Stem Cell Research & Academia: A Conversation with Dr. Jessica Esseltine
Dr. Jessica Esseltine
Assistant Professor of Cancer and Development PhD, Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University
Keeley Barnable (K): Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Word to the Wise Blog Post hosted by the Women in Science and Engineering Graduate Student Society. Today, I'm here with Dr. Jessica Esseltine in the Memorial University Faculty of Medicine. Thank you very much, Dr. Esseltine, for your time today. To get started, I would like to ask: how would you describe your role, position or field, and what exactly does it entail?
Dr. Jessica Esseltine (J): I'm an assistant professor here in the Faculty of Medicine. My main job is to run a research lab. I supervise graduate students, and I design their research projects, I help them navigate the ups and downs of scientific research and help them with experimental design. I also write a lot of grant applications to get funding to pay for it all. Another part of my role is, of course, teaching. I teach some in the medical school and some outside of the medical school. And finally, I have to do some service. I serve on various committees, both at MUN and nationally, to contribute to the field of science and research.
As for my research—I am a cell biologist, and I use human stem cells as my model system. Thanks to a Nobel Prize-winning technique, you can turn any type of cell into a pluripotent stem cell—skin or hair or saliva or even urine. Pluripotent stem cells can then become any cell in the body. So we can use these cells for modelling diseases. For example, we research heart disease in my lab. We can't get a piece of your heart, but we can very easily get a piece of your skin or blood, so we can then turn those skin cells into heart cells to try to figure out what's going on in your heart.
(K): That's very interesting, and it's always great to hear as well that you’re supporting grad students and to hear about everything else that comes with being a part of academia— not just teaching and doing the research lab— it's much more, and it’s all great stuff. Thank you very much. So when did you start becoming interested in your particular field?
(J): Well, both for a long time but also a pretty short time as well. I remember telling my mom when I was maybe in middle school that I wanted to be the Dean of science one day. So I think I was interested in science from a pretty young age. You know, you always change your mind when you're a kid, so I wanted to be a veterinarian for a while, etc., But I think from a pretty young age, I knew that I wanted to do something science-related. But when it comes to stem cells, I actually discovered those really late in my training. As I said, I'm a cell biologist. I trained in lots of different types of cells, cancer cells and neurons and primary cells, but I didn't actually discover stem cells until I was almost done with my training. It was during my second postdoctoral fellowship, and my supervisor said to me one day, “Hey, do you want to work with induced pluripotent stem cells?” I had no idea what those were, so I just said, “Sure, why not?” It turns out that stem cells are incredible! I kind of felt a little like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, where my research before was just fine. I was fairly good at it, and I was probably going to make a career out of it, but it was all kind of in shades of grey. And then I discovered stem cells, and suddenly my science became technicolour—I was so excited about it, I knew that from that moment on, that's what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
(K): That's really great! And some really interesting stem cell and genetics research, and especially all this stuff you've done with ARVC [Arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy], very cool stuff.
(J): I think my late change in research directions could be beneficial for your audience because I took a lot of twists and turns in my training, and I didn't discover stem cells until I was almost done with my training. But that's okay! I still was able to make a career out of it and be a successful researcher even though I haven't been studying it since undergrad. If you find something you love at any stage of your career and want to change directions, you should.
“If you find something you love at any stage of your career and want to change directions, you should”
(K): That's really great advice! Because I know many of us, even within our disciplines, are still trying to find our way, and navigate our way forward. So that's really great, I'm really glad it worked out for you, and you found that awesome work! What would you say has been your most influential success factor?
(J): I would say my resilience, adaptability and ability to fail. I would not say I'm especially a hard worker, I wouldn't say I'm especially intelligent, but what I can do is I can be wrong a lot, and I'm totally fine with that. I can fail my experiments, my hypothesis can be wrong, my grants and papers can get rejected and I continue on. Of course I don't love these things—nobody does! It is not easy to fail or be rejected. But my strength is that I'm able to fairly quickly shrug it off, regroup and move on. I've noticed that people that struggle to move on from rejection and failure really struggle with academia and science in general because science sometimes just doesn't work out. It doesn't matter how hard you work, how smart you are, how technically skilled you are, sometimes it just won't work and you can’t do anything about that. People who take these failures personally really have a hard time. So I think that's my biggest success. I was never a spectacular student, I was always pretty comfortable getting mediocre grades and I and I'm not a gifted musician or artist. I'm comfortable not being right or perfect all the time.
(K): I think that's great— I think there is a lot of pressure in academia to strive for perfection, but it's not really sustainable in the long run and like you said, science is not a field of constant success, and we're always re-evaluating. I mean that's the whole point, you test and you try it again if it doesn't work. I think one of the best talks that I've ever been to was a session called ‘Making Failure Your Friend’. And so, just kind of realizing that if something doesn't work out, you may have failed in something, but it doesn't make you a failure.
(J): Exactly! That's a huge distinction and one that especially a lot of highly achieving students struggle to make—that just because you fail doesn't make you a failure, exactly. I also tell my students that life's not perfect, and science also is not perfect—and that's okay! Just because it's not perfect doesn't mean it's not worth doing. We just have to do our best with the imperfect system that we have, with our imperfect tools and our imperfect ideas, and we strive forward and we make things better.
“Life's not perfect, and science also is not perfect—and that's okay! Just because it's not perfect doesn't mean it's not worth doing”
(K): We certainly do. And the next question may be tied in with this last answer, I'm not sure, but what was the biggest challenge you faced in your career? Maybe that has to do with the failure, maybe a double-edged sword there?
(J): I think the biggest challenge was the uncertainty. For a student or trainee, academia as a career has a very uncertain future. Ever since the beginning of grad school I would hear unhappy postdocs working so hard and not getting jobs. This persisted through my PhD and into my postdoc, and several times I even considered dropping out of academia. It's tough, it's really hard to hear the statistics—I don't know what they are right now, but they are still depressingly low. That was, I think, the hardest thing, just to keep going and not drop out.
(K): Yeah, kind of looking at it head on—as the saying goes— if you look at the forest you may never make it through, but if you take it one tree at a time, you can get through the path, right?
(J): Wow, that’s very inspiring, thank you! I'm going to tell my students that.
(K): Yeah I know! My mom always told me that.
(J): I've never heard that expression, but I love it!
(K): Yeah, just one step, one tree at a time and you’ll make your way. What advice would you give to other young women hoping to pursue a path similar to yours?
(J): Well, I think a lot of what we talked about already. I don't think that people need to kill themselves to be successful, I never did. In grad school, I worked 9:00 to 5:00, I still work 9:00 to 5:00. In the past, I often worked weekends, but I have stopped working weekends now that I have a child. I don’t even check my e-mail on the weekends anymore. You don't have to work like crazy. It is just a job, it shouldn't consume your life. So I guess find balance in your work, be creative and adaptable. If you're running up against a wall, like your experiment’s not working, or hypothesis is wrong or whatever, be adaptable and change directions. Don’t think of it as failure, or as we talked about, accept the failure. But also, just believe in yourself. That's another strength that I have; I have this uncanny self-confidence. I know that I'm not super gifted in anything, but it doesn't matter. I know that I'm good enough and I just do it, and I always believe that I eventually succeed and usually I do. I don't know why I have it, I think I was just born with it. Or maybe it's the way I was raised because my sister also has this incredible sense of self-confidence.
“It is just a job, it shouldn't consume your life. Find balance in your work, be creative and adaptable”
(K): That’s great! I think that's a challenge a lot of people face in our society that is so centered on productivity. Being able to set up boundaries, like not working on the weekends, is really important, and it’s just great to remember that you're human and you're not meant to be perfect.
(J): Exactly. In terms of overworking yourself, I've always known that if I stayed until 10:00 -11:00 at night like some of my fellow lab mates were doing, I wasn't doing good work. I was brain dead, I was exhausted, so I wasn't being any more productive working those hours. It was actually better for me and for my research in the long run, if I went home at a reasonable hour, turned off my brain for the night and then went back recharged the next day. Unhappy people, stressed out people, don't do good science.
(K): I think that's great advice, thank you. And the last question I have here is: what part of your work do you enjoy the most?
(J): It's changed over the years. When I was a student I really loved positive data. I lived for when an experiment worked and it gave a result—it didn't always have to be the result that matched my hypothesis, but if I got results that something was different (K: that significant finding haha) Yes, that's what drove me. Now, I think it's different because I'm not in the lab now every single day, and I'm not the one generating the data. So now I get more satisfaction from seeing my students succeed and be happy, and helping them to succeed. That's what I enjoy the most.
(K): That's awesome, that's great mentorship and great leadership, thank you. (J: I hope so anyways haha). Is there anything else you'd like to share with our society members, like is there anything else you'd like to add about your research or in general?
(J): Scientific research is a great career, and I'm really happy and very grateful that I get to do this every day.
(K): Oh that's excellent! I'm really glad to hear. Thank you again, Dr. Esseltine, for your time and the opportunity to hear about all the interesting and inspiring work that you do. And all the contributions that you make to science, so thank you again!
(J): Thank you for having me!
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Visit her website: http://www.esseltinelab.com/
This interview was conducted and transcribed by Keeley Barnable, WISE GSS Director of Communication (2023). This blog post was prepared by Praveena Sree, WISE GSS Director at Large (2023).
