Valerie Weaver is the Director of the Center for Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration & Co-Director Bay Area Center for Physical Sciences and Oncology at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Valerie is also a member of the City of London Centre Scientific Advisory Board.
· Can you tell us about your area of research?
My group studies the role of connective tissue how it regulates the risk of malignancy and how it modifies tumour progression and metastasis.
The biochemical and mechanical features of the tissue extracellular matrix can change cell behaviour by engaging mechanic signalling in the cell.
What it does is it changes the signalling in the cell by modifying mechanic pathways that take the same Cues and develop a very different outcome.
I always compare this process with having a highway versus a side street with lots of stop signs. On a highway you could go fast same car in a different micro environment environment when the car is on a highway it goes quickly and when the car is on the side street with all the stop signs it takes way longer to get there. You’ll have the same growth factor or the same hormone that signals but it can actually evoke a huge magnitude response or it can actually even have a very different response because it begins to activate a lot of other pathways that normally wouldn’t be activated.
· Can you tell us about your personal journey so far? You graduated from Ottawa and Waterloo University, worked at Pennsylvania University, and ended up in California… big changes!
I would be the kid with the flashlight under the blankets reading all kinds of books. I would get bored with dolls and rather run around in the countryside and I’d have little experiments.
I left home when I was 17 because my parents were not very supportive of me going to higher education, so I worked two or three jobs to put myself through University.
Halfway through grad school, I was involved in a really bad head-on collision and I suffered severe injuries. I was bedridden for about three or four months and I then went back to study in a wheelchair. After the accident, I thought I wasn’t going to walk again and realised how many things I wanted to do and hadn’t done yet. I recovered and after my PhD, I did a very short postdoc at the National Research Council. When the settlement came through I took some of the money and travelled around Africa for six months. Two years after my accident, I cycled 200 miles as I wanted to prove that I could do it!
After my trip, I started my postdoc in California. During this time, I discovered the reversion. I was trying to kill tumour cells but instead, I drove them to become normal tissues. This sent me on a journey to understand how communication with the connector tissue has such a powerful effect on the cell to behave either normally or like a tumour.
I got a job at the University of Pennsylvania where I worked with a multidisciplinary team and enjoyed much the experience of surrounding myself with scientists from different fields. Following that, I was recruited to San Francisco and I’ve been here since.
· What would you say to your younger self? What would be your advice for ECR?
I would tell my younger self to stop stressing, and just stick with what you believe. I would have saved myself a lot of stress and you know sleepless nights and concerns, worrying that I wasn’t doing the right thing, I was never going to get funded or I couldn’t get things published.
Science is intrinsically very conservative, the reality is that awards are given to people who have made fabulous discoveries, but the money and support don’t come until later because most people are sceptics.
The answer has to be inside yourself and if you really want to do science, if you believe in something, then go on your journey. It is important to find people who will support you. Sometimes what I do with young people is simply bring them to my office and listen to them and if they are frustrated by rejection, but still want to do this job then I encourage them to figure out how to make it work.
What do you do outside work?
I am a very active person. I like travel and adventure. Last February I went to see tigers in India with my husband, I cycled from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean and at the end of October, we went hiking in Japan. I like swimming, love to read, and I like going to theatres.
Next year’s City of London annual symposium is focused on Early Career Researchers, why did you accept the invitation to be the keynote speaker?
I am delighted to be invited to speak at the symposium given my long link with the City of London Centre which complements my own research mission to transform cancer outcomes through effective biological therapies. I think we need to nourish and help the next generation of scientists and I strongly believe in helping young scientists and mentoring them.
Final quote: “Science has always been some place where I can go and look for the truth. It’s calming and it’s rational”.