Fatu Badiane-Markey 0:03
What can you do with your love science we'll tell you?
Hello, everyone and welcome back to another episode of We Love Science the podcast to tell you all of the amazing things that you can do with your love of science. We are your hosts. My name is Fatu.
Shekerah Primus 0:43
And I'm Shekerah. And on today's show, we've got science and academia and a side of science comedy.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 0:51
Yes we do! So our special guest today is Dr. Caroline Bartman, a soon to be Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania in Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics; that's a mouthful. And, a science joke writer extraordinaire on the side as well. So Caroline, we are super excited to have you on the show today. Welcome. Welcome.
Caroline Bartman 1:17
Thank you so much for having me.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 1:21
We're really looking forward to hearing more about your work and your journey. But before we jump in, you know we always like to warm up by talking about one of our favorite topics, which is food. Today's topic is: What is the best thing you ate this week?
Shekerah Primus 1:39
Oh, boy, yeah, here. Okay. Okay, I can't remember what I ate this week. Okay, I can tell you what I ate this morning.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 1:49
You haven't been doing a lot of memorable eating Shekerah!
Shekerah Primus 2:04
We usually do like, favorite foods in general. So, okay, but that's fine. You switched it up. So what did I have this morning? I had cereal which is not very interesting. But it's one of my favorite cereals. It's called Raisin Bran. And I like it because it's more on the healthy side, of course. And I like that the raisins in it gives it a nice sweetness so I don't have to add any sugar to it. So that was my yummy, wonderful breakfast this morning.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 2:43
Actually that was a really wrong the answer. I'm sorry Shekerah.
I think Raisin Bran is like the worst cereal out there. So we're gonna go to Caroline who will give us a much better answer.
Caroline Bartman 3:01
Well, luckily, I was given the questions beforehand, so I prepared. Well, so actually, I was on vacation this week and I went to see my sister in New York City and she took me out for pizza. So that was my best meal of the week.
Shekerah Primus 3:16
What kind of pizza?
Caroline Bartman 3:18
Pepperoni, it was awesome.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 3:21
Okay, that's a good answer, right?
Caroline Bartman 3:24
Not healthy, like Raisin Bran
Shekerah Primus 3:27
Pizza is always awesome, but I'm not a pepperoni fan. I will admit. I'm more of a pineapple and ham girl. It's Hawaiian pizza! You've never had Hawaiian pizza?
Caroline Bartman 3:41
No. I've had it. I don't know if I would have it again.
Shekerah Primus 3:48
It's an acquired taste, I suppose.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 3:52
I have had it without the ham with pineapple on pizza. And I think that very good because it's like sweet and salty. So yeah, I think that was a good comeback Shekerah. So we'll give it to you.
Shekerah Primus 4:05
I do not need a come back, Miss lady. I'm sticking with Raisin Bran! All right!
Fatu Badiane-Markey 4:10
I will say for me, the best thing that I ate this week is, I had dinner with a friend and we caught up watching one of our favorite TV shows. And we ordered dinner and I had a very good burger. It was a smash burger. So it had cheese and like really good aioli sauce. It was good. It was good. Yeah. Alright. So let's jump in now. Caroline so as I mentioned you're a soon to be assistant professor at UPENN and you're currently a post doctoral research fellow in the Joshua Rabinowitz lab at Princeton University currently studying whole body metabolism in cancer
You received your Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and bachelors from the University of Chicago, so excellent. So let's get started. What is your field of study and what are the major questions your research addressess?
Caroline Bartman 5:18
Definitely. So I'm really interested in like the rates of metabolic reactions or metabolic fluxes in the body. So we were all forced to take biochemistry. And there's really a lot known about like, which reactions exist, right, like glycolysis, the Krebs cycle. But what we don't understand as well as a field is like how fast each of those pathways goes, how active they are in each of the different tissues or in cancer. So I focus on developing ways to measure those in the body.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 5:58
Can you share any discoveries you've made or maybe some of the most exciting discoveries.
Caroline Bartman 6:06
For sure, yeah. So we decided to focus kind of on like energy metabolism, so glycolysis and the Krebs cycle in cancer because I think for many years, there's been this idea that cancer has like really revved up metabolism. That since it's growing, it must be making and use like a lot of energy compared to the other organs in your body. But no one had really been able to measure this actually. So we developed a way to measure it. And we actually found surprisingly that a lot of solid tumors make and use energy more slowly than healthy tissues. So that was a big surprise. I think one thing that's going on is that your healthy tissues actually need a lot of energy to like do their healthy tissue thing. Like your kidney, you know, is filtering metabolites out of your blood; that takes a lot of energy. So that's something that we're investigating further. Hopefully, you know, eventually trying to contribute to a treatment for cancer but right now for just about understanding like: How much energy does cancer make? What nutrients does cancer use?
Fatu Badiane-Markey 7:23
So, just to clarify the Krebs cycle for our audience, can you explain that a little bit more?
Caroline Bartman 7:35
Definitely. So you may remember from biology class that your cells use a form of energy called ATP to like accomplish tasks. And so ATP can be made by two different pathways. There's glycolysis, which is basically just splitting a glucose or a sugar molecule in half. So that makes ATP. But the Krebs cycle is the pathway that makes the majority of ATP and that is basically like burning nutrients like fat or sugar and turning them into carbon dioxide. So that's the carbon dioxide that we breathe out. And as a byproduct that leads to ATP production that our cells can then use to carry out tasks.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 8:24
That brought me way back to like Bio 101. I love it.
Shekerah Primus 8:30
This is giving me flashbacks as well, but maybe not great flashbacks.
Learning all those pathways.
Different names for all of the different enzymes. Oh my God.
Caroline Bartman 8:42
I know it's horrible to memorize, but you know, very important for your body.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 8:52
Cleary yes! Clearly. Yeah. So you're currently wrapping up your post doc position at Princeton. So what exactly does a post doc do? And what have you enjoyed the most about your role?
Caroline Bartman 9:07
Definitely, um, so a postdoc is kind of like a graduate student; so a researcher that works under a lab head or chief scientist. And so a postdoc carries out an independent project with the goal of eventually publishing a paper that is some discovery in science. Yeah.
Shekerah Primus 9:35
That is a good answer. Caroline. I know some postdocs would be so against you comparing them to grad students and being like, I am not a grad student.
Caroline Bartman 9:48
But like the day to day tasks are similar. But we are so wise and so mature.
Shekerah Primus 9:59
Grad student 1000 Right.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 10:03
And what did you enjoy most about your role?
Caroline Bartman 10:08
I think being a postdoc is really fun. People love to tell you there are certainly downsides such as not the highest salary ever. But you get to do really interesting science if you find the right lab. And you also don't have to worry about things like writing grants a lot of the time and supervising people. These things are on my mind, right? Since I'm about to start my own lab and I'm like, Oh my God. I have to learn all these new things that I didn't know before. But as a postdoc, you know, you get to collaborate with people in your lab, like I had a really amazing undergrad. But you also have that help from your boss, right? Like if something goes wrong, you could be like, What do you think maybe I should do next. You have those people to draw on, a network around you even though you are doing an independent project. So I felt like it was a nice balance of independence but also you have some resources provided for you
Fatu Badiane-Markey 11:14
What do you find most challenging in your role, or something you might change?
Caroline Bartman 11:21
Yeah, definitely. I mean, there are a few different ones. One thing I find really frustrating with postdocs and graduate student roles is the reimbursement issue. So like when you have to go to conferences, often you have to put it on your personal credit card, and many departments—luckily, not the one I'm in right now—but many departments have you wait until the conference happens to get that money back. And that is like so horrible. You're like so poor for a number of months and especially if you're a graduate student making that even lower salary. And it's, it's like a work thing. It's like part of your career that your job expects of you. Right? So I think that's really unacceptable. And for my own students, I want to find a way for like lab funds to pay that so they don't have to take on that financial burden. And I hope ultimately to make, you know, like departmental policies, or like a departmental system so that people don't have to do that.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 12:27
That's a really good point. I definitely think that's yeah. That's definitely it is something that is really frustrating. You know. I also feel like we have technology, right? Like, we have things that we can use to make solutions so that this doesn't happen.
Caroline Bartman 12:48
It's like not rocket science. You just need like a company credit card or whatever.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 12:52
Yeah, or whatever. Exactly!
Exactly. Yeah. I think that's a really good start anything else that you can think of?
Caroline Bartman 13:04
Gosh, that was my main one.
Shekerah Primus 13:07
Sounds like you loved everything about being a postdoc. That's amazing.
Caroline Bartman 13:12
Well. They're. Being a grad student, or being a postdoc, there, I'm gonna compare them again. But being a scientist is hard, right? Like sometimes you have weeks or months when like things aren't working, or you're frustrated. Like, where am I going with this? I'm at a dead end. And those times are really hard for everyone. I'm like, everyone has that in their project. So that's horrible. I don't think there's a way to get rid of that issue, but I think, you know, some mentors do a better job in supporting people through those challenges. Both, like emotionally being like, this happens to everyone. Like you're not an idiot, like things fail sometimes. And then also, like intellectually, being like, maybe you should try like XYZ, like maybe you should switch projects, you know, like trying to find a solution out of those challenging periods.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 14:14
I think it's like with everything right, like sometimes it's being with the right people, right? More so than most anything else that can really impact that experience. What are some things you are looking forward to in setting up your own lab?
Caroline Bartman 14:40
Yeah, I'm super excited to like, hire people and have my own group. Like I personally have benefited so much from like amazing mentors, and amazing support. And exactly what you just said, like, you want to be working in a place where you're excited to go to work, you're like, inspired by your colleagues. Everyone feels like supported in that environment. And you like can't even if your science is like so interesting. You're not going to be happy going to work unless you enjoy your colleagues. Right. So trying to like build that sort of experience, which I was lucky to have in previous labs is like, it's gonna be a challenge. You know, like because you're starting from, you're trying to build a community from nothing. But it's something I'm really hopeful and excited for.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 15:38
I like that energy that you are bringing. What will be the focus of your research?
Caroline Bartman 15:51
Yeah. So I'm going to keep doing cancer metabolism and then also extended a little. So my, like tagline that's going to be that my lab is going to study cells with extreme metabolism. So like cancer and immune cells, because both have kind of like unusual metabolism compared to your normal adult tissues, which tend not to be dividing. They tend not to be like responding to insults the way your immune system does. So I'm hoping that since they both have kind of like weird metabolism, you could drug their metabolism to treat diseases like cancer or autoimmunity.
Shekerah Primus 16:31
What about muscle cells? Caroline, those must have extremely metabolisms too now; I imagine
Caroline Bartman 16:38
Yes, no, that's a great point. And you know, it's all in like, which aspect of metabolism is extreme. Because like exercise right is a huge change that happens for muscle like some metabolites go up like 50 fold, 100 fold when you run a marathon. Yeah, so it'd be really cool to do more studies of those type of pathways and muscle cells for sure. Although I, you know, would not want to kill your muscle cells. So it'd be a different kind of intervention that you'd be studying.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 17:12
Can you speak a little bit about your experience as a woman in science? And any advice you would give to other women who are interested in a similar career path?
Caroline Bartman 17:24
For sure, yes. This is a really important one, I think. I've been lucky to have, I think, a pretty smooth experience, you know. However, there have been situations where I feel like, men respect the opinions of my male colleagues more than me, you know. And what happens very often is that I'm in situations where I'm the only woman in the room, right? And that is like, you know, it doesn't make me uncomfortable. Everyone's supportive and polite, but like, you always feel that, right, when you're the only one. And I just like, in my own group, I would love to be able to, you know, support that environment where women don't even think about the fact that they're a woman. Like we're all just scientists together. We're all working as a team, and everyone feels like equally heard and supported. I mean, I think there are a lot of reasons. You know, like grad students and postdocs are pretty much like half half, maybe even more women than men, but you start to lose the women as you go along the career route. And there are a lot of reasons for that. I mean, there is some bias, but I think there are a lot of things like low salary at a time of like an age when people are trying to start families and have some stability. So I think, you know, as my career advances, trying to support like, child care funds for postdocs, like stuff like that, where, you know, you could give it to women and men, but the outcome may be that you end up supporting women to make it a little easier to stay in the career path.
Shekerah Primus 19:28
I guess I'm curious about the type of lab structure, maybe, that you're hoping to have. Like, are you expecting, are you hoping to have smaller lab with more teaching, or will you be one of those like big lab factories with lots of grad students and lots of cool stuff, so you're pumping out, data pumping out papers? Tell us what do you see for yourself?
Caroline Bartman 19:51
It's a great question. I mean, gonna start small for sure, because I'm hiring people one at a time. What can we do? I, like 10 years from now I think I dream of having a lab that's like 10 or 12 people, because I've benefited a lot in labs from having enough people there that like, you can collaborate within the lab and like you can go to the PI but you can also go to experienced people around, you know, like, every 10 minutes if something goes wrong, you know. And having that kind of knowledge base in the lab, I think is tricky when you have like a five person lab, let's say. On the other hand, when a lab gets like extremely big, then maybe you don't see the PI as much. Maybe some of the projects are like not receiving as much support or not progressing. So I'm hoping to strike a balance between those two extremes, I guess.
Shekerah Primus 20:54
Cool, sounds reasonable. Great, hope it works. out that way.
Caroline Bartman 21:00
We'll see.
Shekerah Primus
We will be following you Caroline. And it wish you so much much success.
Fatu Badiane-Markey 21:06
The early days in a lab are always so exciting. When I was in grad school, I was the first graduate student for my advisor. So I literally remember walking in a very few things out of packages and like unpacking the boxes. You know, so yeah, that's really exciting, you know? Yeah, so I think it's gonna be like such an amazing and memorable time and there's gonna be ups and downs. But like with anything, you know, you're starting off. So, I'm excited for you. For all of this. Yeah. This is really great. And if someone listening wants to learn more abour your research.
Or maybe they even happen to be, you know, in the Philly area, maybe want to join a lab. What's the best way for them to reach you.
Oh, my goodness. Yes, I would love that. Please join my lab. Or read my papers. When more than five people read a paper, like an academic is so happy. Let's see. Yeah, Twitter is a good way if you just search my name. And then I have a lab website if you Google the Bartman lab. So that has all my contact details on it as well.
Awesome. We'll put those in our show notes for our audience.
Now we are going to let Caroline teach us a little bit with a little q&a. So I will hand it over to you. And so you know, give us a couple of questions and let's see how Shekerah and I do.
Caroline Bartman 22:59
Definitely Well, I came up with one. So as I mentioned for my postdoc work, I developed ways to measure these pathways that make ATP and we focused on cancers, but we also measured a bunch of healthy tissues. So if you take all the healthy tissues in the body, and I'm going to give you some options, which one do you think makes and uses energy the fastest? Okay, is it the heart, the kidney or the skin?
Shekerah Primus 23:31
Interesting. I'd say the heart
Fatu Badiane-Markey 23:34
I feel like because to me the heart is the obvioius one, I'm going to go with the kidneys.
Caroline Bartman 23:43
Well, maybe I was too obvious because Shekerah's right, it is the heart
Why not?
Fatu Badiane-Markey 24:01
So I'm assuming it's because the heart is muscle tissue.
Caroline Bartman 24:06
The heart is a muscle that's constantly working. Diaphragm is similar because you're constantly breathing so it's always active. Yeah.
Shekerah Primus 24:15
Cool. Very instructive. Thank you, Caroline. Excellent. Caroline, Thanks again so much for chatting with us today. It was a pleasure hearing about your work and all about ATP and all that energy that our cells need and our bodies need. And I know that my Raisin Bran this morning really helped to give me a lot of energy
Sorry, I had to throw that in there. Okay, so we'd like to say thank you to our listeners for supporting the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe, like and share. To learn more about our guest's journey, be sure to listen to the next journey episode. And you can reach out to us by email at love science podcast@gmail.com. Please send any questions or comments about the show, or suggestions for guests and you'd like to hear the show. We'd love to hear from you. Until next time
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