Literally, everyone can be a scientist.
Jayme:
So, you're currently a postdoc right now, um, studying cancer,
and you are also a co-creator of a comic, I don't know, empire.
Like a... You're publishing. You do comics, you know. So, can you just explain how it
is that you came to be both a scientist and a comic book artist slash publishing director?
Jaye: Yes, absolutely. So, um, I've probably always loved drawing for as long as I can
remember. You know, I grew up watching the Rugrats and I'd have sketchbooks where I would draw Tommy
Pickles and his friends on little adventures, and print out all of my favorite animes that I would
watch. Sailor Moon and everything was really big in the, you know, late 90s as that was coming in.
And I was just constantly drawing, uh, so much that I actually thought that I would originally go
to college for art. But all of that effectively changed when I had my high school chemistry class
with Mr. Richard Coy. He is utterly amazing. I'm actually still in contact with him now,
like 15 plus years later. But it was just because he made science so much fun, and he was, is a
chemistry teacher and also a musician. So, he had a band when I was in high school, and like they
had an album like that I got and I would listen to. And, he was probably, without even realizing
it, my example of not having to choose between two different passions. Towards the end of high
school, I had learned about what viruses were, and I thought that they were so cool because they were
walking this fine line of what was considered to be alive or dead, and just the idea that we had no
idea what they were, like with regards to being alive or not, was just completely fascinating
to me, so I wanted to study viruses. So, I went, and I majored in biology. I minored in chemistry
and also linguistics, and an almost complete minor in Japanese. So, basically, staying well-rounded
was always kind of my thing; and, then from there, I went to grad school at the University
of Wisconsin-Madison where I was in the cancer biology program, but actually in a virus lab. So,
I worked in the lab of Dr. Nate Sheer where we studied HIV, which does not cause cancer, so...
- But some viruses do.
- But other viruses do, exactly. You know,
as you go further in your education, you're getting more and more specialized.
So, I started with the love of just all things science, and then I went and majored in biology.
So, I chose to focus on that, and then now I'm in grad school
and focusing even more to know the inner workings of how HIV works,
and I kind of
started to miss some of that curiosity that I had. Serendipitously, one day just having lunch with
some friends, one of my friends...she was trying to finish up some experiments before having lunch,
and she was running around and trying to find one of the reagents that she needed,
that's called a phosphatase. But she mispronounced it a little bit, and the word
phosphatease came out instead, and the group of us like kind of paused after she said that, and then
started making a whole bunch of jokes about how phosphatease could be like the alternative name
of someone that's like a superhero, and they're trying to regulate the city.
Jayme: Okay.
Jaye: Instantly my mind thought back to like all of the cartoons I used to watch as a kid,
and I just got really struck with this idea of: no, science and comics could be a really fun way
to explain the really confusing things that are going on in our body.
So all of us, me, Kelly, and also Qua the third co-founder, do not have an art background.
We were all trained strictly as scientists. So, we taught ourselves how to draw, how to use
these computer softwares to draw digitally, or to convert whatever we draw on paper into
something digital so we can share it farther and have just been learning as we go.
- So, can you tell me about the building steam anthology?
- We originally got some funding from the art business competition at Wisconsin. We proposed
a project that would bring scientists from around the campus, doing all different kinds
of scientists, all different career stages, just all different backgrounds, in every way diverse,
and pair them with us, so JKX Comics as well as local artists, to create comic books about their
research. So, we made a total of seven different individual comics that I have printed here, that
is for each of the different scientists and what they do at UW. All incredibly different,
but collectively that's about 200 pages worth of comics across all seven. And... So, what
we're doing is we're combining them all into a physical book. So the money that we earned or won
in that competition covered all of the printing for that posters, running the workshops, and then
we put all of the comics on our website for free, but we wanted to do more. So, the Kickstarter now
is allowing us to have the printed copies of this. So, we always want things to be
accessible which is why you can read all of these stories now for free, but to have printed
copies would allow us to donate to places, schools, after school programs, wherever
that might be in need of learning material. So, in addition to rewarding anyone that would
want a physical copy of this book through the Kickstarter, we're also donating to the Madison
Reading Project which is a local non-profit in Madison, Wisconsin, that actually works
to increase science literacy in kids, specifically underserved communities in the Madison area. So...
Jayme: I totally love what you're doing. I mean, I just... Gosh, I wish like...
What if every university had this science outreach
day and had scientists working with artists? I mean, I just...
Jaye: Yes..
Jayme: I love, I love what you're doing,
and I just wish that like it was happening more [laughs].
Jayme: Tell me about your trading cards.
Jaye: Yes! Okay. So, other than the comics, I love making trading cards just because
I love showing who the people are that do science. So, it's pretty obvious that I
do not look anything like Albert Einstein, right? I might have large hair, but it is neither white
nor am I like a male that's like being held up in a dark lab yelling eureka to myself. So...
that's also why I like comics, is that it gives the opportunity of showing who these people are.
That science isn't done in a vacuum alone, It's not magic, even though it often feels that way.
It's like no there were people behind the scenes working incredibly hard to make this happen.
And, so, through comics and also through trading cards, it's a way
to sort of start to tell those stories. And the training cards, in particular,
started when I was working on an online initiative called Unique Scientists, where we were just
highlighting scientists just to show that everyone is unique, and it doesn't matter what your story
is. You are unique, and you belong in science. And I really identified with that. So, now, just
kind of in conjunction with making the comics, I'm trying to find ways and projects that I can take
the portraits that I enjoy making and turning them into trading cards as part of that project to be
like: here, now you can have a little snippet of what this person does both as a scientist,
but also personally. And, just know that these are humans that are doing really, really, cool things.
And also just know the breadth of jobs there are inside, or types of science there are.
Jayme: Yeah, right. Yeah, that's awesome.
Like we've been talking so much about your art and your like comic trajectory, which I love and is
amazing, but you are also a research scientist. Jaye: Yes.
Jayme: So, can you actually... So can you explain what a postdoc is?
Jaye: Yes.
Jayme: And then can you explain what your research is? And then... and then we'll
come back. Jaye: Ok.
Jayme: And you can tell me how you balance them.
Jaye: Okay. So, I am a postdoc at the Fox Chase Cancer Center, and what that means is that I have
earned my PhD. So, postdoc is actually a shortening for postdoctoral.
I got my PhD in cancer biology working in HIV, as I said before, and then now I'm specializing. So,
I'm either learning new techniques, learning a different science that I can hone in on for
what I want to do for my future which is to run my own lab. So, what I'm doing now, even though
my degree is in cancer biology, now I'm actually a cancer biologist studying pancreatic cancer,
um, and specifically its tumor microenvironment . So, not the cells that make the tumor itself,
but the cells that are neighboring and surrounding it that give it support, and an analogy that I
really like to use is like a seed and soil. So, if you imagine the tumor to be the seed,
what soil it's in will determine how it grows. So, if you have very dry and arid soil
that seed will not grow, it won't germinate. And that's kind of like what the environment
is like when we're healthy. However, if you have a really rich and fertile soil ,
that's going to give all of the nutrients and support for that seed to grow into a glorious
cancer plant, and that's what's happening in our bodies if it's in an environment where cancer can
grow. The enviro... the surrounding area of that cell is providing support to the tumors so that it
can get everything that it needs to keep growing uncontrollably. Which is really bad for us,
but very good for the cancer. So, I'm trying to figure out how one particular cell type in that
environment called cancer-associated fibroblasts, they're really kind of at the heart of everything
in that microenvironment, so I'm trying to understand how those cells, in particular,
are communicating to each other in order to create such a supportive environment for the tumor.
Jayme: So, would one approach be to get rid of them? Like if you could get rid of them,
would that be a way to help kill a tumor?
Jaye: So, that is a fantastic question, and it's very complicated. So,
that is exactly what people thought to do.
Unfortunately, if you do that, the cancer somehow grows more aggressively. So,
there is a natural tumor restricting property to these cells as well. So, it's almost like
they're being mind-controlled by the cancer, once it's there, to help give them support. So,
what we're trying to do in my lab is try and figure out how we can convert them back
to their natural state of being tumor restrictive as opposed to get rid of them. So, just kind of
going back in time to when they knew that these cells should not be growing,
these cells should not be here, how do we stop it versus let's give them all of the support.
Jayme: I see. So, are you getting close to finishing?
Jaye: I have no idea! So, that's the fun thing about this job. So, both grad school
and the postdoc is kind of an open-ended question because it's really based on the science and
inquiry. So, the main thing that these jobs run on or like the currency of this job,
are publications. So, being able to figure out something for science and to tell us a
whole complete story of what's happening is something meaningful. So, not just...
Jayme: And what you're going to tell is going to be a primary literature paper.
Jaye: Yes, yes, exactly. So, that takes many years to accomplish. When you're in it, you don't know
when that end is. Because science can also be a little bit unforgiving in that you think you're
on the right track, and then you get a piece of data that doesn't fit with how you thought
things were working, and then now you're... It's like you have a puzzle in front of you,
but you don't know what the complete picture is. So, like someone just gives you
all of these puzzle pieces and say put this puzzle together. But you don't know what the image is,
you don't know how they're supposed to fit; and, getting a new piece of data is like:
oh, hey, I found this extra puzzle piece on the floor. We knocked it off the table,
but I don't know where this fits.
Jayme: I thought it was a cat,
but now it looks like a unicorn! Jaye: Exactly [laughs].
Jayme: It has wings, or something, yeah [laughs].
So, let's go back to that question about balancing. Like how do you
balance being a comic book artist extraordinaire with being a postdoc?
Jaye: It's a little bit of doing things when I get home. So, I'm trying to get better at work-life
balance in that I will not work when I'm home. So, less about the connection with my partner because
the convenience is that he also makes comics, so we both just can do that together. But then
making sure that we have time that's not comic work and not science work, that we can just like
watch tv or play video games or like hang out with our pet bunnies.
So, I wouldn't say we're the best at it, but it's definitely getting better; and, kind of like a
do science during the day, make comics at night kind of thing.
Jayme: Okay. Okay. You say on your website that you also like to
do things with yarn. Jaye: Yes.
Jayme: What do you do with yarn? Jaye: So, I love cro... I know how
to both crochet and knit. I just love doing those things for a while, though those are my
commuting projects. So, when I caught the train into lab, I would always have a skein of yarn
and crochet hooks in my bag, so I could just sit and make something. So, like baby blankets, hats.
I made, I crocheted a dress [inaduible]. Jayme: WOW!
Jaye: I wore to my friend's wedding. Jayme: That's really cool.
Jaye: I also have... For knitting, I made a DNA
cable sweater vest. So, like the middle panel is like the...
Jayme: Oh my gosh, WOW! I've recently picked up tapestry weaving. That's my yarn thing.
Jaye: Very cool! Jayme: Yeah, yeah, I've been weaving some
textiles for around the house. Jaye: Yeah.
Jayme: But tapestry weaving is my new... I have never thought of myself as a fiber artist,
and here we are. Jaye: Yeah,
you can learn lots of things, just given time.