An Educational Journey
Leading to a
Career in Science
University of Wisconsin—Whitewater
April 12, 2010
Curiosity is the Engine that Drives Science
United States of America
Longmont, Colorado (1984)
Longmont Junior
High School
7th Grade (1984)
Longmont, Colorado
St. Pete
High School
10-12th Grade (1987-89)
Martin Luther King
Middle School
8th Grade (1985)
Lakewood
High School
9th &10th Grade (1986 & 87)
St. Petersburg, Florida
The Pointer Institute
Hao Wah Chinese
Restaurant
St. Pete Beach
Hotels
Georgia Institute of Technology (1990)
1990
Aerospace Engineering
Philosophy
Chemical Engineering
Hoechst Celanese
1997
Pathfinder landing
1994
Gary B. Schuster
Chemistry
1998
Irving Sigal
Postdoctoral
Fellowship
Peter G. Schultz
Andrew Wiles, Princeton
James Gunn, Princeton
Chuck Thacker, UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley (1998)
Student demonstration
Free expression
Andrew Martinez (a.k.a. The Naked Guy)
A homeless man
1998
The Scripps Research Institute
(1999-2001)
Torrey Pines
Golf Course
Black Beach
San Diego
Naval Station
Scripps
Miramar Air Station
Publication of the Aging Work
Progeria
Werner Syndrome
Hayley Okines
Hayley’s preparing for her best friend’s funeral
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmb-XkSQg4c
A tribute to children with Progeria
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=app_2309869772&id=100000381621440
Carnegie Mellon University
Assistant Professor, 2001
Chemistry Department
Research Interests
Addressing problems at the interface of Chemistry
and Biology, with emphasis on gene regulation
and correction
Discovery of the Genetic Codes
1953
1954
1944
2001
DNA Recognition
Nucleic Acid Recognition
WC base-pairing
DNA Double Helix
Recognition
Frank-Kamenetskii, M.D. Nature, 1987, 328, 17.
Groove Binding
Paris team
Triplex-Formation
S ug a r
N T
O
O
N
O
H
H
Hoogsteen
pairings
N
H
H
N
N
N
N
T
N
Sugar
O
N
Sugar
H
S u g ar
N C+
N
O
H
H
N
H
H
N
C
O
N
G
N
N
N
N
H
S ug a r
O
N
H
Lyamichev, V.I., Mirkin, S.M., Frank-Kamenetskii,
M.D. J. Biomol.
H
Struct. Dyn. 3, 1985, 327−338. Moser and Dervan. Science, 1987,
238, 645. Sun and Helene. Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol., 1993, 3, 34.
Thuong and Helene. Angew. Chem. Int. 2003, 32, 666.
S u g ar
MIT, Johns Hopkins, Scripps teams
Polydactyl Zinc-Fingers
Caltech team
Polyamides
H3C
O
H3C
N
O
N
N
O
H
H2N
N
CH 3
N
N
H
H
O
N
NH 2
H
D istam ycin
H
H3C
O
H3C
N
O
N
H
CH 3
N
H3C
N
O
H
N
CH 3
N
N
H
N
H
2-Im id azole N etrop sin (2-Im N )
Jantz and Berg. Chem. Rev. 2004, 104, 789.
Beerli and Barbas. Nat. Biotech, 2002, 20, 135.
Pavletich, N. P. and Pabo, C. O. Science, 1991, 252, 809.
Kielkopf and Dervan. Science, 1998, 282, 111.
Fregeau and Lown. JACS, 1995, 117, 8917.
Watson-Crick Recognition of Double-Stranded B-DNA
CMU team
 Dragulescu-Andrasi, A., Rapireddy, S., Frezza, B. M.,
Gayathri, C., Gil, R. R., Ly, D. H. J. Am. Chem. Soc.,
2006, 128, 10258.
 Rapireddy, S., He, G., Roy, S., Armitage, B. A., Ly,
D. H. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2007, 129, 15596.
 Chenna, V., Rapireddy, S., Sahu, B., Ausin, C., Pedroso,
E., Ly, D. H. ChemBioChem 2008, 9, 2388.
 Sahu, B., Chenna, V., Lathrop, K. L., Thomas, S. M.,
Zon, G., Livak, K. J., Ly, D. H. J. Org. Chem. 2009,
74, 1509.
 He, G., Rapireddy, S., Bahal, R., Sahu, S., Ly, D. H.
J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2009, 131, 12088.
The infamous quotes:
• “If you sleep well at night, you are not doing important science”
• “There is no second place in science”
• “If you’ve been to hell, everything else afterward is nirvana”
First Impressions on the Job
 Felt a sense of awe
 Felt like walking on a tight-rope without the safety net beneath
 The BIGGEST fear was that I might ruin the lives of these young
graduate students & postdocs
A Career in Science
Industry
Academia
Pros
 Comfortable life (9-5 job)
 Higher (initial) salary
 Receive other financial incentives
 Deliver goods directly to consumers
Pros
 Academic freedom
 You are your own boss
 Opportunity to shape the lives of young people
 College tuition incentive for your children
 Job security (tenured)
Cons
 Follow company’s hierarchical rules
 Work is dictated by profit
 Job insecurity
Cons
 Constantly writing grant proposals
 Work long hours
 A lot more external obligations
Securing an Academic Job
Hiring
Tenure (5th or 6th yr)
 Stiff competition
 Selection is based on merit
 Invitation for interview
 Give a “chalk talk”, m/w colleagues
 Make an offer to the best candidate
(1) Put together a tenure package (PI)
-Scholastic achievements
-Educational accomplishments
-Departmental/university obligations
-A list of students and colleagues
(2) Dept. solicits letters from students, colleagues
both internal & external (natl. & intl.)
(3) Departmental level
(4) Adhoc tenure committee
(5) College level (dept. heads)
(6) College deans & Provost
(7) Board of Directors
(8) President sends out the verdict
Start-Up Package
 Laboratory space
 Start-up account
Philosophy on Education and on Life
 Students learn best when they are inspired
 Schooling is about learning on how to learn
 Tackle each problem with fervor and conviction
 In life work hard, play hard—NO REGRET
 Take on personal misfortunes as challenges, not as excuses
 GRADES will not matter in real life
A Measure of Success
 It’s NOT about fame or fortune
 It’s about finding something in life that you are passionate about
 It’s about setting milestones and do everything you can to achieve them
 Even if you don’t succeed, you should be happy knowing that you have given your best
 Each one of us has different dreams and ambitions
My definition of success
 A hardworking, honest, considerate, and responsible person
 I strive to be a better person each day than the day before
 Live your life according to your principles and values;
there’s a proverb in my country that says “At HOME we have separate mothers, but in the
FOREST there is only ONE mother”
 Be a big BROTHER or SISTER to those in need; take them under your wings and provide them with
directions and guidance
A career goal: Dedicated towards improving human health
A personal goal: Restore the hopes and dreams of children around the world
Concluding Remarks
 The future is a blank slate
 Find something in life that you are passionate about
 Mold it, shape it in any which way or form you like
 Make this world a better place for our children to live in
 The road may be long and treacherous, but you will get there if you are determined
Danith H. Ly, Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University
http://www.chem.cmu.edu/groups/ly/
Acknowledgements
Postdocs:
Miaomiao Wang
Srinivas Rapireddy
Venugopal Chenna
Bichsmita Sahu
Graduate students:
Peng Zhou
Anca Dragulescu-Andrasi (Stanford)
Gaofei He
Subhadeep Roy (Univ. Colorado)
Matthew Crawford
Iulia Sacui
Raman Bahal
Undergraduate students:
Lei Due (Penn State)
Brian Frezza (Scripps Research Institute)
Jihoon Lee (U Florida)
Elizabeth Wiltrout (U Chicago)
Jesse O’Hara (Princeton)
Andy Hsieh (UC Berkeley)
Brian Belardi (UC Berkeley)
Robert Meehan (Yale)
Sheldon Cheung (Caltech)
Collaborators:
Professor Bruce Armitage
Professor Alan Waggoner
Professor Joanne Yeh (Pitt)
Professor Enrique Pedroso (Spain)
Dr. Gregory Fisher
Dr. Marcela Madrid
Dr. Roberto Gil
Dr. Jennifer Grandis (UPMC)
Dr. Sufi Thomas (UPMC)
Dr. Charles Thornton (RMC)
Dr. Jerry Zon (ABI)
Dr. Kenneth Livak (ABI)
Funding:
Berkman Faculty Development Fund
CMU Innovative Seed Fund
Applied Biosystems
Head and Neck SPORES (NIH)
Lung Cancer SPORES (NIH)
National Institutes of Health