Mark Moran: [00:00:03] Hello, welcome to TGen Talks. I'm Mark Moran. Internships provide students an opportunity to learn more about potential career choices and equally important, after the experience, gauge whether that career is right for them. Internships also build confidence, teach the value of networking and hopefully place students on the road to success. [00:00:25][22.1]
Mark Moran: [00:00:27] Each summer, the Helios Scholars at TGen program provides 45 students pursuing careers in the biomedical sciences, an opportunity to try and run those dreams and a hands on laboratory setting. The eight week program exposes interns to bench science, bioinformatics, statistics and research administration. Scholars also attend educational seminars, gain exposure to various career options, and develop science writing, presentation and networking skills. It's a busy but rewarding summer. Today on TGen Talks, we're catching up with former Helio scholar, Josh Nasca, M.D., a radiation oncologist with a banner MD Anderson Cancer Centers in Arizona, who shares his insights on the value of his Helio Scholar's experience and how his internship helped play a role in advancing his career. [00:01:21][53.9]
Mark Moran: [00:01:22] Just a note. Both Dr. Niska and I are wearing masks for obvious health reasons. Dr. Nisko, welcome. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. [00:01:29][7.3]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:01:30] Happy to be here. [00:01:31][0.4]
Mark Moran: [00:01:31] Career choices differ for every intern that participates at TGen, and some come to the experience already having selected a chosen career path and then others kind of use the summer to narrow down choices. Which one were you? When did you know a career in medicine was the right choice? [00:01:47][15.9]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:01:48] I think I always knew that I wanted to pursue a career in the sciences. But as far as medicine versus PhD type research, uh, career, I was a little bit between the two. I either interested in an M.D. or potentially an MD PhD or just a Ph.D. in and then a career in bench science. And I think that TGen really gave me the opportunity to explore the research side of that, and although I had decided in the end to pursue just an M.D., the experiences that I had have been invaluable to me as I've gone forward in my career. [00:02:29][40.8]
Mark Moran: [00:02:29] Let's clarify when we talk about bench science, we're talking about kind of hands on experiments on on a lab bench. [00:02:35][5.8]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:02:35] Literally science done at a bench. Some people would call it a wet lab because you're you're running experiments directly with cell lines or other biomedical techniques, whereas translational science that TGen also has a large role and works to get those experiments and discoveries from the bench side to clinical treatments for patients. And then what I do now in my current career is more clinical research, which is really just focusing on treatments that all patients already are receiving or or new treatments that are beginning to enter the clinic and trying to improve those for patients. [00:03:18][43.1]
Mark Moran: [00:03:20] Why, Helios, what was it about this program that was special and what stood out the most? [00:03:24][4.6]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:03:25] I actually was working and interning in Dr. Michael Berens lab before I joined the Helios program. So the Helios program really gave me the perfect opportunity to continue what I had been working on with Dr. Berens in his CNS focused lab and then later able to continue that work in Dr. Heather Cunliffe's lab looking at breast cancer. [00:03:49][24.1]
Mark Moran: [00:03:49] Tell us about your experience as a scholar. [00:03:51][1.9]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:03:52] The difference between when I was an intern, before I was part of the Helios program and being part of the Helios program is the community of other interns that you have and the other mentors of those interns that you are able to build relationships and network with throughout the summer. So many of the other interns are people I'm still friends with and are in communication with today. And and same with the mentors. There's still mentors for me to this day. [00:04:26][33.9]
Mark Moran: [00:04:26] Any other examples about how your research and work here affected your personal career and your professional accomplishments? [00:04:32][5.8]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:04:33] The research that I did with Dr. Berens and Dr. Cunliffe ended up resulting in a Goldwater scholarship while I was at Arizona State University. And later I interviewed for and was one of the finalists for the Rhodes Scholarship, was not selected to go to Oxford for a Rhodes scholarship. But just being a finalist was an honor in itself. And that same research and letters of recommendation from Dr. Berens and Dr. Cunliffe ended up propelling me to Harvard Medical School for my medical education. And so I think that every step along the way, the work that I had done at TGen and the mentorship that I had from TGen really supported me and pushed me along. [00:05:17][44.6]
Mark Moran: [00:05:18] How did that exposure to bench science that we talked about help you in the career you have now? [00:05:23][4.9]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:05:23] It's interesting, even all through undergraduate education, through medical school and residency and my current career, it seems to kind of keep coming up over and over again. The labs that I took at Arizona State were pretty easy compared to the the research that we were doing at TGen. And so it made that easy for me. And then getting into medical school, our biochemistry course relied heavily on the same technologies and techniques and concepts that I had been doing for years at TGen and so made that also quite a bit easier for me and even in into my career in radiation oncology. Right before finishing residency, I took my radiation biology boards and the same thing happened where a lot of the concepts that we needed to know for our board exams and radiation biology came directly from the same kinds of things that I learned at TGen years and years ago. Now, on a daily basis, when I'm reading research articles, I am able to understand the kind of foundational science that goes into whatever I might be reading about at a better level than I would have otherwise. [00:06:38][74.9]
Mark Moran: [00:06:39] It sounds like it's almost a head getting a head start on what would otherwise be very, well is complex information, but would be even more complex without kind of a leg up that it sounds like you got through the Helios scholarship program. [00:06:51][12.0]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:06:51] Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's how, you know, we talked about bench science and translational research and clinical research. They all kind of build off of each other with with bench science as as the foundation. And if you're going into a career in medicine, you might be doing clinical research or you might just be a medical doctor practicing and you need to understand clinical research, but knowing the scaffolding that all that is built on is really helpful. [00:07:18][26.6]
Mark Moran: [00:07:19] You're listening to TGen Talks. I'm Mark Moran. Today's guest, Dr. Josh Niska, a former Helios scholar participant in turn and now a medical doctor in radiation oncology with Baner MD Anderson Cancer Centers in Arizona. So, Dr. Niska, what was the most interesting part, do you think, of your Helios experience at TGen? [00:07:40][20.8]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:07:41] I think what I found most interesting is learning the serendipity and the luck that sometimes goes into research because the projects that students might be working on, you might learn a lot, but if you don't get a little bit lucky or have some serendipitous results, it might be a project that extends well beyond their time in the lab. And I wouldn't count that as not a success. It's still a learning process. And and you learn from the times that you have to kind of course correct. But for me, what was interesting in the lab at TGen as far as that serendipity and luck goes, is as an intern, you might make mistakes. And sometimes those mistakes actually turn out serendipitous. And one of the cell lines that we were working with, I was playing them at different densities. And, you know, you want things to be consistent for research. But we noticed that one of the markers that we were looking at, the protein differed depending upon how dense I played the cells in cell culture, and that actually ended up becoming kind of a key portion of the manuscript we were working on because we found that it actually was dependent on density and and that revealed kind of an autoregulatory function of the protein that we were looking at. [00:09:06][85.2]
Mark Moran: [00:09:07] So these internships are not only for you to get an education, but you're also doing real bona fide science that made a contribution to the program that you were working on that was able to be helpful to what you were doing, to what the scientists were doing. [00:09:22][15.2]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:09:23] Yeah, absolutely. If I were to kind of go through the other interns that I know and kind of where they've ended up and and where their research led them, they've gone on and all sorts of different paths, including medical school, MD/Ph.D. programs, where they did a Ph.D. in medical school or Ph.D. programs. And each of them have taken their experiences from their internship, either the hands on experience and the knowledge that they gained or both-- the manuscripts that they produced to be part of their future careers. [00:10:03][40.5]
Mark Moran: [00:10:04] When you got into the internship program, what surprised you the most? [00:10:07][2.5]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:10:07] I think I'd go back to that serendipity and not knowing exactly where things are going to go. And it's kind of exciting to see things happen in real time and get results in real time and design your projects based on that. [00:10:24][16.5]
Mark Moran: [00:10:24] What about the soft skills such as networking? You mentioned the other interns you met, people you meet in the field that you otherwise would not meet that can help advance you and your career. [00:10:33][8.8]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:10:33] That really can't be emphasized enough, regardless of what you end up doing for a career, having contacts in different fields and and across the country, especially because the interns aren't just from Arizona, they come from all over the country and potentially even the world. And knowing these people in diverse networks, even if you were to go into film or media, you might need a science expert if you're working on a TV show, you know, as kind of an odd example. But that is something that that could come up. And then you would know a science expert if you working on a TV show. For me, being back at Mayo Clinic for residency in radiation oncology, I designed a clinical trial to look at cardiotoxicity related to radiation exposure in the heart and was able to reach out to researchers here at TGen to help with that project and to collaborate as part of a translational aspect of my clinical project. [00:11:37][63.3]
Mark Moran: [00:11:37] Are there colleagues that you have now, even these many years later, that you met as part of the Helios Scholarship Program at TGen that you rely on now, that you talk to on a regular basis? [00:11:47][9.3]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:11:47] As far as mentorship goes, I would say Michael Berens and Heather Cunliffe, who is now back in New Zealand, no longer at TGen, but both of them are mentors who mentored me in the lab and continue to mentor me throughout my career. Actual professional pursuits, Dr. Matt Huentelman, who is a professor in the Neuro Genomics Division here at TGen, is one of our co-collaborators and investigators on a clinical trial that I mentioned earlier that I opened when I was in residency at Mayo Clinic. And so the specimens that we're collecting from patients who are receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy at Mayo Clinic, looking at toxicity to the heart from their radiation, we're sending to TGen to do next gen sequencing and and more translational type analyses. [00:12:38][50.4]
Mark Moran: [00:12:39] With the science that you learned and contributed to and the colleagues that you made and established here. How has all that experience helped you navigate your own career? [00:12:48][9.1]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:12:49] I think having that mentorship is is really had a profound impact on on me going through my career and and wanting to pay it forward to to other students and medical students and residents that I have the opportunity to to mentor. Seeing what they have done as far as contributions to science and to research has motivated me to do that in my own field in radiation oncology. So even though I'm not doing bench science anymore, I'm able to collaborate with people who might be doing bench science and have an understanding of what they're doing and the science writing skills that I learned at TGen I still use on a daily basis writing manuscripts for clinical research. And I'm able to advance my own field using the skills that I've learned from the Helios program at TGen. [00:13:43][54.3]
Mark Moran: [00:13:43] This sounds beyond invaluable on a number of fronts. [00:13:47][3.7]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:13:48] Yeah, yeah. I think that as far as the skills that you receive, the networking that you're you're able to to do, the mentorship that you receive, there really isn't a better type of program, and area to get those skills within the medical sciences. [00:14:07][19.0]
Mark Moran: [00:14:07] What advice do you have either for applicants or future biomedical science students? [00:14:12][4.5]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:14:13] I think I would encourage students to explore whatever they are interested in and what excites them and motivates them to wake up every morning and pursue that. As far as the research at TGen goes, I ended up spending close to four years working in the labs here at TGen, a number of those years participating in the Helios program, but then one summer I decided that I wanted to go to Ecuador and study how Western medicine interacts with shamanism and traditional medicine in Ecuador. And so I spent the summer doing that. It didn't take away from my my experience at TGen other than, you know, I spent a summer not at TGen, but that was something that I pursued because it was exciting to me. And I came back from that and got back into the lab and was kind of refreshed and spent a whole nother year working in the lab. So I think whatever is going to motivate you to to get up in the morning is what you need to do. [00:15:19][66.5]
Mark Moran: [00:15:20] The Ecuador trip for you was because you felt empowered to explore those passions and your curiosities and things you wanted to learn more about. [00:15:26][6.5]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:15:27] Yeah, absolutely. [00:15:27][0.4]
Mark Moran: [00:15:28] And we were able to bring that knowledge back. [00:15:29][1.2]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:15:29] Yeah. And that intellectual curiosity goes across, you know, biomedical science, you know, Western medicine and traditional medicine. Having that intellectual curiosity to explore and to learn more is something that applies to any pursuit. [00:15:47][17.8]
Mark Moran: [00:15:48] So you're a Harvard educated radiation oncologist, right? [00:15:52][4.0]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:15:53] Yeah, that's correct. [00:15:53][0.5]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:15:59] I wouldn't be here without TGen. [00:16:00][1.0]
Mark Moran: [00:16:00] A great opportunity here at TGen and the Helios Scholars at TGen program today. Dr. Josh Niska, thanks for joining us today. We appreciate you being here. [00:16:10][9.1]
Dr. Josh Niska: [00:16:10] Thank you for having me. [00:16:10][0.5]
Mark Moran: [00:16:11] Dr. Josh Niska, M.D., a radiation oncologist with Banner MD Anderson Cancer Centers in Arizona, sharing his insights on the value of his Helios scholar's experience and how his internship helped play a role in advancing his career. [00:16:26][15.3]
Mark Moran: [00:16:27] To learn more about internships, TGen for high school, college, graduate, and medical school students visit TGen.org/education. Applications for the Helios Scholars at TGen program open on December 14th and close at five p.m. Arizona time on February 5th, 2021. TGen is an affiliate of City of Hope. To hear other episodes of TGen Talks, visit TGen.org/tgentalks. Thanks for listening. I'm Mark Moran. [00:16:27][0.0]
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