My name is Edita Klimyte and I am in Becky Dutch’s lab, and I am a MD-PhD student.
So I’m actually from Lithuania and I moved to the United States when I was about eight,
and I grew up in the Chicago land area. I think a lot of it had to do with my Mom. She
did all of her education to become a pharmacist in the U.S. actually outside of formal coursework.
So she would just buy the books and study at home while she was still working a full
time job. I just basically grew up with my Mom using all of her free time to further
her education for her career, and so that just kind of became the norm. As far as I
can remember, I’ve always wanted to be a doctor. That’s just something that I was
always interested in. And then when I was an undergraduate at Michigan State University,
I got involved in research and just really enjoyed it. So I actually had a very dual
experience in college in that it was both really science heavy with pre-med courses,
as well as I worked in a lab all four years of undergraduate. But I also got a degree
in Spanish literature and language, and so I had both an arts focus as well as heavy
science and research, which I really enjoyed that balance. The science was really what
won me over and I really liked my lab experiences. Things can change very dramatically on what
field you’re studying, what techniques you’re doing, and who you’re working with, and
I think that’s what makes it so exciting. When you have protocols that go on many days,
a single mistake can actually mess up the entire experiment. And so, you have to really
pay a lot of attention to detail. And then also, even if you do mess up and you just
lost a couple days worth of work, be willing to come back the next day and do it again
and try again. But when it does work, and you get that really nice image or really nice
gel or really clean data, it’s very rewarding when you finally can accomplish that. Right
now, as I’m getting really close to graduating, I’m really focused on finishing my final
experiments and actually writing papers. So my dissertation project involves human metapneumovirus,
which is a respiratory virus that was discovered about 15 years ago now, and we realize that
it infects everyone worldwide. So my specific project is looking at the interaction between
the viral particle – HMPV – and the target cells that this viral particle is trying to
infect. And so Becky’s group, they discovered that there’s a very specific type of sugar
that is on the target cell that the virus is trying to infect, that the virus needs
in order to be able to bind to it. So the virus needs the sugar, so how can we disrupt
that interaction between the viral particle and the target cell? And so, I have several
different approaches on how to do this and I’m basically assessing how effective they
are in multiple models. So using some complex 3D models, which basically resemble very closely
to what our lungs look like. So they’re basically tiny slivers of tissue that look
just like human lung tissues. So I think as a basic scientist that does bench science,
it’s really exciting to know that some of the things that I’m working in my system
with this particular virus, actually has potential to eventually lead to developments that could
influence therapeutics in people. So before my interview day for the MD-PhD program, I
actually had never been to the state of Kentucky. And within that one day, being here and meeting
everyone convinced me to come here. The main thing that got to me that set it apart is
everyone is extremely down to earth and very oriented towards teamwork and collaboration.
And that’s definitely come true in the six years now that I’ve been here, is the people
are very accomplished and making great strides in science and medicine. However, they are
very down to earth and offer many things outside of just professional collaboration, such as
friendship and mentorship and teamwork day-to-day.