"My name is Viola Lam and I'm a graduate student here at Lewis Lanier's lab at UCSF and I'm
pursing my PhD in understanding what a protein is doing in natural killer cells.
So when I was 13, I was actually diagnosed with bone cancer and so that kind of brought
it up, just science in general.
I was very particular, fascinated with what happened, why me and through high school I
loved science like I had a really awesome teacher who worked in industry but then ended
up teaching because he thought he could make a bigger difference that way.
Molding young minds.
And so just from there science sparked, went to college, considered going to med school
but with that route I wouldn't actually be trying to figure out cancer but just more
or less treating it in a way.
So one of my oncologists actually here at UCSF, I got in contact with her and then just
to summer intern type of thing and she had someone who was actually starting up her own
lab or was a post doc researcher here.
And so I worked with her for two summers, more of the research aspect of it and then
just kind of fell in love with research.
The post doc that I worked with in college for the summer, she was an immunology lab.
And so that was kind of the first taste of research and that was the field that I was
only exposed to but starting out as a grad student, we have to take classes and different
subjects and whatnot but my passion is still in immunology just because it's how your body
responds to foreign pathogens and how you can harness your own immune system to fight
off your own viruses.
I think what's, one thing that's really cool about my thesis project is not a lot is known
about the protein that I'm studying and so it kind of opens up a big door of many different
possibilities and so what we're trying, or what I'm trying to do right now is just using
cell models to figure out what the protein is doing in natural killer cells.
I do a lot of tissue culture stuff, so cells grown in petri dishes.
Something more simple, finding out expression, where else is that protein expressed in because
not everyone is sure what happens when you overexpress it.
What happens if you try to delete it.
It's kind of too early to say just because not much is known about that protein I'm studying
but it doesn't remit the possibilities of what it cannot do.
It's widely expressed in many different types of cancers so then maybe trying to figure
out what this protein does exactly, then we can target for therapeutics, cancer therapeutics
and so forth but who knows.
I mean it's too early to say.
I would say definitely just put yourself out there and try different experiences.
I you have the passion for medicine, becoming a doctor then go do an internship or something,
follow doctors around and see if that's the life you want to pursue.
So definitely taking every opportunity to see the real world and what is there to offer."