Jingjing Sun, PhD, assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the UNMC College of Pharmacy, came to UNMC about a year ago. It was her first time as an independent scientist. She’d been a successful researcher at the University of Pittsburgh. But now she would be running her own lab. That’s a huge change. It was her big break.
She was nervous. She was excited. All those things.
Now, just about a year later, she’s received her first R01 grant as a principal investigator, from the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute.
An R01 is “for mature research projects that are hypothesis-driven with strong preliminary data,” according to the NIH. It’s also often seen as a career benchmark – validation that a scientist is making significant progress in her field.
“This is a tremendous accomplishment,” said Aaron Mohs, PhD, pharmacy’s associate dean for research and graduate studies. “Especially in your first year as a new faculty member.”
How did she come so far so fast?
There are many factors to success. But Dr. Sun used the word “support” time and time and time again. The UNMC College of Pharmacy, the department of pharmaceutical sciences, the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, the Nebraska Center for Molecular Target Discovery & Development and more – each stepped forward to support her effort to find her path to success, Dr. Sun said. As did many individual faculty and staff colleagues.
The support through this transition was intentional, UNMC College of Pharmacy leaders confirmed.
“The college has a philosophy when recruiting new faculty,” said Keith Olsen, PharmD, Joseph D. Williams Endowed Dean. “We first recruit the best and brightest to come to UNMC. We then give them the resources and mentorship to be successful. Finally, we do not overburden the faculty member with other tasks, to allow them to start on the path to success. Dr. Sun’s success is a result of this pathway.”
Ram Mahato, PhD, Dr. Sun’s chair, concurred. First, he said, Dr. Sun deserves full credit: “The main thing is Dr. Sun herself.”
Second, this shows they picked the right person, he said. The college works hard to identify and hire excellent candidates. Dr. Sun is the latest example.
“All of our new hires,” Dr. Mahato said. “Aaron Mohs, Corey Hopkins, Paul Trippier, Don Ronning, Martin Conda Sheridan … our new hires are superstars.”
And the college of pharmacy makes a conscious effort allow these new hires to concentrate on building their labs and working on their research in this first year or so, before adding other duties.
It is a huge transition to keep doing research while also setting up a lab, establishing a good team, serving as a mentor and obtaining internal and external funding to keep the operation running.
The college of pharmacy was well positioned to help her make this dramatic transition, Dr. Sun said. She was assigned an official mentor, Jered Garrison, PhD, professor of pharmaceutical sciences. He is a tremendous resource for questions big or small. Her department chair, Dr. Mahato, contributes to the supportive environment, she said.
Those who had recruited her to UNMC, including Dean Olsen and search committee chair Don Ronning, PhD, professor of pharmaceutical sciences, continued to be there for her to ensure things were going well.
The Nebraska Center for Molecular Target Discovery and Development, a COBRE led by Robert Lewis, PhD, also provided resources and support to a new independent scientist, including mentorship with Dr. Mohs and Amar Natarajan, PhD.
“They give me a lot of advice,” Dr. Sun said. “And not just the people whose names I mentioned, actually a lot of the colleagues have been there to help.”
But a key aspect of this support, Dr. Mahato said, is that it is quiet and behind the scenes. It is support, not direction.
“We want her to lead,” Dr. Mahato said. And Dr. Sun has.
Dr. Sun said an especially empowering aspect of this support is insight into the funding mechanisms available at UNMC. Dr. Sun noted that a pilot grant from the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center and funding supports from Dr. Lewis’ COBRE and the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services have proven crucial to her ability to get her lab up and running and initiate new projects.
“I really appreciate these supports,” she said. “That means a lot to a junior faculty that just started her own lab.”
She began with just one student working for her and now has a workforce of five. Two postdoctoral scholars and three students with, hopefully, another postdoc coming soon. She said building her team may have been the biggest step to take.
“I am still in the learning process,” she said, of identifying perfect fits for her lab. “I prefer to establish an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary research group with many different backgrounds.
“Some came from a chemistry background, some biology backgrounds, some pharmacy backgrounds. I like people with all these different expertise and backgrounds, because our program is highly interdisciplinary research.”
Great. Congratulations
What an accomplishment! Congratulations Dr. Sun!
Congratulations, Dr. Sun!