OBSERVATIONS Rusty Gage shares his inspiration

What are some of the big ideas happening at Salk right now?

We are already pursuing several ambitious projects: tackling five of the world’s deadliest cancers; optimizing plants in order to mitigate the effects of climate change; and developing strategies to make big strides in neuroscience, healthy aging and metabolism. Some of these efforts are what we call “high-risk, high-reward” projects—the ideas may not be conventional enough for traditional types of funding and support and the payoff may not be immediate, but we believe they have potential. These thoughtful forays into new areas of research are what make the Institute fertile grounds for truly groundbreaking and interdisciplinary ideas.

In regards to my area of neuroscience, I am excited about some of our upcoming efforts to investigate the most intractable neurological mysteries and diseases of the brain. Specifically, we are setting our sights on Alzheimer’s disease.

Do you think new treatments for Alzheimer’s are within reach?

There are so many exciting developments in neuroscience that it really feels like a golden age for the field. I’m optimistic that we will make significant progress in our lifetimes.

For example, with a recent gift from South Korea’s NANOS company to establish an Alzheimer’s bank of human cells, we will gain an invaluable experimental resource for both researchers at Salk and the Alzheimer’s disease research community at large. The funds will establish a dedicated laboratory space called the NANOS Alzheimer’s Disease Stem Cell Suite, which will serve as a cell bank focused on Alzheimer’s. This cell bank will house both stem cells and somatic [body] cells from human donors, which are critical for analysis and testing of therapeutic drugs.

With the body of knowledge we have accumulated at Salk and the committed support from companies such as NANOS, we believe novel therapies for Alzheimer’s may be feasible.

In addition to your own research, you’ve had a profound influence on a number of scientists who have come through your lab over the years and with whom you regularly reunite at your alumni events. What is your mentoring approach?

When I first started mentoring, some of the trainees were not much younger than I was. I was learning how to mentor while mentoring. It felt a bit like building an airplane while it’s in flight. In general, I like people to figure out what they really enjoy doing within science. But it can be especially helpful to ask students, “What’s fun for you? What do you enjoy doing?” It’s not just about the conceptual stuff, but technical interests too. What you understand matters, but what you’re good at and what you like matter, too. For postdocs, I try to help them build a line of discovery, not just a single set of experiments; once you’ve solved a problem, how will you build on it?

Once I think I have a clear view of a where a student or trainee wants to go, I ask them: “Do I have this right?” Mentoring is an intuitive process where you check in periodically to see that trainees are moving along the trajectory they want to be on.

You cannot minimize the responsibility that a mentor has when taking somebody on as a trainee. Over time, I’ve learned to be more proactive in reflecting to my trainees how they appear to me. Honest discussions with trainees are difficult for mentors but they are incredibly important. Some way through my career I realized that if you just let people go along a direction that you believe to be incorrect, without intervening, you’re not being an effective mentor.

You still enjoy working in the lab when time allows—what brings you back to the bench?

I think it’s incredibly important for laboratory heads to stay connected to the research and keep up to date on techniques. Being at the bench, even once in a while, reignites a passion for experimentation, which is what drew many of us to science to begin with. Maintaining involvement with the generation of the lab’s data helps keep me connected to the fundamental science. Plus, it’s fun.

Given the enormous demands of running both an institute and a laboratory, from where do you draw inspiration? What keeps you motivated, excited, inspired?

Aside from exercise and a moderated diet, over the last few months I’ve gotten into the habit of writing down inspirational quotes from historic figures—world leaders, philosophers, poets—people who, in the turn of a phrase, have gifted us with words that afford us perspective, lift us up or motivate us into action. Inspirational thinking emerges from functional crises.

What I’ve been reminded of, however, is that I don’t need to look far at all for inspiration; it’s right here, every time I set foot on our campus. It’s here because, at this Institute, we literally and figuratively set our sights on the horizon. At Salk, we are bold enough to say we are fearless in the face
of any challenge and are not afraid to look at who we are as an Institute—and who we are as an institutional family. Jonas Salk had a notion that there are people who are evolvers, and there are people who are maintainers of the status quo. He wanted this Institute to be populated with evolvers who consistently ask the big, hard questions.

I find that everyone at Salk—from administrators to laboratory heads and staff to our donors—want to be part
of a place founded by a big thinker so that more big thinking can be done to improve the lives of people around us, and around the world. Our charge is to be truly fearless in the face of any challenge and to look beyond ourselves and continually seek to enrich the lives of others, for those at Salk now and the generations who will follow us in coming here to set their own sights on the horizon.

All of us, at Salk and beyond, are united through a mission to better humanity. We embrace that mission on a scientific level every day. The best version of humanity demands that we, as humans, are the best versions of ourselves. To me, nothing is more inspiring than that.