WOMEN IN PLANT BIOLOGY

One Day at a Time
How I Got into Biology and Graduate School

Heven Sze searching for roots in the Shanghai Library.

My primary school education was most unusual. It seemed like an unending battle to learn one language after another. As a child of a diplomat, I had lived in Scheveningen in The Hague, Taipei, Panama City, Tehran, and Amman. I had studied Chinese, Spanish, and French for about one year each when my parents sensed that English, not French, was going to be the next “international” language. The curiosity and interest in science began naturally and quite early, in part due to my mother. As a diplomat’s wife she stayed home, but she was interested in what I learned at school. She had majored in psychology and minored in biology at Tsing-Hua University (Beijing), so she could understand the textbooks I brought home, answer questions, and discuss topics in biology, chemistry, and mathematics. The Ahliyyah School for Girls was the best secondary school for girls in Amman. The students were expected to sit for and pass GCE exams at the “O” level and sometimes “A” level. Several classmates saw themselves as future leaders of society whether they came from prominent families or not. The education prepared us well for university. I enjoyed biology in particular, and so I picked botany as a major when I applied to the National Taiwan University.

We were extremely fortunate when Dr. Chu-yung Lin returned from the United States and offered for the first time a course in biochemistry at the university. It was the new emerging discipline in biology at the time (around 1966), much like molecular biology became in the mid-1970s. I was also encouraged when he mentioned that some of us had “potential.” So I applied to a master’s program at the University of California at Davis. There, Thomas Ragland, who taught plant biochemistry, summoned me to his office one day and asked why I was studying for a master’s degree. It was not unusual in those days for women graduate students to get a master’s degree, take a technician position, and get married. Without any good prospects of getting married, I took his advice and applied for a Ph.D. program. Thomas Hodges was taking a sabbatical leave at Davis, and he persuaded me to work with him. I was fascinated by the idea that transporters were like protein enzymes and joined his laboratory.

By the time I got a Ph.D. degree from Purdue University, I was married to another scientist. We both knew that finding jobs for two Ph.D.s was going to be a challenge. Fortunately, my husband found a postdoctoral position at Harvard Medical School in Boston, and A. K. Solomon at the Biophysics Laboratory valued my biochemical perspective of transport proteins and overlooked any weakness in biophysics. He offered me a postdoctoral fellow position to study transport across human red cell membranes. The environment was so stimulating that I began to develop into an independent scientist. When my spouse got a faculty position at the University of Kansas, I followed, readily thinking that I would do whatever I could.

Overcoming Hurdles

I got a courtesy (non–tenure track) faculty position and planned to conduct an independent research project in Eugene Fox’s laboratory as long as I could bring in some grant funds. In 1979, I started developing an in vitro membrane vesicle system to verify if the plasma membrane K+-stimulated ATPase was an ion or an H+ pump. This was originally my Ph.D. thesis project, but I had failed before to get any active transport. The initial results that a membrane-bound ATPase was stimulated by ionophores that dissipated H+ and K+ gradients and that ATP generated an electrical potential in isolated vesicles (later published in PNAS in 1980 and 1981) caused considerable excitement among transport physiologists at the 1980 annual ASPP meeting in Pullman. It was the first direct evidence (to my knowledge) that ATP generated an ion gradient in isolated microsomal vesicles from plants.

Back in Kansas, I got several calls from established laboratories asking how I got sealed vesicles. By 1981, at the joint ASPP/ CSPP meeting in Quebec, several laboratories reported on ATP-driven proton pumping in low-density vesicles, although, unlike the PM-ATPase, the activity was not sensitive to vanadate. These findings combined with results of purified vacuoles led to the “discovery” of the vacuolar-type H+-ATPase that acidifies intracellular compartments of plant and other eukaryote cells (see Sze, H., 1985, Annu Rev Plant Physiol 36, 175). In 1981, the National Science Foundation (including unidentified panel members of the Metabolic Biology program) recognized the significance of the breakthrough and awarded me a grant as sole P.I. in spite of my tenuous position. Yet, this was insufficient to get a tenure-track position at the University of Kansas. Frustrated, I discussed the situation with invited seminar speakers, including Mary Dell Chilton, who advised I seek a position elsewhere. To the university, a “faculty wife” was unlikely to leave the area and should be satisfied with some bench space. By the time I received an offer from the University of Maryland in 1982, I had just received a grant to study calcium transport (see Sze, H., et al., 2000, Annu Rev Plant Physiol & Plant Mol Biol 51, 433). In August, I drove eastward to College Park, thrilled to be a tenure-track faculty member at last!

Balancing Act

New students and postdocs were attracted to my laboratory and were excited to be working at the forefront of plant membrane biology. I strongly felt that if a researcher (student or postdoc) was interested in the project, he or she would make new and exciting discoveries. I tried to match the natural talent, interest, and inclination of the person with the project. I quizzed and challenged students often to stimulate their thinking and development into independent scientists. I tried to cultivate a concept of sharing responsibilities in the laboratory for the good of all. A congenial laboratory environment was contagious and would lead to synergistic results. I continued two traditions I enjoyed as a student. Like my Ph.D. mentor, I had (and still have) lunch with the lab nearly daily where we would talk about anything. Also, I liked to take everyone to the ASPP meetings, held at affordable venues then, like campuses in Davis, Providence, and Baton Rouge. The exposure gave the students and postdoctoral fellows opportunities to interact with other scientists professionally and socially, to present their work, and to gain recognition. As I served on faculty search committees, I learned to write effective recommendation letters. To my delight, the first generation of students and postdocs began to get job interviews. At that time, there was a lack of senior role models in the department. So I must have been doing some things right!

Though I was relatively successful in sustaining a lively research program, grant funding, and attracting outstanding students, I gradually felt unhappy. What was wrong? I had everything, or so it seemed. I achieved tenure in three years and had invitations to author reviews and to give talks. Yet instead of being energized, I felt exhausted to the point that I could hardly function. I escaped to Kansas for peace, tranquility, and contemplation. I thought I would recover in the summer, as I was not diagnosed with any illness. How could I leave three graduate students afloat? I had to get back to them. Yet for months, there was little or no improvement. The positive slope to recovery began only when I accepted that professional life as I had defined it was dispensable, but that one’s personal life was not. Inner strength comes from caring and love for and by family and friends. I had taken that for granted, as I have always had it. As I began to rejoin the professional world, I learned that I was not alone in losing balance. Several prominent scientists shared their experience with me. One advised me to “take breaks often.” My advice to young scientists is to “strive toward your dreams but listen to your inner self.” In pursuit of “success” as defined and expected by promotion and tenure committees of U.S. universities, I had lost touch with what I was—my roots and my culture. Thankfully, I have regained energy and balance with the support of family, friends, students, and colleagues. I now know how to maintain a balance and a sense of inner peace that is so essential to meeting new challenges and to being creative and productive.

Working in a rapidly developing field, like biology, is not unlike my childhood. One faces constant challenges to learn a new language and new concepts of a discipline, and to adapt to the changes. Falling and failing are parts of the journey and the adventure. However, there will be a new discovery or new insight over the next horizon as long as one maintains the childhood curiosity and interest and continues to learn and probe with an open mind and a positive outlook.

Heven Sze
hsze@umd.edu