The PostDocs Forum

Christopher Dieni

Biochemist Christopher Dieni is this month’s Featured Scientist. Follow Christopher on Twitter and LinkedIn.

How did you first become interested in the science field? What first inspired you to major in biochemistry?
I suppose the earliest time in my life that I can reasonably pinpoint in which I became interested in science was back in high school. I was attending Pierrefonds Comprehensive High School (PCHS) and was enrolled in an advanced program known as the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IBMYP). As such, I was required to take all science courses that were offered in PCHS’ curriculum. I had some really phenomenal teachers at the time who taught me Physical Science, Chemistry, and Biology- I’ll take the opportunity to shout out to Otto Riedl, Vince Civitella, and Ron Tondino. In fact, as I recently explained in response to Sigma-Aldrich’s “Where Bio Begins” campaign, a major point in awakening my interest in biosciences was listening to an explanation of the Miller-Urey experiment in a Biology course in my final year of high school.

The funny thing is that through all this, I nonetheless had a notion that my future was in Mechanical Engineering, not in science. After PCHS, I chose to attend CEGEP at John Abbott College. CEGEP, or less commonly known as Collège d’enseignement général et professionnel or College of General and Vocational Education, is a unique two-year educational entity in the province of Quebec which falls between high school and a three-year undergraduate degree. In CEGEP you take a pre-university diploma which essentially covers the courses you’d expect to find in the first-year curriculum of non-Quebec universities for both science and engineering courses. Why that’s significant for me, is that, fortunately, regardless of whether I ultimately chose to go into science or engineering, my CEGEP program ended up being the same. This turned out to be very necessary, because what I discovered when being introduced to Calculus, Linear Algebra, Mechanics, Electricity & Magnetism, and Optics & Modern Physics, was that Mechanical Engineering wasn’t necessarily the right path for me. Meanwhile, by stark contrast, I was doing well in Biology and Chemistry courses, which inspired me to take additional courses in Human Anatomy & Physiology and Organic Chemistry in my second year of CEGEP. This was thanks to the amazing teaching efforts of people like Rekha Iyer, Andy Trieber, Harry Wilson, and Charlie Berks. So when it came time to apply for undergraduate programs, I figured I’d combine my interests in Biology and Chemistry into Biochemistry, a move which seemed logical at the time.

Please share a bit about your research: How did you choose the topic of your studies? What was your favorite project that you worked on?
I wound up at Concordia University in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, and my first year there, I had to of course take all the mandatory 200-level courses, so there wasn’t much choosing per se involved at that point. What did happen, however, in the summer immediately following my first year at Concordia, was a major break! After much pestering, I was invited to work in the lab of Vladimir Titorenko, who was at the time a very freshly-hired tenure-track professor in the Department of Biology. I was the only student working for him that summer- no other undergrads, grad students, or postdocs had been accepted yet. As you might expect, the first day I arrived in his lab, there was no lab to speak of- everything was in boxes, or in transit, or not even ordered yet. But working in that situation- setting up the lab, organizing protocols, getting preliminary experiments off the ground and running, learning directly from a tenure-track professor and having an immediate line of communication to him- was probably the best lab-based learning experience that anyone can hope to attain.

After that, in later years at Concordia when I was given the opportunity to choose at least some of my courses, it just seemed natural when deciding which ones to pick. I just based my choices on courses that encompassed specific topics I enjoyed in earlier years of my undergrad. I went with great courses taught by amazing professors like Protein Engineering and Design with Joanne Turnbull, Physiological Biochemistry with Jack and Judy Kornblatt, and even tried my hand at some Organic Synthesis (in a lecture-based course only, thankfully) with Sebastien Robidoux.

The story of choosing my grad studies is also a funny one. Right next to the Biochemistry teaching labs at Concordia, there was a glass case in which course grades used to be posted, as well as big posters advertising different universities and different programs. Along with all those big posters was a small, home-made leaflet that probably spoke more volumes than the bigger posters did. It introduced the lab of Ken Storey at Carleton University, and his work on animals that were capable of surviving environments which seem harsh to us, and the exploration of the molecular mechanisms that allowed them to survive. There were frogs that could freeze solid during the winter and thaw back to life in the spring, squirrels and bats that would hibernate, and at the other extreme, desert toads and snails that could survive the long months of heat and dehydration. I wrote Ken a brief introductory email in the summer just prior to my final year at Concordia, which I was afraid at the time might be a little premature. He responded with pages upon pages describing his research, projects I could undertake, and even made the offer to visit his lab and stay at his home with the hospitality of his family. It was a great introduction to grad school, and ended up being a fantastic lab to work in. That was probably my favourite research project right there- the mere idea that an animal is capable of turning into 70% ice, with no detectable heartbeat, breathing, or brain activity, and then thaw with no apparently damage, is astounding!

What are you currently working on?
Protein phosphorylation was the bread and butter of my research in the Storey Lab at Carleton, and I carried that over here when I decided to postdoc with Steve Benkovic at Pennsylvania State University. We’re looking at the reversible formation (and dissociation) of an enzyme complex in cervical cancer cells. In fact, the publication which spurred my recruitment to the Benkovic Lab is the following: An, S. et al (2008) Reversible compartmentalization of de novo purine biosynthetic complexes in living cells. Science 320: 103-106. The enzymes in question form a de novo biosynthetic pathway of metabolites which are central to DNA and RNA metabolism, and cellular energy charge, to name a few. Normally, these metabolites would be available in the culture media, and could quickly and easily be salvaged that way. However, if the media is deficient and cells need to resort to de novo biosynthesis, then the enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway cluster into microscopically-visible complexes. Given that this is a form of metabolic regulation and a phenomenon that occurs with existing pools of protein, we expect that post-translational regulation might play a role. Since phosphorylation is the dominant post-translational modification, this is the approach we’ve decided to take.

What is your favorite part of research and lab work? What is the worst part?
My favourite part is learning something new. This usually comes with analyzing the results of individual experiments that work, or, with connecting various experimental results together in a cohesive theory for a publication, or a thesis chapter. That said, those aren’t the only avenues for learning. Figuring out how to follow a protocol and run an experiment from beginning to end, for the first time, is learning. Teaching one’s self how to use a new piece of a equipment, or culture a new cell line, or assay a new enzyme, or adapt an existing protocol to suit a new purpose, is learning. And yes, even the failures constitute learning, albeit a harsher form of learning. It’s easy to feel defeated and broken when an experiment doesn’t work, or when the result of one experiment entirely contradicts another. But if you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and learn something from the experience- what went wrong, how to fix it, how to improve and prevent it from happening again- then it’s all good and you’re better for it in the long run. And let me take it a step further- it’s not just my own learning that’s important to me, but contributing to the learning of others, through teaching. It’s seeing the expression on their faces when they have that “eureka” moment, or the look in their eye when they understand something that eluded them a moment earlier. That’s why wherever I wind up- academia, industry, government- I want to have something to do with the teaching and training of newbies.

I don’t usually like talking about the worst part, because that can cause a bit of negativity. But, if I had to pick something, I would say it’s the hours. As scientists, we can potentially spend all of our time in the lab, with the exception of sleeping (and even then, I’ve seen some people just take a nap or pass out in their office). Evenings, weekends, holidays- all of that can be forfeit if you so choose, or if you’re in an unfortunate situation where it’s chosen for you. When you take a step back and look at it objectively, it can get a bit horrifying sometimes. I’ve spent a lot of nights in the lab, as well as weekends. What I’ve tried to do lately, to remedy it, is arrange for any work I do on evenings or weeks to be mobile- reading papers, analyzing data on my laptop, working on a manuscript- things I can do while enjoying the sunshine on my front porch. I’m a very firm believer- some might say fanatical- that it’s critical to have a life for yourself outside of science.

In your opinion, what is the most important quality for a scientist to be successful?
I’ve been asked that question a lot, and gave many different answers based on my situation, or simply my mood, at the time. Sometimes I’ll say hard work, other times I’ll say self-motivation, occasionally I’ll say ambition, and other times yet I’ll say discipline. I think those are fairly standard replies that you’d get from most scientists- moreover those are standard replies that you could get from anyone in any type of profession.

Since this is my interview, though, just to mix things up a bit, I’m going to offer up something unique. I’d say that an important quality for a successful scientist is to not be a successful scientist… at least every now and then. A lot of people reading that now are probably perplexed, so I’ll try to explain.

I’ve found it extremely helpful and refreshing to pull myself out of the sphere of what a postdoc or what a successful scientist is expected to be. When I’m in the lab and I’m getting tired, do I hope to get a second wind and just keep working harder? Not necessarily. I might catch that second wind, or I might burn out and start making serious mistakes. So instead, maybe I’ll go watch my Montreal Canadiens battle for the Stanley Cup and have a basket of onion rings. I’ll forget about science completely for a few hours. Then when I come back to the lab the next day, the mental batteries are recharged, my mind is clear, and I can get back to being fully productive.

When I’m trying to teach undergraduates about complex scientific concepts, or speak to people in general who don’t have extensive knowledge of my field, do I speak to them as a successful scientist in my field? Again, not necessarily. It’s another situation where I need to take a step back and not be a successful scientist. I try to put myself in the shoes of those people to whom I’m speaking. I’ll speak to them as a layman. I’ll distance myself from the years of undergraduate studies, grad school, and postdoctoral research and communicate with them as a random person they met on the street, so as to make my science as universal as possible.

In the previous question I answered that it’s important to learn from failure. Well, failure is the antonym of success, and by extension, the opposite of a successful scientist. So in order to learn from failure, you need to embrace failure, absorb it, examine it from every angle. That can be hard to do for someone who envisions themselves to be a successful scientist. In that instance, again, you might need to learn how to not be a successful scientist, and just be a regular person, learning from their mistakes.

Set aside some time and get out of your lab for awhile. Change your perspective. Stop trying to be a successful scientist and be a regular person. Then, when you get back into the lab and get back in gear, things will likely flow a lot better!

Can you share any tips for lab management and organization?
Yes, I have one tip which is singlehandedly the most important thing I’ve learned: you need a central, lab-wide system for protocols, or procedures, or experimental methods- whatever you call them in your own lab. Back in the Storey Lab, we used to call them technical bulletins. If you take two scientists working in the same lab, and tell them to run the same experiment but leave them to their own devices when it comes to methods and materials, and they end up getting different results (or worse yet, vastly different results), then you’re going to have reproducibility problems in your own lab. Those problems can arise between two or more people working concurrently, or between different “generations” of people over the years.

I wrote or revised over twenty technical bulletins in my time in the Storey Lab, and the goal was this: the technical bulletin must be written in such a way that you can give it to a complete newbie and have them follow the protocol entirely on their own, and get the same results as the scientist in that lab who is most experienced with that protocol. It should leave minimal-to-no room for confusion, questions, and deviation. Then your lab and everyone working in it will be “standardized.” That being said, if ways are found in which to improve the protocol, the technical bulletin can be revised, so long as older versions are purged and everyone is certain to be working in the updated version.

Also, it’s understood that everyone in your lab is going to have their own specific area of expertise. That being said, it’s important to instil a basal “jack-of-all-trades” sense in everyone in that lab. Everyone should know how to use every piece of equipment in the lab, regardless of whether they use it frequently or rarely. Everyone should know where all reagents and supplies are located. This way, if there are ever any problems, you don’t always need to rely on Person X who’s in charge of equipment Y, but instead can have anyone in the lab tackle any situation on the spot.

What is your next step? Where do you plan to be in ten years?
That is such a difficult question because the answer is always changing. If you had asked me when I was just starting grad school, the answer would’ve been to stop at my masters degree and get a job in industry or government- maybe apply to med school and see if I could get in there. Then I decided to fast-track to my Ph.D. and focus on a goal in academia. When I started my postdoc at Penn State, my mindset was to eventually return to Canada for a top-notch tenure-track research and teaching professorship at one of Canada’s big universities. Almost two years later, although still interested in academia, I realize that I’m the product of two smaller universities (Concordia and Carleton) and longing for the close-knit, familial interactions that I had in those departments- this, and the mentorship of some great professors from my grad school years, Peter Buist and David Miller, are nudging me to look to smaller universities that might focus more on teaching and strong mentoring of undergrads and grad students. Now, I’m beginning to resign myself to the fact that there are so many postdocs, and so few professorships that the odds against being hired as a professor are very high- as a result, a career in industry is coming into play for the first time in six years.

What will my answer be in six months from now? Who knows? And, in a way, who cares- because six months from then, the answer may be different yet again. The details may change quite a bit, several times over before I land in my final spot, wherever that might be. The only thing I hope is that in ten years, as you ask, I’m somewhere that I can look back at all the time and effort I put into my undergrad, grad studies, and postdoc, and feel that it’s “worth it,” that my job does justice to everything I’ve been through.

References: An, S., Kumar, R., Sheets, E., & Benkovic, S. (2008). Reversible Compartmentalization of de Novo Purine Biosynthetic Complexes in Living Cells Science, 320 (5872), 103-106 DOI: 10.1126/science.1152241

Christopher’s recently accepted paper to the Journal of Comparative Physiology B:
Dieni, C.A. and Storey, K.B. (2010) Regulation of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase by reversible phosphorylation in liver of a freeze tolerant frog. Journal of Comparative Physiology B. Accepted for publication May 26, 2010.