Introduction from Director Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, PhD
Reflections on the importance of science communication and a message of gratitude to the BGS community

Welcome to the Spring 2021 issue of The Dish. Though we still must remain vigilant about social distancing and mask-wearing, I hope you have had the opportunity to safely enjoy the warmer weather and longer daylight hours. We have a wonderful issue for you, and I’m looking forward to telling you all about it.

First, though, I’d like to yet again extend my deepest and most sincere thanks to the entire Penn BGS community for their resilience, strength, and fortitude over the past year. I cannot begin to express how proud I am of our students, who needed to adapt and plan on the fly as they considered how to conduct their research at home or through coordinated scheduling in the lab. That they have succeeded so thoroughly is a testament to their tenacity and brilliance.

That said, though the efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccines has us seeing a light at the end of the tunnel, there are certain positive aspects of the past year that might stick with us past the pandemic. For example, our new asynchronous courses have become extremely popular, and students have also enjoyed the expansion of our elective courses. Further, the virtual recruitment process has been a surprising success: candidates still feel very connected throughout the process and have had opportunities to meet virtually with our faculty and current students.

We are excited to share that we have a record high matriculation this year with 154 students deciding to join us this coming year. Our incoming class will have the highest number and percentage of underrepresented students in the history of BGS with 46 matriculants being from groups underrepresented in STEM. We are also excited that 17 of our matriculants are International and they will add further to our diversity and culture. Our class has also followed a national trend in Biomedical Sciences of having an increasing percentage of female students with 66% in our incoming class. We appreciate each and every one of these soon-to-be members of our community and look forward to seeing the innovative and exciting scientific discoveries each of them will uncover during their careers in BGS. We feel very fortunate to have had such success in recruiting such an amazing class this year.

I’d like to draw your attention to “BGS Alumni Leading at the Scientific Edge,” an exclusive career panel we held in early April for BGS alumni and current students. We got to hear from three accomplished BGS graduates working in the private sector on some of the greatest challenges they’ve faced, what they wish they’d known when they pursued their current career paths, and what they think current students can do to give themselves the best opportunities possible. You can watch the event at this link.

Soon we’ll be celebrating our second-ever virtual graduation ceremony, and though it could never be quite the same as our in-person festivities I do think there are some small upsides. The one that leaps immediately to mind is the chat feature: a wonderful addition with which all of us can cheer on the graduates. I would love to see something like this incorporated into the livestreamed versions of the ceremony even after we return to the in-person format. A second benefit is the ability to have attendance beyond the capacity of our auditorium. We hope to continue to broadcast our graduation so it can be viewed by family and friends of the graduates, fellow students, and alumni, so hope you will check it out in the future. You can learn more about our 2021 graduates and view the virtual graduation ceremony at this link.

Now, back to The Dish. We have two fascinating Q&As for you in this issue: The first, featuring the legendary Leonard Hayflick, C’51, G’53, GR’56, is something of a two-parter. We were honored to host Dr. Hayflick for an hour-long chat with Dean J. Larry Jameson in early March, which you can watch here—but Dr. Hayflick was also kind enough to answer some of the audience-submitted questions he couldn’t get to during that event, and you can read those responses in this issue.

The second Q&A is with three exceptional BGS students: Jose Campos, GR’26, Alejandra Fausto, GR’26, and Jorge (Jay) Ortiz-Carpena, GR’26, co-directors of Penn Interdisciplinary Network for Scientists Promoting Inclusion, Retention, and Equity, or INSPIRE. Together, they’re leading a grassroots coalition to help empower and provide vital resources to URM students looking to thrive in STEM. They are an extraordinary group receiving a ton of support, and I encourage you to read what they have to say.

It is always such an honor to communicate with our incredible community, and I want to thank you for your commitment to Penn BGS. If you wish to give back and help bolster more experiences and brilliant young minds like the ones above, please consider making a gift. And as always, please feel free to reach out to me at jordank@upenn.edu to discuss the work and direction of BGS — or story ideas you’d like to see for future issues of The Dish.

Thank you again for everything, and please enjoy our Spring 2021 issue.

Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, PhD
Chair and Professor, Department of Pathology, University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine
Associate Dean for Graduate Education and Director, Biomedical Graduate Studies, Perelman School of Medicine

Q&A with Distinguished Graduate Award Honoree Leonard Hayflick, PhD

There is always a good time to recognize exceptional scholarship — pandemic or no — so in early March more than 100 friends and alumni of the Perelman School of Medicine got a treat as 2020 Distinguished Graduate Award winner Leonard Hayflick, C’51, G’53, GR’56, sat down for a fascinating and informative question-and-answer session. Joined by Dean J. Larry Jameson, MD, PhD, and Penn Biomedical Graduate Studies Director Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, PhD, the hour-long discussion with Dr. Hayflick has been posted in its entirety online, and you can view it here.

There were, however, a number of audience-submitted questions Dr. Hayflick did not have the opportunity to get to during the discussion. He has graciously given his time to answer some of those questions here in The Dish.

The Distinguished Graduate Award is the highest honor bestowed upon PSOM graduates, paying tribute to accomplished alumni for exemplary service to medicine and society at large. “There is hardly anyone I can think of more deserving of the Distinguished Graduate Award than Dr. Hayflick,” said Dean Jameson. “He rolls the careers of half a dozen scientists into one.”

Currently Professor of Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Hayflick is most well-known for his more than 50 years in the study of aging and his discovery of the Hayflick Limit, a foundational discovery in aging research which states a normal human fetal cell population can only replicate approximately 50 times before it is programmed to stop replicating. He also discovered that only cancer cells are immortal.

Some of his other accomplishments over his storied career include:

• Dr. Hayflick is credited with discovering that the cause of walking pneumonia (primary atypical pneumonia) is not, as was previously believed, a virus, but rather a member of the smallest free-living microorganisms, mycoplasmas. He named the organism Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

• He invented a modification of a crystallographer’s inverted microscope for cell culture use, which is the father of all present cell culture microscopes. It has been accessioned by the Smithsonian Institution.

• He developed the WI-38 normal human cell strain responsible for the manufacture of most of the world’s human virus vaccines that have benefitted billions.

The Dish would like to thank Dr. Hayflick for taking the time to answer the following questions.

What do you think will make the biggest difference in cancer mortality in the next five years?

The biggest difference in cancer mortality, and in the mortality of all the leading causes of death, could occur from a better understanding of the greatest risk factor for all of them. That risk factor is universally believed to be aging.

No difference will occur in the next five years — or the next 50 — because there is no organization in this country that promotes or supports research on the etiology of aging. The irony of this situation cannot be overemphasized. For additional information, please click this link.

Please comment on the state of the understanding of the aging process, and how we may intervene in the future with gene engineering or other therapeutic interventions to extend life or quality of life.

The state of understanding the aging process is as primitive today as it was 60 years ago when I entered this field. At that time, no more than 10 scientists in this country had the courage to admit working on aging for fear of committing professional suicide.

There is no intervention that will prolong life by interfering with the physics of the aging process. Aging is a catabolic process. 

The present emphasis by those who support research on aging is to fund research on age-associated diseases. They do not understand that the resolution of any one, or even all, of the leading causes of death will reveal any information on the underlying etiology of aging. Most work done today under the rubric of “aging research” is done on longevity determinants which, unlike aging, is manipulatable because it is an anabolic process.

It is possible to increase what the questioner calls the “quality of life” by the simple process of motivating politicians who presently oppose bettering the lives of those who need it.

Is the loss of contact inhibition in irradiated immortalized cell line cultures in petri dishes one of the main features that distinguishes transformed cells from immortalized cells?

No, it is not. There is a problem here with definitions of terms.

In my 60 years of working with cell cultures, transformed cells were always defined to be cells that had acquired the properties of cancer cells. By definition, these cells are immortal. So, it is illogical and redundant to refer to “the main features that distinguish transformed cells from immortalized cells.”

The main features that distinguish normal cells from cancer cells are that in cancer cells:

1. They express telomerase and the consequent acquisition of the property of immortality.

2. They acquire the property of aneuploidy.

3. They reveal the capacity to replicate in immunologically compromised animals.

Do you think that the immortality of cancer cells can be understood and harnessed such that therapies could be devised to render humans immortal?

Absolutely not. For example, the expression of the enzyme telomerase immortalizes normal cells in the sense that they can replicate indefinitely, but they also exhibit the properties of cancer cells. It is also critical to understand that constant molecular turnover in any cell lineage eventually overcomes the concept of sameness after about 50 population doublings.

Do you think the different stimuli known to induce cellular senescence (e.g., oncogenes vs. telomere erosion) initiate the same senescence program, or are these different stimuli inducing different senescence programs?

My discovery of cellular senescence has been proven to result from telomere erosion. This causes the cessation of replication. These cells are physiologically active for months.

I do not know of any evidence for an alternate program, despite the putative unproven assertion that oncogenes or anything else initiates cell senescence.

Did Ponce de Leon have it right? A “fountain of youth” filled with telomerase?

Ponce de Leon got nothing right. He thought the fountain of youth was on what is now called Bimini Island, but it was in fact earlier alleged to be in Northern Florida.

Since recorded history, and to this day, magical waters have been falsely thought to have curative properties. Telomerase expression is the most common property of cancer cells, so a fountain of telomerase should be avoided at all costs.

Penn INSPIRE: A New Coalition for Representation in STEM

The fight for representation across STEM has a powerful new grassroots ally: the Penn Interdisciplinary Network for Scientists Promoting Inclusion, Retention, and Equity (Penn INSPIRE). A BGS trainee-led group founded in 2020, INSPIRE was built from the ground up to connect with the Penn community through outreach, fundraising intrapreneurship, and media engagement.

The INSPIRE co-directors (all second-year students) are:

• Jose Campos, GR’26, an immunology PhD student in the lab of Sarah Henrickson, MD, PhD, focusing on T-cell dysregulation in inborn errors of immunity/primary immune regulatory disorders.

• Alejandra Fausto, GR’26, a PhD student in the CAMB-MVP program in the lab of Susan Weiss, PhD, where she’s investigating human coronaviruses and their interactions with innate immunity.

• Jorge (Jay) Ortiz-Carpena, GR’26, an immunology PhD candidate studying sinonasal neuroimmune circuits in type 2 allergic disease in the lab of De’Broski Herbert, PhD. Jay is the founder of INSPIRE and is also Co-Director of the Immunology Graduate Student Association.

INSPIRE has hit the ground running — and the response, according to the three, has been tremendous. The Dish was fortunate to sit down with INSPIRE’s co-directors for a Q&A session.

The mission statement of INSPIRE is right there in the name (and kudos on that acronym), but what was it that inspired you to found this group?

Jay: I think a lot of us began our training in STEM with an idealized vision of finding success in academia if we worked hard and persisted. While that is true for some and much progress has been achieved, there are systemic barriers that impede the advancement of many underrepresented minorities (URM) in STEM. I’ve had a longstanding interest in working to remove some of these barriers.  When I came to Penn, I was motivated to empower and create a platform for the exceptional community of URM scientists here.

I founded INSPIRE because I saw the potential in establishing partnerships between Penn faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students to create actionable solutions to the so-called “leaky pipeline” for URM in STEM. The product of one such partnership is a recent forum in Cell Host & Microbe. Here, we further describe our motivations to establish INSPIRE and make recommendations to recruit and retain URMs as faculty in STEM.

Alejandra: During my undergrad, I was part of two research programs that are aimed at increasing the number and capabilities of underrepresented scientists in basic biomedical research. Without these programs, I would not have been able to explore my passion for biomedical research and embark on my PhD journey. It provided me with diverse research experiences and made me keenly aware of the inequalities for students of low-income and underrepresented backgrounds. As I pursue my career in research, I want to be able to help “bridge the gap.”

This past year-and-a-half for me has really highlighted the need for the science community to come together and discuss the work that remains to be done to promote justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion for URM in STEM. I acknowledge that there has been a significant amount of work already done by faculty and students, but still there is a lack of concerted efforts. With Penn INSPIRE, I hope we can create a safe and collaborative environment where the science community can work on these issues — so that in the future there won’t be a need for programs like ours.

Jose: I am the product of groups and programs whose purpose was to increase the number of URMs in STEM. However, the biggest Achilles heel of these approaches has been that the needs of URM students and the systemic barriers that prevent upward mobility and progress of URM individuals have not been addressed. Simply put, there is a difference between increasing the number of URM individuals pursuing STEM degrees or careers and actively supporting them and equipping them with the tools to be successful.

When Jay approached me about INSPIRE, I saw it as an opportunity to take things one step further: I saw it as an opportunity to actively work with a talented and motivated group of individuals to identify and dismantle the systemic barriers that push URM individuals out of STEM.

Do you think there’s added weight and value to student- led efforts on that front?

Jay: Absolutely. Any effort to increase representation for URMs in STEM is valuable to the overall conversation. What’s special about INSPIRE is that we’re building a student-led coalition that centers partnerships with postdocs and faculty across all levels of experience so we can keep this incredibly complex conversation going — a key to create actionable change, at Penn and beyond.

Jose: We as trainees have an idea of what we want and what we need; student-led efforts provide us with a platform where we can engage in these conversations with faculty and those in positions of influence and power.

What are some of the ways in which the group has engaged, both internally and externally, since its founding in October? How has COVID-19 impacted those efforts?

Jay: Despite the constraints posed by COVID-19, our new virtual reality has actually helped foster our development as a group. We have spent the past few months seeking advice from faculty advisors with experience building justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion initiatives. Most of these interactions have been facilitated by the ease with which we can now meet virtually.

Alejandra: Recently, our Online Strategy Team virtually met and interviewed Maria Elena Zavala, PhD, a professor at California State University, Northridge and the first Mexican-American woman to earn a PhD in botany in the United States. Our Media Engagement Team is busy setting up a virtual workshop for anyone interested in attending and learning how to use BioRender, a web-based tool specifically designed for life science and medical illustration.

Jose: The Advocacy and Outreach group recently hosted a panel, “What INSPIRES You?” in which URM faculty discussed what inspired them to pursue their career paths, how they’ve navigated academia as URM individuals, what bumps they’ve experienced along the road, and how they remain motivated in the face of challenges. We had undergraduate, graduate/medical and post-docs from California, New York, Illinois, Utah, and beyond tune in. Our panelists included faculty from our institution as well as other institutions. Meeting virtually meant we were able to get a broader range of perspectives and reach a wider audience.

How many different disciplines are represented in INSPIRE? What does it mean to you to have interdisciplinary support for an initiative like this?

Alejandra: PhD students from all BGS disciplines are the heart of our group, and their efforts play a huge role in accomplishing our mission. Penn INSPIRE also counts on the help of various faculty members and postdoctoral fellows across BGS that provide us with guidance and support. To have all this support is crucial because everyone’s unique perspectives and experiences allow us to tackle issues from multiple angles.

Jay: We have representation from faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and students across all BGS disciplines, as well as the School of Nursing, Veterinary Medicine, and Engineering at Penn. Issues related to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion do not look the same across disciplines, so having different perspectives is incredibly helpful in building impactful initiatives.

Jose: Currently, the disciplines represented are STEM-oriented. But we know these issues are not isolated to just STEM. We hope that as we become a more established group, we can begin to see representation from other disciplines such as business, law, humanities, etc. This will allow us to understand what the most common issues faced across multiple schools and disciplines are, and how these issues have (or have not) been addressed. It will also help us determine what the best course of action is to address the needs of a diverse student population.

What kind of response has INSPIRE received among students, faculty, and alumni?

Jay: Truly unbelievable. When we sent an initial call to join this effort to students, postdocs, and faculty, within 24 hours we had recruited almost all of our current INSPIRE executive board members. It has been an honor to work with such an amazing team over these past few months.

Alejandra: Penn INSPIRE was born from a conversation between friends last semester, and within a few months we managed to recruit and build our amazing team. We have also had an amazing response from established student-led initiatives who have offered to collaborate with us.

Jose: The amount of support we have received has left us speechless. We’ve received support from some of the Deans, which means they truly are listening to what we have to say and are interested in working with us.

How do you envision INSPIRE empowering URM students across BGS and other schools at Penn? Is there a particular aspect of Penn that makes it a strong place for an initiative like INSPIRE to take flight?

Jay: Mainly by creating a space for a community of like-minded individuals who seek to change the status quo. Faculty, postdocs, and graduate students at Penn are really passionate, and here we are trained to see the potential in collaborative science and how that translates nicely to student-led efforts as well.

Alejandra: Penn has an incredible community that truly cares about promoting justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion — and has been super supportive, responsive, and open to having these conversations.

Jose: Not only do we want to empower URM students, but we also want to encourage the various DEI-groups at Penn to partner with us and leverage our network and connections. It’s part of why Penn is a great place for INSPIRE: 1) the environment at Penn is very collaborative and supportive, and 2) Penn has a very diverse student body. The faculty really want to see us succeed, so they are willing to help out in any way they can; and students with different life experiences are spearheading some of the initiatives we are working on.

Thank you to all three co-directors of Penn INSPIRE for their time in putting this Q&A together. Anyone interested in learning more about or joining INSPIRE can email the group at inspireupenn@gmail.com, find them on Twitter @PennInspire, or visit their website.

BGS Alumni Discuss the Many Roads Taken

Alumni and current students of Penn Biomedical Graduate Studies gathered in early April for “BGS Alumni Leading at the Scientific Edge,” an exclusive career panel. Introduced by Penn Medicine Executive Vice Dean and Chief Scientific Officer Jonathan A. Epstein, MD, and hosted by BGS Director Kelly Jordan-Sciutto, PhD, the panelists represented a wide array of interests and paths taken since the common ground of Penn BGS:

• Michelle Kinder, GR’10, who received her PhD in Immunology and is currently Scientific Director for Immuno-Oncology in U.S. Medical Affairs at Incyte and co-founder and writer for the blog Women in Pharma Careers.

• Adam M. Koppel, M’95, GR’97, WG’00, who received his PhD in Neuroscience and is Managing Director of Bain Capital Life Sciences.

• Fiona A. Mack, GR’04, who earned her PhD in Cell and Molecular Biology and is Head of Johnson & Johnson’s JLABS @ TMC innovation accelerator.

“Our panelists today embody the idea that to embark on a career in science means to adapt,” said Dr. Epstein. “In this day and age, one has to reinvent oneself every few years with new science, directions, or energy.”

“Today is a great way to give our students and alumni some truly inspiring ideas as to where we all might be going,” added Dr. Jordan-Sciutto, “in addition to celebrating science and reminding ourselves of why we are here.”

The hour-long panel covered a vast array of topics and has been posted online. You can watch a recording of the entire event by clicking here.

Make a Difference: Give to the BGS Fellowship Fund Today

As we have said time and time again, we simply could not be prouder of our Penn BGS students. The circumstances they have persevered through over the past year are unprecedented, and this success has been possible in part through the commitment and generosity of the extraordinary Penn BGS community. It is your help that ensures Penn BGS remains a home for brilliant minds to thrive and forge their own path forward.

To offer your own support of their efforts — and the efforts of those who will come after — we ask that you consider making a gift to the BGS Fellowship Fund. You can make a gift online or send a check payable to "The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania" and include “Biomedical Graduate Studies Fellowship Fund” in the memo line. Mail it to:

Penn Medicine Development
c/o Megan Osvath
3535 Market Street, Suite 750
Philadelphia, PA 19104

Thank you for your partnership.