VCU news

By Sathya Achia Abraham

Two different bacteria are under close watch by a team of Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine researchers, and postdoctoral scholar Andrea Beyer, Ph.D., is equipped with the right skills and training to decipher the actions of these tiny hijackers.

It’s her job to guide the research and design experiments necessary to move the research forward at the bench. Through this critical postdoctoral scholar training, she is busily preparing for the next stage in her career – getting a taste of more than just the science itself – and delving into project strategy, developing grant proposals, managing lab members and pursuing training opportunities in teaching, which is her ultimate goal.

Beyer is among the nearly 225 postdoc scholars at any one time working in labs across VCU’s campuses. Beyer together with mentor, Jason A. Carlyon, Ph.D., associate professor and a George and Lavinia Blick Scholar in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, study how bacteria transmitted by ticks and chiggers cause disease in humans.

The VCU lab is one of only a few in the world studying the molecular characteristics of Orientia tsutsugamushi, which is found within the Asia-Pacific region and causes scrub typhus. The other bacterium being investigated in the Carlyon lab is Anaplasma phagocytophilum, which is the causative agent of human granulocytic anaplasmosis, the second most common tick-transmitted disease after Lyme disease. A. phagocytophilium is found in the United States, Europe and Asia.

Each bug is well-versed in the Trojan horse strategy. It is able to trick its foe – the very immune cells that are supposed to fight it off – into letting it in. Once inside, the bug invades and rewires the immune cells, leaving them no choice but to foster the deadly pathogen’s survival.

Beyer’s project looks at the specific proteins that the bacteria make and determines where those proteins go in the host cell. Her goal is to figure out which host proteins the bacteria’s proteins interact with to understand how the bacteria is able to hijack cells that are normally involved in getting rid of a bacterial infection. Ultimately, the team hopes to figure out how to interfere with the hijacking process.

“This is a great transition time in my life where I am no longer just the student but becoming an independent research scientist, capable of contributing my own ideas and helping to train others,” said Beyer, who has completed the first year of her postdoctoral training. “I see the next few years of my postdoc as a time to fully grasp my potential to see where I can run with it.”

Sound guidance

As postdoctoral scholars are critical to the research enterprise, so are mentors like Carlyon who help inspire excellence in their trainees.

“Jason is a great mentor and adviser,” Beyer said. “He is very approachable and gets very excited about any piece of new data, whether it is big or small. His enthusiasm and energy is contagious, and I feel appreciated for the work that I contribute to the lab. He listens to my ideas and allows me to think independently on my projects, which I really appreciate.”

Carlyon also ensures his postdoctoral trainees come away with a well-rounded experience as they prepare to step into a full-fledged career.

“What I try to impart and expose my postdocs to is what is involved in science beyond the science itself,” Carlyon said. “By that, I mean, how to approach a project strategically, develop it to get funding and get people excited about their work is an important career preparatory aspect.”

“I like to think that Andy has started to get exposed to that angle of science because I think that she certainly has the potential to be a great investigator if that is what she hopes to do,” he added.

“What’s critical for success of a postdoc is that they need a lot of energy and motivation – a passion for the project. Also, an open line of communication between postdoc and mentor really does help with the productivity of the project,” he said.

Carlyon said that it takes time for students to soundly and successfully drive a research project – and that’s where postdoctoral scholars come in. Postdoctoral scholars already have four to five years of experience in the lab where they not only have the knowledge of the methods to use, but they also know how to approach and solve a problem independently.

“In order for VCU to be productive – there has to be that level of experience that postdocs bring and their ability to independently handle their research projects,” Carlyon said. “Research would otherwise flounder … a fair amount of work done at VCU is postdoc- driven – and certainly in this lab.”

“Postdocs contribute substantially,” he said.

Know your path

As a postdoctoral scholar, Beyer said that it’s important to put your interests first – and if teaching and research is where you want to be – then seek out a university that offers a program to help reach those goals.

Beyer knew she wanted to pursue a path in both teaching and research, so she enrolled in VCU's Institutional Research and Academic Career Development Award (IRACDA) program. The program enables postdocs to learn how to be both a successful educator and research scientist.

In the spring she will pursue an externship to practice teaching, but said that research will remain her primary focus. She’ll return to research full time once the spring semester comes to a close.

“I've learned from Jason that perseverance and hard work pays off. He is a young principal investigator that is very well funded, well published and is now tenured,” said Beyer. “He is a good role model for how hard work can lead to a successful faculty position.”

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