In February 2009, we asked Dr. Raymond Blind to be the very first postodoctoral scholar interviewed for a new section of the UCSF Graduate Division website, which will feature lively conversations with UCSF graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. We hope that over time you will enjoy reading about many of the students and scholars who make UCSF one of the very best places to study and work.

For our innaugural interview, the Graduate Division spoke with Dr. Blind about his somewhat unconventional path to UCSF, how he plans to inspire others to follow in his footsteps — and about a few things he has in common with Wayne Gretzky and Spiderman.

Dr. Raymond Blind, PhD is a third-year postdoc in Professor Holly Ingraham’s lab at UCSF Mission Bay. The Ingraham Lab is examining how a protein called “Steroidogenic Factor-1” turns on genes that impact the endocrine and neuroendocrine systems. Using biochemical and structural analyses, Dr. Blind is working to better characterize how SF-1 changes shape at the molecular level to turn these genes on and off.
 
By his mentors’ accounts, Ray is an exceptional biomedical research scientist with a strong track record of successfully mentoring students and publishing his science.  These talents made him a perfect fit for UCSF’s IRACDA Scholars in Science (ISIS) Fellowship, offered through a National Institutes of General Medical Sciences K12 award, which Ray was granted in 2007.  The goal of this fellowship is to give promising biomedical research scientists like Ray the training, insight, and connections they’ll need to land academic faculty positions. More broadly, it is hoped that ISIS fellows will serve as role models for the next generation of underrepresented research scientists.  Ray, whose mother immigrated to the US from rural Paraguay to work as a maid, was aware of the lack of Hispanic mentors throughout his education.  The absence of such guidance in his own life, coupled with his intense interest and commitment to biomedical research science, has lead him to pursue the role as an academic mentor to others now.

Here's our conversation with Ray:

Graduate Division: Often the greatest barrier to achievement (in science or any other field) is the difficulty in seeing possibilities for ourselves. When did it first hit you that you could actually become a scientist? What or who made that a real possibility in your mind?
 
Ray Blind: I thought I could actually be a real scientist for the first time when I got a message from my college housemate in my junior year (1996) saying, “Joel Oppenhiem [dean of the graduate program] at New York University called you and wants you to come to Manhattan for an interview.”

Although I did well academically as an undergraduate, my real strength was the passion I had for doing experiments and for tinkering with anything I could get my hands on. I knew that—if I could just get interviews to the PhD programs I applied for—my enthusiasm for research and science would convince the faculty at those schools that I was the type of student they wanted in their programs. After interviewing at several universities, I chose NYU, but when I got that message from Oppenheim it was the first time in my life that I thought I could be a senior scientist running my own lab.

GD: Who are/were your most influential mentors? How have they affected your scientific career and personal aspirations?
 
RB: The mentors who have been most influential to me are David Koetje, my undergraduate research supervisor; Tom Scanlan and Holly Ingraham, my postdoctoral mentors; and most of all Michael Garabedian, my PhD thesis advisor. Dr. Koetje nurtured my initial interest in a plant biochemistry undergrad research project, which fascinated many of the faculty at my grad school interviews. In my postdoctoral training, Tom Scanlan taught me how to better understand very complex scientific problems that interface between different disciplines; and Holly Ingraham has given me a better understanding of the mechanisms that determine scientific success. But it was really Michael Garabedian who trained me how to evaluate science, make evidence-based conclusions, and think critically. Those qualities define a good scientist, and for that training I could not be more grateful.
 
GD:  What was the biggest thing standing between you and the PhD? How did you get around it?
 
RB:  I began my thesis work at NYU in a very large, prestigious lab with over 25 postdocs, and was able to put together the beginnings of a very nice story when my mentor decided to move his lab to another university. Being married at the time, I could not go with him, and—long story short—I had to begin another thesis project from scratch in a new lab. That was in the middle of my fourth year!  Having to start over, deal with my mother’s mental illness (schizophrenia), and plow through a complicated divorce following a five-year marriage, made the most formative years of my graduate training particularly difficult.
 
I got around those obstacles in various ways, prioritizing and focusing my effort where it was most required at any particular time. Thankfully, I have far fewer problems here in San Francisco, so now my science is always “number one.”

GD: You spent most of your life in New York. What made you decide to come to the West Coast and specifically to UCSF?
 
RB: In 2004, I saw Tom Scanlan, who was then in the department of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF, give a talk at a Keystone Symposium in Colorado. I loved Tom’s enthusiasm for science and his approach to solving difficult problems that interface between organic chemistry and biology. After talking a bit, we agreed that his lab would be a great place for me to continue my training as a postdoc. That proved to be very true. I didn’t know anyone in California when I first arrived; however, I have since been adopted by a rather large and diverse urban tribe of friends from all over the world, all living here in San Francisco, so the decision worked out perfectly at every level. 

I am often asked which city I like more, New York or SF, to which I always give the same response: I love them both, but each one completely differently. I have traveled a bit, and no city compares to the beauty of San Francisco. Even after three years living here, I still find this city breathtaking.
 
GD: Can you tell us a little about your experience teaching medical school in Tanzania?  What did you learn from your colleagues and/or students there?
 
RB:  While at UCSF, I was given the opportunity to teach biochemistry to 350 medical students at Muhimbili University in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in cooperation with UCSF Global Health Sciences. The purpose of this collaboration was to introduce sustainable and innovative teaching pedagogy to students and faculty at the medical school there—to give them better training and thereby to increase the overall health care capacity of Tanzania and other developing African nations.

Despite encountering first-hand how difficult it can be to accomplish even simple goals within complex foreign (and domestic) organizations, my time on the ground in Africa teaching those wonderful students was the most fulfilling and inspiring educational experience of my life.  I have seen no greater devotion, hard work and resiliency in any students anywhere—and all in the face of hardships that would be literally unimaginable to medical students back here in California. Needless to say, I grade my American students much tougher now. 

GD: Do you think scientists should play a greater role in influencing public policy as it relates to education in the States?
 
RB: I am very interested in educational policy and strongly believe that scientists should play a much greater role in influencing such policy. Bruce Alberts here at UCSF has championed this cause and has argued in his editorial columns in Science that if we can better educate our future citizenry to make conclusions based on evidence (science), our nation and world will be a much better place. I don’t think anyone needs to be reminded of the consequences of making important decisions that are not based on good evidence.

I have strong convictions about the importance of public education, which I will always be involved in wherever my career leads me. There is plenty of very good evidence linking a strong public education system to upward social and economic mobility. That upward mobility is one of the defining characteristics of our country, so it should be high on our list of priorities. As scientists, I think we have a particular responsibility to advocate for investment in this area.
 
GD: Where would you like to teach (assuming you want to teach) after you finish the postdoc?
 
RB: NYU or UCSF! I have loved my experiences at both of these prestigious universities, and would love to continue my science and teaching at either institution. 
 
GD:  If you had not become a scientist, what would you be doing right now?
 
RB:  I would probably be waking up in a smoky motel room outside of Reno, Nevada after playing a show in some dive bar with two other bands I never heard of. I’ve been playing drums in bands since I was 17 and like it a lot.  Alternatively, I’ve always been interested in education, so perhaps I’d be a teacher, maybe at a community college. I also love working on engines and my motorcycle, so I suppose motorcycle mechanic would also have to be high on the list of alternate professions. I love driving, so the thought of being an over-the-road truck driver has always had an appeal to me.  Although I haven’t shrunk any since my first visit in 1992, I might drop in to my local Naval recruiting office to see if they make those new joint strike F-35’s to accommodate people taller than 6’3”. We all know the best way to become an astronaut for NASA is to first learn to fly, and fly well.

But honestly, my true love lies north of the border in Canada, where the ice is thick and hockey thrives, and where I would take the ice as the grittiest left-winger playing in the Ontario Hockey League for the Hamilton Bulldogs.
 
GD:  I understand that you were recently bitten by a spider. Was it radioactive? And did you develop any superpowers as a result?
 
RB:  Actually, I think that little brown recluse spider is radioactive only now, and only as a result of it biting me. I work with massive doses of radioactivity (about 100mCi of 32P a month), so if one of us was going to make the other radioactive, I think I contaminated the recluse.

However, to answer your question, I have observed no significant increase in my superpowers since being bitten. But with superpowers like mine, it’s hard to notice those small increases. In other words, my superpowers have not increased within the linear range of the assay I use to measure them.

GD:  Scientifically put! Well, Ray, if you ever do develop any superpowers, we’re sure you’ll use them for the good cause of scientific research and education—or perhaps to make the winning goal in a playoff game between the Bulldogs and the Rochester Americans. Either way, we wish you the very best of luck.