Proactively pursuing research opportunities with Dr. Dasha Babushok

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills

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to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.

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When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find

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that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research

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program.

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Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.

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However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.

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For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians

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the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.

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Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.

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Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.

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I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and I'm super excited about today's episode because I have

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a really superstar guest, Dr. Dasha Babushok, and she's going to introduce herself and just

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tell us a little bit about herself in the context of being a clinician scientist.

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Dr. Babushok, welcome.

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Yes, thank you very much for having me.

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It's such a pleasure to be here and to share a little bit about my story.

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So I am Dasha Babushok.

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I'm currently an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

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I'm a hematologist.

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I see patients about one day a week, and then the rest of my time I do research, basic science

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and translational research, studying rare group of hematologic diseases.

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So the diseases for patients present to the clinic with low blood counts and the goal

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of my research program and really my sort of big passion of my life is to identify why

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these patients have problems making blood and how can we treat them better.

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Thank you.

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So Dasha, you are like the rarest of the rare, in the sense that you are a clinician and

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you're a basic translational scientist.

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I feel like there's so few clinicians in that role.

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How did you get here?

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Well, it was a long and windy road.

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I don't have any physicians in my close and immediate family, so I actually wasn't initially

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planning to go into medicine or hematology.

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I was always driven to science, so I wanted to study biology, physics, chemistry, a variety

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of things.

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So this is what I wanted to do in college.

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I spend my college summers like many, maybe some of the listeners in various labs and

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basically was trying to find myself and find my passion and something that can sustain

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me over my career.

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You may also, many of the listeners may also find that if they have an early research experience,

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they may catch these glimpses of something exciting, but a lot of it, especially early

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on is sort of you're learning the techniques.

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Some of it could be drudgery.

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You're trying, you may be failing, you're not fully getting it, and then your experience

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may end, so it was a summer.

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And so I wondered whether this is how it will be for the rest of my career.

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Is this what research really is like?

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When I was looking for something where I would have this, something that can sustain me essentially

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and would give me a greater purpose to pursue this.

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So for example, in college, one of my, I guess my defining research experiences was studying

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a small protein that this interaction between an RNA and a protein molecule is very basic.

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And some of the questions that came to me as I was finishing my junior and going into

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my senior year of college, so will this be it?

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This is what I will be doing.

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And so I started exploring medicine as basically, can I do research in something that would

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more directly benefit people?

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And so then I learned about MD-PhD programs.

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And so this was relatively late and college sort of a shift in my thinking that, look,

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maybe this is what I was always meant to do is to do medical research.

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So I explored these and I eventually applied and entered an MD-PhD program at Penn.

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And so then sort of fast forward the story.

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It was eight years of research.

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I did basic genetics research, studying mobile DNA elements and genome evolution.

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So this was not exactly immediately relevant to human disease, although of course there

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are many, many exciting connections that I will not belabor right now.

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And then I then proceeded to start as many, many of the medical students do.

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They enter then a period of training of residency program.

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So I decided to pursue internal medicine.

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And again, I wasn't exactly sure which one was my calling.

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I really enjoyed doing internal medicine, seeing patients, and it's really can be all

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consuming.

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So residency is such a grueling time where your whole life revolves around taking care

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of the sickest of the sick and being on the front lines and research sort of falls by

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the wayside frequently.

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And during that time, I usually missed being at the bench.

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And so I started looking at opportunities to at least read about it, even if I wasn't

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doing a research project, but sort of really thinking about some of the diagnostic problems

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that he would encounter in the same way that when as though he was in the lab.

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So for instance, I would see a patient with a blood condition and somehow hematology started

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to really appealing to me at this time period.

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And so I would look at the patient's blood counts and sort of be a detective.

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Oh, so we see some clues.

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We see the clues in the numbers and sizes of red cells and various other findings.

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And so then I applied for a fellowship.

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So again, this is such a long road for many, many of us.

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So applied for fellowship.

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So this is now right eight years of MD-PhD program, three years of residency applying

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to fellowship.

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And in fellowship, I moved back to Penn.

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I really enjoyed the community here.

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And I think it's really, really important for you guys if any of you are considering

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a career of being a clinician, researcher or physician, scientist, whatever you call

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this entity to find a place where you have people who are doing the same, walking the

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same walk, who basically can support you and they can be your friends and supporters and

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peer mentors on the same journey.

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So it's a long road, but it can be funny if you have the right people surrounding you.

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So anyway, so I went to Penn and I joined the Penn Hematology-Oncology program.

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And during that time, I met my eventually this very inspiring physician scientist who

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became my mentor for my postdoctoral work.

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It was Monica Bessler and she was just truly a pioneer.

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And she, somebody who cloned a gene in this rare bone marrow failure disease.

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She said, I haven't checked this myself, that she assembled the flow cytometer that she

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was working on.

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So anyway, she was very quirky and incredibly wise.

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And basically, I decided that I want to work with her and look at new genetic changes in

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patients with these marrow diseases.

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And so this is how it happened.

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And this was something that I'm still working on now, gosh, so 2023.

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So it's over 10 years later.

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Wow.

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What a beautiful story.

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Thank you for sharing it.

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I see so many pieces of your story.

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For one, it's the organic nature in which you came to be where you are.

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All along the way, you were recognizing your interests as they were just growing and you

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pursued your interests, which is super awesome.

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And then there's also, you talked about the importance of community.

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And so your community at Penn was important in helping you kind of shape your sense of

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self as a physician scientist as well.

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And then this mentor who really just helped to lay a path for you that you were like,

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I love this, I want to follow it.

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And I think it's so awesome.

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One thing that you talked about that I really want to just come back to is you talked about

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how well you were in the clinic, clinical space.

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There's so much, I mean, it was so busy and you were still drawn to the lab and still

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drawn to thinking about the lab and thinking about how do I keep things going in my research,

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even though I'm here in the clinical space.

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Sometimes when fellows come to interview, they say, I want to be a researcher and I'm

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thinking maybe 50-50, or I'm thinking maybe maybe 75% clinical because I really love patient

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care.

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Can you speak to that?

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Can you speak to what is really needed for a physician scientist to succeed as a researcher,

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even though the clinical space is still important to the work we do?

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It's such a great question.

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And I think it's different a little bit on the type of research that people want to pursue.

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And I'm not a purist, so I'm not someone who just says just the basic lab research is what

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is research.

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Absolutely not.

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There's so much we can do.

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People can do incredibly meaningful work in a variety of spaces.

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So clinical research, translational research, and by that I mean something that involves,

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let's say, patient samples or, for example, health, economics, a variety of other types

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of research.

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But I'll speak for what I do.

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So to be successful and run one's own lab as a principal investigator in a basic or

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translational lab takes a lot.

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So essentially, even if I'm in clinic, I try very consciously to focus on my patients.

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And what benefits me is that I study the diseases and I see the patients with these diseases.

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So it's essentially I have only one topic to master, but I can definitely tell my patients

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this is what I do, this is what I think all the time, day in and day out.

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But it is that type of effort.

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And especially, I'll say for people with families, when your hours are constrained, you really

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have to have that intense focus because you have to balance also your family life, maybe

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if you have children, time with them.

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And then additionally, you usually cannot slack off as far as your research.

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So yes, so maybe you would be 75 or 80, 20 or 60, 40, 70, 30, but it's not out of a 40

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or a week, right?

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So sure.

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But I think you can, for instance, if there are any listeners who may be fellows and just

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thinking about starting research relatively later, or you absolutely can start later as

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well, it does require training and true commitment, but you can be very successful and there are

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ways of integrating research into your career that would also make your career much more

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fulfilling, I think.

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Right, I'm very biased, but I think it's definitely possible to be successful and with a smaller

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amount of effort, you just have to decide.

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So sure, maybe you're not running a basic science lab, but you can, for example, run

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clinical trials or you can participate in other types of research that is a little bit

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more confined.

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Sure.

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Thank you for pointing that out.

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So a couple of things that I want to highlight from what you said, you talk about it as a

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leader, as a PI of a program.

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That's so important because what you're doing is you're leading a program.

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You're leading other people to do the work and you're not just leading people to do the

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work, you're thinking about it all the time and you're thinking about what's the next

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step in growing the program and funding the program, there's a lot of thinking time involved

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and then even in thinking about the research projects that you're doing.

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And so I like what you talked about in you really are focused in your clinic, your clinic

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supports your research and vice versa.

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And so for that reason, you're able to make time actually go further because you're not

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trying to gather stuff from this other clinical space and it doesn't quite fit in your research.

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You really are focused.

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And I think it's important for people who are listening to just think about if you just

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want to dabble in research, if you just want to be a supporter, it is a different investment.

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It is a different level of commitment.

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But if you're going to be the one leading projects, writing the grants that fund the

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program, it's a higher level of commitment.

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And you also talked Dasha about training and how you do need training.

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Could you speak more to that?

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Because you're a PhD, you did the MD and the PhD and then you said you need more training.

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What's that about?

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So it's such an important question.

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And I'll mention also, so now, gosh, like, right.

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So I was doing my PhD.

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This was, this is right, starting 2002 to 2007.

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And the technologies that were available, the types of thinking they were doing was

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so different.

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So this was during that time, the human genome project was coming, just coming out.

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So all of this, and there was no such thing as CRISPR.

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What's CRISPR genetic engineering was that it was a Herculean feat.

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And that is also not so long ago.

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And so just to think also our mentors, if you think of some senior faculty, when did

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they train?

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So there is a lot of training that's involved and everything will also change.

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So for me, you take some time for your residency and fellowship.

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You come back to the lab and you're doing something completely new.

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So there, I would focus on key transferable skills.

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And also, I think for all of us, focus is really important.

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So transferable skills from PhD training is being able to ask questions that are testable,

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making sure that you are using the right techniques, different methods of validating how do you

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know when something is true, looking at problems in sort of unusual ways, and also reading

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the scientific literature, which will be different as you go.

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So sort of having those habits and then just the framework of thinking.

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And of course, yes, so basic, for me, it was basic genetics, cell biology, immunology,

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those types of skills.

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And of course, that will be different if somebody is, for example, doing now a more computational

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project.

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So nowadays, I think data science is really important.

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It's incredibly valuable skill.

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So if someone is considering getting training, and people may have training, for example,

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doing a master's program that is sort of focused on the skills that you need, whether it be

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in translational research or if somebody needs additional skills.

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And let's say bioinformatic analysis of nowadays, we have a lot of multiomics or single cell

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technology.

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So all of those, whether you're an end user and you work, you learn how to partner, but

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bioinformaticians or teams and direct others, a lot of what I do is I haven't done it myself,

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but I know enough to be able to mentor someone to do it and analyze results and troubleshoot.

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So all of that is very important.

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But anyway, just to get the practical, all about practical next steps.

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So if somebody is, for instance, contemplating doing training, so the types of training that

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are helpful and transferable, I think data science, a little bit of coding, you don't

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need to be a super programmer, but just knowledge of R or similar programming language would

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be very helpful.

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Knowledge of statistics, grant writing, that was something that I absolutely needed training

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in, additionally, and you just get better as you go.

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Writing, so manuscript writing is important.

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That is, you will get better as you guys are doing it.

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And then of course, the subject matter also.

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And that would be, whether it's clinical trials or whether it is something at the bench in

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immunology or whatever you're pursuing.

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But yeah, absolutely.

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I think training is helpful and it can be in the form of a degree, formal program, but

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also just doing it with someone who can mentor you along.

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And that requires a lot more legwork and you, but also can sometimes be a little more targeted

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and even more fruitful and you probably will retain more.

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Thank you for laying it out so well.

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It's funny.

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You think about the fact that, well, we went to medical school and then we did residency

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and then we did fellowship so that there are levels of training and you don't leave medical

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school ready to care for patients.

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You do more training and I think sometimes patients, people who haven't done an PhD,

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but even some have this feeling of like, well, I should know everything I need to know to

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start my research program.

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And I think this fallacy comes in a lot with people who are doing clinical research.

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The thought that doing clinical work and clinical research is the same thing.

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I love the way you speak about being able to even like decide what's a testable hypothesis.

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It's not something that's taught in our clinical training.

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And so really being able to get the skills you need and to create space and time to do

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that is super important.

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You talked also about grant writing.

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That's not part of any clinical training ever.

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And it's a skill.

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It's a skill that you build over time.

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You get better at it.

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So I appreciate you talking about it and just laying out how much investment is needed in

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terms of even transforming as people in this venture and trying to be at least work our

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way towards being the physician scientist we want to be.

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Now as you were talking, one of the things that comes across is that you just seem to

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talk so easily and so effortlessly.

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It's like it's been smooth sailing all along.

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I want you to talk about some of the biggest challenges that you have faced on this journey.

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Oh my, where do I begin?

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So I'll say probably the biggest one is coming to Tromsvith and just accepting the fact that

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the journey is long and that there are ups and downs and then living the keys to live

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in the moment.

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So it's not about the destination.

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It's not that you're sort of going somewhere.

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So yes, sure, finishing medical school and MD, PhD program and residency and fellowship.

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But the key is you're a scientist, a clinician, a physician, a professional from the beginning.

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And this is something that I think framing it in this way has made the journey, the long

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journey seem fulfilling for me.

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So other, I guess, challenges is sort of just sustaining or even recognizing just how disjointed

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our physician-scientist training can be.

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And I'm talking specifically about people who did, for example, like myself first.

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And nowadays it's more common.

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People take gap years.

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I didn't do a gap year.

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But essentially you have something that you do, then you're switching to medical school,

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then you're switching to research, switching back to medical school, now doing residency

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and then going back into the lab.

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And you always think about, so why do we do certain things?

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So in my mind and what sustained me was just both the curiosity, the ability to be creative

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and to feel that I'm making a difference as corny as this may sound.

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But also when you think of it, so you just gain your mastery, you're on top of the world,

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you're this scientist, just finished with your PhD and then you're an intern again.

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And you're wondering where, how to navigate across the hospital and how you do this procedure

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and patients and trying to now stay on top of clinical medicine and you finish residency,

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you're on top of the world, you're the best clinician probably, you're over and you join

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fellowship and you're proceeding, then you're back in the lab and wait a second, the genome

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project is out and everything has changed.

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And what is this CRISPR and what questions do I want to ask and how do you start again?

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And so if you remember in Batman, there's that question, like why do we fall, Bruce,

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I think that's the line from the movie about how he sort of falls in this well, right,

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with the bats and he's very scared and that the butler comes about and tells him why do

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we fall so we can get up again or maybe this, I sort of made up the story now.

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I can't watch this movie in so long, but essentially you just have to have this resilience to pick

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yourself up and be willing to be humble, right, and start again and sort of sustain yourself.

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And meanwhile, you're also thinking about, so what are your colleagues doing, you know,

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if it's important to you to sort of to think that someone is, you know, you're still doing

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this and finishing and somebody is probably running a big hospital or doing something

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else in pharma, like what's your opportunity cost and what would you rather do, right,

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and just recognizing like it's a choice and I'm doing it because I love it and I'm very

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passionate about it and there's nothing else that I would rather do.

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But you know, this again, like this may change and your mind can also play tricks with you,

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right?

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So there was stretch and the stretch is difficult and things may not be working so smoothly,

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you know, your postdoc mentor may leave, like what's happened to me and you're sort of okay,

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so I'm a fellow and my postdoctoral mentor retired and what do, like how do you navigate

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this and I was very fortunate in my, so right, so this was towards this period that in, you

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know, it's very, it's very well recognized and physician scientists were sort of wanting

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to do basic research and they're looking for a position, place that will be willing to

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bet a lot of money and resources and commitment on them to start their own lab and think of

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it like you're basically coming in and you're going to start your own business, right?

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So a lab were coming, you know, for me to get hired on what is called a 10-year track

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position with the lab requires a lot of commitment and investment from the institution, so they

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really have to look at me and say, you know what, like I'm going to give her a lot of

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money and I'm going to give her this precious space that you think, what are they doing,

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you know, they're building it up, but in fact, it's very little space.

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So now they're going to invest in you and for that to happen, you have to have many

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things that, you know, you have to demonstrate that you can get a chance and you published

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and have a body of work and they have to sort of believe in you.

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So for me, as I was finishing, I was sort of not really that close at the time my mentor

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retired, but she sort of, you know, she was wonderful and I always think of mentors who

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empowered me and she was one of them, you know, her quirky saying was move in like a

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truck.

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So anytime when I have self doubt or, you know, wonder how am I going to do it, she

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goes, well, you just move in like a truck.

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So anyway, so I was okay, well, I'm going to move in like a truck.

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So I sort of squatted in the lab space that she had, she had sort of a grant that was

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still running out.

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So I had a little bit of funding after she left because otherwise you sort of, you don't

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have a mentor and you don't have funding and the institution supported me.

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So that was probably the most typical time was just navigating that transition from the

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time when I'm, you know, sink or swim, right?

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You were swimming and wondering like, is anyone going to believe in me to, you know, to sort

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of be willing to hire me for a 10 year truck position?

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Thank you.

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Thank you so much for sharing that.

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And you know, you shared many challenges that now make me feel like, wow, this is a hard

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journey.

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So for the clinician at the beginning, let's say they're done with their fellowship, they

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haven't, they haven't, they haven't done all these amazing things that you've had.

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They don't even have a great mentor like you had.

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And they're like, wait a minute, is this research thing for me?

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Does it make sense to move forward in this direction?

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What advice do you have for them?

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Well, I would say just stay passionate and try to remember and sort of stay true to what

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really, you know, what excites you, right?

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And what you think will sustain you for your career.

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If, for example, you know, if you're interested in, let's say I want to do early clinical

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trials, I've never done it, but I would like to pursue that.

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I think seeking out a project or identifying a question and identifying a mentor would

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be really important.

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And then I think just finding a project and running with it and accepting that you're

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going to learn from it and you know, there's always going to be mistakes as you're starting,

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but having somebody to mentor you and you, I guess the other key part that I would like

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to tell the, uh, share with the audience is how important it is to find a mentor, but

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recognizing that they are human, they have little time, they didn't have mentorship training.

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It's not like somebody runs these classes and degrees for mentors.

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So they themselves just came to where they came to be.

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So you have to be very active yourself and you have to know, and you essentially also

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have to probably give something of yourself and your time and your effort to the mentor

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for your relation, for this relationship to work.

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So as you're finding, you know, deciding to start on the research project, I think you

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just have to believe in yourself, stay passionate about what, what is it that you're, what you're

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doing starts small.

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So pick something that's manageable and then, you know, success begets success.

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So you just, you start in something, you have a mentor who you schedule meetings with, you

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come prepared, right?

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You, you use and come through on your board.

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So if you decide that, okay, we're going to meet in a week or in two weeks.

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And by that point, I'm going to do this, then do it, or pick something smaller to do, but

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just try to come through on your commitment.

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And then, and then essentially, once you learn the ropes, then you can expand.

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And then once you expand, you know, I wouldn't shy away from opportunities to that come along,

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right?

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And that would be something that you don't think is in your wheelhouse, but I would still,

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if it's interesting to you, I would absolutely jump on that with the right team and the right

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collaborators and the right mentors.

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That's super awesome.

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Thank you.

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I hear you talking about how you can't do this by yourself.

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You need community and that community includes mentors and, but there's still a lot that

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you have to do.

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So you have to be able to bet on yourself and then you need to take the bull by the

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horns.

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I love it.

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Move in like a truck.

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I know, it's a little bit sign.

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It's my motto, you know, in the days when I'm still doubt myself, I, it just, it comes

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back to me.

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It's a good one.

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00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:01,920
It's a good one.

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It's, it's taking advantage of every opportunity, trusting yourself that you can, you can take

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it to the end.

407
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:07,120
That's really awesome.

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00:31:07,120 --> 00:31:12,220
Well, Dasha, you've just shared some amazingly incredible insights with our audience and

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you have a great story.

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I appreciate you sharing it with us.

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I'm inspired just listening to your story and, and, and so, yeah, thank you.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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It was fun.

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00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:25,560
Thank you for inviting me.

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Yeah.

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And so our audience, thank you for listening.

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This has been great.

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If you can think of someone else who needs to hear Dasha's story, Dr. Babashok's story,

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please share it with them.

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00:31:35,720 --> 00:31:40,160
This is really important, I think for, for, for everybody at every level to recognize

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how, how much investment is needed to really lead a research program as a PI, how much

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community support is needed as well.

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And I think those are all the things that Dr. Babashok highlighted.

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So please share this with someone.

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00:31:51,760 --> 00:31:55,820
If you're a mentor and your mentee needs to hear it, please share it with them as well.

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00:31:55,820 --> 00:32:10,680
But thank you all for listening and I look forward to talking with you again next time.

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00:32:10,680 --> 00:32:16,000
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic

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00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:21,280
clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they

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have a mentor.

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00:32:22,820 --> 00:32:28,920
If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.

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00:32:28,920 --> 00:32:30,680
Someone else needs to hear it.

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00:32:30,680 --> 00:32:34,720
So take a minute right now and share it.

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As you share this episode, you become part of our mission to help launch a new generation

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of clinician researchers who make transformative discoveries that change the way we do healthcare.