Matthew Cook - PhD Candidate in Cell Biology
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Please describe your Program & Research area, and the specific research work you’re currently doing.
My research is set in the context of the overall lab's focus on sex determination and gonad organogenesis in mammals. I'm interested in germ cells, the immortal line that carries on from generation to generation – these are the cells that give rise to sperm or eggs. The main focus is on tumors that are derived from these germ cells when normal developmental processes have gone awry. I use a mouse genetic model that depends upon a gene called Dead end homolog 1 (Dnd1) which, when mutated, causes a very high incidence of testicular teratomas in a particular strain of mice. My goal is to describe the mechanism of transition from a normal developing germ cell to the nascent tumor, and understand the basic cell biological nature of the switch including the role of Dnd1.
Could you give us a bit of history as to your background and how this led to your current research interests?
During my undergraduate year at East Carolina Univerity, I had a professor who had been very influential in shaping my interest in science. He gave me my own laboratory project, so that by the time I graduated I’d done some good research work and actually produced a good publication from that research.
The Cell Biology program that I’m currently in is an interdisciplinary program, and it gives you access to all of Duke’s basic science departments—from immunology to pharmacology. In the first year or so, we do rotations. Since I was invited to work in a particular laboratory the summer before I actually started, I was able to work in four laboratories in total. Blanche Capel’s lab was my last rotation and that was where I ended up staying. I chose her lab because of the research topic—I really enjoy the science behind germ cells.
What are your long-term career goals?
I really enjoy teaching. So what I’m looking for in the long run is a teaching career. But I’m not sure I’d start with that. I really like research and I feel like I might be doing myself an injustice if I just jumped into teaching right away. So I think I would go into research first—whether it’s in the industry, the government, or even academia. This will give me a feel for the research side of my field, which I think will be helpful when I eventually pursue teaching.
How does your current research work fit with these goals?
The nice thing about science is that it gives you a lot of flexibility. You can easily transfer what you learn from one research area to another. So by the time I graduate, I will be a trained cell biologist. And this means that I will be good in answering certain kinds of questions. If you were to put me in a pharmacology or biochemistry lab that does a lot of enzyme kinetics, I will be able to understand what’s going on, although because I will not have been trained to do research in these fields, it will take more time for me to participate in more detailed research work.
The other great thing is that in science, any research topic you can think of will have a pharmacology side, a biochemistry side, a cell biology side. So I can pretty much stay in my specialization for the rest of my life and collaborate with other scientists in any research project within the ambit of the biological sciences. So I think my current research work gives me some solid preparation. Having said that, I’m still not sure at this point whether I will stay in this particular research area or explore new ones after graduate school. It’s just good to know that my options are fairly open in this regard.
Are you engaged in any other activities outside your research, which you think prepare or help you towards achieving these goals?
This summer, I taught a Genetic class to tenth and eleventh graders for Duke TIP (Talent Identification Program). I also participated in another Duke-affiliated program called BOOST (Building Opportunities and Overtures in Science and Technology), which tries to get under-represented minority students interested in science and hopefully inspire them to pursue careers in medicine and the sciences. And I also do another program through Glaxo-Smith Kline that works with K through 8, where I basically visit classrooms—normally comprising seventh and eighth graders—and introduce the students to cell biology.
I attended a course Introduction to College Teaching facilitated by Doug James from the Graduate School. And from that I learned about their program Preparing Future Faculty, which I am now thinking of doing in my fourth year.
You’ve seen the graduate career services brochure, and the general services we offer. Which of these services do you feel are particularly useful for a graduate student in your field?
One of the most valuable experiences for a graduate student when it comes to thinking about their career is hearing other people’s stories, anecdotes—How did you get to where you are? Why? And it's nice that the Career Center offers two different tools for us to connect with other people in our field and to find out more about their career paths. DukeConnect allows you to connect with alumni and there's a feature in the E-Recruiting system for doing the same with industry professionals in general.
Mock interviews are also very important. Especially in the sciences—people do not generally expect science students to have great social skills or to be conversant about what they do compared to business and law students. But I think graduate students in the sciences are now beginning to recognize that they need to be able to articulate what they do in their laboratories, and also present themselves as someone that will be good to work with. So whereas before we used to be able to say—“Don’t focus on my personality. Focus on my research.”—less and less people can think this now. So mock interviews give graduate students the opportunity to receive valuable assessment about how well they are able to sell or present themselves in an interview setting.
Have you ever availed yourself of any of these services, or attended any programs sponsored by the Career Center? Did you find it useful? In what way?
I attended the panel discussion on Clinical Research that was part of the More than the Tenure Track series last spring. And I found it very useful. One good thing about attending career panels is that you get to hear stories from industry experts and professionals, and ask them questions that are more specific to your concerns.
At first, I was thrown back a bit because I went in expecting to hear more concrete advice about what I need to do if I want to achieve a particular career goal and often, the panelist’s response would be—“No, you don’t have to do that. You can do it this way or that way.” So parts of it felt a bit wishy-washy. At hindsight, though, I think this really just illustrates that there’s no rigid path that you have to take in order to get where you want to go. So, taken together, the panelists really just lay out all the different options that can work for you.
How do you keep a work-life balance as a graduate student?
Who can?
Kidding aside though, I think one great thing about Duke is that it is a lot less competitive than other universities I know. I’m a “shareware” kind of guy…I like collaborative research so an overly competitive environment will just kill things for me. During my orientation here at Duke, I was actually surprised about how much they emphasize the need for graduate students to take a break, to do other things outside research.