817: Creating New Cancer Models and Advancing Regenerative Medicine - Dr. Luiz Bertassoni
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Hey, everyone, and thanks for joining me today for our 817th episode of the People Behind the Science podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Marie McNeely, and I'm excited to be speaking with our guest, Dr. Louise Bertassoni today. This episode is made possible with support from our sponsor, Innovative Research. Listeners, Innovative Research has provided scientists with quality lab products made in Novi, Michigan, for more than 20 years.

Their portfolio includes human and animal biologicals, assay analyzakits, antibodies, and more. Products can be purchased directly from their website by credit card or purchase order at www.innov-research.com. That's www.innov-research.com.

research.com. They offer small quantities, bulk purchases, and custom orders from human whole blood to specialized antibodies. Innovative research has what you need to succeed in the lab. And Luis has some great stories to share with us today in our interview. So get ready to meet another one of our remarkable people behind the science.

Every day, discoveries are made that will change our understanding of the world around us. Dr. Marie McNeely is here to bring you the brilliant minds who are making these discoveries so they can share their incredible stories and take you on an amazing journey. Welcome to People Behind the Science. ♪

Hello, everyone, and welcome to People Behind the Science. Today, I am excited to be speaking with our guest scientist, Dr. Luis Bertassoni. So, Luis, welcome to our show today. How are you? I'm doing great. Thank you, Marie. Thank you for having me. It's exciting to be here and talk to you. Well, we are looking forward to learning more about you and all of the wonderful things that you're doing. But before we jump into the details, let me first start by giving our listeners an overview of your background and how you got to the position where you are today.

So listeners, Luis is the founding director of the Knight Cancer Precision Biofabrication Hub and professor in the Division of Oncological Sciences at the Knight Cancer Institute, where he is also co-section head for discovery and translational oncology. He is also faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research or CDER Center in the Oregon Health and Sciences University or OHSU School of Dentistry.

Luis is co-founder of two biotech spinoff companies, which resulted from his work on cancer research and regenerative medicine. He is co-founder and chief technology officer at Humero and co-founder and chief medical officer of RegendaDent. Luis was awarded his Doctor of Dental Surgery or DDS degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Parana in Brazil.

Afterwards, he conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco, and he then enrolled in a graduate program and received his PhD in biomaterials from the University of Sydney in Australia. Next, Luis accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in Harvard Medical School and MIT's joint program in health sciences and technology. Luis served on the faculty at the University of Sydney before joining the faculty at OHSU in 2015.

Now, his work on vascular bioprinting was listed in the top 100 research discoveries by Discover Magazine. And Luis has received over 30 national and international research awards, including the Medical Research Foundation New Investigator Award, the Silver Family Faculty Innovation Award, and many others. And Luis, today we're excited to learn more about your research, but we'd also like to know more about you as a person. So can you share what do you like to do when you're not very busy doing science?

Well, I'll start by saying that I did my PhD in Australia and as a good resident of Australia for a while.

I was basically surfing pretty much every day during my entire research training. I also did a postdoc in California at UCSF. And I remember that a lot of my successful experiments happened because during lunchtime, I would just grab some food, run to the beach, catch some waves and ride back to the lab. And that was probably where I was the happiest consequence. My experiments were successful that way.

So I love spending time in the water. I also love music. I'm a musician, actually, not by training by no means, but I do write songs, release songs, have some music on Spotify and whatnot. So that's the other side of me that doesn't go into published papers. I love that. I think surfing is a fantastic way to burn off some energy, clear your mind. And music is remarkable as well. What instruments do you play or what kind of music do you like to produce?

So I play mostly the guitar. I can play lots of different instruments, drums, bass, keyboard, piano, but the guitar is the one that I guess cherish the most. And I play mostly like a singer songwriter style, like acoustic, mellow folk type of music. And that's what I've released over the years as well. And yeah, it helps me calm down from the pressure of doing high level research, I guess.

Oh, wonderful. Well, listeners, you are definitely going to have to look up some of Louise's music as well. Check it out. And Louise, you are doing remarkable and very stressful, of course, work in the lab. We'd love to talk about that next. So how do you describe what you do to somebody who's not in your specific field or perhaps not in science at all?

A lot of the work that we do tries to leverage engineering tools, especially in the area of 3D printing and things that leverage some technologies from microshoot fabrication as well. And we apply these to biology. So basically what we try to do in a nutshell is to build human tissues in the lab.

using these engineering tools. And we apply that mostly to try and understand cancers and develop methods for regeneration of lost tissues. And that's generally what we do. Excellent. Well, I'm excited to get into some of the details of the projects that you're working on as we go through our conversation today. But we always like to share a little bit of motivation and inspiration in the beginning of our interviews. And I think this is particularly important in current times. So

Do you have a favorite quote or a saying or something that really motivates or inspires you, Luis? I think that something that really motivates me is to use the adversities that are constant, I think, in all of our lives as a fuel to actually go above and beyond and go the extra mile despite the adversities perpetrated.

push really hard to achieve what you set out to achieve. I think that in my career trajectory, I certainly had a lot of turmoil, if you will, to, I guess, get to the position that I'm at today. And it was easy to simply give up and go back or take a step back. But there was something that always helped me through this process was to always have that last bit of energy to try once more, try again and not give up.

And I think that that is precisely the reason why I've been able to overcome some of these challenges and actually achieve some of the few things that we have achieved in our research and in my professional career. Just going through this adversity with hope and with grit. That is really important in the days that we live in and for the things that we're trying to achieve that are not easy. Definitely. I think these challenges can really be catalysts that force you to change or encourage you to persevere. So I think that's wonderful.

And I think in science, a lot of the time, the people that you work with can be part of that motivation, that inspiration. They've got the grit and they are persevering right alongside you. So we love talking about mentors, role models, or just inspirational figures that scientists look up to. So do you have any examples of your own of people who maybe helped you get to where you are today or people who've had a big impact on your career?

I certainly do. I come from a family of academics myself. Both of my parents are university professors at some point in their lives. And my mom was also actually a principal in my high school when I was going through school before she started teaching in university. So I think I had good examples at home for persevering and for working hard and making things happen.

And after I started charting my own path, I had certainly several examples of just the same, I guess, in different ways, but definitely examples of ethics. So virtually all of my mentors in my research career brought different elements of that. I was also very lucky that my PhD supervisor, who was actually a physicist that didn't have any medical training or any health care training in particular,

He was such a remarkable example of transdisciplinary research in how to leverage seemingly disconnected concepts to come up with solutions for biotechnologies or for medical problems. That was also a very great example of how to

try and do the same. So these are some of the examples that I definitely looked up to. And over the years, I continue to be amazed by some of the mentors that I find along the way, people that have succeeded both in what they're trying to do for the research, but also their professional and personal lives. And I could name several people

The most recent one that I am very, very happy and honored to work, former director of our Cancer Institute, Ryan Drucker, who also has an amazing history of persevering and finding one of the first cures for autopsies.

a type of home arrow cancers and seeing how he developed his work to help patients and actually has been able to achieve such remarkable things has also been an amazing example. And he's also been a great mentor as well. I think that's fantastic. And it sounds like you had these role models kind of built in from the beginning with your parents as academics. Could you maybe talk us through your journey and how you first got interested in science?

As you said, I think that I grew up in an academic environment. I actually remember leaving school where my mom was a principal. And then the school that I went to was very close to the university where my dad worked. They're basically side by side. And I remember leaving school and going to meet dad at university. And back in the day, I would have to go in and wait for him to finish his classes. I'll sit in a corner and just watch the lecture.

without understanding anything and seeing him talk to the students of the world and answering questions and all of that. So whether I liked or not, that was already part of my life and part of my growth environment, if you will. And

And then when I was deciding what to do for my career, I wasn't too sure exactly what I wanted to do. But I always had ambitions of innovation. I just wanted to do things differently. And I couldn't quite put a finger on it. I didn't know exactly what the driver for that was, but I think it was probably in my DNA. And then eventually I started in dental school.

And I remember even in the first few lectures or even before I got into dental school, like as I got accepted into the program, I remember making a list of things that I saw as less than ideal solution for existing problems in the field that I wonder why people had not addressed yet. Why do people still do things a certain way that don't make too much sense at this day and age?

And those are pretty much research questions or research goals. I just didn't know that they were at the time. And I started thinking of solutions for them. And as I got into school, I remember asking a lot of my lecturers and professors and whatnot for the reasoning behind some of the clinical protocols that we had.

And many times they wouldn't have a straight answer. They were just really good at what they did and the protocols that they were applying, but they wouldn't have all of the background information for all of the things that I was looking for, which forced me to go back to the books and develop hypotheses and test things on my own. And that's before I knew it, I was already doing research. And then I got started with research projects in school. And then it really evolved from there. I think that that's something that has been a constant in my academic life ever since.

Every time I find an answer or I'm satisfied with the solution that I came up with, I always feel going to the next bigger challenge.

And that has really shaped my career in so many ways. I mean, I started as a dental student and now I direct a research center that does cancer research and things that are so remote from what I've actually got my original training on. And that's because I kept jumping from problem to problem, trying to seek a bigger challenge over and over and learning new things and adapting to new types of knowledge and so on. And that's really what gets my blood pumping in some ways.

That's remarkable. And Louise, you touched on some of the places that you've been for your training, Australia, UCSF. What ultimately brought you to OHSU where you are today?

I started my training here in the US at UCSF. That was when I was still a dental student. I actually took a break from dental school, went into a research lab for six months as a volunteer full time to do research. And I was there. And then when I finished that exchange program, I was basically asked if I wanted to do a postdoc after I finished dental school, which I was surprised by because I didn't even know you could do a postdoc without a PhD.

But it turns out that if you graduate with a doctorate degree from dental school, you can't actually do a postdoc.

So I accepted that postdoc position at UCSF. I was there for close to two years. So I basically set my roots in US at the very beginning. And then I wanted to do a PhD. And at the time, Australia had a really interesting program. We had that supervisor that I mentioned. His name is Mike Swain. He was doing some remarkable work on nanomechanics of calcified tissues, which is what I was studying at the time.

So I took that PhD position. I had a scholarship from the Australian government to basically go do all of my work there. It was a remarkable opportunity too, because I had a tuition scholarship as well as a salary all covered by the Australian government. And then...

After I finished my PhD, I basically had an opportunity to come back to U.S. to do another postdoc at Harvard and MIT. And I already had a sense of what research looked like in U.S. And I liked that environment and obviously being able to do additional training at Harvard Medical School and MIT at the same time.

I knew that that was going to expose me to something really unique. And that was really important for the type of work that I wanted to do. So I came back to US for that additional training. And the university in Australia, University of Sydney, they basically held up a faculty position for me when I came for my postdoc training at Harvard. And that is because during my PhD, I was already doing some teaching online.

I actually happened to help my supervisor because he took a sabbatical during my PhD for, I think, close to a year. And at the time, I was the only person with knowledge of the field that he was teaching and the whole department, the way that he was conducting. So I ended up actually being acting head of department as a part-time lecturer while I was doing my PhD during this time in Sydney. Oh, my goodness. So then they held a position for me there.

So I could go back and start my lab there after I finished my postdoc, which I did. So I went back to Australia, started my lab and basically started a full-time faculty position there. Yeah.

And then OHSU basically kept a close eye on my evolution as an academic. And they went after me and they were very wise to bring me for an interview in a beautiful sunny week in Portland, which never happens. We booked our tickets with a layover in Hawaii for a day. So my wife and I had a full day in Hawaii. And then we came to Portland, had a blast and everybody looked so nice and everything was so good.

So they made me an offer and I was really pleased with what I saw here at OHSU in terms of it seemed like a place where things were happening and it was in very fast growth mode, which is different from more traditional universities that everything seemed a little more settled.

So that resonated with me. I accepted the position. Actually, yesterday was exactly 10 years. Congratulations. Yeah, it's my 10-year anniversary here in OHSU. I love that. So let's get into some of the details of the research that you're doing there at OHSU. Luis, is there a particular project that you are working on at the moment that you are just so excited about and want to tell us all about today?

To be honest, I'm really excited about the program that we're creating in general. So about a year or so ago, we started basically a Center for Cancer Biofabrication, which essentially leverages all of these concepts that I mentioned earlier, where we use these microfluidic technologies, we use these methods that people before me have used to

to develop semiconductor chips for computers and other types of electronic technologies and applied that to biology. So we use that together with our three-dimensional bioprinting and additive manufacturing tools. And basically the research center that we started, which we call the Precision Biofabrication Hub, it's basically revolving around these collective technologies that we have access to. Basically, the

The program as a whole seeks to essentially develop very advanced and complex models of cancer tissues that we can then break down and analyze and find cures and test different drugs and things that you typically wouldn't be able to do with a patient.

because we can actually recreate the complexity of cancers outside of the patient, kind of like in a petri dish or in a microchip device, that gives us so much power to understand how this disease evolves and all of the different parameters that influence it. And that's basically what we're trying to do collectively in this research hub. But one project in particular that I'm super excited about

is actually the idea of creating these advanced cancer avatars or what we're calling engineered digital twins. And that is because now we start combining all of the work that we do to recreate this tumor complexity, matching the patient characteristics in vitro.

connected with all of the possibilities that we have using artificial intelligence and machine learning and essentially connecting the dots for how one thing feeds the other. So we can kind of like create a farm of tissues that are being engineered in the lab that match very precisely what an individual patient has or what an individual patient's tumor looks like

And then we can start generating these different perturbations to the system in vitro. We expose it to different drugs, drug combinations. We expose it to cytokines that we know lead to one type of disease or another. We actually use healthy tissues and initiate tumorigenesis if we like using synthetic biology tools and other types of methods.

And then we really go deep into the characterization of these tissues using a variety of different tools from spatial biology, spatial proteomics, spatial genomics and transcriptomics, single cell RNA-seq and all of these different characterizations that we can think of. And then we take all of this information and we feed it to these very complex algorithms that can break down all of this information.

and start detecting trajectories that can predict where patients will go, whether they will respond to therapies or not, whether they are more or less likely to develop cancers in a different timeframe. So that just gives us so much power to understand this complex disease and hopefully come up with cures faster and better.

Well, Louise, I think the implications of this work for just improved personalized medicine is just absolutely extraordinary. So I'm so excited about the research that you're doing. But I know not every day do you have a good day in the lab, right? There are challenges, there are struggles, things go wrong all the time. So can you tell us about one of these struggles, a challenge perhaps that you're facing right now or a major failure that you've had in the past? And how do you work through these kinds of difficult times?

This is going to bring up another great mentor that I had. So I supervisor for my first postdoc at UCSF. His name was Bill Marshall. And he used to joke that that's why research is called research and not just search. You search and you research again and you research again and you keep repeating until you get it right. Because there's far more failures than successes. And that's just the nature of the game. That is, again, why I think that perseverance is so important to what we do.

And why I think having that built into my academic trajectory by design was so important because you have to have the grit to keep going after if you strongly believe that there are chances for success. Right. You don't break through if you're not going through some very significant challenges.

It's easy to redo what's being done and just tweak it a little bit to make an incremental improvement. But when you're really trying to innovate, break new ground, you're going to be the first one to go through the wall. And the wall is not going to be open. It's going to be closed. You have to literally...

dig a hole through it. And that's painful. And there's a lot of frustration and suffering, but you have to have belief in the vision to make sure that you're going after it. And without the persistence and without that greed to really continue to attack the problem, you're just not going to find the light in the end of the tunnel. That's something that it's absolutely critical to what we do. I think that right now,

at this day and age, in addition to the usual challenges that we have with connecting distant technologies and getting them to help people, we're also finding ourselves in a very unique situation with regards to the enablers of our research.

funding is a lot more difficult than it used to be. We're hearing about these budget cuts everywhere and there is no research without funding, unfortunately. I wish there was a way to do research for free, but that's not how it happens. And being creative about how we can enable our research is a challenge and it's something that we're having to add to the ongoing challenges of the research itself. That's definitely a big one out there.

I think also there is an important component of research that I think these podcasts appreciate far more than others, which is the personal side of things. And that's something that I really prioritize first and foremost in everything that we do in our work.

There's no good research if there's no good people. And leveraging or making sure that you have an environment that is conducive to people to do their best work, where they are appreciated and taken for what they are and really maximized for what they can offer, it gets really hard to do research. So that's something that we really try to prioritize. I think that it only becomes possible if you're coming from a place of vulnerability as a leader or as a head of the lab.

I find that very important and making sure that everybody's on the same boat and we're basically moving towards the same goals and everybody is having their own struggles, but we're only going to move forward if we're moving together.

And making sure that this is not just a quote on a wall or a piece of paper, that we actually put actions to these words. And that's something that I try to do. And that is a challenge because people are different. People come from different backgrounds. They have different expectations. They have different skills. They have different languages. Sometimes they have different cultures. And it's definitely not a situation where one size fits all.

My mentoring style and my leadership style is one that I really try to work with the individual and adapt to our mutual priorities and goals.

And that is not easy. The more complex the world around us becomes, the harder it is to actually achieve that. And I think that that is something that we're seeing more and more, especially after the pandemic, where so many of us ended up, I guess, going places that we didn't even know existed inside our heads. And everything is more complex now. Everything is harder and it's a bigger challenge. But that is super important to enable good quality work.

Absolutely. And Luis, I'm so glad to hear that you are making a concerted effort to support the individual needs of everyone in your group. I think that's critical to making sure that everyone is able to perform their best and really get what they need out of this, whether it's the training experience, collaboration, etc. And I know science is definitely a team sport and beyond your lab members, there are a lot of others that scientists depend on to keep everything running smoothly in the lab. So I'm

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And returning to our conversation with Louise. Louise, we appreciate you talking about some of these difficult times that you've experienced, but we don't want to just dwell on those. I'd love to hear about some of your successes next. So do you have a favorite success story, whether it was a big win or even just a small but particularly meaningful victory that you want to tell all of us more about today?

I'm very thankful, actually, that I can think of a lot of wins that I'm really proud of. My career trajectory was filled with unexpected victories. I graduated from dental school in a third world country. There was never an expectation that I would be able to play the game at the highest level with the best biomedical engineers at Harvard and MIT. And I remember vividly walking into some of my first meetings, not knowing anyone or anything,

And actually being able to contribute and feeling good about how people didn't even realize that I didn't have the same training and that I didn't have the same background and really appreciating what I was bringing to the table. It always felt like I was the underdog. And that continued to happen ever since I basically started doing research.

Then I remember our first publication in a major journal, which was a big win for the group. We had many odds against us in a relatively small department and a small school with little funding and not exactly any name recognition. But just again, persevering, focusing on the science, letting the results and the good work do the talking, not just the name recognition or the university branding or any of that.

and being able to get through and show that we could contribute, we could play the game at the highest level. Again, more recently, being able to come from a position where I essentially had just my small research lab with my team and being able to synergize a tremendous amount of support from what is now close to 20 different investigators from three different institutions in different cities.

and navigate that entire politics to be able to create a brand new research center from scratch. That is also a big win that I'm super proud of and being able to, again, come from small beginnings and demonstrate through hard work and through perseverance that there's something very unique that we can offer in that joining forces

with a lot of people, we can actually make a difference and we can help patients and create an important research infrastructure for the entire university, the entire state. That is definitely a major win that if I look back just 10 years ago, I wouldn't actually think that that was going to be possible. And here we are, we're just beginning and we have a lot of good work ahead of us. So I'm super proud of that.

That's wonderful. I think that nagging voice, that sort of sense of imposter syndrome never really leaves you, right, Luis? It never does. It actually, in some ways, it keeps you humble. I think that you don't want to let that get in the way of doing good things, but that's something that we typically see, unfortunately. A lot of the research world out there, there's a lot of good work, but there's also a lot of big egos. And I think that that's the recipe for letting your own success get in the way of helping the people you're trying to help.

So a little bit of that imposter syndrome is not bad because it keeps you humble and it keeps that chip on your shoulder that you got to fight harder and you have to persevere and you have to acknowledge that there are challenges that are bigger than you and you don't have the solutions for everything. You don't have all of the answers and you shouldn't because unfortunately, especially in our case, cancer is such a formidable disease.

adversary that you have to stay humble because it takes a village and more to even make a crack. So it's naive to think that we have all of the solutions and all answers because we don't. Even when we do have a lot of them, there's still plenty to be learned, plenty to be done and plenty of challenges.

Absolutely. And I think these successes, these little wins along the way can motivate you to get back in the ring, to fight harder. But we also try to encourage our listeners to take a break, to broaden their minds, to read for fun. So we love sharing book recommendations with everybody out there. So do you have a book that you've read and really enjoyed, whether it's related to science or not, Louise, that you could tell listeners about today?

I think the last book that I read that really struck me in an interesting way, it's a memoir by Phil Knight, who happens to be the biggest donor of our institute and what the institute is named after, right? We were in the Knight Cancer Institute here at OHSU and Phil had some very significant philanthropic activities with our institute, which we're super thankful for.

But I didn't realize how much of all of these things that I mentioned to you were also present in his life. So Phil Knight is the owner and founder of Nike, which is still based here in Portland, and it was

It was just so fun to see how he was able to actually bring the company to where it is now through a lot of struggles and challenges like financially and a lot of the creativity that went behind it. A lot of the research that actually went behind turning shoes into an art of science and the people that

actually had to innovate to really disrupt what was until then a relatively straightforward process that didn't take science into account. And also some of the work ethics and the priorities and the foundational values that you see permeating through this whole process and obviously leading to something that is very, very successful.

including some of the challenges and the struggles and the pushback and noise that a lot of people that are not as familiar with the history end up just jumping to conclusions and so on, all of which are very nicely addressed in the book. Obviously, probably totally biased by the author, but still, it was such an insightful reading. Just gives you an appreciation for the side that you just don't know, which I think is true with a lot of what happens in research.

People see the results, they see the outcomes, but they have no idea what is happening behind closed doors, not even in the lab, in people's houses. All of the challenges and the things that you have to fight through in order to wake up again next day and go right back to work and...

I think that just being able to see that reality gives you such a tremendous appreciation for what you don't see in a publication or what you don't see in a nice result that makes into the media and writing the newspapers and whatnot. As you said earlier, there's a lot that goes wrong. There's a lot of frustration. There's a lot of perseverance. There's a lot of internal struggles for the scientists themselves, a lot of questioning.

so much that needs to align and come together so we can finally eventually help people just a little bit in

And even that little bit sometimes can actually make a big difference in people's lives, which is why we do what we do. I think that that's something that is certainly important. And that book in particular, it's called Shoe Dog, is a book that was very exciting to read and I definitely recommend. Excellent recommendation. And I love these biographies and memoirs myself, so I'm going to have to pick this one up as well. Definitely do. Oh, absolutely. It's on my list right here.

And Louise, we love talking about different aspects of scientists' careers, and we've touched on a number of them today. One thing I'd like to go into a little bit more detail on are the opportunities to travel. You mentioned all of these different places you've been for your academic training, but I think there's also conferences, collaborating with people around the world. So do you have an example or maybe a favorite place that your science has taken you that you'd like to tell us about today? This is by far the best part of my job.

Getting invited to give talks all over the world is definitely a blessing and something that I don't take for granted at all. I'll give you two. I was invited to give a talk in a nature conference in Australia a few months before the pandemic. And we had to actually take a flight that had a stopover in Fiji.

So I was forced to spend some time in Fiji before heading to this conference with my wife and daughter because they were joining me for the trip, right? We're going back to Australia for the conference and seeing friends. And we ended up spending some quality time in Fiji just before the whole...

globe shut down. And definitely that gave us enough fuel for getting home for a little while. But another one that I can mention is coming up, actually, I have a talk to give in a Greek island, which I've never been to. And my wife actually was diagnosed with cancer about two or so years ago. Oh, I'm sorry. I remember the night of her diagnosis, she was lying in bed and the

emergency room in the hospital. And I asked her, once this is all over, where is the place that you really want to go and make sure we go there? And out of nowhere, we never have talked about this for whatever reason, like for that particular place. And she's like, Luis, I want to go to Alicante Island.

So we're going in July with our daughter and it's definitely going to be a special moment because thankfully she's fine. She's healthy. She's pretty much cured from her problems. Oh, good. You know, a lot of the struggles that don't make it into the publications, but give us the fuel to keep going after solutions for many of the things that we do. It happens right at home. Absolutely. So what is the island you are going to? Oh, I actually don't remember the name. Yeah.

It's a small island, kind of like in a secluded place. And it's going to be a super fun trip. I actually have a couple of talks to give in Spain just before we head to Greece. So I'm going to be in Barcelona and then in Madrid back to back and then heading off to Greece.

And I also have a meeting for a cancer early detection workshop that we're having with some groups in England. So it's going to be a busy summer in Europe with a lot of work, but thankfully visiting some fun places along the way. I love it. I think these examples that you gave really highlight the opportunities

for travel and careers in science, but you also have opportunities to work with really amazing people. And I think this is something that's unfortunately underappreciated. There are stereotypes out there about what scientists are like and what labs are like, but we like to try to break some of those stereotypes because there are some truly funny, amazing, quirky people in science who develop these cool traditions and you just have fun together over the years. So do you have an example, Louise, of one of these human moments in science that goes against some of the stereotypes?

Yeah, I can give you one. I was in a conference. Maybe I think that was pre-pandemic too. It was in a secluded resort in Canada, kind of like a winter resort. I think it was in a garden conference or something like that. And it was a group of many important big name scientists talking about the research and everything.

And there was an event in one of the nights, it was a get together, like a party for the conference. And out of nowhere, one of the big scientists came out with a dinosaur costume. Oh my goodness. It was busting out Ness moves and it was like, you would never imagine. It's like, oh my God, it doesn't get much more human than that. It's such a different view of the names you see on research papers and whatnot. And I think it

exemplifies what you mentioned perfectly. And there are so many of those, you know, I've been in so many of these research conferences that speakers pick up the microphone and actually put out the show for the party in the event. And together with the research that they do, they also are amazing performers. So

Yeah, I totally agree with you. Most people have this weird stereotype for researchers and they are nearly partly true. People are what they are in the lab, but outside of the lab, there are so many cool characters and so many people that you would pay just to have a conversation because they know so much about life and the world and traveling and

They're just fun people to hang out with. Definitely. This has been my experience as well. Not necessarily the dinosaur costume. I think this example highlights just the sense of humor, the different personalities that you see in science. And I think you need that humor some days because you are tackling some tough problems, some big challenges, Louise. And...

Like we mentioned previously, sometimes things like funding hold you back as well as just the technology, feasibility, time, et cetera. The list could go on and on. But if we took away the barriers, what is the one research question or problem you would want to solve most?

For me, it's relatively easy to answer, but whatever answer would be very naive to the reality of actually getting there. I think being able to understand what really drives the Mori Genesis the way it is, is obviously the big question that myself and I think everybody else in my field are really going after.

And the reason why I say that any answer that I can come up as an ideal answer to that is going to be naive because I'm sure it's going to be more complicated than that. But I think being able to identify very specific targets that can actually prevent cancers from evolving is really the biggest question, the biggest research question that I'm going to go after in my life. I think one thing that I will mention on that, just to make it a little bit more specific, there

There's a very interesting concept that we are really prioritizing in our lab and I guess in my research field that is relatively different from a lot that has happened in the field in the past several years. Different from finding tumor cells and finding ways of killing them and biting them. There is a concept that is called cancer interception nowadays that is different from prevention. Prevention is where you're just trying to come up with like broad populational solutions that would

prevent people from being in a path of developing cancer. Interception is where you have a lot of the characteristics that are known to put you in a position where you're very likely to develop cancer. So for instance, I can give you an example.

Mammographic density, people that have breast cancer, I think that there is like a 93% increase in your chances of having cancer if you have a mammographic density above a certain level. Those are situations where we tell patients, okay, you have high risk, we will wait and see. We'll have to keep track of you, do radiological exams and whatnot, right?

And that is the same for a wide variety of different types of cancers and different conditions. Interception is basically where we take all of our therapeutic knowledge and instead of waiting for you to have cancer so you can treat your cancer, we actually start therapeutically fighting your cancer before it actually begins. And it is a small tweak to the notion of treating cancer, but it is a very important one that is gaining a lot of momentum. And I think that

Perhaps that is a more attainable and probably a lot easier goal to achieve in the fight against cancer that for whatever reason we haven't started doing 100 years ago because it actually makes a ton of sense. And I think that that is probably a research question that I can pose that will make it more attainable and make a lot of sense.

What are the correct logistics and specific targets that would allow us to reverse the course of these pre-cancer lesions before they actually turn into cancer? And how can we apply that to...

as broad of a population as possible to make sure that we're saving a whole lot of lives along the way. Well, I think that's brilliant. And I think so exciting that you are making important progress in this area. And to wrap up our conversation today, Louise, is there a piece of advice or a note of inspiration that you would like to leave our listeners with?

Persevere. I think that's probably the word of the year. You have to have belief, you have to have hope, and you have to have grit, and you have to persevere against all odds. Don't shy away from being the underdog that is always pushing through and fighting against all odds to make things happen. Work really hard and let your results do the talking. Let your fight do the talking and try to stay happy as you go along.

Life can be challenging and hard enough the way it is. And if you don't keep a positive perspective on things, it makes it extra hard and have a lot of love for those around you, those that work with you. It's a group effort. It's a lot more fun to do things that way and stay on course, keep your head down and get the work done. And once you're finished, raise your head up high and be proud of what you've achieved.

I love it. Such important messages, Louise. Thank you. And can you tell our listeners if they want to learn more about you and your work, what is the best way for them to do so? I would encourage people to go into our website. It's www.cancerbiofabrication.com. If the message resonates with you, also, we're always open to receiving philanthropic support from anyone.

And you can also find more information in the Nye Cancer Institute website at OHSU. So both of these places are great places where you can find more information about our work. And I'm happy to also share my email, which I can leave with you, Marie, and people can find more information or have a chat or anything. Feel free to reach out to me. Always happy to discuss our science with everybody.

Perfect. Well, listeners, check out those resources and take some time to learn more about the amazing research that Louise and his colleagues are doing over there at OHSU. And Louise, it's been a pleasure to have you with us today. Listeners, wonderful to have you here with us as well. We hope you join us again next time for another episode of People Behind the Science. ♪