Doris Taylor
2018; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins; Volume: 123; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1161/circresaha.118.313456
ISSN1524-4571
Autores Tópico(s)Pluripotent Stem Cells Research
ResumoHomeCirculation ResearchVol. 123, No. 1Doris Taylor Free AccessResearch ArticlePDF/EPUBAboutView PDFView EPUBSections ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload citationsTrack citationsPermissions ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InMendeleyReddit Jump toFree AccessResearch ArticlePDF/EPUBDoris TaylorAll Heart Ruth Williams Ruth WilliamsRuth Williams Originally published22 Jun 2018https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.118.313456Circulation Research. 2018;123:18–20IntroductionThere's an undeniable warmth to Doris Taylor, Director of Regenerative Medicine Research and of the Center for Cell and Organ Biotechnology at the Texas Heart Institute and Texas A&M University in Houston. Professionally, she may be most famous for engineering the first bioartificial mammalian heart.1 But, on a personal level, her own heart is compassionate, generous, and not remotely artificial.Taylor went through great turmoil in early childhood, but rather than mentally closing herself off to pain and difficulty, she's endeavored throughout life to ease the pain and suffering of others. In a recent interview with Circulation Research, she explained that she does this in two ways. At a community-level, she's an ardent advocate for social justice, spending her spare time promoting local political organizations and spearheading worthy causes, while at the global-level, her scientific research adds to the body of medical knowledge that enables innovations, improves treatments, and saves lives.Download figureDownload PowerPointDoris TaylorHer research has certainly, and consistently, broken new ground. Her pioneering stem cell research, regenerative medicine strategies, and investigations of sex-specific physiological differences have driven new lines of enquiry in cardiovascular disease research and have also challenged established attitudes toward how such diseases might be treated.2–6Tell Me About Your ChildhoodI was born in San Francisco and I had a twin brother. We were born very prematurely and, in those days, premature twins didn't live, so neither of us were supposed to survive. My mother told us that the doctor came in and told her, if she was religious and believed in doing something for the end of life, she should do it for us. So, she called the hospital chaplain and he came, but then, according to my mother, the minute he left the room, my brother and I rallied. It was as if we'd said, "oh heck no!" And that has been my approach to life ever since!My brother, as a result of being born prematurely, had some physical difficulties growing up. He had cerebral palsy, not to a severe degree, but severe enough that he was the focus of a lot of teasing and bullying. From an early age, I got the message that my obligation was to stand up for those who couldn't stand up for themselves and I think I've done that throughout my life.When we were still small, we moved to Germany, where my dad, who was in the military, was stationed. My sister was born there, and we lived there until we were six, when my dad became sick with cancer. We immediately moved to the US, my mom and dad to Texas, and my brother, sister, and I stayed with an aunt and uncle in New Jersey while my mom stayed with my dad at the hospital.He passed away very shortly thereafter, and my mother was suddenly a single-mom raising three kids. She moved us to Mississippi because her sisters and my grandmother were there. So, we went from living in Europe and speaking German and experiencing the bigger world, to living in Mississippi. It was a big cultural change, but because my mom had seen the world—for instance, she met my dad while she was working in Japan—she was able to bring the world to us in Mississippi. She told us we could do, or be, anything we wanted.How Do You Think These Difficult Events Shaped You?I know when my dad died I was devastated. I didn't understand the concept of death. It was my first experience with death, and I didn't really get it. I thought, what do you mean he's still our dad but he's not our dad anymore?I remember thinking, I don't want anyone to ever have to go through this, and I think that, in part, drove my career toward medical science. I also think seeing my brother struggle was a motivation. I remember as a kid saying, I want everyone to have a fair shot at life and, at the time, I equated that with discovering something that would prevent anyone from having a birth defect—as if it were that simple.I've always had that drive where I want to make what I do relevant to the world and make a difference in the world.Aside From Your Dad and Brother, Were There Other People Who Influenced Your Career?Yes, three people in particular come to mind. My uncle (my mother's sister's husband), who was a father surrogate when I needed one, was a brilliant physician. I remember him loaning me a book about heart disease and, among other things, I learned what edema meant and thought I was so smart. I saw how he impacted peoples' lives, and I also thought he was really smart. I loved learning from him.Another person who influenced my career was a high school teacher of mine. Like a lot of kids, I was a bit lazy in school, but I had a science teacher who kept telling me, "you're smarter than this." She encouraged me to enter a science fair. I did so, and I won—first, for our district and then for the state of Mississippi. As a result, I was one of a small bunch of kids chosen to go to New York City to compete at a national level. When that happened, it made me realize that the world was much bigger than what I had known and that science was much bigger too. It really pushed me to a different level.The third person was a female professor I had in college. I had always thought that I would go to medical school and be like my uncle, but my professor suggested an alternative. She said, "Why don't you consider science?" I thought it sounded awful. But it turned out she knew more about me than I knew about myself. By the time I was in graduate school, I had already gotten some experience working in a lab and I really enjoyed it. It was a pharmacology lab, and I was reading words like sympathomimetic and thinking, how could you not want to know what that means?I still took the medical school courses for the first two years of graduate school, but I realized very quickly that I could not emotionally separate myself from the repercussions of a patient not doing well.So, even though I have always been in a clinical department and working in translational science, I have remained, for the most part, one step away from the patients.What Have Been the Best Moments of Your Career?I've probably had two high science moments. The first was when I was at Duke, around 1996 or 1997. We were transplanting cells into the hearts of rabbits to improve function after acute myocardial infarction. We had had some evidence of physiological improvement, but I remember the day that I cut open one of the hearts to do the histology, and I could see a big chunk of new muscle. I remember running down the hallway, showing everyone who would look at the slide.I got an expert in histology and electron microscopy at Duke, Dr Mary Reedy, to look and tell me whether it really was new muscle. She confirmed that it was, and I remember pumping my fists in the air and saying, "Yes!" It was the first moment I thought, wow, we're onto something.The second moment was in 2007, 10 years later, at the University of Minnesota. I was working on decellularizing and recellularizing rat hearts. We had put cells back into the decellularized structure and had been pacing the heart, but when we turned off the pacemaker and it continued beating, it was breathtaking. Again, I felt like we were on the right track.There have been other highlights, like standing in the operating room when one of the first patients in the world had stem cells administered to their heart. That was a privilege.Or the first time we were able to get a human heart for our decellularization research and I was holding it in my hands. I felt humbled by the gift.Another highlight was when the BBC brought a patient to my lab in Minnesota to talk about regenerative medicine. He was developing heart failure and was worried that his daughters might also develop the condition. He said to me, "You're not just building organs, you're building hope." That was a big deal. It was gratifying, but also reinforced the responsibility and the privilege of doing this work.And What Have Been the Biggest Challenges of Your Career?Science is bipolar. It works, it fails, it's up and down. And there have been moments when the science didn't work and didn't work and still didn't work and, just as I was ready to jump ship, something phenomenal happened. You really have to be ready to ride the roller coaster of science.I hesitate to talk about other difficult moments because in science if you speak up about certain difficulties, you can be perceived as a complainer, especially as a woman. That said, I think navigating the scientific path as a woman has been perhaps trickier than if I had been a man. For one thing, I think for women my age, we didn't have many female role models, and the ones we did have often assumed that they had to become more like the men to be successful, so they weren't especially positive role models. For another, like so many women in all walks of life, not just in science, I had an experience early in my career that can be summed up by saying #MeToo. Fortunately, none of this has stopped me from accomplishing good things in my career.Another low point was trying to get the heart recellularization paper published. It took us about a year and a half to do the work, but another two years to get it published. One of the reviews we got said it was not novel and not possible.They argued that we clearly hadn't removed all of the original cells if it could still beat. I said, if I can take a heart, keep it in soap for a week, and then get it to beat, then that's worth publishing anyway!But one of my toughest career challenges was actually something unrelated to my career. We had a family member die from essentially the flu. It was a terrible shock—he was young and healthy—and it really made me question why I do what I do. I thought to myself, why am I pushing for all these regenerative medicine strategies, why am I putting all of my energy into this, when we can't even treat the flu? Maybe it's all just worthless. It was a huge existential crisis for me because medicine and science had failed me at the time I needed them most. I really had to dig deep to find my motivation after that. And it took me many years to really get over that grief.How Did You Recover Your Motivation?One thing that helped was having two friends who had been through similar grief and seeing how they rebuilt themselves. I do think that sometimes seeing other people overcome difficulties can empower us to do things we didn't know we could do.What Advice Do You Have for Young Scientists?You have to know yourself, know what you love. After all, you will probably spend as much time, or more, in the lab as you do at home, so you better enjoy it.You also have to recognize that it won't be a straightforward path. Every question you answer will generate more questions and you have to be willing to try things that aren't always obvious. Don't assume you're going to have to know everything to take the next step forward because you're never going to know everything. You just have to do it. It's not always easy, and you don't always get the credit. In fact, if it's a good idea, others will want to claim it, and that can be a shock! So, figure out what motivates you and make more of that daily. Fortunately, most of us are working to change the world and not for the credit.Another piece of advice is to develop good relationships with your peer group because some of them at least will be with you throughout your career. Surround yourself with a group of people who will tell you the truth and who will give you feedback and support.Lastly, of course, trust your crazy ideas. If we always listened to the world that told us we couldn't do it, we wouldn't do it.How Important Is Hard Work?I think most of us in science work hard. I work a lot. If I work a 10 hour day, that's a good day. I also think about work a lot of the time that I'm not in the office. It's always with you.But at the same time, I think getting to do what we do every day is just awesome. We get to think about new ideas, to think about ways to bring those ideas and other information together, and we try to change the world for people whose lives are on the line.It's so cool to be in the position I'm in, leading a group of people who are using cutting edge techniques to attempt regeneration of human organs. I mean, I just started out as a kid from Mississippi.DisclosuresNone.References1. Ott HC, Matthiesen TS, Goh SK, Black LD, Kren SM, Netoff TI, Taylor DA. Perfusion-decellularized matrix: using nature's platform to engineer a bioartificial heart.Nat Med. 2008; 14:213–221. doi: 10.1038/nm1684.CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar2. Taylor DA, Atkins BZ, Hungspreugs P, Jones TR, Reedy MC, Hutcheson KA, Glower DD, Kraus WE. Regenerating functional myocardium: improved performance after skeletal myoblast transplantation.Nat Med. 1998; 4:929–933.CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar3. Hutcheson KA, Atkins BZ, Hueman MT, Hopkins MB, Glower DD, Taylor DA. Comparison of benefits on myocardial performance of cellular cardiomyoplasty with skeletal myoblasts and fibroblasts.Cell Transplant. 2000; 9:359–368.CrossrefMedlineGoogle Scholar4. Taylor DA, Chandler AM, Gobin AS, Sampaio LC. Maximizing cardiac repair: should we focus on the cells or on the matrix?Circ Res. 2017; 120:30–32. doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.116.309959.LinkGoogle Scholar5. Nelson WD, Zenovich AG, Ott HC, Stolen C, Caron GJ, Panoskaltsis-Mortari A, Barnes SA, Xin X, Taylor DA. Sex-dependent attenuation of plaque growth after treatment with bone marrow mononuclear cells.Circ Res. 2007; 101:1319–1327. doi: 10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.107.155564.LinkGoogle Scholar6. Maric-Bilkan C, Arnold AP, Taylor DA, Dwinell M, Howlett SE, Wenger N, Reckelhoff JF, Sandberg K, Churchill G, Levin E, Lundberg MS. Report of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Working Group on sex differences research in cardiovascular disease: scientific questions and challenges.Hypertension. 2016; 67:802–807. doi: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.115.06967.LinkGoogle Scholar Previous Back to top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails June 22, 2018Vol 123, Issue 1 Advertisement Article InformationMetrics © 2018 American Heart Association, Inc.https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.118.313456PMID: 29929971 Originally publishedJune 22, 2018 PDF download Advertisement
Referência(s)