What drew you to the medical sciences?
My baby brother suffered a traumatic brain injury at birth. My formative years included acquiring the medical training needed to help with his care. I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals, both in my native Mexico and in the United States, which involved interacting with patients and families in pediatric oncology wards. For me, the suffering that comes with cancer is raw and personal. I find it offensive; it makes me angry. The more I learned, the more determined I became to find answers for these patients.
What did your training involve?
I was training to be a biochemist in Mexico when my engineer husband was recruited by the automotive industry and we moved to Michigan. While working on my master’s degree in chemistry at Oakland University outside Detroit, I began investigating how cancer cells interact with their environment. Later, our family—which by then included two kids—moved again, this time to Houston, where I was accepted at Baylor College of Medicine and completed my doctoral training with Dr. David Rowley.
What brought you to Einstein?
During my postdoc, I was accepted into the Leading Edge Fellows Program, a wonderful mentorship initiative that helps women and nonbinary postdocs launch careers in the biomedical sciences. One of the benefits of being a Leading Edge Fellow is that it connects you to a network of science professionals and provides amazing training in career-development skills such as applying for grants, building a vision for your independent research program, interviewing, and finding faculty positions. Through that fellowship, I met Einstein cancer researcher Lindsay LaFave, Ph.D., who connected me with MECCC’s Cancer Dormancy and Tumor Microenvironment Institute (CDTMI), headed by Julio Aguirre-Ghiso, Ph.D. The CDTMI was a great match for my research interests and experience, plus I liked the collegial, collaborative environment. It has been a perfect place to launch my independent career.
Tell us about your research.
In metastatic prostate cancer, cells from the primary tumor can travel through the bloodstream to take root and metastasize in the bones, where they remain dormant, sometimes for decades, when under the control of surrounding, healthy bone cells. Bones that support cancer growth appear to be unhealthy, as if they are undergoing fracture repair. In my research, I’m pursuing the hypothesis that the weakening of bones—which happens with normal aging or osteoporosis, or as an unintended side effect of cancer treatment—causes the bone cells to prioritize repair functions over keeping cancer in check, resulting in cancer cells escaping from dormancy.
I am also interested in defining how changes in genome architecture—the way DNA folds in 3D within the nucleus—can trigger cancer development and progression. I am particularly interested in the mechanisms by which contact with wound repair–like microenvironments within tissues can influence genome architecture as a prelude to cancer. Identifying the drivers causing these changes could potentially help us disrupt the processes that cause normal cells to progress to early and metastatic prostate cancer.
Tell us about your commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion.
I started working in DEI at Baylor. Knowing that how we solve problems is enriched by the sum of our unique life experiences has informed my science, training, and how I have mentored ever since. The Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center DEI leadership is helping make sure that everyone is represented and recognized regardless of gender identity, race, or creed. We’re also developing a pipeline to leadership for traditionally underrepresented groups.
As part of my work raising awareness of DEI topics, I wrote a paper in collaboration with other American Cancer Society Fellows, published in Trends in Cancer in 2021, on the challenges faced by early-career investigators during and after the pandemic. I also partnered with other Leading Edge Fellows to produce a tool kit on creating inclusive, family-friendly practices for recruiting women faculty.
How have you managed to balance a research career and family?
I married young, and I’ve been a mother as long as I’ve been a scientist. I could not have gone through graduate school, postdoc, and this past year as junior faculty without unwavering support from my husband and parents.
Throughout my career, generous mentors knew that I would drive the science forward, because that’s my passion. Because I reliably delivered results, I had a lot of freedom to work at odd hours and offsite, to accommodate baking cookies for birthday parties, attending school functions with my kids, or running out of a lab meeting—without explanation—because my child had broken an arm. There was a level of trust that I could do my work around the many responsibilities of motherhood.
I try to replicate for my trainees the opportunities I had, acknowledging that they should lead full lives. A balance between personal life and lab life is essential for good science.
What do you like to do outside of work?
I love reading; doing handcrafts that require repetition, fine hand-eye coordination, and precision; and playing strategy games.
I like to learn about stuff. All stuff. I love it when people teach me about things they are passionate about, whether those things are bizarre medieval musical instruments or ancient tattooing practices. This has led me down some interesting paths. For example, I became my daughter’s secondary archery coach. Archery involves a fascinating frame of mind; it requires seconds of hyperfocus on your posture, technique, target, and environmental conditions, after which you—literally—must let go. Then you do it again, 71 more times. Each shot is a microcosm. It can get very philosophical.
