Interview with Dr. Kunxin Luo

--by Xuqiong Wu (March 2001)

Xuqiong: You have been in the US for a long time, right? Did you start out at the Salk Institute in San Diego?

Dr. Luo: I came to US 14 years ago. I graduated from USTC in the winter of 1986, a semester earlier than usual. Since there were not many US graduate programs that would admit students in the spring, I started out at the University of Notre Dame and then transferred to UC San Diego in the fall of 1987.

Xuqiong: Biomedical research is a tough career choice, and you have worked hard and persevered for many years. There are many USTC biology alumni in the US, and many have left bench research for other career paths. Would you please estimate the percentage of alumni who have stayed in research and obtained independent position in academia?

Dr. Luo: Yes, indeed, research requires hard work. The percentage of people who have independent academia position would vary with different classes. For example, among those who were in my class at USTC (828), I am the only independent principal investigator as of this moment. But there are still a number of my classmates who are doing postdoctoral work now, because they came to the US later than I did. Some of them may find jobs in academia later.

Whether staying in research or not depends on individual personality. For us coming from China, our choices were heavily influenced by the Chinese education system. When applying to college, we followed our parents' decisions or other external factors instead of our own hearts. I remember when I was a high school senior, biology was considered the best major, and therefore students with the highest exam scores would “choose” biology by default. In contrast, American students decide by themselves, and choose to study biology, although in the end, not everyone would make it. Many of our classmates found out where their true callings lie after they came to the US, and became very successful, though not necessarily in biomedical research.

Xuqiong: We have interviewed your classmate, Tony Chen.

Dr. Luo: Yes, he would be a perfect example: he left biology to study law years ago, and he is very successful now, although not as a bench scientist.

Xuqiong: My own experience in a US biomedical science graduate program has told me that advisors are usually unhappy about their students' defecting from academic research to industry, not to mention leaving for a totally different field. Given the extremely tight academia job market and disproportional number of PhDs produced, what do you, an advisor yourself, think the trend would be? Would advisors have to become more tolerant?

Dr. Luo: I think everyone involved should keep an open mind. Many graduate students enter a graduate school at a very young age and have not clearly sorted out their future career goals. Therefore, students should keep an open mind. There are so many graduate programs in the US and a large number of PhDs are produced every year. The quality of these programs and their graduates varies greatly, so not every PhD is qualified for an academia opening. Some will definitely go to industry, which is an inevitable trend. However, for a graduate program as good as the one in Berkeley, students have already survived a highly selective application process. Therefore, at least for students here at Berkeley, if you are good at research and really want to do research, academia is the best choice. From my own experience, if one really loves research, there is nothing that can compare to academia. Industry is not for everyone. Politics dictates industry workplace. The goal of a company is to market a product and make profits, and this nature of industry research dictates the way their projects are carried out and the time length of each project. In contrast, academia provides the most freedom to individuals.  Advisors, such as yours, are more experienced and have seen different options ranging from academic research, industry to liberal arts college teaching, whereas young graduate students have not had the chance to be exposed to these different settings. If the advisors truly believe you are talented in research, they would definitely encourage you to pursue a career in academia. From my perspective as an advisor/professor, encouraging a student to pursue academia reflects the true belief that academia is the best place for the very talented students. It is a bit like what Chinese parents say: “I discipline you for your own good.” 

Xuqiong: I think this was what my advisors were trying to say. They also told me once I left academia, even for a premier industry research lab, I could never come back.

Dr. Luo: That is true. Academia is an open-ended track. It is much easier to leave an academic post for industry than the other way around. If you have been a principal investigator in academia and decide to go into industry, you will start out at a much higher position in industry. Because, by then, what you can offer to the company will not only be technical skills or a pair of good hands, but also your experiences at the level of a group leader. It is also easy to go from a research university to liberal arts colleges to teach. But all these are one-way streets and there is no coming back to academia, at least not in biology. The field of mathematics may be a different story. Because biology is an empirical science, and liberal arts colleges usually cannot afford state-of-the-art research facilities, you would not be able to re-gain your competitiveness in research and funding after a few years of liberal arts teaching. Nowadays, a PhD degree can lead to many different career paths. Many business consulting firms are hiring PhDs, too. But these are all one-way streets as well. In contrast, academia is an open-track, in that you can leave for all other options after you try it out and you will not waste time trying out. As a faculty member and principal investigator, you are running a small business, in a sense. You raise funding by writing grants; you manage people; you mange the lab budget; you plan the future direction of your research. You are accumulating management, teaching and communications skills that are highly sought after by business firms such as McKinsey. Therefore, it will not be a waste of time trying out academia.

Xuqiong: Many of our newsletter readers are in graduate school or doing postdoctoral work. What advice would you give to them?

Dr. Luo: I think the first and the foremost is to ask yourself whether you are truly interested in what you are doing. Like we discussed before, scientific research is not an easy job. It is very demanding, but also very rewarding. Once you know you truly want to do research, there are several aspects you can focus on. Usually, Chinese students have no problem with the required hard work in research. What's lacking among most Chinese students is communication skills, which was overlooked by the education system in China.

You should also set a long-term career goal and have long-term visions, and work hard everyday towards that goal. I found that some Chinese students tend to devote a lot of energy to daily life issues such as finding an apartment with lowest possible rent or shopping for the best deals in cars etc., instead of thinking about their research, which is more important for the long-term well-being of their families. This might have something to do with the way we were raised.  Finding affordable housing for your family is important, but don't be obsessed with how great a deal you can get.  When you spend most of your time doing these activities, your research and your own long-term career naturally suffer.  To sacrifice your future for a few dollars now is certainly not smart. Once you have obtained a good job, financial security will not be an issue.  If you look up the one hundred or so successful Chinese biomedical scientists in the US, every single one of them is highly motivated and dedicated to their research. Working hard does not mean spending a day in the lab from 8am to 5pm. Successful research requires not only mechanical work, but also creative thinking twenty-four hours a day. When you constantly think about your research projects because you are truly interested in them, your dedication and motivation will naturally show. Your advisor will definitely appreciate that and will help you a lot more to further your career development. In summary, one should be dedicated, have long-term vision and plan for the future; the other important aspect is to improve English communication skills in every possible way and try to build a network which will be vital for your future job-searching, publishing papers and applying for grants. An academic position involves teaching, giving talks, etc. If you cannot communicate your results effectively, your good work will not be appreciated. You will waste all your hard work if you do not know how to present your work, orally or in writing. Communication skills were not emphasized in China when I was in school. It seems that Chinese students are doing better nowadays. Another issue is your mindset. I don't mean you need to be “Americanized.” But because you are in the US now, you have to know the rules in this society and play by these rules before you reach a position to change the rules to your like. It does not mean that you have to change yourself to fit in. It is more like the ancient military strategy: “Know yourself and your enemy, you will win every battle.” To succeed in this system, you will have to understand this system. Networking and communication skills are essential in this system.

Xuqiong: These are highly transferable skills, right?

Dr. Luo: Exactly. It does not matter whether you are in business, law, or science, you will have to network and communicate.

Xuqiong: Maybe my view was very naïve. One reason for which I left bench research was that even a career in science did not seem as pure as I had hoped, an “Ivory Tower.” I thought networking and communications were only important for business or politics. As for science, let the results or publications speak for themselves. I felt shocked when I realized the importance of these skills. Therefore, I would rather do something that would warn me and make me prepared to network and communicate. Did you have to go through an adaptation process?

Dr. Luo: Well, this would be another misleading life lesson that the Chinese culture taught us. Academia in the US definitely requires these skills, maybe to different extents when compared to business. In the business world, communications is more important. Whether a good business idea or not often times depends on how you convey it. There are also tricks going on, like pretending to sign deals with multiple companies simultaneously or stealing ideas or products. In comparison, academia is indeed purer.  The nice thing about academia is that I have total freedom in my own lab. The departmental chair would not bother me or push me to do something that I have no interest in.  The politics is not as bad. Also academic promotion is largely based on publications, a solid and relatively objective indication of quality work. But good publication does require networking and communication skills because we depend on the peer-review system for scientific publication and funding.  Your papers and grants will be evaluated by your competitors, colleagues or your friends. No matter how good your results are, bad writing cannot make others appreciate your work.  In addition, there is no absolute standard for good or bad results. Good or bad many times is based on people's evaluation. Therefore, life in academia also involves a lot of personal interactions.  

Most people think that hard work itself should be appreciated. But hard work itself is never enough. For example, in biomedical research, many experiments do not work and many results are negative. If you do not know how to communicate, how would you convince others that you have been working hard, but are just unfortunate to have only negative results? Another example, some students prefer to work during “weird” hours, like myself. I used to go to work in the late afternoon and leave the lab after midnight. This means that you don't get to see your advisor that much. If none of your experiments worked, and if you do not learn to communicate, how would your advisor know you have been working and how can he/she help you improve your next experiment?

Xuqiong: Thank you for all the career advice. Now let's turn to your own work here at Berkeley. You have a faculty appointment with UC Berkeley. What kind of teaching obligations do you have?

Dr. Luo: About five weeks per semester. In our department, each course is taught by three faculty members. Since I have joint appointment with UC Berkeley, I only have to teach one semester a year.

Xuqiong: Do you enjoy teaching?

Dr. Luo: Depends on what kind. Teaching is a rather broad term. I teach a 250-student undergraduate lecture course. I also teach graduate students and postdocs in the lab everyday, which is very enjoyable. Teaching undergraduate students is not as intellectually challenging, but we do update syllabus every year. The University of course pays more attention to research. Through the research projects in my lab, I teach undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdocs on a daily basis.

Xuqiong: As someone who loves bench research, do you try to do some hands-on lab work from time to time?

Dr. Luo: I do. Bench work is a kind of relief. I spend a lot of time sitting in my office reading and writing grants and papers, so hands-on lab work can be a rest sometimes.

Xuqiong: So do you spend most of your time writing grants?

Dr. Luo: Not necessarily. Once you get a grant, you don't have to worry about it for some time. I spend most of my time contemplating new projects, five-year research plans and long term directions. I read a lot, trying to keep up with all the current ideas and discoveries.

Xuqiong: Your main research interest was in a growth factor protein (TGF-beta). Are you still working on it? What is the big picture?

Dr. Luo: TGF-beta is a very potent protein that affects many aspects of cell function.  Its functions include tumor suppression, wound healing and embryonic development. We are interested in understanding how the signals initiated by TGF-beta are transduced into the cells, how this signaling process is regulated, and why and how this process is inactivated in many human cancer cells.  Addressing these questions will facilitate our understanding of the causes of cancer. We take a biochemical approach trying to identify molecules that interact with TGF-beta pathways.  During the past two years, we identified two very important proteins, Ski and SnoN, which are oncogenes (cancer-causing genes) that play important roles in regulation of TGFß signaling. We found that these proteins cause cancer because they can interact with a molecule in the TGF-beta pathway and shut down the tumor suppressor function of TGF-beta. We are conducting both in vitro and in vivo experiments trying to find out more about the interactions of SnoN and Ski with TGF-beta pathway and how these interactions are regulated during early development.  So our big picture would be cancer and developmental biology.

Xuqiong: How big is your lab now?

Dr. Luo: As of now, there are two postdocs, one visiting professor, one visiting postdoc from a collaborator's lab, two graduate students from Berkeley, and one visiting graduate student from China.

Xuqiong: Is this visiting graduate student from USTC?

Dr. Luo: Yes, he is a USTC alumnus. The first visiting student from USTC has already finished his work here and gone back. His name is Wei Wang. He was my second student but the first to graduate because of a shorter curriculum for him as a visiting student from China.

Xuqiong: Now let's turn to the question about your own career development. As an Asian woman scientist, have you experienced any “glass ceiling” problem?

Dr. Luo: I haven't got there yet (laughing).

Xuqiong: But at every stage of your career, you would have to be better than a number of others to get recognized and get where you are today, right?

Dr. Luo: Yes. But I haven't felt being under a glass ceiling.

Xuqiong: Does this have anything to do with “being not as sensitive to certain issues?”

Dr. Luo: Well, different people will always react differently.  By nature, human being is always intolerant to people or thoughts that are different.  Discrimination will always be there.  The key is to prevent it from affecting your life as much as you can.  If you take a step back, or view it from a different perspective with a deeper understanding of this society, this culture, you may understand people's reactions or opinions. Once you understand why and how people think or behave in certain ways, you can prevent misunderstandings sometimes.  Academia is relatively discrimination-free. I have collaborated with a company before and that experience did not make me happy. I guess the reason is that academia is composed of highly educated people from all over the world. Discrimination is less of an issue when people are more educated. Also people in academia travel a lot and see a lot of different cultures. I haven't felt being discriminated against.  Rather, I have received help from many people along my career. As you know, one cannot go anywhere in academia without good recommendations from advisors. My American professors have been very helpful to me. It is possible that I have been very lucky, having only known nice people. Professors usually won't discriminate against their students because of their gender or race (but maybe hardworking or not), because it does not do them any good to do so.

 Xuqiong: Professors help students to help themselves, right?

Dr. Luo: That's right. It is always a mutual benefit at any level. Advisors help themselves by helping students. Students help their own future by working hard.  If the students work hard and publish good papers, three things happen: first, the students establish a name for themselves and get good recommendation letters; secondly, the lab is more respected in the field and thus the recommendation letter carries more weight; and thirdly, advisors can get more grants to help improve students' situation. From a student's perspective, always ask these two questions: first, what can this program or this lab provide for me, or what do I want from working in your lab?  Secondly, what does the lab want from me (why should the lab take me in), or what can I contribute to the lab? A professor accepts a student into the lab with the expectation of the student's hard work. A student goes into a lab, expecting a good training and a good recommendation letter upon graduation to set up his/her own career and working hard for his/her own future. It is very simple. But it was a point overlooked by many students.     

Xuqiong: It is not so obvious or so simple for students at an early stage of their career, is it?

Dr. Luo: Probably not. Because I do know students who play tricks with their advisors. It would only end up hurting the students' own careers. In America, the advisors would not confront the students with regard to these tricks, but everything that matters would be in the final recommendation letter. As a junior scientist, you have to be mature and be responsible for your own life. Everything is in your own hand. No one else would tell you what to do. Your responsibility for your own career is there in everyday life.

Xuqiong: Who or which experience has helped you most throughout your career?

Dr. Luo: It would be hard to compare different people at different stages of my career. My graduate advisor, Bart Sefton, is critical to my career development.  Without him, I would not have a scientific career. He is the first person I worked with upon coming from China. I learned everything from working with him: how to adjust to the new culture, how to write papers and grants, how to do research and how to think. So my graduate advisor played a critical role in my career by setting up the foundation. My postdoc experience in Harvey Lodish's lab provided a different training, because I arrived there with trained hands and mind for science. It was a very big lab, so I learned how to interact with others professionally and diplomatically, to understand the competitive nature of research and to deal with competitions. It is also a type of skill, important too. Technical ability is not enough, and I learned everything else while doing my postdoc. Without recommendations from these two advisors, I would not have found this job. My future promotion will also depend on their letters.

Xuqiong: As a woman scientist, do you have special advice for women? Do you think there is a special hurdle for women in science? 

Dr. Luo: I think there is a special hurdle for women from Asian cultures, although I have not experienced it myself. In China, we advocate equality between men and women on one hand. On the other hand, every Chinese woman is pressured not to be better than her husband or boyfriend and not to be too successful. Even today, “Dragon Lady” is a bad term. I am not saying that it is necessarily a good term. I just don't think the term should exist at all -- why should a smart woman be stereotyped in such a way.  Everyone has a right to choose what he or she likes. If a girl loves science and wants to excel as a life scientist, she should feel free to do it. But there is always intangible or amorphous pressure in our society (many times in the name of love) to suppress this woman's dreams, especially if it happens that her husband is not as successful as she is.  As a result, many women lack the critical support and encouragement to sustain them through the long difficult training period (graduate school and postdoc).

Xuqiong: Family support is very important for everyone.

Dr. Luo: That's right. Everyone has a life. You have to have a life before you have science.

Xuqiong: Do you consider yourself lucky since both your husband and you landed jobs at Berkeley in an extremely competitive market?

Dr. Luo: Absolutely. It was true luck that we both ended up on the same campus.

 Xuqiong: Timing was also critical, right?

Dr. Luo: Yes. As you know, postdoc fellowships are getting longer and longer. My husband was invited to apply to the position at Berkeley (we will get more details in the next interview with Dr. Qiang Zhou). It was good timing for him because his postdoc research project had reached a nice break point. There were about three or four hundred applicants for that position, but he was lucky that he applied for this one job only, interviewed once, and got it. After he started applying, I began my own job search in this area. My project also happened to arrive at a good point for me to give job talks.  I guess we were very lucky.

 Xuqiong: The mutual support between your two is very appealing to me.

Dr. Luo: Well, without it, we will not survive till today.  Because most times experiments don't work, and it can be depressing, it is a relief to talk to someone who understands how you feel and your science as well, and can take your mind off the failed experiments. On many occasions, failure and success are only one day apart. The other half can help you be persistent. Biomedical research does not necessarily require a genius; it needs perseverance.

 Xuqiong: So, to succeed in the US, persistence is very important.

Dr. Luo: That's right. Perseverance is critical for success no matter which career one chooses. Look at Bill Clinton. Perseverance may be the most important factor.

Xuqiong: Let's turn out attention to USTC. Are you going to have more visiting students from USTC?

Dr. Luo: I certainly hope so. I hope to have more interactions with USTC, as a way of paying back our alma mater. We help USTC train students so that these students can go back with more advanced skills and training and become new leaders there. We also benefit from training these bright students, because they help carry on our research projects.

Xuqiong: USTC still attracts the best and brightest high school graduates in China. But what do you think USTC lacks most?

Dr. Luo: Too many things. Which specific area?

Xuqiong: One consistent view has been that USTC has to relocate to re-gain its fame.

Dr. Luo: I don't think relocation is the key. In US, there are many preeminent universities in bad locations. For example, Princeton is located in the middle of nowhere, but this does not stop it from being a great university. Yale's location is horrible, yet Yale is still a world-class institute.  USTC is close enough to major cities like Nanjing or Shanghai.  Location is not the key to its future.

Xuqiong: What comes to your mind first if you can change something at USTC?

Dr. Luo: What I appreciated most about USTC was the freedom we had there. What I felt lacking, as a student, was a broader range of courses such as humanity and art courses. Any great university has to have these courses available. From my experiences in different American universities, education in humanity and social sciences is very important for college students. An educated person is an all-around person that has been exposed to certain humanity courses, social sciences and art. I felt USTC was too specialized. It is NOT necessary to build a college of humanity or social sciences in USTC; it is only necessary to offer quality faculty to teach these courses. MIT is a science and engineer school, but it has departments of music, literature, etc. I am sure USTC students would like to be able to take these courses freely. Music, art and science are somehow connected. One needs to understand at least a little bit of everything to understand the whole world.

Xuqiong: My final topic is about USTCAF. We tried to help USTC with reforming curriculums by providing information about textbooks, syllabi. Where do you think this reform should start?

Dr. Luo: Teaching quality does not depend on textbooks. At Berkeley, we are chosen to teach a section of the course because we have expertise in that area. We do not depend on the textbooks for our courses; they are only used as a reference.  Berkeley is a great school not because of great textbooks, but because it has a world-class faculty. USTC needs fundamental reform to improve the quality of its faculty and research infrastructure. It is not a problem facing USTC alone. Every Chinese institute faces the same problem. American universities are run by professors, whereas Chinese schools are managed by separate administrative personnel and bureaucracy.

Many Chinese institutes try to attract top people from overseas and some have bad experiences with certain so-called famous scholars. I think USTCAF can help USTC identify truly qualified candidates because many AF members are in the US and thus have better access to information. Things like textbooks are relatively easy. We can easily donate some.  But good teaching comes from good teacher. In some courses, students at Berkeley can hear from Nobel Laureates directly. No textbook can compare to the passion and profound understanding of the subject as a result of life-time scientific achievements a Nobel Laureate can bring to a student's mind. Therefore, I believe the quality of faculty is the most important factor in determining USTC's future. Everything else will come naturally when you have a world-class faculty.

Xuqiong: I suppose USTC can start by inviting people like you for short-term projects.

Dr. Luo: We would support that very much. Although we cannot commit long term, two weeks to a month over the summer would not be a problem.

Xuqiong: What would you suggest USTCAF, given the programs we have now?

Dr. Luo: I think for every program, AF needs to ask what the purpose is, or what AF wants to achieve from the program. A lot of programs can start out very promising and end up with no effectiveness whatsoever. I found out from the website that much donation has been designated to different scholarships. Some of them are overlapping. Maybe AF can set up the programs more efficiently such that important programs like Goodwill or Outstanding New Students Awards can be maintained and other programs can be started to help out USTC library with online subscriptions to journals or to set up monthly seminars with invited speakers. USTC can only attracts the best and brightest if it is unique. Scholarships alone cannot attract top students, because, while serving on the graduate admission's committee at Berkeley, I have seen so many scholarships being awarded at different Chinese colleges. If USTC can fundamentally improve its faculty and research infrastructure, top students will come naturally.          

Xuqiong: Since we are a volunteer-run organization, we can only realize big goals step-by-step.

Dr. Luo: Yes, I understand that. Maybe USTC should establish an alumni office/liason to help coordinate AF's efforts. This office may have better access to information about what is in need and what can be done.

USTC has good resources as the only university affiliated with Academy of Sciences (CAS). Also the location in Hefei may be advantageous if you consider how people in big cities tend to follow whatever that is trendy. A relatively quiet town like Hefei can provide a good research environment for dedicated scientists who may not want to trade stocks everyday, as long as it is easy to get the necessary information. I think USTC can take advantages of its unique strengths, such as the close relationship with CAS and the overwhelming number of overseas alumni, and improve the infrastructure and the quality of its faculty. When these happen, top students will come almost like “byproducts.” 

Xuqiong: Thank you very much for your time and wonderful advice.

Copyright © 2001, USTC Alumni Foundation