Never Give Up!

By Longua Guo Assistant Professor, Molecular & Integrative Physiology Joined MIP Faculty in January 2023

I was born in a small village that is about six hours from Shanghai by bus. I did not grow up with the prosperity that a lot of Chinese families can enjoy nowadays. My mom took care of three kids, grew her own crops, vegetables and farmed her own chickens, pigs and sheep, all by herself. There was not much cash, but my mom made sure we were fed and there were resources to maintain the house by trading her own farm produce. I had great times growing up in a small village and exploring nature. I caught beetles high up in trees and tried to burn their armor, to find that they survived very well from my misdemeanors. I also blew air into a little frog’s belly with a grass straw and watched it become a little balloon, pee on my hands and then jump away. I loved summer as I could go down to the streams to harvest little shrimps and fishes trapped in water puddles. I loved it when my mom and sisters enjoyed them as a meal.

My dad was at college in the northern part of China and later served as a military soldier and built basic electric infrastructures for citizens. The family did not regroup until I was 10-years old. My dad landed a job teaching electronics in a small college in the city of Yancheng and that was when I started to receive a more formal education. I had a teacher who taught three classes on both math and Chinese and served as the headmaster of the school as well, because he was the only teacher at the whole school. He is still one of my most respected people in the world.

I think what was etched in my bones is that there is always joy and there is always space to learn and grow. That is actually what I want to share with the students and postdoc researchers. Although there are issues and struggles in the career path, there is always an end to the struggle and there will be a day that you will be able to smile again. Maybe we can smile most of the days: how fun it is that you can solve a mystery of nature, of us, and learn something that no one knew before? Just, please, don’t give up.

One thing I like most about being a scientist is that none of our effort is a waste. No matter what we learned and what projects we tried before, all will become our experiences and such enriched experiences will only make us stronger. We will learn more experimental skills, have better gut feelings and judgments on the significance and feasibility of questions and projects. We WILL be able to do something cool.

For the above-mentioned reasons, my advice to prospective postdocs is to never give up on yourself and never stop learning. I know that even if I were not a faculty member today, I would still be doing science. I will continually be learning what is new and deciding what my next experiment should be. In academia, there is always a position for a scientist. I have learned that UM is particularly accommodatable for all stages of scientists and Ann Arbor is very inviting for life.

Running an independent lab is of course also fun. I am no longer alone on my ideas and projects. I am working with each member of my lab on different questions and projects. It helps me multi-task more efficiently and productively. As we know, most projects in biomedical research take years to bear fruit. Without years of dedication, an idea would just be an idea. Some ideas we are working on now occurred to me many years ago, but I couldn’t handle it because I was alone, and I had to focus on the most urgent projects then. I am very fortunate that my lab members are all very talented in their unique ways. They are now making my days longer and more enjoyable. Now it’s not just me thinking and working, it is US.

Setting up a lab is challenging. I have always hated shopping. For example, I have a pair of shoes I bought in 2009 for a winter in Salt Lake City. I still wear them and I think I will keep wearing them until they are severely damaged. In order to set up a lab,

I had to do more dreaded shopping and deal with options, representatives and companies. It was two painful months and I had a lot of anxiety in those days. I thought writing a grant gave me anxiety, but it does not bring as much to me as shopping does! I now have many more responsibilities,tomorrow is still uncertain and I can’t just care about myself now. I want to and I must find sufficient funding to support my people in the lab. The anxiety felt the first few months into grant writing has dissipated and I now have joy. In part, I think it is because now I know more about grant writing and applications and because my lab is producing data. I now enjoy spending time on grant writing. Of course, whether the grant will be recognized and funded is a completely different thing, but I will do my part and let the rest of the world do theirs.