Episode 75: A Postdoc’s Perspective: Dr. Aya Kamzina’s Path to Research

Episode 75: Aya Kamzina, Ph.D.

Karie Dozer [00:00:03] I'm Karie Dozer and this is TGen Talks. In listening to researchers at TGen talk about their education and training, you may have heard some of them mention having done a postdoctoral fellowship at TGen or someplace else, and wondered what's a postdoc? Simply put, a postdoc is short for postdoctoral and it's a training focused position available to someone who's earned a doctorate. And it acts as a steppingstone between the end of education and a full-time professional experience. T Gen has 11 postdoc researchers on staff, each of whom make significant research contributions while gaining the experience needed to decide what complex disease or disorder to research next annually. The third week in September is set aside to recognize and celebrate the contributions made by postdoctoral scholars in the United States. And in this episode, you'll meet one whose medical education began thousands of miles away, right after high school in her home country in Central Asia, took her to the United Kingdom and finally to the United States, where she now works in the neurogenomics lab at TGen in Phoenix. And our guest on this episode of TGen Talks, is Dr. Aya Kamzina. She's new here at TGen and she's what they call a post-doctoral researcher. Aya, thanks for joining me.

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:01:21] Thank you for having me. 

Karie Dozer [00:01:22] Tell me a little bit about your journey. Where did you get your schooling? How did you find TGen?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:01:27] Sure. So after completing my high school in my home country, Kazakhstan, I received a government scholarship to do medicine. So I studied a year of medicine there. And then after a year, I had an option to go abroad. So I received the scholarship to study in London. So I did my undergrad in biotechnology at the University College London, where my program was more focused on biochemical engineering and chemical engineering. But it also gave me, I know, like a solid foundation in molecular biology, which helped me later on with my career. So after completing my degree, I went back to my country where I worked as a junior scientist in the National Center for Biotechnology of Kazakhstan, and under the mentorship of Dr. Alexander Schuster, we worked with antibody therapeutics, so we produced antibodies that are used to treat allergies and autoimmune diseases like asthma. And his mentorship was an inspiring to me to continue and to further my education. So I decided to do a Ph.D. so I had an option to go to the University of Manchester and do my Ph.D. there or to come to the U.S. and apply here. So I was searching for labs at ASU, at Arizona State University, and there were two particular labs that were very inspiring. And both of them worked with plant made vaccines. So I ended up working with Dr. Filmore, and that experience was amazing. I had an extensive experience in teaching grant writing and learning a lot of experimental techniques. And after completing my Ph.D., I had an option either to go to industry or academia. So I ended up becoming a postdoctoral fellow here at TGen, a nonprofit that has this values that align with my values, where they are oriented in patient specific research as well as they are committed to teaching, to internships and growing our next generation of researchers. So here I am, and I love it here. And under the guidance of Dr. Matt Handelman, we do a lot of meaningful research that hopefully will impact millions of people worldwide. We work with Alzheimer's disease and many other neurological disorders.

Karie Dozer [00:04:05] Yeah, we've talked to Dr. Gentleman many times. He's kind enough to keep talking to us on this podcast. What made you want to go this direction?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:04:13] So multiple things. So first of all, I think genomics is a rapidly growing research field where we every day basically see new things, new techniques such as next generation sequencing techniques as well as gene editing techniques like Crispr. And I feel like all of these are giving us like a lot of like opening up a lot of opportunities to do research that will be very impactful to a large population. And I think it's the future. I think we are getting very close to preventive medicine and precision medicine. We call it the personalized medicine. So all of this kind of inspired me to come to this field.

Karie Dozer [00:04:59] I think a lot of people hear the term postdoctoral fellow and they think, what does that even mean? Just means that you're finished with the bulk of your education. But is it a quest to try to find a path, a particular field that interests you?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:05:13] I think yes. So if you are kind of willing to explore a different field, I think postdoctoral fellowship is amazing. You can build up the skills you need to go into a different direction maybe, or if you want to become a professor in academia. I think postdoctoral fellowship also is super helpful and usually people do postdoc after they graduate, after they do their PhD. So it's basically a short-term training where you get more experience in different areas.

Karie Dozer [00:05:47] Why Dr. Huntsman and why his lab? What's particularly interesting for you about Alzheimer's and all of the aspects of the brain that he researches?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:05:57] Yeah, sure. So overall, I'm interested in learning more about the genome, right? So the genome is the entire set of DNA in our body. So he does a lot of genomics transcriptomics and. All of these kind of help us to understand the interaction between genes as well as our kind of interaction with our environment. And if you think about statistics, genetic factors play a key role in like nine of the ten leading cause of death in the U.S. only. And if we consider the fact that we are human, all human beings are identical in their genetic makeup up to like 99.9%. The rest, a tiny percent point 1%, has like a vast amount of data that it is affecting us in many aspects of our lives. And his research focuses on longevity, like aging and Alzheimer's disease that is affecting more and more people every year. And also that he uses this cutting-edge technology also inspired me to come here.

Karie Dozer [00:07:02] You mentioned the fact that genetically we are 99.9% alike after having traveled all those miles and worked in so many different places. Does that even resonate with you more?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:07:13] Yeah, I think very interesting to see all these different cultures. Right. And disease that affect people and the way they live, how they leave affects their health. And I think there is a lot of how to say like environmental factors that affect us. And you can see this while traveling and, you know, while living in different countries. I feel like that kind of helps us to see it in the real-world scenarios. 

Karie Dozer [00:07:41] What are you working on specifically in Dr. Huntsman's lab?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:07:45] So currently I'm working with Brain Organoids. So organoids are basically neurons or like the cells that are self-organizing that become like a 3D model. And it can mimic the tissue of interest. So since brain is such a complex, complex organ, it's very hard to get access to the functional brain. I think brain organoids are amazing because of that.

Karie Dozer [00:08:15] So we're creating them in the lab to mimic what's happening inside the brain.

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:08:19] That's exactly, yes, it's fascinating. And I think it's the future. I think it will replace all this tissue culture work that don't really resemble and, you know, mimic our brain or the animals that don't even have some diseases that humans have. So I think this is very crucial research. So we work with this brain organoids, and we also work with microglia and microglia are the immune cells. It's a defense mechanism of our central nervous system. And microglia is in constant surveillance for like pathogens, for toxic byproducts in the brain. So it constantly does its job to keep our brain healthy. However, it is also known to contribute to Alzheimer's disease, where it becomes inflammatory and worsens the symptoms even more. So my research right now focuses on this brain organoids as well as microglia, to see where that change happens and to see how specific mutations derived from patients change their molecular functions. So there are pathways so that we can hopefully try to find the unknown targets for therapeutics development.

Karie Dozer [00:09:35] Obviously you won't be a postdoctoral fellow forever. At some point you may open your own lab and try to answer your own questions. Do you have any idea specifically what those questions are? A field of research that you'd like to stay in for many years.

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:09:49] Currently, I am still thinking I would either open my own lab or I can just continue working on the things I love for a lab. I don't know how to answer the question because I'm still unsure.

Karie Dozer [00:10:05] That's okay. Most people don't know exactly what they'll be doing for the rest of their lives. What's the most rewarding part of what you do?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:10:12] I think it's a great question, and the most rewarding thing is that knowing this is a translational research, that it will help people in the future. Maybe millions of people worldwide. So it's like patient oriented research right now as well as it is very fulfilling to get the experience of mentorship here as well. And knowing that you are not only doing research in this amazing environment, a TGen where they collaborate immensely with lots of different clinical institutes and within even teach, and there are a lot of collaborations going on and working in this cutting-edge environment, right? Having all these resources for this amazing, advanced technologies is fulfilling already, but also like knowing that this will be impactful. For a lot of people or maybe even improving their quality of life is very fulfilling.

Karie Dozer [00:11:16] What advice would you give to somebody who thinks this is the kind of medicine they would like to practice? They want to go to medical school, but they like to research in a lab instead of perhaps being a clinical physician.

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:11:27] Sure. So I think post-doctoral position is going to be very helpful in that way, because during that your time being a postdoc, you can explore many different areas. And my main advice is to define your goals, who you want to be, where you want to go, and then if you want to like if your goal is to publish papers or to write lots of grants or to, you know, learn specific techniques, defining that and setting that goal early on will help a lot during the process. And also seeking guidance of your mentor.

Karie Dozer [00:12:08] Find a mentor.

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:12:09] Yeah, Find a mentor and find a good team. Where will you have a nice environment to grow, and progress will be very helpful.

Karie Dozer [00:12:18] If you hadn't pursued a career in science, in genomics. Is there anything else that was interesting to you? Is there any other direction you might have taken?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:12:27] Sure. I think I would become a medical doctor, and I was already on that track for some time, and I was planning to become some sort of a surgeon. And I think that would be the other path that I would take. However, if you look both sides, it's all about my goal to have some impactful work where it can help improve the lifestyle of a lot of people.

Karie Dozer [00:12:55] Is there anything I haven't asked that you want people to know about your experience here, your journey, the work you're doing, and Dr. Huntsman's lab? 

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:13:03] Sure. Yeah, I think it's really important not to be scared about, like, new area, new research field. So I came from a very different background. So as I said, I had the more like an engineering background. And then I started doing research and I did my research in like more like vaccines, recombinant DNA technology, where we produced our vaccines in plants. So that was totally different. And then I was a little scared that, you know, after doing a PhD, you know you're switching to neuroscience.

Karie Dozer [00:13:38] All that time and.

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:13:39] Now what? Now, Like you're as if you're like again, starting from the beginning. However, having all that background helps you a lot with learning new things. So and I'm immensely grateful to have this kind of opportunity where you can learn a lot. Like every day is like a learning process and you are up to date with a lot of technologies, and you learn all of those technologies while doing your favorite research is just amazing.

Karie Dozer [00:14:10] Is there a particular technology that you're most excited about, most thrilled to be using?

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:14:15] Yeah, I think the technology that will be helpful for precision medicine, I think it will become our part of our everyday life. It's going to be routine medical assessment where you'll get insights into your health risks and your predisposition to the disease, the way we get the treatments. I think that's where this whole technology is going, where we will have tailored treatments based on your genome. And that's very exciting.

Karie Dozer [00:14:48] I guess it's never too late to change direction. I can. Zena, thanks for taking the time to talk about what you do here.

Dr. Aya Kamzina [00:14:53] Thanks for having me.

Karie Dozer [00:14:56] For more on TGen’s research, go to TGen dot org forward slash news. The Translational Genomics Research institute, part of City of Hope, is an Arizona based nonprofit medical research institution dedicated to conducting groundbreaking research with life changing results. You can find more of these podcasts at TGen dot org forward slash TGen Talks, Apple, Spotify and most podcast platforms. For TGen Talks, I'm Karie Dozer.