Caroline Damsky

Caroline Damsky grew up in New York City. She obtained a BA at Stanford University and a Masters in Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. After several years as a technician she re-entered graduate school and obtained her PhD at Penn in 1973. She moved to the Wistar Institute as a postdoc and was appointed assistant professor there in 1977. In 1985 she moved to the Department of Stomatology in the School of Dentistry at UCSF, where she has been ever since. She is now department co-chair and is about to become associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Dentistry.

Caroline has devoted her career to the study of cell adhesion. Initially she used adhesion-perturbing antisera to purify cell substratum adhesion complexes and was thus one of the pioneers of the integrin field. More recently she has used her integrin-related knowledge and reagents to explore the roles of this receptor family in several morphogenetic and signaling systems, such as implantation and apoptosis. Caroline describes herself to non-scientists as a `behavioral scientist on the cellular level'. She has long been fascinated by the rules and mechanisms underlying normal cell behavior and how they are broken in disease.

In the interview that follows, Fiona Watt, Editor-in-Chief of JCS, asks Caroline about her experiences as a woman in science.

FMW: How has your research career impacted on your personal life and vice versa?

CD: I attended an academically rigorous all-girls school from the age of 7. I held my own academically, but, being 6 ft tall by the age of 16, I also gained considerable confidence from my prowess on the volleyball and basketball courts! After my Masters degree I intended to be a high-school biology teacher. However, I got hooked on research when I was doing my Masters degree. I remember at that time a faculty member asked me why I was not in the PhD track. My response was that, even though I really liked doing research, I would likely never pursue an academic career at the university level, and so would not take advantage of the opportunities afforded by a PhD. In fact it took me several years after graduating from college to have the confidence to embark on a path leading to a scientific career in academia and during that time I worked as a technician in Lee Peachey's lab.

When I did start to think about going for an MD or PhD, my fiancé at the time took a very dim view, which resulted in our breaking up. It took me another four years as a technician, as well as a very supportive husband, to figure out that I really could aspire to an academic career in science. I finally got my PhD degree 10 years after graduating from college. With the arrival of my daughter, Lee Frances, my life became busier, but she really helped me keep things in perspective. I often felt guilty at not going to all her school events or spending enough time with her, but she was always happy to see me at the end of the day whether my experiments were working or not! She continues to tell me that it was better that I was not around all the time managing her life (is that a compliment or not? Hmm).

The late 1960s and 1970s were, of course, very active politically. In addition to the war in Vietnam, issues of race and `white flight' from inner-city neighborhoods were very prominent in Philadelphia. We lived in a very racially diverse and lively neighborhood, and my activities focused on community action and supporting the public (city funded) school system, rather than on the war. I was active in my community association. For example, together with other neighbors, I bought an abandoned, deteriorating house on our block and oversaw its rehabilitation and sale to a young family, who are still living there almost 30 years later. Our daughter went to the neighborhood public school. I got a big kick out of going to her class regularly to talk about science. A favorite project was to build a body from rubber tubing, bulbs and other bits from the lab and discuss what each of the major organs did. The combination of this civic and family life, together with a challenging career, has been extremely fulfilling.

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Caroline Damsky with her daughter Lee on Graduation Day, May 1973.

 

My timing in becoming involved in the field of cell adhesion could not have been better. I started in the field at the Wistar in the mid-late 1970s, after Clayton Buck first developed complex adhesion perturbing antisera, which then enabled Karen Knudsen, Clayton and me to purify cell substratum adhesion complexes. Meanwhile, across the street at Penn, Rick Horwitz made the first monoclonal antibody that disrupted substrate adhesion of vertebrate cells: we were all looking at the same molecules, later named integrins. Similarly, the intense collaborative environment at UCSF has enabled me to use my integrin-related knowledge and reagents to explore the roles of this complex family in several fascinating morphogenetic and signaling systems. The collegiality of the research communities in which I have worked has greatly enriched my personal and my professional life.

FMW: What changes for women in science have you observed during the course of your career?

CD: I can provide three striking comparisons, which illustrate how much things have changed.

When I was in the Masters Program at Penn in the mid-1960s, there was one female faculty member in the biology department, and she did not get tenure. My current department at UCSF has 21 full-time (FTE) faculty, 8 of whom are senior women. This is above average, but UCSF does have a significant number of outstanding tenured women, especially in the basic sciences.

At one point early on I thought I might want to go to medical school. I applied in 1964-65 to a few schools and got put on the women's waiting list at two excellent institutions. Many medical schools at that time had quotas of 5-10% women. Now most medical schools are typically 50-50.

Finally, after entering the PhD program at Penn, I applied for an open teaching fellowship slot. I was told that I deserved to receive the fellowship on the basis of my record, but that there was a male student who was supporting a wife, and therefore he needed it more than I did. Surely, I would understand that he should get the fellowship.

There are still hurdles for women to overcome, but they are different and more subtle than they were in the 1960s. For example, the attrition rate for women during the transition from the postdoctoral to the assistant professor level is too high. There are still meetings in areas of cell and molecular biology at which women are greatly under-represented as speakers. Women still need intensive mentoring to learn to ask for what they need in order to succeed. Women are still significantly under-represented at the highest decision-making levels in academia and industry.

One steady beacon of support for women over the years has been the Women in Cell Biology (WICB) program of the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB). WICB's activities have accounted in large part for the fact that women are well represented at all levels of governance and policy in the ASCB. Mentoring and education activities to support women and minority scientists are very active in the ASCB. In fact, women and men alike have benefited from these activities.

FMW: Do you feel that being a woman is an inherent advantage/disadvantage for a career in science? Why?

CD: My own experience has been mixed. Early in my career, I had to fight for my contributions to be accurately reflected in, for example, opportunities to speak at important meetings. One example was the first International Cell Biology Meeting, held in Tokyo in 1984. I was invited to present our work on the purification of a cell-cell adhesion molecule and its involvement in peri-implantation mouse development (we called it Cell-Cam 120/80; later it was found to be the same as E-cadherin). Although our overall cell-ECM and cell-cell adhesion molecule research activities were a group effort, this aspect of the work was primarily mine. The Tokyo meeting opportunity was a real plum, and I had to insist that I was the appropriate person to present the work.

Taking a longer-term view, I have had a productive career and excellent opportunities over many years, not the least of which have been the fantastic, long-term collaborations I have had with Susan Fisher and Zena Werb at UCSF. Nevertheless, I have sometimes not felt confident enough to take optimal advantage of all the opportunities. Thus, I feel that confidence building and leadership mentoring for women is particularly important, so that they will have the confidence to take chances and embrace challenges. Overall, as opportunities have improved for women over the years, and they certainly have, women are not forced to compete so much with one another for a small piece of the pie. Thus, we are in a better position to mentor younger women.

FMW: What are your remaining career ambitions?

CD: It has happened slowly, but I have become increasingly involved in research program coordination and university administration (my `just say no' button not active enough?). As the quest for research funding has become more difficult, at least for me, I have decided to embrace this direction more fully. I have just agreed to become Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Dentistry at UCSF. So my next challenge is to help make life better for faculty in my institution, women and men alike!!





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