Dr Jonathan Draper is Vice-President of the Canadian Stem Cell Network and responsible for the strategic design and rollout of the network research and training programs. After a decade of working as a PI, he took the challenging decision of letting go of his identity as a research group leader and not running a lab anymore. He shifted his professional efforts into another role as a stem cell leader working for a stem cell network.
🔑 How giving a chance to others who don't have perfectly straightforward professional paths is a critical action to diversify those who enter the research environment
🔑 How seeing that we are never trapped in a career gives us options to explore exciting new opportunities.
🔑 How fortunate series of events may contribute to one step in your career, but do not define the entirety of your career path
Dr Jonathan Draper is Vice-President of the Canadian Stem Cell Network and responsible for the strategic design and rollout of the network research and training programs. After a decade of working as a PI, he took the challenging decision of letting go of his identity as a research group leader and not running a lab anymore. He shifted his professional efforts into another role as a stem cell leader working for a stem cell network.
🔑 How giving a chance to others who don't have perfectly straightforward professional paths is a critical action to diversify those who enter the research environment
🔑 How seeing that we are never trapped in a career gives us options to explore exciting new opportunities.
🔑 How fortunate series of events may contribute to one step in your career, but do not define the entirety of your career path
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Jonathan Draper: One second. Okay, we're good to go.
Sandrine Soubes: All right, let's get started.
[music]
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, dear listeners, wherever you are. Today, I have the pleasure to have with me Jonathan Draper from Canada. Jonathan is somebody that I've known for a very long time. We first met when he was a PhD student at the University of Sheffield. It's really many, many years ago, and it's really a pleasure to have you on this show, Jonathan. Welcome to Research Lives and Cultures.
Jonathan: Thank you, Sandrine. As you say, we've known each other for a long time, I think maybe 20 years now. It is an absolute pleasure to be here and an honor as well to be able to talk about my career and research experiences. Thank you for inviting me.
Sandrine: You are welcome. Jonathan, you started your research as a biologist, and now you are the program director for the Stem Cell Network in Canada. Going from Sheffield to Canada, I'm sure it's been a long journey of exploration, professionally and personally, in terms of living in a different country. Can you give us a really brief overview of your career so far?
Jonathan: Sure. I think I have a little bit of a different route into science in general than maybe others because I really loved science in secondary school, but for varying reasons didn't do so well at school. That meant that I made some decisions early on when I was moving into what would be sixth-form college at the time, so I would have been about 17 or 18. I made the decision to do social sciences. I signed up to do Government and Politics, and Sociology, and a few other A-level courses. I enjoyed them.
I actually ended up dropping out of school and not completing my A levels because my parents moved and I wasn't really into the subjects really at the end and enjoying them. I dropped out and spent quite a few years actually working in various service jobs. It was an interesting experience. I worked in a warehouse, I worked in chocolate factories, and other bits and pieces but found that none of them actually fulfilled my love of science, clearly. That was always there. At the time, I think I was an avid reader, really enjoyed reading science books, the New Scientist magazine, et cetera, the very early '90s this would have been.
I was fortunate to have very supportive parents, who gave me the space to find my direction. In the end, I was able to reenter the education system. I did a diploma at a local college. At the time, fortunately, the University of Sheffield ran a Science Access course for those who had not completed A levels and could actually move into a degree course eventually through this access course. I was able to do that, signed up originally to go to Sheffield to do Astronomy and Physics.
Then it became quite clear after a while that Astronomy and Physics, I wasn't going to be able to make that a career, really, or it was going to be something of a struggle because I didn't have the math, really. That was quite clear. I like math and I think it's a great subject, I just don't have degree-level math skills, I think. I also had also an enthusiasm for biology, which I'd had for a long time. I had that dream. It was one of my favorite subjects at school as well. I made the transfer from Astronomy and Physics over to Anatomy and Cell Biology and did my undergraduate, obviously, at Sheffield doing that.
Sandrine: I'll just interrupt you a bit here. Something I found really fascinating is that when I worked at Sheffield, I've actually run workshops for some of these access programs for when the university runs outreach activities to encourage young people to get into education, who come from a non-traditional background. It's actually the first time that I'm meeting somebody who had a science career, who actually has been part of some of these workshops and these programs.
It's really quite exciting because when you are a researcher and you do your public engagement and outreach activities, you never get a chance to meet some of the young adults that you've met in some of these sessions. In a way, it's really exciting that you're one of those who've actually benefited and then had a career. I didn't know that about you. That's really fascinating. Wow.
Jonathan: I don't know whether these courses still exist. I did a brief search earlier today actually, and I couldn't find an access course that was similar to the one that I took at Sheffield. I don't know if they do exist still, but they certainly were a gateway for me. Without that, I don't know where I would have ended up. Actually, I probably would have ended up in nursing, because at one point I'd applied to do nursing as well, but that's a different story.
I, then, was performing my undergraduate degree at Sheffield, happily doing Anatomy and Cell Biology. Because of my financial circumstances, I needed to find work each summer to support myself. I managed to initiate a discussion with, at the time, the departmental manager, a gentleman called Ivan Dart, and this was the BBS department, Biomedical Science department at Sheffield. He said, "We need database designing. Do you think you're up to that?" I had some computer skills, so I worked with Ivan for the summer.
Part of the database was essentially managing financial predictions for the department in terms of grants, revenues, who's applying, what's going to happen. That was at the behest of the departmental chair, who was Peter Andrews, who would later become my supervisor. I worked on that departmental database, struck up essentially a really-- Peter is a wonderful guy-- struck up a relationship with him, a working relationship.
He obviously found what I was doing important, and suggested that maybe I'd like to do my final year undergraduate project in his lab, so I did. I started working in Peter's lab, working on, at the time, it was human embryonic carcinoma cells. That was my first project. I recall during the latter stages of that project, and so this would have been '98, Jamie Thomson derived human embryonic stem cells at the time.
I recall walking across Firth Court with The Guardian newspaper, reading the headline, and thinking to myself, "Wow, this is big. This is directly involved in what I'm involved in." It turned out that Peter knew Jamie well, had been in the same lab, and Jamie distributed the human pluripotent stem cells to only a couple of labs around the world at the time, and one of them was Peter. I'd started my PhD, started working with pluripotent stem cells, asking very basic questions, did a lot of really descriptive work on these cells, which I think became highly cited.
Then, I also made something of a discovery, together with Peter, that the cells would become aneuploidy and could accumulate genetic alterations, which could have an impact on safety for different uses when you differentiate them into cell types. That became sort of a groundbreaking paper, which I think really set my career going. From there, then, I moved on to postdocs in Canada. That was the next step for me.
Sandrine: It's funny because sometimes we say, "I was just in the right place at the right time." Do you think this was the case for you in terms of the ability to use embryonic stem cells at the time and being in a lab where you had access to some materials that maybe many other institutions and research groups didn't?
Jonathan: I definitely think that was at least part of the equation. I think there was a lot of hype at the time about human embryonic stem cells and what they could do for what we now call regenerative medicine. I think that we had a very lucky position. Peter's previous relationship with Jamie meant that we were able to access these cells. I spent a lot of time training others as they gained access to the cells to actually be able to grow them because it wasn't initially straightforward and it was quite difficult at the beginning.
Indeed, it meant that at one point I had to travel to Jamie's lab, I think in the summer of 2000, to go and actually learn some techniques to make sure that the cells were growing to their best ability. Through that fortunate series of events. It established me as an expert in a field, a young expert at that. Also at the time, you've got to recall that there was very few publications, so it was possible to know and have read every publication in the field, and I had. In some of the publications, I may have contributed to the very early number of publications that were available at that time. It was a bit of a unique circumstance, and yes, I think that helped very much catalyze what I was able to do, actually, in my career.
Sandrine: I'm sure it was a very exciting time, in some ways, too, because when you think that in most research disciplines, we often talk with researchers about establishing a research niche, and how challenging it is for individuals to, in a way, identify a space where there isn't too much competition, where they have the skills, but also where they really feel that they want to contribute. In your case, having an area that was being built, almost like a new research area must have been really rewarding.
Jonathan: I think one of the things that it was very helpful with, and I think this is something that some researchers can struggle with is other people acknowledging that their work has importance. I was through no effort of my own, just by being actually working on these cells, there was a large amount of press hype and sometimes hysteria about pluripotent stem cells.
That really elevated my sense of what the importance of the work that I was doing, and other people's perception of the importance of the work that was being done. I think that contributed a great deal to the feelings of pursuing something worthwhile, of doing something that had potentially applications and meaning to people. That, I think, really was a motivator as well. I really wanted to do something which could help people, and could change people's lives, potentially, through treatments that would have-- it's only now 20 years later that we're really seeing treatments rollout, so it took a long time to come but yes, it was fulfilling at the time.
Sandrine: At the end of your PhD, then what happened in terms of finding a postdoc and your move to Canada?
Jonathan: Then the next stage was-- I've been very fortunate during my PhD to do a number of different events. As I said, I was teaching people how to use pluripotent stem cells, and part of that was participating in some NIH educational workshops that were run each year up in Bar Harbor at the Jackson Labs. I was fortunate enough to be one of the people teaching that, and so I made a lot of connections across the developmental biology and stem cell research world. Some of those people were people that I eventually ended up working with, and one of those was Andras Nagy. I had bumped into him at Bar Harbor and made his acquaintance, and found him to be an extraordinary, interesting, and stimulating thinker, really charismatic. I'd also had the opportunity to bump into Janet Rossant at one point as well, and it turns out that they were in the same institute.
I've followed their work because developmental biology and stem cell biology at the time and still are very much linked. I followed a lot of developmental biology, read the papers and both Andras and Janet were making substantial, and continue to make substantial progress, and do really outstanding studies in the area. They were people that I was really fascinated by and their labs, and I was fortunate as well because at the time one of the funding agencies in the UK, the BBSRC, they had allocated a large chunk of money to stem cell research. As part of that, Peter and I crafted an application to the BBSRC, which would allow me to travel for three years and then return to the UK, so I could choose where I was going.
This made me a really attractive proposition because the award came with both salary support and consumables. I cost nothing when I arrived. I had a bunch of skills that other people wanted. I actually brought resources into the lab as well because I had consumables, and so that's what happened. I contacted Andras and Janet. I interviewed eventually there in I think, late 2003, and then eventually arrived in Canada in April of 2004, and started working in two fantastic labs with fantastic researchers. They were world-renowned, excellent thinkers, really great people as well who were very supportive just like Peter Andrews was. He was a superb supervisor. I've really been very lucky in meeting people, and actually, having great supervisors who have been very supportive.
Sandrine: The funding that you had from the BBSRC, was it like a fellowship, or was it-- what sort of--
Jonathan: It was an interesting blend at the time, it was quite a while ago now, but I recall that I was supposed to return to the UK. That was part of the agreement. After I received the award, at one conference I managed to talk to one of the people who worked at the BBSRC, and they said that they liked to do some new different approaches, and they saw my application as being a new approach. It combined a fellowship with a project. It was to really look at how the properties of pluripotent stem cells, how they differentiate. They took a risk and bet on me, and very, very pleased they did.
In the end, life happened. I actually met my wife not long after arriving in Canada, and then we had children. Also, I established a research career and reputation in Canada, which in the end meant that returning was not on the timetable that we'd originally worked on, it wasn't going to happen. Then in the long-term, I actually ended up staying here for what is now 16 years, I guess, 17 years.
Sandrine: Often people may do one postdoc or a postdoc and a fellowship, and be in a very good position, but then the transition to actually setting up a research group is one that very few people are able to do if you're thinking of the big pool of postdoc and PhD students. At the end of this original funding that you had from the BBSRC, how did you manage to become a research group leader?
Jonathan: I've never really thought about for the longest time that I would become an investigator. I'd always just really enjoyed the process of doing science, but in both of Andras and Janet's labs, there was a-- I don't know if it was a tradition more than it was exposure to people who were always moving up and through positions. Those people would go on to different research positions from investigators through to industry positions, et cetera. There was this constant conveyor belt of people going through, and showing that this was possible, people you could communicate with, talk about their experiences, understand what was feasible. It became clear I enjoy doing science a lot, I enjoy being part of that process, and so this was an opportunity that I couldn't really miss.
I think towards the latter part of my postdoc-- my postdoc lasted four years. I think in 2007, I started looking and found out about a position at a university, which is actually quite near Toronto, McMaster University. That was an investigative call. Mick Bhatia had opened up a stem cell research institute at McMaster and applied for the position, interviewed, went through all the processes, it was competitive, and was able to secure a position which started in February of 2008.
In hindsight, I think, seems really straightforward and simple, but it certainly wasn't. Careers in general, when you look at them in retrospect, they always seem to be really straightforward series of steps, and I think there's a lot of nostalgia when people tell you about their careers. They miss out all of the other tedious setbacks and things that they'd rather forget. There's also a survivor bias, I think.
Obviously, if you're interviewing somebody who made a position as a PI, there's many, many people who don't make that process. I think now with perspective later in life, I think it's worth acknowledging that PI is a great position to be in, and it's a wonderful role to go through, but it's not the only worthy and wonderful role that you can get once you have interest in science, and you obtain the degrees.
Sandrine: I think one important element in what you're saying is that seeing others move into this position and almost, I don't know, getting a sense that it's not just for a special elite, that anybody who is good at doing the science and really daring enough to jump into that role that it is possible. I've talked to so many postdocs and research fellows who don't see themself, they love doing the science, but there is something there is a barrier in terms of seeing themselves in that role.
It's almost that you need to have experienced what it feels like to really realize actually, I can do this, it may be hard and everything. The way I often talk in my workshops to people about the notion of identity and how identity shapes the way we see what can be next for us. Do you think that seeing in your research group that, when you were a postdoc that other people were indeed moving and transitioning, do you think that it contributed to having sense, "Okay, I can do this, you don't have to be superhuman to actually become a PI"?
Jonathan: I think absolutely, I don't think there was. I saw all of these people as peers and equals and I think it's been a useful outlook. Don't see other people as better than you just see them as they've got different skill sets. I think that's been one thing. I don't recall ever thinking that it was something that I couldn't achieve or do. Achieve is different. What I do mean is that it was something that I couldn't actually do. I thought that I had the skill sets to do it, so I never questioned myself about that. I was during the process of attempting to acquire a PI position, obviously, there was a lot of, you went for the interview, you were nervous, would I get it, whatever, those emotions were present.
The idea that it was something that I could not succeed at, that didn't really enter my mind. I think people who have made it through their postdocs, who have made it through their PhDs. There are a lot of intelligent people out there but I don't think necessarily intelligence is the guiding star there. I think it's more about stamina and endurance over time. A PhD is a test of endurance, can you turn up every day, and despite setbacks actually continue to work towards something? Can you sit down at the end and dedicate a few months to writing? It's it. It's not about how smart you are necessarily. It can help but it's just about stamina, putting one foot in front of the other, and just keeping on and not getting overwhelmed by the magnitude of what you see the task to be.
Sandrine: What did you find the most exciting in the process of either setting up your group or managing your group?
Jonathan: A big excitement was the opportunity to select your research direction, I think that was something that I was really interested in. I've always been fascinated from the first time I've looked at pluripotent stem cells in general, when you, you grew the cells and if you didn't grow them, well, or you started to differentiate them, all sorts of stuff would happen. It was organized chaos in the dish. I was fascinated by what these different things were what were. What was emerging, you could see phenotypically, or morphologically, these were different sorts of cell types going on there but you had no idea really what they were. There was some guidance from the [unintelligible 00:23:50] in terms of the morphology of other cell types.
Earlier on, there wasn't always necessarily this full suite of markers that we now have that are well described to be able to start the process of linking morphology with, for instance, fate-related protein expression. I was always fascinated by that. This became something that I was really interested in. One of the other things that I think I was aware of was that I did need to distance myself from my supervisors. That's something that everybody tells you and I think it is required, simply because it shows independence. I had been very fortunate to be in Andras' lab where there was a lot of genetic engineering experience. I picked up a lot of genetic engineering experience and the engineering and tinkering with the cells had appealed very much to me.
Combining those two approaches, looking at how stem cells make decisions and then some of the genetic tools was really where I set off. I didn't necessarily end up there but that was really the guiding style. I was also really fortunate at the beginning of my tenure as an investigator to be awarded a Canada Research Chair. These are really quite prestigious chairs that are merit-based. With that came along, something they called CFI funding, which is like infrastructure and equipment funding as well. Both of those, I think, placed me in a really strong position to start a group. With that, I was able to make decisions, independent decisions, which were not necessarily restricted by the immediate needs to get grants and what have you. That gave me a little bit of time, breathing room, et cetera. That was all very exciting that whole process was at the time.
Sandrine: One of the things that you're referring to in terms of distancing yourself from your PI from whoever you're doing, your postdoc with is a challenging one because when you've worked for many years with somebody or in the lab of somebody, even if many of the projects that you own, finding the space that belongs to you when you're not going to take space that the PI doesn't necessarily want you to take, how did you negotiate conversation with this person in terms of say, okay, that's how I'm taking the research forward. That's what I'm going to do?
I've run a lot of workshops on collaboration and that's often one of these elements that come back is, how do I discuss with my PI about this area that I want to carry on working on that, in a way initially really belongs to the lab where you are, as opposed to taking it forward into your own fellowship or to your own research grant? What was it like for you specifically in setting up your own research direction?
Jonathan: It wasn't hugely difficult. Both Janet and Andras had the foresight to see the importance of establishing a good start for the researchers that came out of their lab. The important thing was, I don't remember there being a formal conversation with either of them about this, it was really, there wasn't there was just an unspoken understanding that I wouldn't attempt to, I think, maybe copy exactly what I'd done before and work on that. I did branch out and focus, there are so many different things to do. I did take some of the topics that I was working on. When you start out as an investigator, there are a number of things that you attempt to do, and some of them turn out to be dead ends. This is science in general.
Some of the things that I did take from the lab, turned out not to be fertile sort of areas to work on. I didn't, I didn't persist with that. That really was, in some ways taken care of by fate. I didn't have a lab because things didn't work out. That was how that worked.
Sandrine: Another interesting part, I think, in this period of transition is that when you, for many who do experimental research the practical part of being in the lab, doing the experiment, is something that people really enjoy and don't necessarily want to let go of. How did it feel like for you when you became a research group leader in terms of, you can't be in the lab all the time or maybe at the beginning you are but there is a point where you need to let go? Also, the dimension of you may have spent a lot of time writing funding for grants, your experiment are your little babies and you really want the experiments to be done. Then you may have a PhD student or a postdoc who is completely lousy in the lab and completely fails the experiment and it's very frustrating. All the experiments do not work and still, you cannot do everything and you need to delegate and it's really hard. What was it in your own experience this letting go and letting others and trusting others?
Jonathan: I think no investigator starts out fully formed and you go through a process of learning, of accommodating. You're right at the beginning, I spent most of my time in the lab and then as you recruit people, you can train them and then if you've trained them well, they're able to train new members who come into the lab. That eases that pressure and you are obviously expected to write. As I mentioned, I had some funds, salary support, infrastructure and also startup funds that allowed me to dedicate the first year or so to really working on projects in the lab and actually the first time being in the lab.
I love doing tissue culture. I love doing molecular cloning. Those are things that I miss now as a research administrator. Going into the hood and working was always fun for me. I always enjoyed that. I think you have to realize that you just need to give people space. People gave me space to develop, and if you're always self-reflective, you try and do that. Sometimes you're a little bit-- as you transition out of being in the lab all the time, you may ask your trainees maybe once too often a week how the experiments have gone. You try not to crowd them, but you're just so curious. I think giving people space, that's a skill that you learn, and over time you try and develop that. You're not always perfect at it. Hopefully, people see it as enthusiasm and not as micromanaging. In the end, a decade and I think I was much better than I was earlier on, for sure.
Sandrine: Research culture is something that I'm really passionate about, and you allude to it just now in terms of giving space to others. How did you think that you over the years, creating an atmosphere in your research group, so that to help have a research culture within your group, at least to enable others? Again, we've talked previously about the topics of diversity and how do we bring in more diverse researchers? Many of the behaviors that we have ourself in the way that we supervise, in the way we engage others really contribute to shape the research culture that is an enabler or not for others. Could you give us some examples of your own approach when you've worked with undergrad, PhD student, and even postdoc in what you've tried to do to create that thriving research environment where diversity is just something that is possible in the research environment?
Jonathan: I think one of the things that I took, and this was, I think the result of how I've been treated as well, was to treat everyone as peers. Trainees are your peers. They're just at different stage of their career. They deserve equal respect for everything that they're attempting to do. They may do things differently, and potentially, they may need some encouragement or redirection when they're doing things and support, but they're still your peers, and they still deserve to be absolutely treated as you would want to be treated. I think that was the first thing, and leading by example by doing that.
Then honesty and integrity I think are the two currencies that scientists trade on most with their career reputations. Showing always that honesty and integrity were important parts of doing science, I think that was something I always did. If a result didn't work, then it didn't work, and you have to accept that. There was no way around it, and being as honest as you possibly could when reporting and describing data. That was something that I really tried to do. I never succumbed to the temptation to do those things that you sometimes read about. I think I tried to show that honesty, integrity were really important components of being a scientist.
The other part, so building a team. I was very fortunate the population of undergrad students that I would typically recruit from, for instance, for PhD and Master's students are very diverse in Canada. That was never really an issue in terms of identifying diversity. The mechanism for recruitment that I had was really based upon curiosity and engagement. If pupil were curious, and they were engaged, I was ready to give pretty much anyone a go. Curiosity and engagement, I think, are two core personality traits that make it so much easier to participate in science because it can be difficult and mean, long hours, lots of frustration in the lab. Having the curiosity keeps you returning to the problem, and being engaged means that you're willing to turn up and actually do the work. I think this reflects my earlier career where in school, I didn't necessarily do quite as well as I had, and people gave me opportunities despite that. I think people do deserve opportunities. They may not come in uniform packages of excellent grades with all of the tick boxes that you want. That kind of diversity, in terms of skills and experience, can really help a lot if you're willing to engage and also invest in the people. I think that was one of the mechanisms that I used.
I think the worse situations earlier on, where I had trainees who had, for instance, family members. They had a family and their own family. I felt no issue with accommodating for those issues. That particular trainee that I'm thinking of actually worked really hard and was fantastic trainee and did that, despite juggling the issues that can come from also having family challenges. I think there was always the room. I'd always listen to someone had an issue that never wanted to drive and work someone into the ground. We'd always try and accommodate and make sure that people felt that they were a valuable member of the team. That was really my approach there, I think.
Sandrine: The thing that you just said is a really important one of letting people know that they are a valuable member of a team because often, a lot of PhD students and postdoc feel used by their supervisors. There is this term or we just did the lab rat. It's something that I've heard many times. It's not something I've experienced myself when I worked in research, but there is still a sense of being used by the system we do have where people do postdoc after postdoc and are not necessarily, I don't know, don't have a sense of being rewarded for the commitment that they have to the research. Just letting people know that their contribution matters. How have you been able to do that in your group?
Jonathan: One of the things that I think I learned fairly early on was that ownership is an important component for being engaged with a project. If you prescribe a project to a trainee, for instance, you end up taking away ownership from them. Also, you are then responsible if it succeeds or fails. Providing them with ownership of it. Making sure that they're part of the development process of the ideation when developing the project. Ensuring that those people are really engaged in that means that they feel ownership and that they participate. They want to be part of it. They are turning up, and they're doing things because the reward is for their own innovation and the time that they put in there. I think that became clear a year or two in that that was the best road to take and try and give people the best experience that they could have when coming through as trainees in my lab.
Sandrine: One of the things that in some of the interviews that I've done with PI that people have said to me, which I find really hard to accept, and people have said, "Well, within six months, you know whether a postdoc is going to make it or not." I found that really quite patronizing and really hard to hear. I wanted to know, yourself, in the experience that you have of working with researchers. What is it that you do as a PI that's really the most crucial? You've just said giving ownership is a really important one. What else is there in terms of building people up, in terms of enabling people to build the confidence that they need in their own research ideas?
Jonathan: I think one of the important parts is to make it clear that there isn't one single goal here. The project is the project and obviously, you want to fulfill the goals of the project. Test the hypothesis, identify if there is a trend there that you suppose at the beginning, and then follow it through to something like a publication. There's also the human component of the experience, which is the development of the individual, their career development, et cetera, there's varying reasons why people can feel maybe, disappointed by this. I think if they are always they always think that there's a path to a certain route, like a goal becoming a PI or something, then yes, I think failure could be something that you could consider being a peril there.
I think if you just make it clear to people that there's many roots in science, there's many outcomes. Often, I think my outlook is the best place you can be is where you are now in some ways. You've got to make the most of what you have right now. Following that, and understanding really what it is that you're doing here. This isn't like-- I don't know how to put it. It's not a test of who you are, necessarily, it's just a stepping stone during your career and there's no points of failure, it's not like that. I don't-- that's my approach anyway.
I think it's worth reminding people, I think you come into-- you're going through a training process, so you're gaining experience or attempting to gain experience. Experience is the thing that you get after you need it, or before you need it, I think. I think it's something that you just have to be happy with, that the process and the journey is an important part of this.
Sandrine: If you're reflecting on what's been the most challenging in working as a research group leader, what would you say it was?
Jonathan: I think big challenges would be, I think the continual, if you're not careful, bracketing yourself within-- you set out to do things. You set out to write a grant and get the grant. You set out to write a paper and publish it in a specific journal. If you don't achieve that, then you can see that as failure. Dealing with those continual setbacks to what was your original agenda can be very difficult. Science is very good at holding a magnifying glass up to your flaws. I think you have to be comfortable with the idea that you're going to fail. The failures make you stronger because it builds the experience. Just having that positive feel for the feedback loop that you're getting instead of taking it to heart.
Sure, you're crushed for the first half hour or so, maybe even an hour, shed a tear after you've found out that grant that you've worked for weeks on was rejected and they didn't like the idea. That actually tells you something valuable once you actually, sit down and gather yourself, that it tells you invaluable information. It tells you you've failed to communicate properly. It tells you that you maybe hadn't thought about the experiment in a way that captures all of the variables that you need to consider. Taking the feedback and actually incorporating that, that can be difficult and challenging, but ultimately, it's quite rewarding because it makes you less brittle, I think in general.
Sandrine: Yes, when you get the negative response, it takes a while to deal with it. Learning how to incorporate the feedback is something I'm still learning, that's for sure. [laughs]
Jonathan: One other thing that I think maybe is worth mentioning, and this is, maybe, a UK-specific thing, coming from the UK, I think coming into Canada, it was difficult to do self-promotion in the way that North Americans do it. They're able to speak freely about their own successes and skill sets. Certainly culturally for me, that was something that I was not comfortable with. I think that was something, overcoming that was also difficult because you really have to sell your brand. It is a brand that you've got in science, and marketing yourself and building that brand. That's done through interacting with people at conferences. It's through the talks that you give. It's through all of your interactions is really your branding in science. The self-promotion was a difficult component, which took me some time, I think, to try and be comfortable with, a couple of years at least.
Sandrine: Were there other elements in terms of moving your research career overseas that you felt really challenged? I did my PhD in the States and then moving to the UK, I know what it feels like to be in a foreign country, but what was your own expense of-- because the example that you just gave, I can completely relate to, having grown up in France, self-promotion is definitely not something, at least when I was a young adult, something that we learn to do well. Were there other elements in terms of transitioning, moving to another country, and doing research in a different environment that were particularly challenging?
Jonathan: Yes, I think that there were. One of the things that I think was challenging was that I hadn't been through the Canadian university system. There are differences there in the way that things are run, especially the graduate experience, for instance, the different processes that are involved. Largely, it's similar, but there are some changes. The way degree committees work, et cetera, those sorts of things were a little bit different, and so was the undergraduate teaching to some extent as well. Those were challenges.
I think the granting system in Canada, there's a different style of how people write grants. I think that took a little bit of time to learn how to emulate that style and fit in, so that people could really understand what you were trying to say because the emphasis might be different on different components. That was different. To be fair, I hadn't had an enormous amount of experience in writing grants in the UK. I'd read people's grants, but I hadn't seen as much as I potentially had when I came to Canada. There were differences there.
the application process for CIHR, which is the equivalent of the MRC, for instance, here in Canada, it was different. It took some time to understand that you had to write a bio sketch, for instance, which was a self-promotional piece, which I think I struggled with, to actually write about yourself in the third person and promote yourself, that's difficult.
Sandrine: I come across so many postdocs who certainly are challenged by this. What do you think was your internal motivator in being a scientist and how have you taken that to your next role? Maybe let's backtrack a bit and maybe if you can tell us what made you decide, then, to stop being a research group leader, and move into the role that you have now?
Jonathan: Yes. Why did I transition out of research science as an investigator? At the time, as I said, I started in 2008. I started getting a little bit of an itch in 2016 or so. Then 2017, I think I formed the idea that if I was going to make a change, I needed to do it soon because I wasn't getting any younger. I think as an investigator, I'd ticked many of the boxes that I needed to be, to be seen as being relatively successful. I'd obtained funding, I'd published, I'd been promoted through the system from assistant to associate professor at McMaster. I'd met those metrics and fulfilled them. There were challenges. I think at both the local; the institutional level, and the national level, especially the extraordinarily highly competitive funding environment that exists in Canada, and potentially, in other places as well, I think at the moment.
It was clear to me that they weren't likely to resolve soon, and so you were trapped in a cycle of seeking funding. One of the things that I'd done as well, I think, to try and-- I'd followed the funding and I had diversified and moved myself into areas which didn't necessarily come easily to me. I'd done some work in cancer; published in breast cancer. Then I was working also now, at that point, in intestinal stem cells. I'd moved around to try to capture funding. They were all areas that I was genuinely interested in and enjoyed working in, but it was becoming very difficult when you spread yourself, with the volume of literature that's published now to actually keep up.
I think I thought to myself, "I've done this, I've enjoyed it. It's a maybe good time to get out on a high note." I was very fortunate to make a connection with a policy expert and friend who had transitioned out of science earlier in their career and started a career in policy. We had some very useful conversations that let me know that there's more to the life than science. Because when you're in an academic position, and I think this goes, as well, when you're a trainee, you get blinkered, it's very difficult to understand that there's a large world out there of other great things happening that you can quite easily contribute to. You have a number of skill sets, which are germane to that. If you've made it as a PI and you've been able to write grants, then you can do scientific writing. You can communicate, you can critically evaluate things. You can do all sorts of things, those skills are in demand in other occupations.
I think there was a big psychological mountain to climb. That's why it probably took me a couple of years to make, and finally commit to, the move because you wrap your identity up with what you are as an investigator. I'm a professor, I'm a scientist. I'm a bench scientist, I do this, and that's who I am. Making that change, that was probably one of the more fundamental and difficult parts of it. Once you reach that point and you're able to make that change, then it became relatively straightforward. There's still things that I miss from transitioning out of science.
I really miss working with the trainees. The trainees were always fun to work with; the engagement, the invigorating opinions, the fresh perspectives, those were daily doses of wonderful experiences that I really enjoyed, I miss that. I miss some of the creativity that comes from designing of projects and experiments, but there's a different outlets for that, especially in my new role. I think it's a slow building process and then you just have to rip off the bandaid and just do it, that's what I did in the end.
Sandrine: What do you think was, in a way, the trigger, because sometimes there could be a life event where people realize-- for example, with COVID, I was listening to the radio a few days ago. People were saying that lots of people are deciding to retire early because they feel it's like life is too short. In the case of, decided, "Okay, I'm going to wrap up my career as a research group leader." That's a massive transition because this position for those who are doing PhDs and postdoc, they are the golden nugget that they want to get. Saying, "Actually, I've done that. I've had lots of achievements and I want to move on to something else," for other people, the perception that other people have of letting go of that, people may think, "Oh, are you crazy? Why are you leaving this job for something else?" What was it that was the trigger or, in a way, the pull, towards something better/different/both joyous, I don't know. Or, the push towards, "Okay, I don't want to feel this way anymore," or, "I don't want to have to deal with this." Was it a pull? Was it a push? Was there a trigger?
Jonathan: I think there were many different things that made me feel like this. I think one of them, it's difficult being a PI. You have to put in long hours, continuously. I have younger children, and you'd be working weekends, you'd be working week evenings. You do that for a long time and you realize that there's time that you're missing that you won't get back. I'm not saying that the role that I have now, you don't have to work hard, but certainly, you have a more defined structure in terms of working. I don't have to work weekends every weekend or like that. That, I think, gives me the opportunity to spend time with my family, which I think I value greatly.
I think also, it was very stressful being an investigator, as I mentioned, the funding components, the publishing, the pressures in general that you get through that role because being an investigator is really like being an entrepreneur, you have lots of different hats. You're managing the budgets, you have to have financial inclination there as well. You're managing HR issues. You're managing health and safety. You're managing SOP writing for the lab, you're managing the writing and devising of projects, applications for funding, writing publications. You're communicating with peers. There's so many different skill sets that you need to be an investigator and they consume a lot of time.
I think I'd done them, and I think I was just ready to say, "Well, there's something else to do here." I think, also, it came with the opportunity to work at an organization. The role came up at Stem Cell Network. They advertised for this role, and I saw the advert for this in, I think early 2018. Thought to myself, "Well, this is what I'm going to go for and do." The history with the network, I'd always really been a believer in this organization. This role came up and it seemed like a perfect fit. I was very fortunate enough to be able to interview with it for that job, and then get the position.
It was a bit of a whirlwind at the time, the organization was renewing its mandate and funding through the federal government. There was a little bit of unpredictability when I joined. Would we get more funding? Would we continue on in the end? We did. That was great because I'd committed to do that. I would also say that the university McMaster University was gracious enough to give me an opportunity, a leave of absence that would allow me to go and work at the Stem Cell Network and then return if things didn't work out. It was a very big thing.
Sandrine: That's massive because it's really giving you a security blanket, "I am missing that too much, or--"
Jonathan: Yes, I would say though, I was on soft money contracts at McMaster University, so I still had to renew and go through that process. It wasn't that I had a guaranteed tenured position at McMaster. That really did give a soft landing if things were to go wrong or an escape clause. That was really, really helpful. I am grateful to the university for providing that opportunity.
Sandrine: That's really great to have. How did it feel in terms of this transition to a new professional identity, going from being a research group leader to being a manager of a program on a network? Even though it's a research network, it's still a new professional identity?
Jonathan: I think, as I said, as I mentioned, you are really wrapped up. Your job becomes your identity. Being a professor, it is a privilege to be in that role. You talk to people about it when they ask what you do, and you can say it with pride. A research administrator doesn't sound quite as exciting, but it actually turns out to be quite exciting and quite interesting because the role gives you-- at least the role that I have, gives me the opportunity to have a really different view from the view that I had as an investigator.
I'm on the other side of the fence, I'm funding scientists. I get to see the network as a whole, I get to see the research priorities. I understand, far better, the priorities that are competing on either side; what the scientists believe to be important versus what the funders and the federal government, for instance, believe to be important. Those are not necessarily overlapping, and similar all the time. I think that has been really great. It's allowed me to interact with scientists in a different way and to propel and accelerate, I hope, and give scientists a voice in the process, at the back end of the process where decisions are being made. I've tried very hard to make sure that that is something I've done.
Sandrine: One of the things that are really critical in our career is the help that we get from mentors and the opportunities that we are given. You mentioned that during your postdoc you had really brilliant mentors, but now that you have moved into a professional role, often the career path as a research-trained prof professional is also very uncertain because, this role, there is not necessarily an exact path of what's next for you. How do you actually see your professional development now in terms of navigating that next stage in your career? Do you have specific mentors because again, it's a new area to explore?
Jonathan: Yes, I think when I first started in the role a lot of concepts were alien. How things were done and viewed from the administrative perspective and how science is done by the funding agencies, et cetera. I've been very fortunate to work with a great team at the Stem Cell Network. We have a really strong group of people there from Cate Murray, who is the executive director, and also Michael Rudnicki who's the scientific director, who is a fantastic contributor to the organization as well. I think they have been able to provide really good insight and guidance about the processes and the thinking that goes on. I think I've learnt to understand better how the strategic thoughts, the strategic planning processes occur, and what the priorities are, and to consider better the decisions that are made have for the research communities, the longer-term impacts. That's been a really great experience, working with them and actually understanding that.
I've been, also, fortunate to forge interactions with a number of people at different organizations across Canada now. Those relationships, the interactions always reveal new ways of thinking, new ways of doing things. If you're listening to people and really hearing what they're saying and trying to understand where they're coming from then I think that makes it a lot easier.
This role is a lot about people and understanding the processes and communicating. I think that's been a really strong part of the development process for me, is trying to master that as much as possible. I think curiosity there helps, as I said before, curiosity is an important thing. I'm curious, I'm interested about people, why they make the decisions they make, and why they say the things they say, that can be a useful motivator there.
Sandrine: What is the impact that you want to make on research culture in your current role? Because obviously, it's not just national, it's an international network, but you are able to influence through some of the programs that you are developing, culture, in the research environment, even though you are not an institution yourself.
Jonathan: You're right, the Stem Cell Network has its own strategic plan, and I contribute to that. From my perspective, I really would like to be able to, as I say, ensure that the voice of scientists is heard within the process and figures into that thinking so that decisions aren't made that could be problematic. We very careful and consider, and we consult with the community broadly as well and make sure that the decisions that we make gel with the needs of the community because it's about making sure that science is done well, and also the community's brought along with this because the community is the most important asset, I think, in a network. I think that's been really a major aspiration of mine, is to assist the community in some way and use this role to help guide.
I've been able to make particular contributions within the training components. In my role as program director for research and partnerships, I also do the training elements as well. I develop workshops, training workshops that are offered across Canada to the trainees who are working in regenerative medicine in Canada. That's been an opportunity to help trainees go and experience the similar support that I had when I was in the network. That was formative and really helpful. That aspect has been really rewarding. Fortunately enough, we have a great community of investigators who also participate in the development of those training courses, and so we're able to do things as a collective to serve the needs of the group. Again, that's rewarding and being an important part of this for me as well.
Sandrine: We are going to finish off our discussion because I've taken a lot of your time. What would be the advice that you could give yourself, your young self, if you were going to do it all over again, what would you tell yourself to have an easier ride on this career journey?
Jonathan: I don't know if I would do it all again, because I've enjoyed the-- it's been difficult, but it's been rewarding. Most of my career has been rewarding. I do not know if I'd change too much. As I said, I'm a believer in trying to make the best of the position that you're in. I'm very fortunate for where I am right now. I think self-confidence is a really important part of the process, and at different points that can waiver during the process. I think just being kinder to yourself during the process, when you do fail, the failures, I think you've got to rebrand them within your own head as just stepping them into success.
I think being kind to yourself is something that you should be doing during the process because you'll end up somewhere, everybody does. As long as you've enjoyed the journey and made the most of the opportunities around you, which is really what I did throughout my career. There was no one single plan, I capitalized upon the opportunities I saw. I attempted to make opportunities by networking, by connecting, by working hard at processes, and being a good colleague as often as I could, and that's been really rewarding. I think maybe just being kinder to myself through the process because it was, at times, difficult. I think overall, though, it was good.
Sandrine: That's really good to hear. One of my final questions is, what gives you joy, or the most joy in working either, as when you were a research group leader or through the work that you are doing now? Joy, it's a world that we don't use often in the research environment. What is joy for you?
Jonathan: I think joy is other people's success. I think if you can have a hand in elevating other people, that, I think really feels good. Seeing someone else happy because they've succeeded and done something that was difficult to do. As I mentioned before, always enjoyed the opportunity to work with trainees and help them develop, for instance, projects in the lab, or more lately, as I mentioned, the training workshops that we run, and the other services that we offer to trainees. Those are always enjoyable. I think that's probably where I've gained a lot of pleasure from, just making other people succeed, or having a hand, at least, in their success, and elevating people. That's been a really rewarding process.
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Sandrine: Well, that's a really nice comment to end on. I'm really glad that you accepted to take part in this interview, Jonathan, thank you very much.
Jonathan: Thank you, Sandrine. It was an absolute pleasure to talk to you, and I look forward to speaking to you again at some point.
[01:07:47] [END OF AUDIO]