Hi, my name is Katya Khramtsova and I'm a research assistant at Dr. Eileen Dolan's lab
at the University of Chicago. And I completed doctoral training also here at the University.
In broader terms, my work is focused on understanding how a person's genetic background determines
their response to drugs and this is known as pharmacogenomics. Having an understanding
and being able to predict the individuals who can have a good response to a drug or
can develop a side effect is the main goal of pharmacogenomics. And in the future this
can help physicians to better prescribe medications and give the people the drugs that they know
will work based on their genetic background. And for those who might have a side effect,
not to give them that drug and maybe give them something else.
Originally I'm from Russia and so I come from a family of researchers and healthcare providers.
So when I was a kid I would visit them at work and I was fascinated with what they do.
I got to see how tissues are prepared after surgery for diagnostics and I got to play
with the microscope and see slides of different types of tissue, normal tissue and the phalogical
tissues. And then when I was 11, my parents moved to
the United States, to Chicago because there were more opportunities for their training
and also better opportunities for education for my brother and me. And when I went onto
college, to University of Illinois Chicago, I decided to study biology and anthropology.
At that time, I did research and from that experience I decided to go to grad school
and continue learning more about science. So for me, something that is exciting and
makes me want to do every day is the ability to learn new things.
Over the course of my PhD training, I acquired some skill sets that are enabling me to now
go and work on any topic that I want to. So basically I have the skills to ask a question
and then try to find methods to solve it. So and if I don't know something, I'm able
to pick it up or find a new method or develop a new method, if one doesn't exist. The most
exciting part is either trying something new or developing something new to answer the
bigger question that the lab has or you personally have.
So I'm hoping that my research leads to some progress in the field of medicine, though
hopefully with the work that I'm doing now in pharmacogenomics, I'm hoping that this
can lead to better treatment and more personalized medicine for individuals so we're trying to
understand the genetic barriers that can lead to some certain chemo types.
For example, developing neuropathies, so I would hope that we're able to find some variance
or create knowledge about this area, that in the future, patients that are being treated
with anti-cancer drugs will no longer develop neuropathy or we will know which drugs will
work for certain individuals and will not work for others.
A career in biomedical research is very rewarding. Personally you can learn a lot from it and
I like it a lot. That's why I come here every day and do what I do.
And I think that-the advice that I would give is to explore various fields so be able to
work on projects that are interdisciplinary because this can expose you to people in different
fields and you will be able to learn about other fields. And so expand your horizons,
basically and don't be afraid to try things that you don't know about or think that seem
complicated. So some people say "I'm not good with math"
or "I'm not good with chemistry", so I'm not even going to try it. And I would say try
it anyway. You might fail once or twice, but then still you might learn. You might learn
something in that process.