Associate Professor of Nanobioscience I Am A Chemical Engineer Pretending To Be A Cell and Molecular Biologist Who Dabbles in Nanotechnology

Susan Sharfstein
Associate Professor of
Nanobioscience
I am a Chemical Engineer pretending
to be a cell and molecular biologist
who dabbles in nanotechnology
WWW.SUNYIT.EDU  WWW.SUNYCNSE.COM
WHEN LIFE AND WORK
DATING
COINCIDE
101
Useful advice on life and career I
have given and received
Illegal Interview Questions
 It is against the law to inquire about

 Race
 Religion
 Sex
 Age
 Marital Status
 Whether you have or plan to have children
 Criminal record (except where specifically
relevant)
 Military service
 Disability
Science and Marriage
Always make sure you

 Approximately 70% of female physicists are
married to other scientists

cite people’s work
80% of female mathematicians are married to
other mathematicians
 appropriately
More than sixty percent of women with PhDs in
science have husbands with PhDs in science
when you give a talk
“Love in the lab: Women scientists and engineers married to or partnered
with other scientists and engineers”-Brianna Blaser, Department of Women
Studies, University of Washington http://
www.cspo.org/igscdocs/Brianna%20Blaser.pdf
Two things I am very proud of
SHIANG JJ, RISBUD SH, ALIVISATOS AP “RESONANCE RAMAN STUDIES OF THE
GROUND AND LOWEST ELECTRONIC EXCITED-STATE IN CDS NANOCRYSTALS”
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL PHYSICS 1993
Undergraduate studies
 BS in Chemical Engineering from Caltech
 Try a lot of different things as an undergraduate
so you can see what you do and don’t like-don’t
beWhen
afraid toyou
take go to a school
advantage with 5you or
of connections
times
your as friends,
parents, many etc.menmayashave
women,

there is a reasonable
Computational modeling of power chance that
plant emissions
(blech!)
 you will
Summer meetatyour
research Stanfordfuture spouse
University studying E.
coli grown in hollow fiber bioreactors (biology is a lot
more interesting than I thought)
 Summer research at IBM Almaden studying magnetic
contamination of disk drives (I need to go to graduate
school)
Frances Arnold
 Joined the faculty at Caltech in 1986

 Protein engineering, directed evolution,
biocatalysis, biological circuit design, bioenergy
Never
University let other
ENI Prizepeople
in Renewable define you Energy (2013);
National Inventors Hall of Fame (2014); Doctorate honoris causa, Stockholm

(2013); and Nonconventional
Don’t spend your

Academy life
of Arts proving
and Sciences (2011);yourself to
National Medal of Technology and Innovation (2011); Charles Stark Draper Prize
(2011); American Fellow, American
others
Association for the Advancement of Science (2010); Fellow, American Academy of
Microbiology (2009); Steenbock Lectures, U. Wisconsin (2008);National Academy
of Sciences (2008); Linnaeus Lecturer, Uppsala University (2008);Cruickshank
Lecturer, Gordon Research Conferences (2008);Enzyme Engineering Award
(2007); FASEB Excellence in Science Award (2007); Lewis Lectures,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2006); Walker Lectures, Pennsylvania
State University (2006); Kelly Lectures, Purdue University (2006); Food,
Pharmaceuticals, and Bioengineering Division Award, AIChE (2005); Francis P.
Garvan-John M. Olin Medal, ACS (2005); Institute of Medicine of the National
Academies (2004); Rosalind Franklin Lecturer, Cambridge University (2004);
Carothers Award of the ACS Delaware Division (2003); David Perlman Lecture
Award, ACS, Biochemical Technology (2003); Lindsay Distinguished Lecturer,
Texas A&M, Chemical Engineering (2003); Merck-Frosst Lecturer, Biochemistry,
University of Alberta (2003); Sir Robert Price Lecturer, CSIRO, Melbourne (2003);
Fellow, AIMBE (2001); National Academy of Engineering (2000); Professional
Progress Award of the AIChE (2000).
Choosing a graduate school
 Cornell
Having a good relationship with
 Great faculty, collegial environment
your
 Cold,thesis
bleak, faradvisor makes a
away from California
dramatic
 MIT difference
 Boston is great city
in your graduate
experience
 All the grad students were miserable (been there, done that); I
Makedid notsure youwithmeet

get to meet theI asked
the faculty other for
 Stanford
graduate
 Had workedstudents because you will
there during summer
learn asseem
 Did not much to treator
gradmore
studentsfrom them
as well as other places;
Channing Robertson did not return my calls in a timely manner
asUCyou

will
Berkeley
from the faculty
 Opportunity to work for Doug Clark (young, exciting research
group), easy plane or drive to/from Caltech
 Finding housing in Berkeley is WWW.SUNYCNSE.COM
WWW.SUNYIT.EDU nightmare
Linda Griffith
 Received her Ph.D. from Berkeley in
1988 (1 paper)
 Postdoc with Bob Langer and Joe
Vicanti (13 papers)
 Joined the faculty at MIT in 1991
 MacArthur Fellowship in 2006
 One “bad” professional experience will
not ruin your career
Going to graduate school
 Dissertation title “Metabolic Studies of

Mammalian Cells Grown in Culture”
 Choose your thesis research topic carefully-it
may affect the rest of your career
 It never hurts to have your own money
 Berkeley graduate fellowship
 National Science Foundation graduate fellowship
Antibody (immunoglobulin)
Structure
Monoclonal Antibody Production
Monoclonal Antibodies
 Produced in hybridoma cells

 Used for a variety of diagnostic, therapeutic, and
research applications
 Pregnancy and disease tests
 Diagnostic imaging
 Anti-cancer treatments
 Laboratory reagents
 New applications  Increase in demand 
Interest in improved productivity
A Cell is a Miniature Chemical
Reactor
product
(protein)
feed stocks
(sugars, amino
acids, oxygen)
Sharfstein, et al. Biotech. Bioeng. 43:1059-1074 (1994)
Goal: Understand the

relationship between antibody
production and metabolism
Observation: Decreasing the
feed glutamine increases
antibody production
Explanation: Mechanism
unclear
Several years ago, at a talk at AICHE that I unfortunately missed, a

well respected senior scientist in the field referred to this as seminal
work in metabolic engineering
Finishing Graduate School
 Money got tight
 Became most senior graduate student by a lot
 Mentoring younger students is wonderful, but time
consuming
 What to do while waiting for my husband to
graduate?
 Teaching
 Postdoctoral work
Postdoc with Jay Keasling
 Applied my experience with NMR

spectroscopy to studying polyphosphates
in bacteria
 Helped mentor Jay’s first four graduate
students
 Learned how to do molecular biology-
good experiment guidance
 Wrote and received an NIH postdoctoral
fellowship
 Renewed my enthusiasm for science
Things I learned from Jay
 Being a professor is a job that none of your

previous training prepares you do
 Professors have to manage a lot and
sometimes forget what you have discussed
 When you are negotiating for faculty positions,
get everything in writing
 Having a good first group of graduate students
is not critical for success (but it helps)
 How valuable it is to have a mentor who
introduces you to people
Looking for faculty positions
 Don’t take a job that’s the wrong job even if it is

the only one you have been offered
 Dealing with the two body problem-the wrong
way
 Sometimes it’s okay to take a step back
Postdoc #2-At UCLA
Postdoc #2-At UCLA
 Harvey Herschman on his

70th birthday
 If I am going to do a 2nd
postdoc, I want to learn cell
and molecular biology from
people who do it for a living
 Having your own money
always helps
Things I learned in Harvey’s lab
 How to read the literature critically

 How to work with biologists, M.D.s
 How to speak their language
 How they approach problems
Monitoring gene expression using positron
emission tomography
Looking for a job-Take 2
 Never turn down a job you haven’t been
offered. (Harvey Herschman)
 Put my CV in a resume book for women and
underrepresented minorities
 Got a letter from the Department of
Bioengineering at University of Toledo (Ohio,
not Spain)
 Opportunity to be part of a new, exciting
program
Starting a research program
 Bring my knowledge of molecular biology to
bioprocessing problems-do fundamental
studies on industrially relevant cell lines
 Develop course in biochemical engineering
and bioprocessing (lab course)
 Get funding
Possible Regulatory Steps for Alteration of Antibody Production
mRNA
Transcription
DNA
Translation
mRNA
Degradation,
assembly and
secretion
Never turn down a job you
haven’t been offered-take 2
 My husband is doing a postdoc at Univ. of

Michigan
 Puts his CV in a resume book
 GE lighting in Cleveland invites him for an
interview
 Interviews and receives a job offer from GE in
Niskayuna
Back at University of Toledo
 Our dean becomes president

 Our chair to
I need becomes
find a dean
new job
 I become pregnant (deliberately)
 While I like my job-there is more teaching and
service than I had hoped
 I have a conversation with our chair/dean
where I say “My goal is not to get tenure at the
University of Toledo; it is to have a CV good
enough to get tenure anywhere”
More career advice from Harvey
Herschman
 Don’t be afraid to apply for targeted programs

 I apply for a Career grant
 I apply for a POWRE grant
 Special grants for women to do something that would
not be supported by traditional grant at a critical time
in your life or career (like having a baby or relocating
for your spouse’s career)
 I give a seminar at RPI (the chair is a friend of
my thesis advisor) -they don’t offer me a job, but
there is some interest
 We decide to move to NY anyway with the hope
that something will work out
 I have a baby
 My POWRE grant and my Career grant get
funded
 I spend a year in Rob Trimble’s lab at the NY
State Department of Health (Wadsworth)
Looking for a job-take 3
 More advice from Harvey Herschman: When

you are looking to solve a two-body problem
be up front-put it in your cover letter that you
are a dual career couple
 Money always helps-I get job offers from Univ.
of Rochester, Univ. of Nebraska, RPI
 The best way to increase your salary
(particularly in academia is to move or
threaten to move)
I join the faculty at RPI
 The CEO at Biogen is a member of the board

of trustees
 Through this contact, I visit Biogen and
develop a collaboration that results in my
getting industrial cell lines in my lab
Developing professional friends
and mentors
 Steve Cramer
 Life is too short to work all the time
 At the end of the day, the students you
mentor are your greatest accomplishment
 Bob Linhardt
 Doing collaborative research and
developing junior faculty is a hallmark of
success
Payel Datta “Whatever happens
is for the best”
 In 2008, I was turned down for tenure by the

Provost at RPI
 In 2009, Scott Tenenbaum gave a seminar to
our NIH training grant fellows
 In 2010, I joined the faculty at CNSE
 In 2013, I was tenured in the SUNY system
What I have gained
 New wonderful colleagues (more women)

 A lower cost of doing research
 An opportunity to move my research into new
areas
 I get to keep my colleagues and mentors at
RPI
 I don’t have to move my family; my husband
does not have to find a new job
New scientific opportunities
Learned aboutIllustration by Isabel Tian

microfabrication
Now work on the trabecular meshwork and Schlemm’s
canal looking for new treatments for glaucoma
Now for something completely different
Energetic materials analysis for reactants and

byproducts from semiconductor processing
Pay it forward

Associate Professor of Nanobioscience I Am A Chemical Engineer Pretending To Be A Cell and Molecular Biologist Who Dabbles in Nanotechnology

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Associate Professor of Nanobioscience I Am A Chemical Engineer Pretending To Be A Cell and Molecular Biologist Who Dabbles in Nanotechnology

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Susan Sharfstein

 It is against the law to inquire about

Always make sure you

 Joined the faculty at Caltech in 1986

(2013); and Nonconventional

Don’t spend your

Makedid notsure youwithmeet

 Dissertation title “Metabolic Studies of

 Produced in hybridoma cells

Goal: Understand the

Several years ago, at a talk at AICHE that I unfortunately missed, a

 Applied my experience with NMR

 Being a professor is a job that none of your

 Don’t take a job that’s the wrong job even if it is

 Harvey Herschman on his

 How to read the literature critically

 My husband is doing a postdoc at Univ. of

 Our dean becomes president

 Don’t be afraid to apply for targeted programs

 More advice from Harvey Herschman: When

 The CEO at Biogen is a member of the board

 In 2008, I was turned down for tenure by the

 New wonderful colleagues (more women)

Learned aboutIllustration by Isabel Tian

Energetic materials analysis for reactants and

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