Ep. 93: Scientists are Storytellers

with Sara Sawyer, Ph.D.
Episode hosted by: Julie Gerberding, M.D.

December 14, 2022

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Sara Sawyer, Ph.D.
Professor, University of Colorado Boulder

Sara Sawyer, Ph.D. has received national and international prizes in virology. In 2022, she was awarded a Pioneer award from the National Institutes of Health, and in 2011 she was the recipient of the PECASE award from President Barack Obama at the White House. Dr. Sawyer serves as a Senior Editor at eLIFE, and as a consultant to the U.S. government on the topic of pandemic preparedness. In 2020, she co-founded Darwin Biosciences, a diagnostics company located in Boulder, CO.

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Competition becomes community. Impact becomes your North Star.

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Julie Gerberding, M.D.: [00:00:00] Sara, thank you for making time for us. I look forward to hearing your story.

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Thanks, Julie

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: We’re going to just start kind of at the beginning and go back to a little girl in Kansas who probably didn’t know she was gonna grow up to be a very respected and contributory scientist. What did you think you were gonna be when you grew?

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Yeah, well, you know, very much like what we see now. I was, you know, a kid growing up during a pandemic, and so I was 10 years old when the H I V AIDS pandemic started to be described. And. . I remember watching that, you know, the way on the evening news that my parents, you know, were sitting there watching much the same way that children are probably learning about the world from what they’re hearing about the Covid pandemic. And I remember seeing, you know, I, I didn’t come from a family of scientists. My [00:01:00] nobody in my family, except for my dad had been to college. And I remember seeing these sweeping shots. Children, you know, in Africa with the reporter talking about the many AIDS orphans that had been created by this virus. That was sort of my, like, I can see those news clips like it was yesterday. Those burned their way into my brain, and I have no doubt that those images shaped the whole rest of my life and trajectory. And so these, this was. Turbulent time to becoming of age, and so that definitely shaped me and I grew up, I went to college and then I went to graduate school. We can talk more about that. I got a, actually got a chemical engineering degree from my bachelor’s degree at the University of Kansas, and I got swept into the oil industry and so I worked as an offshore drilling engineer. Platforms in the Gulf of Mexico for some time. I interned at that job during college and then afterwards and at some [00:02:00] point I realized I had drifted kind of far from the biomedical research that I wanted to be involved in. So I went and got a PhD at Cornell University in Genetics and Development. . And then I did a postdoc at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, where I got involved in H I V AIDS research for the first time. And now I’m a professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado. And I’m also a co-founder with three other people of a company called Darwin Biosciences, who’s doing some really awesome sort of revolutionary infectious disease testing. I would.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: As a child of the pandemic, you know, wh where did you get the encouragement to be able to sort of launch into these really challenging professional tracks? And where did you get the spirit to be? Probably the only woman on an oil trail.

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: You know, I probably shaped my entire career a around a time Man of the Year magazine cover. To be completely honest, I was [00:03:00] in college and I was finishing up my degree and I was in the grocery store line in Lawrence, Kansas, where I got my undergraduate degree, and I saw this cover of time of. Time man of the year. I think it was 1996 and you know, I don’t think Man of the Year, that’s kind of sexist, but that’s what they used to do. And so it was a picture of David Ho and David Ho was one of the first infectious disease doctors to be prescribing these new, the newer classes of H I V drugs that finally started to work. And, you know, really, you know, we’re bringing people back, you know. from disease to health. And this was an exciting time. And so he was he worked at a place called the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and the cover of this magazine, David Ho, has on these like reflective sunglasses and he is looking at something very busy and red and yellow, and it’s reflecting and to my young 20 to 21 year old brain, you know, he looked like a rockstar and it, I flipped it open and it said he worked at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in Manhattan or in New York City. I [00:04:00] think it’s in Manhattan. And in my mind, the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center must be this. Crystalline palace in the middle of Manhattan. You know, actually it’s a rundown, high rise. I now know, but that was how I envisioned that. And I was just like, I had this moment, you know, I described this to my undergraduate students, you know, it’s like you’ve got one life to live and you’ve got your abilities that you were born with or that you’ve cultivated. And the trick is to like find a problem. that’s worth all that. Like what’s something that’s worth you spending your life on? Because you only get to do it once. And I remember looking at that magazine article and just having this like feeling in my stomach, like, this is worth it. I could work on this. And you know, I’m sure those images from my childhood were playing in and you know, wanting to help children and all the other things that were associated with the h hiv aids pandemic from my young mind and my experience as a child in a pandemic. And so I. I saw that magazine article and I just decided I’m leaving. What I’ve done [00:05:00] before, I’m gonna get into virology research and I did that. And so I went to graduate school, Cornell. My first mentor was a guy named Volker Vo, who was an H I V retro virologist. He was, So kind and like motivated me and encouraged me. I ended up doing virology with Michael Emmerman and Harit Molik at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. And remarkably, you know, thir 13 years after I saw that magazine cover in that grocery store. I was now an H I V researcher in my own right and a professor, and I was invited to the Erin Diamond AIDS Research center to present my H I V research and I got to sit in David Ho’s office and have a conversation with him for an hour. And so, you know, just 13 years, amazing things can happen when you see something that really like. Serves as a motivating guide star and you just go after it with everything you have. And so that’s what I did. And really I think manifest destiny really.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: You know, [00:06:00] I think that kind of lesson for your students to find your calling lessons lesson and go after it, is something that we all probably have recognized at one time in their life. But not everyone follows their calling, so it’s really. Inspirational to hear you describe how you followed through on your dream.

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: You I think sometimes, especially, you know, for young people these days, and for young women these days, you know, we’ve worked so hard to convey this message that you can be anything that you wanna be. And that seems like such a. Positive thing to say to a young person, but sometimes that can be an overwhelming feeling to like have to choose and make that decision. And so, you know, I think those of us that are a little bit older and have had these moments, we know they always come from your gut, not your head. And you’re gonna have these moments and you’re gonna have to trust your gut when you find something that really feels worth it and feels like something you could dig in on for a long.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: You know, so while you’re talking, I’m just [00:07:00] reflecting on the fact that you are at the bio. Years Institute in Colorado and it is such a special place and a very creative environment. Where do you develop your own source of creativity and tell us about kind of the scientific process of coming up with these incredibly interesting research questions and following through really leading to some of the important science that you really have evolved and contributed.

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Thanks for those words. Yeah, I mean, it’s funny because most people don’t when you say the word creativity, people think of artists and authors and people, you know, creative people, but, and they don’t usually think about molecular biology or chemistry or these kinds of disciplines like that. But I can tell you exactly. A person that inspired me throughout my life, who sort of comes to me on almost a daily basis in my science. And that’s [00:08:00] my dad and my dad was a, is a very unique person because he’s a master storyteller and science is different than storytelling. But let me tell you what I mean by that. You know, my dad. What makes him such a good storyteller is he’s a master of reading the room. He can tell, you know, he’s constantly watching for, you know, the person whose eyes wander or look at their watch and reading when he has people’s attention and changing the story when he doesn’t. And if you actually go through life doing that, You learn how to communicate and talk in a way that holds people’s attention because you’re getting this constant data stream back. And weirdly that has translated into my science. I’m not a storyteller but you know, if I can’t interest other people in what I’m doing and they get bored describing, and then that feels boring to me and that feels unimportant. And so I’ve sort of spent my life. You know, going for those questions that really make, you know, make people’s maybe eyebrows raise a little bit [00:09:00] and get the reaction that I want. You know, because we’re doing something really important, really different and some something that immediately connects with people. And so I think I definitely have to credit my dad for teaching me how to. Identify important and interesting things in life. It’s kind of, it’s kind of interesting because a lot of scientists, if you think about like a zoom knob on a microscope, you know, scientists are so traditionally very finely focused on details the. Finest details of the protein that they study or the pathogen that they study, and they can stay there for decades working on the same protein. And you know, that, that is actually the way a lot of scientists brains work. But for me, you know, I’ve always felt more comfortable at a. Far like zoomed out magnification. I like to understand the rules about pathogens and infectious disease in general, and the evolutionary rules about how these things jump from animals to humans. And you know, are there rules to that process or is it truly random? And these kinds of questions. And [00:10:00] so the other thing that comes in handy with creativity is that if you think about things in an evolutionary context, you have. This rich reservoir of creative ideas. Nature has created, like, you know, for instance, I’m constantly curious why 40 different primate species in Africa are chronically infected with a virus, just like very similar to H I V, yet almost none of them get aids or get sick. That means that evolution has. Found solutions for how to live with this virus and not get aids and have immune collapse and immune decline. And so how can we look at some of those answers and try to, you know, bottle some of that so to speak, and bring it to humans to help. And so evolution is a rich place to look if you’re lacking, you know, creative ideas, you can look there and there’s always something interesting to pursue.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: You and at the Bio Frontiers Institute you’re in this kind of incubator of diverse [00:11:00] science. It’s not everybody is working on H I V. You know, you’re in an environment where there’s a lot of cross fertilization, but I am curious what. I, Colorado, or what is there, you probably could have gone to the Erin Diamond or any number of other hubs for h HIV research. How did you end up committing yourself to the experience in Colorado?

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Yeah, so the, so we’re at a very, we have a very interesting university here in Boulder, Colorado, and I’m at a very interesting institute, so most people don’t know this. We have five Nobel Laureates here in Boulder, Colorado. We have a really world class science because it’s such a beautiful place to live. One of our Nobel laureates is Dr. Tom Czech and he is a molecular biologist, biochemist who started the institute that I’m in Bio Frontiers. And you know, I think everybody in molecular biology is faced with this problem. The world is changing fast. Big data is everywhere. How does. , how does that Venn diagram between traditional biomedical [00:12:00] research and big data, what does that Venn diagram look like and how do we train the next generation of scientists at the intersection of those two circles? You know, and a lot of universities, everybody’s fascinated with that question and a lot of universities. Build these buildings where they just bring computer science professors and other professors and put ’em all in the same building together. But that’s not really how you do it, because everybody knows that your PhD training, your research training, 90% of what you learn is the result of what your professor does and what your research topic is and the tools that you employ. So, You know, I turned down some other offers at great places to come here because Tom’s vision was unique. He said to me, he said, you know, I’m not gonna do that. He’s like, I’m gonna build this giant building, start from scratch, and hire all new faculty who have only one quality. They were themselves trained at the intersection of disciplines. And the amazing thing that happens is [00:13:00] that, you know, the biggest problem with collaboration, Writ large is really vocabulary. And when you fill a building full of people that were trained in multilingual science, it’s really easy for them to pick up a third language and a fourth language. And so I think that’s like such a fascinating. Paradigm that he came up with. And so, you know, it’s so easy and fun to work with all of these people that were, you know, their brains were expanded early on to think about different aspects of science and joining them together. And so, it’s a great and unique environment. We have tons of synergy and I would say the experiment that Tom performed was a wild success.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: Now you’re teaching right? Undergraduates?

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: I teach one semester of undergrads. Undergraduates a year. Yes, I teach ’em emerging infectious disease. And let me tell you, my enrollment went way up in about 2020. So, nothing like a pandemic to increase undergraduate interest in that course.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: Yeah, I, you know, actually the same [00:14:00] thing happened after hiv aids. The enrollment in people interested in global health went up as well as, you know, the broader infectious disease framework. So I guess that’s, . I would never call it a silver lining, but at least it’s a positive impact. But tell us about the students of today. You know, they’re in college during a pandemic, which can’t be easy, we know that. But they’ve, they’re also a new generation and the long since H I V AIDS emerged, so,

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Yeah,

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: it’s very different cohort than I grew up with certain.

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: you know, they are, you know, to them, you know, they didn’t witness the emergence of HIV v aids and before Covid, they had really never witnessed the emergence of any pandemic. So H I V to them was like the whooping cough, right? It just must have been around forever and you know, . And so I think it’s important that they see Covid O V and I think they, that is reinvigorated. you know, conversation about that. You know, new viruses do appear and we have to have a [00:15:00] plan about what to do with those. And so they’ve all lived that. Now, you know, the students these days, they’re, I mean, I love teaching undergrads. I get so much out of it. But the, you know, I think that the, an, the old adage that every generation is unique. I was alive and well for sure, and these students are, at least in my experience, fixated on things that. Surprised me. You know, a lot of them when you, I remember, you know when I was young and when many of us were young, we sort of had the feeling of invincibility, right? And not worrying about risks and stuff. But these students are. , many of them are very negative about the future. And in particular like climate change, it really fixates really captures their attention. And I’ll have undergraduates say things like, well, I’m not worried about cancer or any risk like that because I doubt I’ll live that long with. To the climate in the terrible shape that’s in that it’s in and very like, you know, nihilistic outlook on life. And really I think they feel like they’re inheriting a pretty [00:16:00] enormous problem from the generation before them. And they dunno how to fix it and they feel hopeless about it. And. You know, we’ve all, every generation has faced problems but maybe one factor here is that they don’t yet see a lot of progress being made. And so they don’t feel the motivation to pitch in and try to make change. Clearly, some of them do and that’s wonderful, and maybe those will be the change makers that then draft other people into the cause. But that was a real surprise for me to see how how. Hopeless. Some of them feel, and of all the issues out there, in my experience, it’s really climate change that tends to degrade their hope for the future the most.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: how do you counsel them or what you know? What do you try to change? Perspective, what do you say?

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: I think, yeah, I mean, you know, our news cycle is somewhat consumed with our federal government and you know, in this particular topic, our federal government, at [00:17:00] least, you know, as far as the news has. Reported hasn’t made a lot of changes that are gonna help us conquer climate change. But when you dig deeper and, you know, get away from the New York Times front page, things are happening at like smaller and more local levels. You know, like the state of California’s passing legislation that, you know, in a very near future, they won’t let combustion. Engine cars be sold anymore. These need to be green cars. And like California is such a huge state that moves the needle. You know, now manufacturers, if they wanna sell cars in California, they better make green options. And so I think, you know, climate change like every other big problem we’ve faced, Julie, it’s gonna die by a death by a thousand cuts. It’s gonna. A million actions, none of which is gonna solve the problem on its own, but collectively and together, you know, maybe we can move the needle on this. And so I try to point out examples where things are changing and that, you know, not everything has to be solved by the federal government. People do have [00:18:00] power and states have power and, and other countries are doing. Two. And that collectively we can move that needle and change that. You know, the, this generation is li going to live through peak population on the planet and you know, we all know that the population’s gonna turn over around 2030, but that right now the population of the globe is still growing And you know, with population comes greenhouse gases and you. This is kind of gonna be the worst time for our planet as far as just population pressure on these resources. And so, , you know, it’s hard to counsel them too much, but we can try to focus on the positive things people are doing.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: I hope, do you have kids in young people working in your lab?

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Yeah, I do. And you know, I, you know, You’re an md a lot of ’em, you know, are struggling between like going the MD track or going the PhD track. And you know, I think many great things about being a, you know, being a clinical doctor and taking par care of people. But one of the things that’s really amazing about a [00:19:00] research career is that, you know, you go to school with. And you’re in classes with other people that are interested in science like you are. You go to graduate school with people that wanna get a PhD in research. And then unlike, you know, doctors, after you graduate from medical school, you go and treat patients, which you know, is the general public and super important and you know, an important thing to do, but researchers, we just continue working together our whole career, and so you have this amazing, like social life, I think, as a researcher because you’re surrounded by like-minded people that have been through this same selective SIV as you and. Not only are you similar in your aspirations and your interests, but you also are given this really important problem to dig in together on and to try to solve. And so you have this instant glue that you can talk about. You know, I could be trapped in an elevator for seven straight days with. , you know, somebody in my building, and I’m sure we would find things to talk about for the entire seven days because that’s the way nerdy [00:20:00] scientists work, you know? But you have, people tend to think of scientists as being anti-social. But I would say that actually research scientists are hugely social because we have so much material to connect over in so many shared and common interests. And because science is important and substantial, and the problems we’re working on are important and substantial.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: What I’d really love to know is when you look at your work so far, what do you think your most important contribution has been?

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Oh man, Julie. Okay. That’s a great question. Very yes. Well, you know, I, you know, maybe. Counter to my, you know, great cheerleading of research scientists of a few science a few minutes ago. You know, the reality of science is that, you know, you rarely, science happens in small incremental steps, right? And you rarely experience the touchdown, but you do gain some [00:21:00] yards, you know, and you do get to do that a few times and. Playing with other people who are gaining yards and, you know, stuff like that. And so, you know, it’s really hard for me to like point to one paper or warm project. I feel so proud that we’re making yards on so many fronts at the same time. If I’m actually honest in answering your question, I would say that, . The thing the scientific achievement that I’m most proud of are my trainees and the things that I’ve created. Because when you train these scientists in your lab, you know, you have them for five to seven years and you get to take, these are, you know, some of the most talented people in the world, and you get to convince them that your problem is so interesting that they should also work on it. You know, and then you have this like Mann. Effect on the world after you’ve done that. And so I have, you know, people that are now MDs and MD PhDs who trained under me, who carry my interests with them and continue to think and, you know, they enrich my lives as well by my life as well, by reaching back and continuing [00:22:00] to interact with me. I have a company I’ve co-founded, which is, you know, one of my former trainees. C e o of this company, and he’s growing it like crazy. Darwin Biosciences, and they’re, you know, they’re sort of trying, you know, we all learned during Covid that, you know, people do want the ability to get data about their own infection status. And like, you know, why? Why is that? just for covid. Aren’t there other things that people would like to know their own infection status on? And how do we empower people? How do we distribute that knowledge? And that’s just the way the world’s going, right? So Darwin’s doing exciting things in that domain. And so I feel like as I’m going through my career, I’m laying all these eggs, you know, these people and these companies. And like now I get to like watch them be this force multiplier. The things I care about. And that is just like these, absolutely. The most satisfying and the piece I’m most proud of in my career to date is just how that’s happened.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: I [00:23:00] love that and I think it’s a wonderful way to end this conversation, Sara, but you know, you are clearly a forest multiplier,

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: thank.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: in so many different directions, but I’m telling you, if I ever had. A family member or a friend who was debating the merits of being in science, I would ask them to talk to you because you just really create such a vivid and exciting picture of the reason for science, that kind of purpose that underlies it, but also the hope that it can bring to solving really important problems. So, Sara, thank you so much. Good luck with

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Thank you Julie.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: your ongoing research and I’m sure there’s a lot more to come. So thank you.

Sara Sawyer, M.D.: Yeah, thank you Julie. Thank you for being a role model to me.

Julie Gerberding, M.D.: Thank you.

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