"My name is Robin Shoemaker.
I work in the lab of Doctor Lisa Cassis at the University of Kentucky and I'm a post
doctoral scholar.
No one in my family is interested in science and I never really knew that I wanted to be
a scientist.
I thought that I wanted to be a lawyer like my dad.
But then I noticed that I had kind of a natural curiosity or inquisitiveness or the natural
world or the physical world around me.
I lived in a small town in New Mexico.
The desert actually is beautiful and there's a lot to appreciate about the natural world
there.
I did my bachelor's degree at the University of Colorado in Chemistry and I found that
I was most drawn to some of the biological sciences and I was really fascinated with
the way that the body works and the way that therapeutics work and all kinds of things
like household products and the chemistry behind that really drew me in and started
considering looking into science as a career.
When I was an undergraduate I focused my work in analytical chemistry and I had a reallyg
reat mentor and I did a really cool project but I just didn't think that I liked it enough
to sustain all the way through graduate school and so I came to the University of Kentucky
and I met Lisa Cassis my mentor.
She was doing research in obesity and related diseases like hypertension and diabetes.
She suggested that I can focus my interest in nutrition on some of those problems since
they're really epidemics in our society right now.
I did my PhD work on the role of the reninâ€“angiotensin system which is primarily a system that's
involved in regulating blood pressure and fluid homeostasis.
And there's actually a lot of evidence that the reninâ€“angiotensin system can influence
the development of type two diabetes.
So a lot of clinical trials have shown that drugs that inhibit the system for treatment
and high blood pressure have also shown to be positive against the lang, the development
of diabetes.
And so if we can learn the mechanisms by which inhibiting the reninâ€“angiotensin system
can impact the pancreatic beta cell function then that could open up a new line of treatment
for people who have hypertension, obesity and type two diabetes.
So I've been working in this lab for about five years and one thing I really like about
this lab is that even though we all have our own projects and we work fairly autonomously,
there's a collaborative spirit that really helps each individual engage with others to
help further their interest in their own project.
And so when I came to this lab I was kind of unsure of myself as a scientist and the
support that I got has really helped me become successful as a scientist and so it's really
a mixture of working at the bench and analyzing samples that I've gathered, just sitting at
my desk reading and writing.
So a day here can be pretty varied.
The most challenging thing that I've found in this career path is learning new techniques
or methods and it's also the most fulfilling because I've learned so much about what I'm
capable of as a scientist and when I learn a method completely from scratch it gives
me a whole new confidence in myself.
The most exciting aspect of my work is the ability to look at molecules or proteins and
implicate them in some disease process that no one else has really looked at before and
the chance to target that therapeutically and make a difference in treating people who
have diseases like type two diabetes.
It's really a compelling reason to go forward every day."