Joan S Brugge
What inspires or motivates you in your role at HMS/HSDM?
Through my entire career, I have been motivated by the desire to bring new insights into the cause and treatment of cancer. This overarching motivation is fed by my strong curiosity about how cells behave and the incredible thrill of discovering aspects of cell or tumor behavior that have never been recognized previously. I am also motivated by cancer patients who work together with my lab through foundations and generous gifts. They keep our lab focused on work that could make a difference for them. I am also inspired by the incredibly talented students and postdoctoral fellows in my lab who are the next generation of scientists - nurturing their strong interests in cell and cancer biology and preparing them to make important discoveries in the future is highly motivating.
In what ways do you feel you contribute to the Harvard community?
Beyond my contributions through the research accomplishments of my laboratory and graduate and medical student teaching, I contribute to the leadership of the HMS community in significant ways. Until November 2014, I served as the Chair of the Cell Biology Department for ten years. I stepped down from this position in order to launch a new cancer initiative through the Ludwig Center at Harvard together with George Demetri, a clinician investigator who co-directs the Ludwig Center with me. We are building highly collaborative teams of cancer investigators to integrate the collective expertise, intellects, and innovative ideas from across the broad Harvard community to overcome cancer therapy resistance.
What is the significance of the object you brought with you to the photo shoot?
The images in the graphic that I am holding represent different areas of research in our laboratory. A "signature" aspect of our laboratory is the use of culture models in which cells can grow in three-dimensions, similar to the environment of cells in their normal tissue or tumor context in a human. This allows us to model normal tumorigenesis under conditions that more closely resemble natural microenvironments of cells. These images model the behavior of breast and ovarian cancer tumor cells from studies in the laboratory as well as graphic representation of an ovarian tumor poised in its natural environment in the peritoneum. These digital graphic designs were created by a former graduate student from our lab, Rachel Davidowitz.