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I’m Sonja Best, head of the Innate Immunity and Pathogenesis Unit of the Laboratory of
Virology here at Rocky Mountain Labs.
I’m originally from Australia. About a year before I finished my Ph.D. I
came to the United States to attend a scientific meeting and it was through that that I ended
up here.
The PECASE award for me was incredibly exciting. It represents the incredible support that
we’re given from the Division of Intramural Research.
Before I came to Rocky Mountain Labs I knew that the Division of Intramural Research was
an amazing place to work, with very dedicated scientists that were able to ask a lot of
blue-sky questions.
To be a principal investigator is really a privilege and a gift. You get to amass a team
that will stay with you for quite a while, so you can really build on that mentoring
relationship.
The other advantage of the DIR is simply the expertise and the resources that are around
you. From the Clinical Center to the Research Technologies Branch and those facilities in
genomics that really can facilitate your work without actually having to have that expertise
in your own group.
If you don’t know how to do something, there’s going to be someone here that can help you
get that thing done, and they’ll do it gladly.
I work on understanding the early immune responses to highly pathogenic viral infections. The
genetic information encoded within a virus is just like looking at the stars. You know
that the answers are out there somewhere. All we have to do is mine that information.
The viruses that we work on in particular are tickborne encephalitis viruses, and these
are endemic throughout Europe and Asia, causing relatively high mortality rates.
The overall goal of that work is to identify therapeutic opportunities for treatment of
infection and potentially to better guide the rational design of vaccines.
I’ve had doubts about my abilities as a scientist all the way along. At the time that
I finished my Ph.D., I was very burnt out and I wasn’t quite sure if I even wanted
to continue with science.
There’s been a number of pivotal moments in my career that have kept me on this path.
One that I can think of is looking down the microscope at some expressed proteins from
a virus knowing that we had an answer that a lot of other people had been seeking for
a long time.
I remember just sitting there in the dark kind of absorbing it, thinking to myself,
this is it. I really can do this.
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