Focus
Spotlight
January 21, 2002
 Photo by Graham Ramsay |
From Bench to Bedside: A Scientist Makes the Switch
Questions about whether they are suited to a life of research may divert some graduate students from an academic path. But that is a rare move for an established academic scientist. Tamar Enoch, HMS associate professor of genetics, will be leaving her position on Jan. 31, after a successful career exploring the problem of controlling transitions in the cell division cycle in yeast. She will become a speech-language pathologist. Science writer Misia Landau asked her to discuss her decision.Focus: You're at the peak of your career. Scientists strive to reach this point, but you're leaving. Why?
Tamar Enoch: I think science really has to be a passion. I think I did have that for a long time. When I came here, that was added to by the challenges of managing a lab and the opportunity to work on my projects in a bigger way. But I think gradually I found I was less and less interested in molecular mechanisms and more interested in broader problems, maybe problems that don't have reductionist solutions--such as this molecule touches this one or this phosphorylates that. We started looking into aging, using yeast as a model. And I realized that nothing was really capturing my interest deeply enough. So it was more a question of being honest with myself.
F: Why speech-language pathology?
TE: My father had a stroke. When something like that happens to you, you tend to drop out of your routine. You have an opportunity to ask yourself deeper questions. You realize life is short and it's not to be wasted and you don't want to be doing something less than what you can do. But it was also very fascinating to watch him struggle with language and gradually recover and learn how to communicate again. It just raised a whole lot of questions for me that I found I was really excited by. And I really thought that given the progress of the human genome, we were reaching a point where we would be able to bring genetics to problems that couldn't be touched any other way, like human language. You really can't touch that with yeast or bacteria. So I really wanted to explore that. I remember thinking , well, I should wait until I'm tenured. But I really didn't want to wait that long. I wanted to do it now. One of the most exciting times for people is when they finish graduate school, and they're picking a postdoc. At that point, they know enough science that they can really choose the most interesting projects there are. I thought, why should you only be able to do that when you're young? Why shouldn't someone like me be able to do that too?
F: But you're not planning to do research on language. You're planning to do clinical work.
TE: The thing that followed--and here I want to stress how supportive Harvard Medical School and, particularly, Phil [Leder], my chairman, have been--was that I took a leave of absence to get a master's degree in speech-language pathology. As part of that program, I did a lot of clinical work, which I wanted to do because as a biologist, I always feel like I want to see things for myself. I wouldn't want to get an envelope that said, here's DNA from someone who has this disorder. I really wanted to see the person. I found I really enjoyed clinical work. I just wanted to go deeper into that. Whether eventually that would bring me back to research on a molecular basis or other kinds of problems I don't know. But it seemed like the next logical step. It also seemed at that point, after two years of school, that it was way too difficult to keep a standard research program going and also have time to think about these new problems. It really seemed clear to me that the best thing to do was to resign, to put this part of my life behind me, and move on to a new area.
F: Where will you be going next?
TE: I'll be taking some time off now but, eventually, probably in September, I hope to be working in a school for special needs children, on a clinical fellowship, which I'll need to be fully certified. So I'll spend a year doing that.
F:What are you most looking forward to?
TE: I don't really have any preconceptions. I don't have an idea that something should happen a certain way or whatever. I'm looking forward to having a big adventure, I guess.
F: What will you miss most about HMS and your life here?
TE: I will really miss the people. My colleagues here are wonderful, and I especially want to mention Fred Winston. He also works on yeast. We've had a wonderful scientific interaction. I'll really miss his lab. I'll miss him as a colleague and a mentor. There are a lot of other wonderful people in this department--actually, all of the colleagues are wonderful. I could name them all. They are all good friends. I'll miss that. There is a sense of abandoning people, too, because we're a family, and I was supposed to stay and I'm leaving. I think the other thing I'll miss is the creative freedom. And to be listened to. When I was a postdoc it seemed no one was ever listening to me. Then I came here and people listened to everything I said--maybe too much. But that becomes a habit, you expect people to listen to you. And they certainly aren't going to listen to a beginning speech-language pathologist. So that will be something of an adjustment for me to go back to the beginning again and have to build up my reputation and credibility in a whole new field. I'm sure that will be very humbling. I hope I will learn something from it. I don't expect it to be necessarily painless.
F: Looking back on this first phase of your professional life, what are you proudest of?
TE: I'm really proud of the people who have worked in my lab and their accomplishments, and not only their accomplishments as scientists. I felt we always functioned really well as a team. I could sit in my lab and hear them explaining things to each other and helping each other. They got to the point where they thought I was kind of superfluous and, actually, I think that's good. They've all gone on in different ways to have very interesting lives since they left here, and so I think that, by far, is the most rewarding.
F: So it was in the realm of people that you found your greatest rewards. The field you're entering is very people centered.
TE: I think life is sort of like a chain. I wouldn't have gotten to understanding that what I really enjoyed and took pride in was people if I hadn't built projects and had the knowledge base to supervise people. So I don't have any regrets or sense that things were a mistake. I just have a feeling that things are unfolding and this is the way they unfolded for me.