Really, it's the same. So, one thing to think about, scientists are motivated by different things. So, some scientists are motivated by [00:11:00] the idea of understanding how a process works in a cell or in the body.That's great. The thing that gets me out of bed every day is how can we create or improve a technology that allows us to see things that we couldn't see yesterday? And because that information, so, you know, we focus on the heart, we study molecules in the heart, because that information provides really the foundation that we need for any new drugs that are going to be discovered.You have to know what's in the heart to know what to develop a drug against. So, if you don't know what's in the heart, then there's all this information that we've yet to uncover. And so, the exciting part is, there's no other high like it. When we make a new technology and apply it to the human heart, and we identify new information that nobody else knows about, that is really fun because for those couple of [00:12:00] weeks, couple of months in the lab, there's this buzz that we know something that no one else in the world knows, and that's really fun.And it's fun to know that and to have that, but to know that you've gotten there because you've made a lot of mistakes, you've learned a lot from those mistakes, and you've made some good decisions, and then you've been able to bring that together. And then the challenge is then next, what do you do with that information and how do you make it useful and, make it available to the public?
Michael Lyon: Your husband's transition to being a stay-at-home dad sounds like a very important part of your family story. How important was that partnership in allowing your career to grow?
Rebekah Gundry: It's everything. So, when I, was in training as a postdoctoral researcher at Johns Hopkins, I had my first son.And he worked at the time, and so we structured it where I would work during the day and he would work at night or vice versa, so that there was, always care. And then the hardest part was when I moved from Baltimore to [00:13:00] Milwaukee to take my first faculty position he was at a point where it was really, it's really challenging to move states and get a job when you're in your kind of mid-40s, you know?And, the economy wasn't great, so we couldn't sell the house. And so, I moved to Wisconsin, and I had our son by myself, and I lived in a one-bedroom apartment across the street from the research lab. So, I slept in a twin bed, and he slept on a little cushion on the floor. And every day, I got him up, took him to daycare.But I didn't know anything about daycare. I didn't know that you can't bring him before 8:00 you can't drop him off at 7:50. It has to be 8:00, and then you have to pick him up by a certain time, so that really truncated the amount of time that I could be in the lab. And then, for the first while, he spent a lot of time, with me in the lab in a stroller, watching Netflix or YouTube.So then when, you know, second baby came along, we decided that it made more sense for my husband to stay home, and that, offers a lot of things. Really importantly for the family is that the boys, I have two boys, they [00:14:00] have a constant. Dad is always there. If Mom has to travel or do things, their life is never disrupted because it's the same person waking them up, feeding them breakfast, doing, school drop-off and pick-up.So they're very comfortable with Mom traveling and Mom working. They don't know it any other way, and I would say the day that I knew I succeeded as a mom and a scientist was when my older son came to work one day, and you could tell he was surprised. And he's like, "Mom, I didn't know boys could do science."'Cause he saw some men at work, and I was like, "Yes, actually, men can do science, just like women," but in their mind, they know that the mom, the woman is a scientist so that's been really fun. But yeah, so it gives me the freedom to be able to do the things I needed to do, but also keeps the family very grounded and intact and, you know, the boys love their dad, so.
Michael Lyon: For young people, especially students who may feel different or uncertain about [00:15:00] where they belong, what would you want them to hear from your journey?
Rebekah Gundry: Almost every scientist I know has had a similar feeling. Many of us are misfits, awkward, maybe a little... I think a lot of us are introverted, so being in groups, is uncomfortable.Even though it's part of our job, it doesn't make it any less uncomfortable. We just have to figure out how to deal with it. So, know that you're not alone. That no matter how you may perceive, someone who's a scientist or a faculty member at a university, remember that we're all facing a battle you know nothing about.So, some of us are, extreme on the introvert side, and find it hard to start conversations. We find small talk very difficult. That doesn't stop me from wanting to do science or be a scientist. But acknowledge that there's all types of people that can succeed at science and research and leadership, in that space, [00:16:00] and that there's no one type of person that you have to be to be successful.I find it amazing that we have been able to build a lab where we have folks from all over the world, from all types, various levels of abilities, disabilities sometimes, and that is what makes the science great because we get different perspectives. And, fun part of my job is when someone who maybe is a little bit shy or feels a little bit uncertain or a little bit awkward, often has some of the most important things to say at lab meeting, about the data that we're interpreting.So, try to embrace that you feel awkward or out, you know, maybe you don't fit in. I, I say it's important to acknowledge it. You don't want to ignore it, and you don't want to tamp it down. Just embrace it, acknowledge it, and know that's you, and know that that's your superpower, that's, one of your strengths is that you're not a go-with-the-flow type of person or maybe you're not, you're not a sheep, right?You're going to be the pack leader, because you think differently, and you have a different approach, and [00:17:00] those are all really good things. So, try to acknowledge and make sure that you are thinking about it from a positive perspective to the best you can. And it's not going to happen overnight.I think for my own self, I did not become so comfortable with my awkwardness until many years into this job.
Michael LyonThis is Heartbeat I'm Michael Lyon, and I've been talking with Rebecca Gundry, PhD, director of the UNMC Center for Heart and Vascular Research.