My name is Sanaz Memarzedeh.
We're here at UCLA.
I'm an associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology.
I'm a gynecologic cancer surgeon, and the name of my lab is the G.O.
Discovery Laboratory.
Our laboratory is located in the Broad Stem Cell UCLA Research Center, and also is affiliated
with the Johnson Comprehensive Cancer Center at UCLA.
So, the major objective is to come up with better treatment options and more effective
treatment options for ovarian and endometrial cancer.
On the ovarian cancer front, we see that there is a need to add an additional drug or therapy
to already existing treatments, and if that treatment is tailored to the patient's tumor,
in essence individualized, I think that it potentially can help improve the lives of
women impacted by ovarian cancer.
So, I've grown up partially in Iran and partially in Pennsylvania, and the rest of my life I've
been in Los Angeles.
I have a lot of physicians in the family, so growing up I was always exposed to medicine,
and I had a chance to go to the hospital with them and . . . I always had an interest in
science, but I specifically became very motivated to train as a scientist as well and get and
do a Ph.D. training when I was a resident on the wards at UCLA as a second-year resident,
(which is the first time I was really exposed to taking care of women with gynecologic cancers),
and I took care of patients who had had three surgeries, multiple courses of chemotherapy,
yet they were succumbing to their cancer.
And at the same time, I would sit among panels of experts and would hear the same treatments
being applied to same to the patients.
Nothing was really changing to make a big difference for these patients.
That was the moment that really motivated me, and taking care of these women was what
truly motivated me to go and become a scientist and to do research in this area.
So, everything that we do in the lab is focused on something that's going to develop a therapy,
or developing a therapy, for patients with gynecologic cancers.
The other hat that I wear is that I'm a clinician, so I take care of women who are diagnosed
with gynecologic cancers, and my hope is that work in my lab can be translated to help those
patients.
A major goal of the lab is also to try to come up with an early detection test so that
we can detect these tumors earlier.
We don't have any good early detection tests; therefore, majority of women present with
advanced-stage disease.
So, we all have to work together very closely, and we constantly learn from each other.
We constantly exchange ideas together.
We are constantly pushing the boundaries here in the lab in terms of our knowledge, in terms
of our ideas that we are testing.
So it's very much a team effort.
And through our work, we're starting to understand that some of the tumor cells are actually
the mother cells or the cancer stem cells where this cancer starts, so by profiling
those cells and also by therapeutically targeting them, we're hoping to a) come up with early
detection tests and b) come up with more effective treatments.
So, I think a career in research is very, very exciting because there is never a dull
moment.
You are constantly learning.
You are doing important things at the bench.
Science never stops.
We pretty much work all the time.
Science is something that you have to be extremely passionate about.
It's a sense of curiosity, and if you truly are curious about the question that you're
trying to address, I think that you will just work non-stop until you get to the bottom
of it.
At least, I can say in my lab, and I know in many labs, this is the case that hopefully
are gonna help another human being and patients.
So, I think this is extremely rewarding career, where you are constantly improving your knowledge,
and, additionally, you're able to help others.
You work in a team.
You have the capacity to interact with other scientists, collaborate.
So, in my opinion, this is
a very exciting career.