Embracing change

From the time I was a child I knew my path: I was going to be a cancer researcher and spend my life in the laboratory trying to understand and conquer this terrible disease. However, a career, like a scientific experiment, does not always go as planned. In this short profile, I describe my years as an active cancer researcher and the unexpected new direction into the administrative side of research that I took a few years ago.

I was born in a small town in Quebec, Canada. Although not from a scientifically inclined family, I became interested in everything scientific at a very early age. At the age of 7 or 8, I would spend days reading scientific books and magazines and reproducing the figures using tracing paper. I remember a series of Time Life Science books that left a very strong impression on me. One of the books was simply called ‘The Body’ and contained illustrations of the various organs or systems, as well as a comparison to various pieces of machinery. I was fascinated by this concept of the human body as a ‘machine’ and decided that I would become a scientific researcher. In order to get a head start, at the age of 9 or 10, I decided that I should have my own laboratory and asked for a chemistry set and a microscope as Christmas gifts. In addition, my father worked at a rubber molding company and was able to get me ‘cool’ laboratory supplies such as Erlenmeyer flasks, graduated cylinders, and various chemicals. My bedroom soon became too small for my numerous scientific experiments, and my dad built a small ‘laboratory’ for me in the basement. It was a small room (10′×10′ perhaps), but it was my own laboratory space. I felt like I …