Howard Fox, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and experimental neuroscience and senior associate dean for research in the College of Medicine, is UNMC’s eighth Scientist Laureate.
His research focuses on pathogenesis of brain dysfunction with an emphasis on new biomarkers of disease. He is best known for his work on the neurodegeneration leading to development of dementia due to HIV infection. He has an active research award portfolio of $17 million, and serves as principal investigator on five National Institutes of Health grants, including a core center.
Dr. Fox has served as director of a National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) center for research on HIV/AIDS since 2000, as well as directing the coordinating center and leading the steering committee for the National NeuroAIDS Tissue Consortium.
“In addition to his duties as senior associate dean for research in the College of Medicine, Dr. Fox is active with the UNMC High School Alliance and serves on more committees than anyone else I know,” said Jennifer Larsen, M.D., vice chancellor for research. “He is a thought leader.”
His enthusiasm for science is infectious, and evident in the expression he wears whenever the subject comes up. He has a handful of photos in his Durham Research Center I office, which also capture this spirit. One is of Theodore Roosevelt, all teeth, a portrait that is part presidential, part Tyrannosaurus Rex. A man taking a huge bite out of life.
It’s a theme: “One picture I don’t have up there yet is Ernie Banks,” Dr. Fox said. Though not a big baseball fan, Dr. Fox always admired “Mr. Cub,” the beloved ballplayer who, after completing one hard-fought game, was known to beam and say, “Let’s play two.”
“I love what I do,” Dr. Fox said. “I enjoy science. And I like to think that I enjoy science the way he loved baseball.”
When Dr. Fox was named Scientist Laureate, we sat down with him to talk about his love of science. Here are excerpts from that interview.
Being able to follow your own ideas and discoveries is what interested me most. I have both an M.D. and a Ph.D. I like medicine. I’m a pathologist by training… but doing that exclusively, you couldn’t follow up on ideas… I wanted to do that full time. I really enjoy it. I don’t really do any medicine any more.
It’s funny because when the genome was sequenced, folks were like, ‘OK, now we know all the answers.’ But there are more and more questions.
It’s trial and error. That’s research. You’re wrong a lot and you have to learn from your mistakes and move on.
There will be some clever people that (individually) come up with the right answers, but it’s being part of that discussion! I mean, yes, I hope I’m the clever person. But being within the scientific community, being part of that, is really exciting.
There are probably a thousand scientists, or hundreds of scientists, capable of doing Nobel Prize-winning work, if they were in the right system, with the right colleagues. You just never know. A lot of it is what you’ve chosen to work on, and what you can uncover in the right frame of mind.
Those prize-winning breakthroughs are different. You’re not going to get a grant with those kinds of ideas. You have to have the time to ponder and think.
I see my role now as removing obstacles to peoples’ success. I want to drive my own work forward. But less so, now. I want the people in my lab to do well. Graduate students looking for postdocs, postdocs looking for jobs, junior faculty trying to strike out on their own. …What can I do to help them accomplish their goals?
I always dreamed it would just be me and some lab tech, sitting at a bench. But it is a community. That’s one of the reasons I came to UNMC – to further develop that community of scientists.
I’m going to sound old. I mentioned the breakthrough concepts. Those do tend to be made by younger people. I know what I have to do to get a grant, and it’s necessary, you have to raise money to support all this work. But those in general are not the creative ideas.
I did take plenty of risks early in my career, that’s how I got to where I am today, because a lot of them were successful.
Graduate students, it’s often not till the third or fourth year that they really hone in on something interesting and exciting. And it’s hard.
That’s one advantage I have as a senior person. On one hand I say I’m more risk-averse – or at least I’ve been burned many more times. But with tenure, I can take risks.
I ask myself: Am I going to go out on a limb here? Do I believe this enough that I’m going to devote people’s time and resources toward investigating this? Or is it some artifact, or of interest just to me?
Somebody trying to get grants early in their career may have great ideas, but they can’t devote the time or money to it. That’s the advantage of working with somebody (like me). I can make resources available, have patience and provide support financially. They can carry the ball.
Managing people in a lab is hard, because you don’t get any training in it. I’m more successful with some people than others.
When grad students ask, “when can I graduate?” I tell them: When you know more about what you are doing than I do. … That’s when I know they are ready to leave.
There are many times in science when you generally know the answer. And those are bread and butter. But there are many ideas that have only a 10 or 20 percent chance of working. And when they do, it’s really exciting and you find out something new, that’s important. And you relish that for quite a while. And it’s enough to carry you through all the hard work.