Duojia Pan, a molecular biologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore City, is one of 56 scientists recently chosen for Howard Hughes Medical Institute?s $600 million investigator program.
He will receive about $500,000 a year for five years.
He is the only scientist selected from the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., region.
What type of research are you pursuing?
I am studying how organ size is determined. We?ve done some recentstudies with mice and fruit flies that show there are signaling pathways in cells that are used to control a wide variety of biological processes. We named the gene associated with this the hippo gene, because if you remove it, you get a big animal.
What practical implications does this research have?
I think cancer is the one area that is the most intimately linked to the process. Our studies in mice show that if there?s a mutation in the hippo gene, the liver can grow to five times its normal size and start to form liver cancer. Other conditions that might lead to an organ being too big or too small, as well as childbirth defects, might also be linked.
How did you get your start in science?
I grew up in the late ?70s in China when it just started to open its doors to the outside world. Most parents that I knew of, including mine, all wanted their kids to grow up to be scientists. I wanted to do this when I was in elementary school. After I finished third grade, I skipped two grades. From very early on, I was hooked onto academics. Science was just a part of a me.
Do you think enough young people are going into science-related career fields?
I think it?s a global problem. Less people are doing science. We also have a duty to tell our community and share with them the excitement of discovery. To discover something about nature that nobody else on the planet knows about is very exciting, and if we introduced fun and excitement into the classroom, it would really make a difference.
