This Month's Featured Essay

January Featured Essay by Sarah Holton

 

           I am one of the fortunate few who can say they love their job. It’s true – I have my dream career and it started with my time at U of I. I work as a physician-scientist (-engineer-immunologist-pulmonologist), combining my loves of caring for patients and studying tissue remodeling/wound healing. However, when I started in the Department of Bioengineering the summer after graduating college (2008), I didn't know what to expect. Looking back on it now, I had only a vague idea of what I wanted to do -- I knew that I wanted to become a scientist who used both engineering and medicine to solve problems of human disease. Now I realize that my time spent at the University of Illinois was critical for beginning and developing my career into what it is today.

            I was given so many opportunities to explore within the College of Engineering and across campus. I was supported by my thesis advisor, Dr. Rohit Bhargava, in pursuing the research questions that kept me up at night. Not only did I learn key laboratory techniques, how to present research, and how to write for peer-reviewed journals, but Dr. Bhargava encouraged me to utilize all of the incredible resources available to me at Illinois. I presented at conferences large and small, local and international (including an exciting experience at the Karolinska in Stockholm), which honed my speaking skills. I applied for grants and fellowships and travel awards, some of which were even successful! I collaborated with engineers, biologists, veterinarians, bioinformaticians, and library scientists (the latter brought in some incredibly old books for analysis, which was thrilling to my inner bookworm). I started an international collaboration that continued after I left the institution. I was so much more prepared for a career in academics than my peers because of these experiences and the candid conversations I had with Dr. Bhargava about what drives the gears of a university.

            I will always fondly remember participating in the Engineering Open House and Beckman Open House which taught me that one of the most exciting things about science is sharing it with other people. This led me to start an initiative that led to a multi-day conference that brought patients living with cancer to Beckman to learn about the excellent cancer research being done on campus. My experience in the Dept of Bioengineering showed me how important it was to form a community – of peers, colleagues, people with shared research and life interests. Although it has been eight years since I left Illinois, I still think of it as a home. The mentors, colleagues, and friends that I made during my time there are so important to me.

           When I read about what's going on at the University of Illinois and seeing the successes of my colleagues, I feel so proud to be a part of Bioengineering at Illinois. Although the collaboration between Carle Hospital and the College of Engineering occurred after I had left, I am so excited to see brilliant engineers become leaders in medicine and contribute to training the next generation of physician-engineers. Engineering provides an incredible skill set for thinking about not only developing new technologies, but also thinking about and caring for patients. In addition, what is physiology if not engineering first principles?

            I still use the skills that I developed during my graduate training in my current research including tissue engineering, image analysis, and high dimensional data processing. I’m currently a junior faculty member in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. I’m particularly interested in the immune mechanisms that lead to the development of pulmonary fibrosis. I use high dimensional flow cytometry methods and both single cell sequencing and spatial transcriptomics to study immune cell populations in the lungs that contribute to tissue remodeling and fibrosis. I also care for patients with acute and chronic lung disease. I love my career. The road I have taken has been long, but the journey has been wonderful, and it started with Bioengineering at Illinois.