Researcher/Oncologist Interview #1

Name of Professional: Karine Pozo 

Profession: Instructor Company: UT Southwestern Medical Center 

Date of Interview:10/16/20

 My first ISM interview was conducted with Karine Pozo, an instructor at Ut Southwestern Medical Center. Her job includes studying and reading scientific experiments, reading scientific articles, and data from previous experiments. Additionally, she does lab work using a microscope in a microscopy room, does experiments, and then gets tons of images that need to be analyzed. Other experiments people in her profession do are in the lab at the bench, including microbiology and biochemistry experiments. Being interested in how the body works on a microscopic level and wanting a more in-depth look inside led her to choose this career path. As she continued to work, she became fascinated by applying this to drug discoveries. From the interview, I learned the importance of taking opportunities to be involved. From this, a Lesson she advised someone my age could benefit from is to try to learn as much as possible. She encouraged me to try things by myself and not to take any opportunity to volunteer for granted. She even encouraged me to continue to talk and build relationships even after ISM. Being one to take the opportunity herself, Dr. Pozo, originally from France, received an American lab opportunity to study the CDK5 protein and learn about its effects on cancer. 

Before that, she was a neuroscientist in the United Kingdom, and the reason she became so fascinated with CDK5 is that it is an essential protein for the brain. They soon discovered the importance of cancer, and that's how it became her main topic of research for five years. Although she found the protein interesting, she wanted to use it in other applications that would provide more benefit to the patient. She then decided to work with someone working on a rare and aggressive form of lung cancer and applied the CDK5 protein and applied it to this specific cancer. CDK5 in terms is vital to neuroendocrine cancers that have some of the same properties in brian and cancer cells. Small lung cancer is neuroendocrine cancer, and it happens that at UT Southwestern, there is a large group of researchers that are interested in lung cancer research. She emphasized to ensure working with people who carry common interests but also diverse enough to learn from. Through this, her advice on providing multidiscipline skills in science and technology comes into play by using her knowledge of the brain and proteins in that she was able to use these abilities to make discoveries.

 One of my favorite parts of the interview was talking with Dr. Pozo about her time in France. I found it fascinating how she went to the University of Paul Sabatier in Toulouse, France. Then she later obtained her Master's degree from the University of Louis Pasteur in France. She then got her P.hd in molecular neurosciences. It was fascinating to find how all of this impacted her and led her into Small lung cancer research. I learned the importance of taking opportunities to be involved and the importance of collaboration and taking a risk.