by Christina Nowicki, Ph.D.

Talking to Dr. Diana Rose E. Ranoa, her passion for science and positive attitude is abundantly clear. And like a lot of scientists, she’s not afraid of tackling tough problems. Diana is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, working with the Anticancer from Pets to People (ACPP) theme leader Professor Paul J. Hergenrother, where her research focuses on a complex question – how can we harness the human immune system against cancer?

Originally from the Philippines, Diana started her career at the University of Philippines-Diliman, where she received her B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology. Almost 20 years ago, in 2006, Diana moved to Illinois in pursuit of her Ph.D. in microbiology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Here, under the guidance of Dr. Richard I. Tapping, her research focused on toll-like receptors, or TLRs, in immunity and infection. TLRs are critical mediators of inflammatory pathways and essential to the function of the immune system against infection.

However, after her Ph.D., Diana redirected her research towards both a personal and important cause, “A big driving force was my dad passed away due to lung cancer,” she explained, “So, I said that I’m going to dedicate my career towards developing new therapeutics against cancer [and] improving the current set of therapeutics against cancer.”

That’s how Diana ended up the University of Chicago as a postdoctoral scholar with Prof. Ralph Weichselbaum in the Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology. With this new goal in mind, Diana pursued studies to understand how cancer cells react to ionizing radiation. Further, she wanted to learn more about how the immune system could be harnessed to wake up and fight against cancer, as cancers typically occur because the immune system no longer recognize them as a danger signal.

“But once they do, they’re very powerful at killing their target,” Diana asserted.

In part, this is the reason she returned to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she had developed connections to experts in immunology and small molecule development. Joining the lab in 2019, Diana built on the work of previous graduate students towards understanding the anti-tumor and immunostimulatory effects of a small molecule that was in phase one clinical trials at the time.

But a few months later, COVID changed everything.

“We needed something to get back.” Diana stated simply, “And for us to be able to get back we had to develop a rapid saliva test. To make a long story short, we developed the test, the campus was able to safely re-open, and I was able to go back to doing cancer research.” She’s being humble. They were given a month to develop a saliva-based test that is faster, cheaper, and scalable. On top of that, their newly developed test needed to go through FDA emergency use authorization.

“It was a gratifying feeling to be able to see students come back in the fall 2020 semester,” she later admitted in our interview when asked what her greatest accomplishment is. “We know that COVID is a serious matter, even though some people think it’s not serious. But for some families, it is. So having a record of no deaths on campus during that time when there were no vaccines available yet is something that I’m really proud of, and I’m probably going to tell younger generations.”

After this quick detour, Diana returned to cancer research, this time collaborating with Prof. David M. Kranz. Her most recent work tells the story of how chimeric antigen receptor T cells, or CAR-Ts, may be used to treat advanced disseminated stages of ovarian cancer in mice. CAR-Ts are T-cells that have been engineered in the lab to specifically target cancer cells. Currently, all FDA-approved CAR-T therapies are directed toward blood cancers, like leukemia, and not solid tumors, such as ovarian cancer. Ultimately, Diana and her colleagues were able to extend the lives of mice to the equivalent age of a human in their 80’s or 90’s.

“Setting up these models in mice and showing that your treatment actually works against advanced stages of cancer, it’s a gratifying thing,” explained Diana, “It’s something that encourages me every day to get up and go to work, start work early. Because, you know, you’re creating something, you’re doing something towards the improvement of treatment. There’s a lot of room for improvement, but at least we’re moving forward.”

In the future, Diana hopes to continue working on this research by improving the therapeutic index of CAR-T cell therapy. For her, the next steps are obvious, “I work with a chemist, I work with an immunologist. So, combining CAR-Ts and small molecules may be the next step to making CAR-Ts better in terms of seeing their targets or fighting cancer.”

On a personal level, Diana’s next steps might be even more exciting. “At this point, I think I’m ready to transition to a new position,” she said, “At the end of my postdoc at Chicago, I wasn’t sure yet if I want to be a faculty or something like that. But it’s mainly because I’m afraid of going beyond my comfort zone, which I think is common for a lot of women.”

In response to this, I had to end our conversation by asking Diana what advice she would give to women in STEM trying to follow in a similar path. Without pausing, she doled out some sage wisdom. “As a woman in science, and a scientist in general, we’re going to have a countless number of rejections,” advised Diana, “Just be aware of whose voices you let into your head. Because that will affect your attitude towards your work, your experiments, and your career development.”

Written by Delia Alkhatib, edited by Christina Nowicki and Lisa Volpatti

Starting in STEM

Dr. Lisa Volpatti was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh. Although she is now a distinguished scientist, she only discovered research during her junior year of college. After a semester of conducting research using biomaterials to make artificial blood vessels, she decided she wanted to pursue a career in academia.

In high school, Lisa’s AP Chemistry teacher encouraged her to study chemical engineering at Pitt. He knew (even before she did) that she would go on to pursue a Ph.D. Lisa, on the other hand, was unfamiliar with the concept of research. She jokes that when prompted to fill out a survey of “lab experience” for the Society of Women Engineers during her sophomore year, she wrote “Gen Chem I Lab.” Not knowing about research, she completed an internship after her sophomore year at a chemical process plant, where her role was to scale up the reactions from the benchtop to medium-sized reactors. While she notes that this is important work, Lisa decided that being a process engineer was not the path for her. She wanted to be more freely creative to push the boundaries of science, a freedom that she found in the biomaterials research lab her junior year.

Pursuing further education

Following her undergraduate degree, Lisa continued her education at the University of Cambridge in the UK, where she received a research-based master’s degree in chemistry on a Whitaker International Fellowship. She then moved from Cambridge, UK to Cambridge, MA to complete her Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her thesis focused on improving diabetes therapies with biomaterials. Her goal was to create a drug that diabetic patients could give themselves once in the morning and not have to worry about measuring blood sugar or injecting insulin multiple times per day.  She developed an insulin delivery system that achieved this goal in diabetic mice. By self-regulating, this system would better manage blood sugar and also ease the burden placed on diabetic patients.

In 2020, Lisa moved to Chicago to begin her postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago. Currently, she is working at the intersection of immunology and engineering. In January 2024, she will begin a new position as an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering Departments at Northwestern University, where she will continue researching in the area of immunoengineering. Lisa is motivated to stay in academia in hopes of developing new technologies and therapies with the potential to help millions of people around the world. She is also excited to mentor and inspire students to pursue their passions.

She believes that everyone should work on something they’re passionate about and she feels that passion in her own research every day in the laboratory. The scientific challenges she faces fuel her motivation to engineer new therapies for a variety of diseases. Currently, Lisa is investigating new technologies that could treat some of the leading causes of death around the globe, including heart disease and cancer. Lisa enjoys the freedom to investigate, discover, and explore in academic research.

“Balancing work and life is key for success.”

While Lisa enjoys spending time working on her research, she also likes to have some activities outside the laboratory. Lisa enjoys running, swimming, and biking as ways to reduce stress and clear her mind. Last year, she ran the Chicago marathon and found that long runs were helpful when preparing for faculty applications. She believes that mental and physical health should always be priorities and that balancing outside life with work can help in being more productive and avoiding burning out.

“Be your own advocate!”

Lisa’s advice to upcoming students is to be your own advocate, to take opportunities that exist, and to make opportunities when they don’t. It can be really hard to advocate for yourself, especially as a female scientist. Even though she struggled with confidence early on, Lisa has learned throughout her career that “you’ll never know if you don’t ask.”  As an example, when Lisa learned about the possibility of obtaining funding to go to the University of Cambridge for a master’s degree, her heart was set on it. She sent so many emails – to professors who could be potential advisors at Cambridge, to professors at Pitt who could read her application materials, to people who were awarded fellowships in the past, and to mentors who could advocate on her behalf. She did everything in her power, including asking for help from others, to accomplish her goal of going abroad. While she was rejected from many fellowships that she applied for, she successfully received the Whitaker International Fellowship, which turned out to be the best fit for her goals. She encourages others to persevere in the face of adversity, noting that it is never too late to find your passion.

Interested in nominating an amazing woman in STEM that you know for our Scientist of the Month Series? E-mail us at awiscommunications@gmail.com! Click here to check out our other SOTM spotlights!

Written by Elodie Kadjo

Stephanie Jones is a Lead scientist in the enzymology team at LanzaTech. She holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. Stephanie has always been fascinated by science and technology. As a child, she was an avid reader of science fiction. The stories she read instilled in her optimism that technology could help make the world better. Stephanie’s love for science prompted her to study chemistry after high school.

As an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina, Stephanie had the opportunity to experience the day-to-day life of a scientist and connect with other scientists while working on self-assembled monolayers for stem cell differentiation. She enjoyed working on open-ended questions that were different from what was taught in the classroom. Encouraged by her advisors, Dr. Yousaf and Dr. Thorp, to explore many scientific fields, Stephanie moved to the University of Cambridge. At Cambridge, she worked on polymer biomaterials and obtained a master’s degree of philosophy.

Stephanie then went on to do a Ph.D. at UC Berkley in magnetite biomineralization. “Building on my undergraduate and master’s degree, I decided to study how bacteria themselves were making materials,” she explains. Graduate school was an overwhelming experience for her, but it also allowed her to learn more about herself, her weaknesses, and her strengths. “I questioned my life and what I wanted to do with it. I did not think I would be working at a bench 15 years from then,” she reflects.

After graduation, Stephanie took a Postdoctoral position in a microbial water remediation laboratory working with anaerobic microbes at UC Berkley. Around the same time, she began consulting for Industrial Microbes, Inc. These two positions required a lot of time but also helped her overcome her imposter syndrome. “I was able to use my experience working with proteins while consulting for Industrial Microbes and use transferable skills from my chemistry and material science studies in my postdoctoral position,” she explains. “Those two positions increased my confidence and made me realize that science can be a creative endeavor.”

As a result of her strengthened confidence, Stephanie enjoyed her work even more and took a full-time position with Industrial Microbes. There, she worked on one of the highlights of her career: the successful heterologous expression of methane monooxygenase in E. coli and yeast. “It’s a great opportunity to work in industry because many people are involved in a project, and you get to learn from their perspective,” she says. “You get creative on solutions because of the short timeline and monetary constraints.”

In 2019, Stephanie moved to Chicago to be closer to her spouse. After several months of unemployment, she landed a position at a carbon utilization company, LanzaTech, as a scientist in the enzymology team. “LanzaTech is a great place to work,” she says. “I got hired 7 months pregnant and they worked with me on a flexible start plan so I could bond with my child. When the pandemic started a few months later, the company emphasized the well-being of their employees.”

Stephanie credits her success to both her scientific expertise and her communication skills. One of her favorite books is “How to Have a Good Day” by Caroline Webb. “It’s a great guide to communication,” she says. “It taught me that how you say something matters as much as what you say.”

After giving birth to her second child, Stephanie hopes to inspire other women that it is possible to make good decisions for both their career and their family. When asked how to balance work and life, she shares a story based on quotes from Brian Dyson and Nora Roberts: “Work-life balance is like juggling glass and rubber balls in the air,” she says. “Each task or obligation is a ball. Rubber balls can bounce back when dropped, but glass balls break. The key to success is making sure you catch the glass balls.” Stephanie also mentions that she has had good mentors throughout her career who have helped her make good decisions for her personal and professional development.

Outside of her work, Stephanie plays video games, soccer, reads science fiction, and enjoys the development of her son as he picks up his own hobbies.

Her advice for other women that want to follow her steps is to develop their communication skills, not to neglect their personal life because of their work and vice versa, and to use unemployment as an opportunity to learn new skills.

Interested in nominating someone for AWIS-CAC Scientist of the Month? Reach out to us at awiscommunications@gmail.com and check out our SOTM page for more info!