{"id":68561,"date":"2019-08-27T10:46:32","date_gmt":"2019-08-27T14:46:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/?page_id=68561"},"modified":"2020-08-09T12:23:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T16:23:02","slug":"meet-tina","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/students\/dei\/65649-2\/meet-tina\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Tina"},"content":{"rendered":"

Molecular and Translational Medicine PhD Candidate<\/em><\/h4>\n
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Christina (Tina) Lisk joined the Program in Biomedical Sciences (PiBS) umbrella PhD program in the fall of 2015 and joined the molecular and translational medicine (MTM) program for her dissertation research. She decided to make the transition to graduate school after working in the pulmonary division of the department of medicine at University of Colorado Anchutz Medical Campus. There, she focused on pulmonary hypertension complications from exposure to hemoglobin. After 5 years in the pulmonary division and two first author papers, she decided to attend Boston University for graduate school. She was a student-athlete in her undergraduate studies at the College of St. Benedict in central Minnesota, where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Biology. While studying science has always been a passion for her, she also likes to remind everyone of work\/life balance which she maintains by running marathons and having a dog to come home to after lab.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/strong>When did you realize that you wanted to pursue a career in science and why?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I graduated from a small school in Central Minnesota and studied biology up there and got to play soccer, which is one of the reasons I chose the school. I graduated in 2009, which was kind of the middle of the recession, so I worked as a cook with my degree and worked for free at the University of Denver Medical Campus as a tech. It was through that \u2013 figuring out how all the puzzles fit together as a tech \u2013 that I really, really started to enjoy it. I went through the routes there as high as I could go, I got to travel a lot to go to different conferences (which was cool). Then I realized I loved immunology and that I wanted to go back to graduate school and figure out as much as I could about immunology.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>You were out of school for a while before you came to the PiBS program. How as that transition?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was hard, to say the least. I was used to being in a lab, I knew what lab work entailed, I knew that there were days that would take 14 hours, I knew there were days that would take 5. Graduate school and coming back is 14 hours every day. You have to learn how to write again, how to learn again; it\u2019s a different process from undergrad. You don\u2019t necessarily have a test at the end of the semester or end of the unit, so it really pushed me in different ways, academically, than what I was ready for. But I feel like I pulled it out OK.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Can you tell us a little bit about your dissertation research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The reason I chose this lab, coming back from immunology and having worked with vaccine development for the past 20 years, is because Lee [Wetzler]\u2019s lab specifically looks at Toll-like receptor adjuvants. The reason I chose his lab is to learn immunology as much as I could. So, what I\u2019m looking at is knocking down a specific subset of macrophages and how that influences antibody production.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>What advice would you give a first year PhD student trying to identify a laboratory to carry out their research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I definitely focused on subject, whereas the advice I got from others was to focus on lab environment, so I tried to find a good balance between those two. I really wanted to join Molecular and Translation Medicine, not so much Microbiology, and for immunology that was a bit more difficult. Lee\u2019s lab fit that really well and, at that time, we had a postdoc who I really enjoyed, as well as another graduate student who I really enjoyed. All of this in combination, you just take it in and does it feel right?<\/p>\n

Can you tell me about an interesting experience you\u2019ve had while in graduate school?<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>Honestly the people here. That includes your peers, the students and faculty. I think they genuinely believe in you, want to see you succeed, but they\u2019re almost like parents in the aspect that they\u2019re going to push you. I was in the second group of PiBS students to come through, and the growth this program has gone through has been really cool to be a part of and see.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>What\u2019s the most surprising thing that you\u2019ve learned about yourself as a graduate student?<\/strong><\/p>\n

How well I can time-manage and what I can get accomplished in 5 years. I think I\u2019ve been able to travel a fair amount with some of my friends just the way situations have worked out financially; I\u2019ve gone to two international conferences that I have won awards for. I have a sister in New York City, so I\u2019ve gotten to do a lot of the East Coast stuff that I didn\u2019t necessarily think I would have time for while doing my dissertation.<\/p>\n

I also have a dog. He\u2019s a hot mess but he\u2019s adorable. I adopted him when he was 3 years old and he definitely has protective issues. I\u2019ve never had a problem with him but he\u2019s a Wheaton Terrier, about 40 lbs. We go running together and Terriers are just the best. They\u2019re just so sweet and it\u2019s the best to come home to.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>Now that you\u2019re getting close to defending your dissertation, what\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have a postdoc position at National Jewish Hospital in Denver. I worked in Pulmonary at UC Denver for 5 years, and then here for immunology for 5 years, and National Jewish is specifically for pulmonary and immunology. I\u2019ll be looking at human macrophages, alveolar macrophages that we isolate, and the genes that are involved for different disease processes. And I\u2019m getting married. My fianc\u00e9 lives in Denver and she and I have been suffering through a long distance relationship and both of us are very excited for that to end.<\/p>\n

<\/strong>What do you like to do for fun?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lots of things! I\u2019m a huge Liverpool Football Club supporter. They\u2019ve won championships this year so it\u2019s been a great year to be a supporter. I watch a lot of those games. I run a lot. I ran two marathons in grad school \u2013 New York City and Acadia. I hang out with the dog. I travel \u2013 either seeing my sister or my parents in Denver. Went to California and I did Napa with my family. Family is huge on my list, so whatever I can do to see them. And then I hang out with my friends. There\u2019s a lot of cool breweries downtown that we get to go to, like Backlash, which is right around the corner.<\/p>\n

Read More GMS DEI Spotlights<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Molecular and Translational Medicine PhD Candidate Christina (Tina) Lisk joined the Program in Biomedical Sciences (PiBS) umbrella PhD program in the fall of 2015 and joined the molecular and translational medicine (MTM) program for her dissertation research. She decided to make the transition to graduate school after working in the pulmonary division of the department […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4614,"featured_media":0,"parent":65649,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4614"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68561"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73984,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/68561\/revisions\/73984"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/65649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bumc.bu.edu\/gms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}