00:05 [Natalie Kuldell – NK] Hi Irene.
00:05 [Irene Reizman – IR] Hi Natalie, it’s great to be on here today.
00:09 [NK] Thank you so much for joining us for one of these conversations and for having a chance to to let the students and teachers who are here know a little bit about you and what you do. I usually start there. Do you want to introduce yourself and say where you’re working and what you do?
00:25 [IR] Sure. I’m an assistant professor in chemical engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology that’s located in Terre Haute, Indiana. For those of you may be less familiar with Indiana geography, that’s on the west side of Indiana close to the Illinois state line. Rose-Hulman is a small engineering-focused college. We have science and engineering majors mainly and about 2200 students in total on our campus.
I did my PhD at MIT in chemical engineering and I worked with Kris Prather. Professor Prather focuses her research in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, so that’s where I got into the field of synthetic biology. I did research on engineering E. coli bacteria in order to produce glucaric acid. It’s an organic acid that can be used in biopolymers kind of like you would use adipic acid and nylon.
Glucaric acid has kind of a similar structure but some additional oxidation and so you get a slightly different kind of polymer and we worked on ways to improve the production of glucaric acid and E. coli because naturally when you’re producing glucaric acid you’re not consuming the glucose for the growth of the organism so there’s a competition between growth and producing the product that you want for the biopolymers, and what we looked to do was try to balance that competition and we use technologies like the quorum sensing signaling pathways in bacteria to allow us to grow the bacteria first, and then they would start to produce these quorum sensing molecules that send a signal that there are kind of a critical mass of bacteria present and then once there’re enough of them we would switch to production of glucaric acid.
02:28 [NK] That is such a clever trick because you’re exactly right you know as we try to use these cells as as technology platforms, they don’t like it right they know you can try to do other things so to have that trick of saying okay you don’t have to do it until there are enough of you, and when you know there are enough of you then you get started is a very clever trick and Kris Prather is a wonderful synthetic biologist and chemical engineer and has wonderful mentorship and leads to great great students coming out of her lab, you among them. So are you still doing synthetic biology in the chemical engineering department where you are now?
03:05 [IR] Yes, I still am. So we’re an undergraduate institution – I don’t have any graduate students who work for me or I occasionally have a master’s student but we don’t have any PhD students so I’ve really focused on trying to come up with some undergraduate projects in synthetic biology. I have some students who work on sensing dissolved oxygen levels in fermentations. So in bioreactors, as you scale up to a large scale, you can get some problems where certain parts of the bioreactor have good oxygen transfer like near where you’re bubbling in air and other parts have kind of poor oxygen transfer so you get these pockets where the cells use up all the oxygen and they’re actually experiencing anaerobic conditions. And so what we were looking at is are there promoters that we can find to control gene expression in response to dissolved oxygen conditions and do a better job of controlling how the cells grow and produce product in these large scale fermentations where normally you might get some undesired side products if your cells are in one of these pockets where they use up all the oxygen.
04:19 [NK] It’s such an important – like who, I mean, we’re in such a crazy world right now but this notion of large-scale production in these big fermenters is so relevant to our world right we are now mass producing things from biology whether it’s mRNA or you know vaccines and things, so to be able to do it in a reliable fashion like by measuring dissolved oxygen where you have you know perhaps pockets where it’s irregular for quality control it’s just such an important project. I think it’s awesome.
04:50 [IR] And I actually took some of my students and my intro to biochemical engineering class on a field trip last year to Elanco. They produce different products for animal health, so medication veterinary medications and feed supplements and they have extremely large fermenters at their location in Indiana. I think they had something like 20 of them, you know, that they can run up to 20 in parallel and they definitely get changes in conditions through the whole fermenter because theirs are kind of unique. Instead of being vertical, they’re sitting on their side. They’re kind of like a big cylinder sitting on their side horizontal which makes it really hard to control, you know, and get the same conditions through the whole thing.
05:39 [NK] Yeah so yeah biology to the rescue right, you know, yeah that’s awesome. That’s so interesting, yeah, and to think about the application space whether it’s for, you know, animal medicine or fuel or, you know, anything that we really are trying to produce with biology it’s very very cool it’s amazing that you know chemical engineering and biological engineering they’re all linked right, you know, you can you can use your talents and strengths in one to really solve challenges in sort of the common space between them. So did you always know you wanted to be, you know, running a lab in Indiana for an undergraduate institution?
06:20 [IR] No, that’s something that developed over time. When I was in high school I enjoyed math and science and I was trying to look at fields that I would be interested in going into, you know, I thought about medical fields, veterinary medicine. But I really enjoy being with my pets but not necessarily like working on my pets. I shadowed a veterinarian and I said I don’t actually really want to like cut open my pets and things and I wanted but I still wanted to be able to do something that was sort of hands-on and involve science and being in the lab and so I got into chemical engineering because I attended some engineering camps in high school and I enjoyed the hands-on and problem-solving aspects of that and it also just seemed like they were interesting jobs for chemical engineers kind of in agriculture and food processing.
I grew up on a farm that’s kind of where the interest in like animals and agriculture and stuff comes from. Then I studied chemical engineering. I did my undergraduate at the University of Michigan and while I was there I did a couple internships. I did one at a company called Shot which is a glass making company so I actually got more into doing some materials type of work. And I took a job after I graduated at Whirlpool, the appliance company, and I worked on designing appliances like washing machines and kind of choosing materials for making appliances which was a good experience. I got a lot of like hands-on experience. I can, you know, fix my own dishwasher and washing machine now, but I missed being more involved with kind of the basic science. And I got to do a little bit of work with biology at Whirlpool: things like using enzymes and detergent and stuff and I wanted to kind of get more into the biology side of it again.
So I applied to to grad schools and I thought I would do something a little bit more like biomaterials or tissue engineering, but after talking with different research groups at MIT and and talking with Chris Prather, I was really excited about biotechnology and working with living organisms to make new products – make things like pharmaceuticals or bioplastics and I decided I would go ahead and go for it. I didn’t really have much experience in that field so it was a steep learning curve at first but that’s part of the way things are you know when you go to get your Bachelor’s degree or to get your PhD. A lot of times you’re diving into a totally new field and you kind of have to go start finding information on your own and if you’re enthusiastic about it, I mean people are willing to help you and make sure that you get on track.
09:24 [NK] I think that’s great. There’s so much wonderful sort of world lessons in there, right. Like you seem like a very brave person: I don’t know that you know if many people are growing up on farms would be then thinking, well yeah of course this is going to lead me to a chemical engineering PhD at MIT and then, you know, running my own lab in synthetic biology and fermentation sciences so I think it’s great. So were you encouraged along the way to do these very brave things? And, I mean, it sounds like you know that lesson of you just it’s going to be a steep learning curve and you just kind of know that people will help you along the way but were there particular people that helped you along the way or advice that you got that was very helpful?
10:10 [IR] Yeah I mean certainly. My parents were always supportive. They saw a lot of value in education and science and definitely pushed me to, you know, look broadly at what I wanted to do and do a lot of kind of background research like going to those engineering camps. And in undergrad, I did some undergraduate research with one of the professors in the chemical engineering department at Michigan, and he was always very supportive. He, you know, encouraged me to go out and find information on my own, and then when I decided I wanted to go back to grad school after being in industry, he wrote me a recommendation it was just helpful to have you know have him as somebody to go back and ask questions to.
And my first supervisor at Whirlpool – she actually had a PhD in biochemistry – she was in the kind of detergent and wash chemistry group and she was extremely supportive because I rotated around to different positions at Whirlpool so I didn’t – I worked with her initially and then I was working in a different group and I went back and told her hey I’m thinking of going to grad school. And it’s kind of a difficult transition to go from industry to grad school because you can’t really tell everyone that you’re working with that you’re necessarily going to leave yet because you kind of need to organize what your next steps will be. And she was very supportive about, you know, helping me make that transition because she did have a PhD as well and helped me you know get the applications in and get the recommendations and stuff.
11:53 [NK] Yeah because sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know, right. And so having somebody there who can say yes you’re on track and oh yeah be sure you put this down and, you know, just somebody with a little bit of the, you know, inside track and they can see, you know, where you can put your best foot forward. And, you know, it’s funny if you’re talking about all these people who were so supportive, you know, your parents and your, you know, research folks and people in industry that you worked with and for, it occurs to me that there probably are also people who were discouraging or who were a little bit in the way. But I’m not even going to ask you about them because it’s really important that, you know, how quickly – I’m just struck by how quickly – you bring to mind all the people that were really helpful to you, right. They are front and center as, you know, think about what you do and and how you got to where you are and it also reminds me that the reason you and I know one another is because you have started you you know you turn around and help the next in line right you are one of BioBuilder’s longtime mentors for our BioBuilder club and and do a lot with just sort of advising of students and student projects. So do you want to maybe just say a little bit about why you work with BioBuilder, or what you like about it or, what, you know, what it fulfills in terms of your, you know, professional portfolio?
13:21 [IR] Yeah I enjoy giving back to the scientific community and trying to mentor students. I have been an advisor for our iGem team at Rose-Hulman. Although we’re kind of on hiatus right now with some of the uncertainty around on campus activities but I just thought BioBuilder was a great way for high school students to get some exposure to current science, you know, current advances in synthetic biology and I was glad to be able to reach out to students and to talk to them. Because as you mentioned, I was able to bring a lot of people to mind who were helpful for me and ending up where I am today, and I hope that I can give back some. And I mean that’s also part of why I’m at an undergraduate institution. I enjoy working with students, you know, teaching and that’s how I ended up at Rose-Hulman.
14:18 [NK] It’s amazing. It’s wonderful. And it’s very gratifying isn’t it, right. Because no one of us gets to where we are completely on our own. There’s always people that, you know, we work with and that we continue to work with and rely on. I’m always amazed at how much I still need to reach out to people that advised me in the past and, you know, ask them a question or suddenly there’s a connection that, you know, around a topic or, you know, something that just it would be really helpful to reach out to them and then they’re always, you know, a good good network to have so yeah. Yeah that’s awesome.
Well you are amazing, and I am so grateful that you’re part of the BioBuilder community and that you do so much for the students that we know and that you get to teach. It’s really a joy to see all the work that you’re doing.
With the students who are on the line now are there any particular questions that you might have? Either about, you know career trajectory, what, you know, maybe what Irene looks for in students at her undergraduate institution, if you’re interested in chemical engineering or math and science right yeah, or if you have questions about your projects any of the projects that we mentioned or described we talked about a lot of application spaces: things like agriculture things like additives to detergents, things like fermentation science pharmaceuticals, I mean biology, you know, can be used in all of these settings to improve the processes and solve challenges that they face. So any questions that you want to ask relevant to those topics or the projects that you guys are working on? Irene, I should say that they will have their showcase for their project ideas in just a few days, so they are deep in the weeds of project ideas right now. Any help that we can be while we are on the line together?
16:33 [Andy Myers] Could I ask a more general question while they’re pondering – oh no hang on sorry – Paige just jumped in.
16:37 [NK] That’s okay and then we’ll get back to you, Andy; more general questions are always welcome. So, I don’t know if you can read the chat, Irene, but it says: do you have any advice for taking risks with pursuing these paths in science? What was most helpful to you when you were taking risks with your career in education. Risk taking is hard. I think that’s a great question, Paige. It is scary. Did you find anything particularly – any tools that you have developed that you still turn to, Irene, for taking risks?
17:09 [IR] I would say take advantage of opportunities for mentorship – that was a big one for me. And also, you may want to have a couple directions or a couple plans that you’re pursuing. Thinking back to when I was applying to colleges for my undergraduate, I didn’t really know where I was going to end up going. I applied to a number of different places, and the idea was mainly to see where I could get scholarships and kind of see how things worked out. So I had to be flexible and I didn’t necessarily originally think I was going to go to the University of Michigan, but then I ended up doing an interview there for a scholarship, and the way things worked out. They had a cool program where they brought together students from different majors and you were all part of this scholarship society, so you could meet with these students on a regular basis and they did activities together. And I said it seems like they’re really trying to foster relationships and foster some discussion across disciplines, and that was something I was looking for. And so I ended up going there and I was really happy with the way everything came out but it was certainly a, you know, a transition moving from living in a rural area to being more in the city and taking the bus to classes every day and things like that. But I think where I benefited there was, you know, I had several options when I was looking at colleges and then I was able to weigh those options, and once I was on campus at Michigan, I took advantage of the community that they had there and the mentorship opportunities because it’s very easy on a large campus like Michigan to get kind of lost in the crowd, and the fact that they had this society with these – the scholarship society with all these students already set up, I said I need to take advantage of this – this isn’t something I should you know ignore when I get here so I’m definitely glad I did.
19:22 [NK] Yeah I think that’s great advice. I certainly think your posse – or however you want to frame it, you know the people that you sort of have as a community – are so important to bolster, you know, your confidence as you try new things and, you know, and hopefully the folks in that community – they’re trying new things, too because one thing that I have noticed about trying new things and taking some risks is that things don’t go perfectly. Right like if you’re trying something new for the first time and it’s not gonna go perfectly. It might not even go great. And so to be around people where it is okay to be struggling, to be learning as you go – if you surround yourself with people who are like that, then yes you’re taking risks, but the risks feel a little less risky because it’s not all or nothing it’s not like: well I have to get this right or else I’m never going to have another chance kind of thing. Because risk, you know, it is hard to do things for the first time and and to learn as you go so, you know, learning learning as you go is something that helps if you just recognize that that’s what this risky step is going to take out of you is that you’re going to make mistakes and you’ll have to learn as you go, and then as Irene has said, you know, surrounding yourself with people that are in that same boat and that will, you know, sort of lend a hand and pick you up and help you brush off when you fall down is really has been helpful. I definitely am not where I thought I would be when I was in high school. I thought I would be running a lab at the National Institutes of Health, you know, studying, you know, who knows, vaccine development maybe or whatever, but yeah, teaching and running a non-profit is where I’ve landed and I’ve been very grateful for my team that’s helped me learn to do it, so.
21:14 [IR] Yeah, and when I was in high school, part of the reason I picked engineering is I thought: well I can get a degree in four years and then I don’t have to do any more school after that. I’ll be done. And now, here I am, kind of, you know, in permanent school mode right. I’m teaching at a university but, you know, your interests change over time, and that’s totally okay. You know, I think just being flexible with yourself, too, and understanding that you can change and you don’t have to stick to one thing. I know some of my students get worried – some of my advisees at Rose-Hulman – because they’re taking their first job, and that’s a really big step, and sometimes the job offers that they have are not exactly what they imagined they’d be doing. But I always say, you know, your first job is not – this is not destined to be your job for the rest of your life. You definitely have room to grow and try different things, and it’s just a matter of kind of keeping yourself on track to try different things setting some goals for yourself and even if maybe the things that are in your job are not exactly what you thought they would be, there’s opportunities to volunteer or do different work out in the community to give you some experience that maybe you’re not getting through your job, too.
22:32 [NK] Yeah, I think that’s great advice. Just, yeah, to know that you can enrich your situation with other opportunities that if you seek them out, they’ll be there. I mean, I think that everybody who’s participating in this BioBuilder Idea Accelerator falls into that class already, right. You’re trying something new and you’re learning and you’re building community and network and, you know, we’re going to be excited to see where you go, too. So hopefully, Paige, with that great question we’ve given you some ideas that are on track and helpful for you.