Down a plain-looking hallway on the E level of the Fred Hutch campus, you might pass by a nondescript door labeled ‘cellular imaging’ without a second glance. Behind this door, however, lives a collection of some of the most sophisticated imaging equipment in the world, staffed by a team of expert scientists dedicated to helping Hutch researchers peer into the microscopic unknown. I sat down with Dr. Lena Schroeder, Associate Director of the Cellular Imaging Shared Resource, for a conversation about her path to science, what the shared resource encompasses, and how Hutch researchers can make the most of their support.
Could you introduce yourself and your path to science?
I actually grew up and went to high school in Seattle, where I had amazing science teachers who really inspired a scientific curiosity in me. When I went to undergrad at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, I ended up connecting with Dr. Greg Hermann, a professor who had a lab studying C. elegans cell biology (fun fact: Dr. Hermann completed his postdoc in the lab of Dr. Jim Priess at Fred Hutch). He offered me the opportunity to do research in his lab, and before I knew it, I was spending my weekends doing these crazy 8-hour time course experiments, looking at worms under microscopes and having an absolute blast! This was my first exposure to microscopy, and I was able to publish a paper during my time there, really cementing in me an interest in research and specifically in imaging. I was initially hesitant to go to graduate school, but Greg’s support and faith in me was really instrumental in making the decision to go. I started graduate school at Columbia University, but the lab I ended up joining moved to Yale soon after I joined, and I moved with it. In grad school, I found myself in this high-energy, high-pressure environment with really cutting-edge science, which was a huge departure from my undergrad research experience [side note: Lena’s PhD advisor, Jim Rothman, would win a Nobel Prize for his work on intracellular vesicular trafficking—work which included the discovery and characterization of SNARE proteins—during her time in the lab.]. During my time in Jim’s lab, I fell in love with the Golgi apparatus and was studying how proteins trafficked though this organelle—we quickly realized that super-resolution microscopy was the perfect tool to address these questions. Thus, in a relatively short amount of time, I went from not having a clue how to do ‘super-res’ microscopy to facilitating a lot of the cutting-edge microscopy in the lab.
That sounds like a perfect example of the relationship between the technologies available to scientists and the kinds of questions these technologies allow them to ask!
Yeah, but sometimes this tech is really hard to access, right? So that’s where I started realizing that a core facility is something I may be interested in, in terms of a career. I had the biological questions and I was working with the physicists and engineers that were developing the scopes, and I was helping other biologists access the scopes in the same ways that I was—before I knew it, I was occupying this role as a facilitator, and I found a lot of joy in bridging this divide between the people with the questions and the people with the technology.
What brought you to Fred Hutch?
I did end up staying at Yale to do a postdoc, but this time I was in a microscope development lab studying under Dr. Joerg Bewersdorf. Joerg’s lab was developing some of the best microscopes in the world for imaging organelles, and I wanted to ‘bring the biology to the technology.’ Under Joerg’s outstanding mentorship, I started wearing the ‘facilitator’ hat even more than before. He had also worked in Dr. Stefan Hell’s lab—where STED microscopy was developed—so I also got introduced to and fell in love with this imaging technology here as well. When it came time to decide what I was going to do after postdoc, I was looking around for jobs that would allow me to continue this sort of facilitating, and I found out through my network that Seattle had some openings—which was great because my family is here. Before I knew it, I was interviewing at the Hutch, and it seemed like a great fit.
How long have you been at the Hutch, and what’s your position?
I started here in February 2020 as a staff scientist, and I’m now the Associate Director of the Cellular Imaging Shared Resource.
How would you describe the value of the Cellular Imaging Shared Resource to someone who might not be super familiar with it?
Yeah, so we have a wide variety of imaging technology available, and we pride ourselves on helping people throughout the process of imaging—this ranges from someone who’s never used a microscope before to a regular user of high-end equipment with specific technical desires. We’re a staff of three PhD scientists, so we have a lot of experience in the design and execution of imaging experiments, and we’re also keen to help with the entire spectrum of considerations that go into imaging; everything from the initial design of an experiment to the gathering of data and its analysis.
What do you think are the advantages of a Shared Resource over a system where labs each have their own set of equipment?
There’s nothing wrong with a lab having its own instrument (usually this is an instrument which the lab uses frequently), but one of the things we do offer is support. We have a collection of microscopes that we actively maintain, and we’re constantly working with vendors to make sure our equipment is functioning at its best and that we have the most cutting-edge technology. We also offer consistent training for anyone who walks in the door, and we’ll help you troubleshoot issues that arise during an imaging experiment. We’ll help people find the microscope that works for them, try it out (for free) during something we call a development session, and then make sure they’re trained on the scope. Then we’ll work with them to figure out what they want out of their data and how to maximize the odds of obtaining useful results.
So it sounds like what you guys do is less about providing a service for a cost and more about really collaborating on a project with Hutch scientists. Would you say this is accurate?
We don’t use that word—collaborate—around here that much, but maybe we should. We definitely emphasize the facilitation aspect of our jobs—if you’re just here to use a microscope, that’s great and we will support you, but we’re also happy to provide broader support for things that happen outside of the microscope room. Do you have an imaging idea that you think would be cool to implement in your research, but unsure how to implement it? We’d love to talk. Do you need support quantifying your imaging data in a certain way? One of our team members, Julien, is a computational whiz who creates custom data analysis pipelines for diverse types of imaging data. Overall, we aim to be your advocates for all things imaging related.
What’s a typical workday look like for you? What are your most and least favorite aspects of the job?
Our facility is open 9 to 5, so I’m here during those times; I’m still a staff scientist, so I’d say I split my time 50/50 between working with people on the microscopes and doing more ‘director-y’ things like communicating with vendors, administering support grants, and strategic planning for the shared resource. But the thing that really drives me at the end of the day is working with people, working with the experiments, and working with the microscopes, so I’m fortunate to be able to keep that a regular part of my job. One of my favorite things is celebrating new instruments—in fact, we just got two new scanning confocal microscopes (both Leica Stellaris 8’s) to replace one older model that we had, which we’re super excited about! It might not seem like a big deal to someone who doesn’t spend their days thinking about microscopes, but these instruments really are ideal for some of the most cutting-edge imaging that people are doing these days, and the fact that we got two of them (for a steal) means that we can significantly expand our capabilities to serve the Hutch research community, both for routine confocal imaging and specialized applications like STED or lifetime imaging. As far as my least favorite part of the job, it’s always stressful when a piece of equipment breaks—especially when it’s no longer under a service contract, and I suddenly have to figure out where to get $40,000 to replace a broken camera!
If someone at the Hutch is interested in collaborating with the shared resource, how would they go about doing that, and how should they credit your support?
If someone is interested in starting some imaging (or even on the fence about it), I definitely encourage them to send us an email (imaging@fredhutch.org) and get in touch! As far as credit goes, anyone who makes use of imaging shared resources is required to acknowledge that support—specifically, to acknowledge the Cancer Consortium Support Grant that funds a lot of the equipment down here. That’s the bare minimum, and beyond being courteous, it really helps us from an administrative standpoint to see how our instruments are used when deciding what to prioritize going forward. As far as authorship goes, whether or not to put shared resources staff on an author list is up to the individual research groups. If they feel that our contributions were valuable enough to warrant authorship, we always appreciate being included that way.
Sometimes there’s this idea that core facility staff shouldn’t be included on author lists if they charge for their services—sounds like this is a misguided notion?
It’s up to the research groups to determine the worth of our contributions to any individual project, but if you judge that we made a valuable contribution to your project, we appreciate and benefit from being included on author lists like anyone else! And if there was a particular staff member whose support you benefited from, we’d encourage you to acknowledge them by name in any publications, as this acknowledgement goes a long way—both from a professional standpoint and from a strategic planning standpoint, so that we can continue evolving and improving to maximally serve the greater Hutch research community.
If you could give one piece of wisdom or advice to a trainee or someone starting out in science, what would that be?
I’m an enthusiastic person—science is just so fun, and finding ways to incorporate and embrace this fun is often what sustains me. Whether it’s excitement about a topic, finding a community excited about similar things, or sharing the excitement with colleagues and friends—I would say to try to have an element of curiosity, playfulness, and fun in your daily and hold them near.
For more details about the Cellular Imaging Shared Resource, including how to collaborate with them, check out their website.