Issue 71 Contents

As editor of this issue of the Wisenet Journal, I spent some time wondering whether or not I should write an article for the same issue. Like most scientists, I spend a lot of time writing, and often writing the same thing in many different ways. As I had recently written a lengthy “careers manifesto”, outlining ways to enhance career progression for basic scientists working in hospital environments, I thought that I could trim this into a kind of “careers advice” article. The fact that this proved harder than I thought, made me reconsider whether this was really what I should do. After all, the Wisenet articles that I enjoy tell about people’s own career trajectories in personal, rather than general, terms. As I’ve also recently gained some insight into how I work, I thought that it might be more useful to share this with other readers. Ultimately, improved self-awareness might be just as useful as any number of worthy recommendations about committee representation, job titles, salary scales, and the like.

I currently live in Sydney, and like many laboratory scientists, I have spent much of my life in cities. This was in order to attend boarding school, and then University, and to later study and work in various medical research institutes. However my childhood was very different, and indeed different from that of the vast majority of Australians, who grow up in urban environments. I grew up on a property in south western Queensland, in an area called the Western Downs. Our nearest town was some 70 km away, and I travelled around 100 km a day, mostly on dirt roads, in order to attend my first years of school. My first year was a composite class of years 1-7, with the year 1 children sitting on the floor. School days involved taking off my thongs as soon as I was on the school bus, and then putting them on again just before leaping off in the evening (the state of my feet meant that no-one was fooled by this). Bus trips to school involved breakdowns, getting bogged while crossing creeks, and occasional stops to allow children to chase wild piglets by the side of the road. Lunchtimes involved playing marbles in the red dirt, or building cubbies in the bush.

Farming life in this area was often hard. Although the average rainfall was supposed to be sufficient to sustain
crops, we were almost permanently in drought, and most crops ended up as sheep or cattle feed. Some properties had also been subdivided such that they were barely viable, and overstocking to make ends meet exacerbated the effects of drought. The weather was hot in summer and cold in winter, and to the untrained eye the landscape seemed fl at, dry and monotonous. However, as a local I was very aware of many subtle variations in our landscape. This included areas of red soil, grey clay, and occasional rocky outcrops, and the trees and vegetation varied greatly between these areas. The landscape could also change dramatically after just a day of rain. Like most local children, I was taught to recognise birds, snakes, spiders, mushrooms, as well as poisonous and flowering plants — both for my own education, and because life could depend upon knowing what to avoid. I was taught to notice small things, such as even subtle inclines in the land, which eventually point to creeks and possibly life-saving water. The horizon was also a great source of information, and was constantly scanned for clouds, storms, whirlwinds, and bushfires. Living in

Jenny in the laboratory at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead (a rare event these days). Photo courtesy of Paul De Sensi, from the Children’s Hospital at Westmead.

isolation, we knew the value of gathering our own information when we were in a black hole in terms of weather reports and emergency services.

One day recently, I had what seemed to be a flash of insight about my scientific career so far. While medical research usually involves living and working in cities, I realised that I have always ended

up working in areas that were sparsely populated in terms of published literature, people, and ideas. Nowhere has this been truer than in my current area of research, where I study a family of genes (the tumor protein D52 family) which I and my co-workers have discovered. This is an area that we have built up from scratch, and particularly at the beginning, required venturing into the complete unknown. So on this ordinary Saturday, I suddenly realised how much my mental academic landscape resembles the physical landscape of my childhood. Open space and the freedom that comes with this, a sparse landscape which requires patience and keen observation to decipher — this is what I see when I visualise my own work. I also realised that these influences have perhaps allowed me to notice overlooked details in publications, and to piece together stories from often limited and apparently unrelated data. Of course, there could be downsides to these early influences as well. Independence can lead to someone going too far out on a limb, and I’m very aware that only hindsight decides whether a scientist was a pioneer, or just completely self-deluded. However with this improved self-awareness, I can actively try to work in more collaborative ways, rather than always striking off on my own.

So what of my own children? I realise that by becoming a medical researcher, I have not allowed them the kind of open-air childhood that I experienced. My husband has always been a city-dweller, so this is not really an issue for him, but I find myself often comparing my childhood with the very structured lives of city children. So when it came to choosing a local school, we of course chose one which had a friendly atmosphere, good facilities, and an interesting list of extra activities. However, I was happiest to see an open grassy area out the back, plenty of big and small trees, drier areas for fossicking, and different kinds of birds. This way, although perhaps on a different scale, they’ll also have the space and time to notice the small things.

Bio: Jennifer Byrne is a Cancer Institute NSW Fellow and Head of the Molecular Oncology Laboratory within the Oncology Research Unit at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. She is also a conjoint Senior Lecturer and Deputy Postgraduate Co-ordinator within the University of Sydney Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health.