Exactly 20 years ago, on a sunny afternoon in Los Angeles, a group of undergraduate researchers surrounded the Bruin Bear, a roaring bronze landmark located in the heart of the UCLA campus. The nine students were members of two-year cohort participating in an NIH-funded program known as MARC (Maximizing Access to Research Careers).
Designed to prepare underrepresented students for PhD or MD/PhD programs in biomedical and behavioral sciences, MARC provided comprehensive financial support, intensive faculty-mentored research, and specialized professional development. It also created a friendship that, in turn, gave rise to a fruitful scientific collaboration.
Standing just to the side of the Bruin is Thelma Escobar, then a junior molecular cell and developmental biology student, and now an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and a faculty member in the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM). Sitting atop the statue is Tracie Delgado, then a senior studying microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics, and currently a Professor in the Department of Biology at Seattle Pacific University.
In the time that has passed since the triumphant photo, Dr. Escobar and Dr. Delgado have moved up and down the coasts on separate career journeys. After graduating, Delgado earned her PhD in Microbiology from the University of Washington. Meanwhile, Escobar took a longer route from southern California to Seattle, stopping for stints at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and at NYU, where she completed a postdoctoral fellowship before moving west to start her own lab at UW.
Through it all, the two rising stars remained bonded by a kinship forged through shared adversity, opportunity, and aspiration.
“Tracie and I both went to college at UCLA and we were both interested in science,” says Escobar. We both came from low-income Latino families. She’s from east L.A. – the oldest sibling, raised by a single mom. I came to the United States from Guatemala, so we were first-generation college students looking for community and support.”
Today, Escobar and Delgado are both accomplished scientists, each contributing to the field through a combination of teaching and research.
The Escobar Lab blends stem cell biology, immune biology, and biochemistry to investigate to how cells decide what type of cell to become and how they maintain that identity over time. One area of research is focused on the epigenetic mechanisms that guide the formation of blood and immune cells, and how immune cells create long-lasting “memories” of past infections that can be passed on as cells divide.
Across town, at Seattle Pacific University (SPU), the Delgado Lab investigates how a category of viruses known as gammaherpesviruses cause cancer by altering host metabolism. Delgado and her team of undergraduate researchers are hunting for FDA-approved metabolic inhibitors that might be useful as new antiviral treatments, an undertaking she describes in her TED Talk. The Delgado Lab and SPU undergraduates also made news for exposing surprisingly common wild salmon mislabeling in Seattle-area restaurants and grocery stores.
When Delgado received NIH funding to shed light on exactly how cancer-causing viruses change cell metabolism and genetics, she turned to Escobar for help with the RNA sequencing. Together, they set out to create a detailed map of gene transcriptional changes in hosts cells when infected by the virus. In her South Lake Union Lab, Escobar taught her long-time friend the art of RNA sequencing, with extra help from Mary Regier, who directs ISCRM’s Genomics Core.
Detailed analysis performed by their teams revealed several metabolic epigenetic pathways where nature can go awry, including the pentose phosphate pathway, which is needed for DNA production, and DNA demethylation, which alters which genes are turned off and on. The researchers found that using a particular drug to block either pathway led to fewer infectious particles, indicating it may be a possible target for antiviral treatments.
The results are described in a recent paper published in the journal Viruses. Delgado and Escobar are co-seniors of the article. The first author is Dr. Morgan Jones, a former PhD student in the Escobar Lab. The second author is Tina Le, an SPU undergraduate student in the Delgado Lab who is double majoring in Biochemistry and Physiology.
Escobar is hopeful the collaboration will continue with further testing in mice – experimentation that could generate additional evidence that the promising drugs might someday help patients. At the same time, she reflects on the way in which science and friendship have propelled each other forward. “From the start, our personal relationship was built on shared enthusiasm for science, and that has only expanded,” says Escobar. “Now we can see how our friendship is leading to discovery in the lab, which could lead to new medicine. That’s a really amazing outcome that originated all the way back to our early years.”