Dendron - Gentry Patrick
Dr Gentry Patrick - Molecular Neuroscientist; Professor University of California San Diego, Kavli and Dr. William and Marisa Rastetter Chancellor's Endowed Chair in Neurobiology; Faculty creator of the PATHways to STEM Through Enhanced Access and Mentorship Program; former Co-Director Neuroscience Graduate programme; Director of Mentorship and Diversity School Biological Sciences. Director - Center for Empathy and Social Justice in Human Health at the T. Denny Sanford Institute for Empathy and Compassion. #BlackinNeuro
His Research - Gentry’s interests span from the micro to the macro. His lab researches what happens at the molecular level inside neuronal cells while his role as a center director at the institute of empathy and compassion helps explore what belonging means to people and communities.
His lab studies how proteins are recycled in neurons and the role that this plays in diseases like Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s; diseases marked by the degeneration of neuronal and brain function.
Proteins are like tiny machines inside cells. They move things, they create and consume energy, they keep the cell alive and functioning. Cells make different proteins based on the instructions found in the cell’s DNA. Cells also destroy and recycle proteins if they aren’t needed, if they are malfunctioning or if they were not made correctly. When a protein is targeted for recycling, it is tagged with other small proteins called ubiquitin which are added on to the protein. This signals that the protein should be destroyed, and it is by a large and multi-protein machine called the proteasome.
This method of recycling proteins can be used to change how neurons work. In Gentry’s lab, one of their discoveries is that glutamate receptors are tagged by ubiquitin to make them move from the outside of the cell to the inside. On the outside, these receptors sense if glutamate (a neurotransmitter) is passed on from another neuron, but if they are moved inside they can’t sense it. So neuron activity is changed by the protein recycling system itself. It’s another smart way that cells have of making things work.
But what happens when it doesn’t work. People with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases have been found to have a problem with protein recycling and this contributes to large accumulations of proteins, or plaques, the formation of lesions in the brain, and to the symptoms found in these diseases including forgetfulness.
The more we can understand about how proteins in the brain are regulated and recycled, the more likely we are to develop an understanding of these diseases and how to prevent or treat them.
To do this research they use different techniques and study the brains and neurons of mice. The techniques include microscopic imaging to see cells and the proteins inside of them, biochemistry techniques to isolate and study the proteins involved, electrophysiology - you can actually poke a neuron with a tiny needle and then measure when an electrical signal moves through the neuron, and behavior studies to see what changes in this protein recycling system do to the health and cognitive skills of mice.
Beyond the lab, Gentry is the director of the Center for Empathy and Social Justice in Human Health where his team is looking at the experiences and roles of Black, Latino, and other under-represented groups in the USA have in the STEM and medical sciences training pipeline. This training pipeline is critically important for creating STEM and medical professionals and leaders. People that are representative of their broader community and people that will change how medical care and STEM research is done and to what end. When you think about the larger system and the implications, you understand how these are issues of both human health and social justice. Listen to Gentry in his own words.
His Story: Born and raised in South Central Los Angeles - Compton, and Watts - Gentry was a curious kid. His mom, who had him when she was a teenager, knew that education was his ticket to great things. He was a good student, a straight A student, but he was far from the only one, there were lots of smart kids that he went to school with but the access to programmes and the next level of education was very limited. Gentry went to university at University of California, Berkeley, the most prestigious school in the UC system but making the transition to university was hard for the first couple of years. He got a job in which he was interviewing young people and connecting them with available jobs. Interested in science, he saw that there was a job for washing labware in a lab and he sent himself to that job (a clever move), he got it. It was at a pharmacology and toxicology lab and he went from washing dishes to running assays on sophisticated lab equipment.
He was very interested in becoming a doctor because he saw how people in his community weren’t able to access health care and how detrimental that was. He applied to medical schools and was interviewed at a number of them but he wasn’t accepted. He had done poorly in his first two years at university and despite his high medical school exam scores, it wasn’t enough.
One door closed, another opened. Gentry learned of a programme at the University of California San Francisco (a highly regarded biomedical science university) called the Research Training Program. They took two students each year and Gentry spent an hour on the phone trying to convince the director of the programme to give him a chance. “You will not regret taking me“, he remembers saying. And he didn’t. “A lot of it was luck,” says Gentry, “I think a lot about serendipity, what would have happened if I didn’t get spot?”
From there it was off to the races, he completed his PhD in 3.5 years at Harvard University, a post-doctoral fellowship and became a professor. “My strategy was always find the gaps. Find where two areas of science have not completely crossed over.” Protein degradation was a growing field, but it’s role in neuronal cells was little understood, he’d found a sweet spot where a lot of interesting questions could be asked and answered.
His Heroes: His mentors and future scientists. Gentry has found and kept in touch with mentors from early days in his career through today.
His Top Tip: Find someone you look up to. Study how they got to be that person - their habits, how they approach problems, , how they overcome challenges - and practice what you’ve learned. You’ll put your own spin on it but you’ll have a strong foundation to build from.
Why is it important to change who does science and asks the questions of science? “We know that the science will be better with greater diversity and I don’t think we need to prove this over and over. My question is how will science change communities. It’s not about making more people professors, that’s not going to put meals on tables, it’s too small of a path. I want to look at how science will affect people across the board. If someone wants to get a bachelor’s of science in nursing, then that’s great. When you look at statistics that show that Black babies are three times less likely to survive when taken care of by White doctors, you realise that we need to fix representation in general. So we need representation across the board, a diverse STEM workforce. STEM effects every aspect our lives across the board. It can change trajectories of generations. My family changed in one generation. I went from poverty to going to college. My half-brothers and sisters 10 years behind me all went to college. My brother is a venture capitalist in NY, my sister is a social worker in NY. We changed in one generation. And that is powerful, they may not be scientists, but in my pursuit of science they were able to see what could be done and believe what they were possible of.
For students in the pipeline of science, they can get into the pipeline at different points and they are conduits back to their communities the way that I was. There’s lots of programmes that have been built to showcase amazing scientists from diverse backgrounds. I don’t think we have to be proving that that is something that can happen. It does happen, it is happening now.
Who does the science and what science is being done will begin to change the world, at all different levels.”
Learn more about Gentry:
https://www.kavlifoundation.org/news/neuroscientist-gentry-patricks-commitment-to-equity-diversity-and-inclusion
https://sd2.org/stem-capsule-gentry-patrick/
https://www.ucsd.tv/shows/Gentry-Patrick-True-Access-to-Opportunity-Opportunity-Summit-2019-34908
Card background image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amyloid_plaques_alzheimer_disease_HE_stain.jpg