Natalie Kuldell Speaker 1 (00:06):
All right. Hi, Cheryl. Nice to have you join. Thank you so much. Um, it’s, it’s great to see you and, um, I appreciate your spending some time. Um, I realized we’ve never met in person, so, so actually talking this way seems totally okay. But, um, it’s really great. And so tell me, uh, or, you know, can you, can you introduce yourself where, where you are and what you’re doing, your name, your full name. I didn’t even introduce you.
Cheryl Immethun Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, that’s fine. Do you want to do what I’m currently doing? Is that what you’re are you, uh, how about your work, your work? What am I doing? Okay. So I am Cheryl Immethun and I am a postdoctoral researcher at the university of Nebraska in Lincoln. And, um, what I am currently working on is, uh, and I’m in chemical engineering. And so chemical engineering is one of those fields is very diverse. There’s all kinds of things that go on in chemical engineering from, uh, uh, I have a son-in-law, that’s making plastic from natural gas and chemical engineering. So, but I am on the other end of that, where, um, I am exploring the engineering of a bacteria that you find naturally in the soil. Uh, that’s closely related to the bacteria. You find in like the nodules of soybeans, you know, how soybeans can fix nitrogen.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
They take nitrogen out of the air and they make it available to the plant and it helps the plant grow. So, you know, you can put less fertilizer on the soil, um, and then less runs off into the water and all of the environmental problems associated with that. So understanding that relationship’s always been really, really tough. Nobody’s ever been able to pull it off. So what I’m doing is asking, can I take this bacteria that lives in the soil, but doesn’t live in root nodules, but it’s very closely related to bacteria that live in root nodules. And can I add in what it needs to make it be what they call symbiont and actually live in the root nodules?
Speaker 1 (02:17):
It’s so cool. It’s lik just speeding up some evolution. You’re directing the evolution towards that path. That’s really amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
We’re just looking at the difference between the two what’s different. Okay. Um, what can I add in to the one and, and, you know, if the other, yeah,
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yeah. So for your work, do you do a lot of computer sequence comparison, like bioinformatics things, or is it mostly experimental, like shotgun of genes from one to the other
Speaker 2 (02:49):
It’s using a lot of other people’s bioinformatics. So, you know, uh, we’re very fortunate with all this, all this information’s available online and, um, there’s been people that have done comparisons of other similar bacteria. So yeah, you just do a little bioinformatics, not much, uh, to compare the nitrogen, fixing bacteria to the non nitrogen and what are the differences. And so, um, on the, on, on the function level basically. And so, uh, but then everything else is experimental, not the pipetting,
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Lots of pipetting. Yes. It’s true. And are you in the lab these days?
Speaker 2 (03:32):
So, um, starting about Memorial day, we were able to get back in. So they shut down very beginning of the April until basically end of may. Uh, we have, uh, protocols in place where, uh, only so many people can be in the lab of course, masks. Um, and we maintain our, our distance from one another. You know, we try to, we always write, we have, we basically use Google calendar and just write what we want to do for the day, and then everybody can look and see and adjust to one another.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
That sounds like it’s working pretty well. I mean, it sounds almost normal except for the having to keep your distance and wear a mask. It sounds almost normal for her.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yes. I mean, usually the lab’s a lot busier, but it’s, um, you know, we are only allowing three people in at a time, so, uh, yeah, it’s, uh, it is, it’s much more normal than staying at home.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
So, um, so other than just having fewer people around is a typical day in the lab. You come in, you, you check your experiments and do a lot of pipetting, like what does a day in the lab look like for you?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
Well, and that is one thing that’s different is I don’t sit. I do most of my work at home as far as preparing all the preparations at home. I have a communal office and it’s like, I’ve not been in my communal office since, you know, March. Uh, so, um, so I do all my planning at home. Um, and then I just have a list of things that I want to do for the day. So, you know, including the housekeeping things and, you know, cleaning glassware, et cetera, et cetera. Um, so yeah, I, uh, go in, I just have made a plan before I go in and I just start executing.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
That’s pretty great. That’s nice. It’s a fun day in the lab, I think when, when you can go in and, and have a plan and execute on it.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
I’m there too. Um, uh, as, as the senior researcher, I’m, I’m there to help people problem solve and, and, uh, yeah. Basically pull things apart that they’re having troubles with.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Uh huh. And put them all back together.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
It was all the way back together, but we can at least get it maybe functional.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Right. Right. Exactly. Yep. Yep. So how long have been a post-doc?
Speaker 2 (05:58):
I have been a post-doc Oh my goodness. 2017. Wow.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yep. Goes fast. I know Gosh, I don’t know whether to ask you whether to look ahead or look, look back. Um, do you, do you have a next step in mind from here? Or is it still,
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Um, especially currently, you know, the world’s kind of topsy turvy. Yeah. So, yeah. So yeah, I would say, I, I don’t know, um, uh, just kind of riding the wave.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
I get it. Yeah. That’s a good thing. I know. It sounds like you’re in a good place and making a good, good headway on experiments while you’re there. So, so where were you before you were a post-doc?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I was, uh, I went to graduate school, so, um, I went to graduate school in my forties and I went to graduate school at Washington university in St. Louis. Um, and that’s where we actually came across each other, as you were looking for somebody to fill in, um, for, to help host a workshop in St. Louis. So, uh, and I guess you had contacted my advisor. And so then he asked me so, but that’s where I was, was in St. Louis. And that’s where, when I got my PhD in chemical engineering.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Great. Wow. Not a, not a lot of people have the, um, the fortitude to do that a little bit later in life.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
You know, you can do it. The difference is I have to be a little more patient with myself. Um, I feel like things don’t come quite as easily as, you know, 20 plus years earlier. Uh, but I can still get there.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
Absolutely. There are things I wish I had learned earlier. Coding is one of them. Right. I feel like if I tried to learn to code, when I was younger, it would have been more natural. It takes a little longer, but we get there. Definitely.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
We, we get there and, you know, people aren’t stuck in, you know, if they’re in their career and they want to make a career change, you know? Yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
So, so was that you were you in one career and you wanted to change into your career?
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So, um, my college to my first bachelor’s degree and when I was, you know, straight out of high school was mechanical engineering and, um, I went to work in manufacturing. And so then I, after, um, rule was a little different back then, but I, uh, I, uh, when I had children, I switched to, uh, basically doing some consulting type work and being really involved in a, um, professional society, uh, running multiple programs, et cetera, but also doing some consulting with that. And it was during that, it was like, Ooh, you know, uh, I thought I wanted to go back to school. I hadn’t intended to end up in the biology stuffing things. I got back to just test the waters because it’s like, I don’t know if I can still do this. Um, and so I started taking, uh, community college classes just to see.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Um, it was an environmental science class of some kind of geography type class. Anyway, I took statistics and I was like, I can do this. So then I made sure that was going to transfer to, uh, the major university in town, university of Missouri, Kansas city, Kansas city’s home. And, uh, then I got my second bachelor’s degree in environmental science, and that ties back to all the farming, you know, interested in how, um, all of the world works together and, uh, the chemistry and the biology and the physics and how it all links. Um, I never liked biology in high school. I hated biology. I hated it. It was dissecting, it was nothing but dissect. And I was like, Oh, so I had to take a biology class for environmental science that degree. And it was like, Ooh, this is kind of cool. I’m enjoying it. It was all the molecular stuff. And it was like, that was really interesting. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1 (10:13):
I love that story. I, I, I couldn’t agree more. I think when we hide the best parts of biology behind sort of this big book, you have to memorize and dissect a frog, and that’s gonna make you a good scientist. I think we do such a disservice to it. Right. Science, the life sciences has so much more inquiry and like, just understanding that you can gather and questions to ask them.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah. That was just, uh, the, the molecular level understanding things and how you basically have little factories in yourselves and there, yeah. It was just, it was all the little mechanics of it was just really interesting
Speaker 1 (10:53):
That’s so, that’s so great. So, so you alluded to it, but, um, did you grow up on a farm?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
I, I did. Um, so I spent my elementary years, uh, on a farm and, um, so yeah, I enjoyed, it was, it was kind of a casual farm. Um, and my dad taught at Central Missouri State University and we lived on the farm and had cows and horses and chickens and yeah. So all of those things, so yes. Uh, I have a natural affinity for caring about agriculture and the environment because, you know, especially living on a farm, you have to be very circular, you know, all of our waste, there was no trash pick up your trash away. Um, you had to be circular, uh, it had to get, you know, either the compost got plowed into the gardens. Um, I have to say that, you know, the old appliances actually were, uh, filled, uh, ditches where we had erosion problems, um, that maybe not the best thing, but yeah, it was all, you know,
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Because it has to go somewhere, you know, why, not helping with erosion. Right.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
So, yeah. So all that circular, thinking about how waste streams just don’t disappear, that you need to turn them around and make them a asset in some way. It is probably that’s where that came from. And
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Well, then it makes it sound like totally expected that you’re doing exactly what you’re doing right now, the way that that looks like it’s like, Oh, of course, this is what you’re doing, nitrogen fixation.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
Well, and, and the cool thing is, um, this bacteria where we started with it was because it’s very good at breaking down. So plants have, um, the sugars inside, but it also on the outside that gives it structure, it’s called lignin. And it’s, uh, very hard for most organisms to break it down. And this bacterium actually is one of them that does some pretty special chemistry. Uh, and so that’s where we started. And it was like, no, it’s more than just that. That’s interesting about this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Definitely, definitely. So, um, it sort of makes you, um, exactly the right person to be leading our BioBuilder workshops because the idea that cells are these great chemists, and we just have to harness their, their wisdom, their, their talent at doing this, um, to deploy it in ways that is really useful, is just fundamental to the teaching of these workshops that we run. So,
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s, it’s exactly what it is. We just have to understand and untangle the secrets of what’s going inside enough that we can then, uh, apply rules, like, you know, as engineers do we develop the rules and then we can follow the rules and use them and get something that’s repeatable and understandable and yeah,
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Gosh, just like a synthetic biologist. That’s so great. That’s amazing. Amazing. But now, um, did you have people who encouraged you on this path to, to this kind of a career, um, anybody stand out along the way as, as, uh, important mentor, somebody that gave you the right piece of advice at the right just right time?
Speaker 2 (14:23):
I have to say no. Um, uh, I would say that I would encourage anybody that starts to always be curious, always, always to ask why always to poke, uh, you know, uh, and, and if that you have that desire just to follow it.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
That’s so great. It’s a rare person that has that self motivation, that ability to sustain that curiosity, but it is very clear that you are that person,
Speaker 2 (14:57):
You know what though, I think it’s in everybody. And if you just want to, um, if anything, I just want to encourage people to, to explore, you know, um, that, by being curious, the world is a very interesting place. And, and so, you know, just, just so give them a nudge. I wouldn’t say that I didn’t have anybody. Well, I can’t say that, um, um, that anybody didn’t discourage me, but I would say that people were, I had teachers that were always affirming, but nobody, um, really suggested a direction. It was just, you know, I just, and that’s maybe why I ended up here later.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Interesting. Well, I mean, it’s we all follow, you know, these maybe unexpectedly circuitous paths to getting to the careers that, that we sort of land in and find, find our, our best use of our energy in, um, it seems like you are in an amazing spot right now doing just great work and staying curious, right?
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah. Just, just keep poking.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Well, I so hope that your project goes well. It would be wonderful to have more nitrogen, fixings cells to deploy in, in agriculture and, uh, do good for the planet.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, no, the ultimate goal is if you can understand how that relationship works, um, cause it’s very similar to relationship. All of, not all lots of agricultural plants have relationships with fungi and it uses the same signaling pathway. They talk to each other, uh, very similar to the bacteria. So the whole idea is if we can understand that maybe we can hijack that and like rice or wheat or, uh, things that aren’t legumes, the plants that have the bacteria in the roots. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Yeah. Well, I think it’s inspiring. I can see a whole lot of BioBuildder projects coming from that very idea.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Let’s talk.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Fantastic. Cheryl, thank you so much. It’s great to talk to you.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Oh, it’s, it’s been very nice. It was very nice meeting you in person
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Right. And then someday in real person.