Dr. Patel is the Vice Chair of research at UCSD.

He is in charge of all the experiments

going on at the VA and Biomedical Science Building, He also writes papers and grants about
the research he conducts.
0:02: Katie- Awesome, so thank you for agreeing to do this
0:04: Dr. Patel- No problem
0:08: Gabe- Im Gabriel, this is Katie.. Haha.. and this is Dr. patel
0:11: Dr. Patel- I hope Id know you by now
0:15: Gabe- Hah, so okay, uhm to start off, what college did you attend?
0:18: Dr. Patel- Well, I went to a college, it was called Northeast Missouri State University, and
then about a year after I got there they changed it to Truman State University. Its a liberal arts
school.
0:39: Gabe- Cool, what did you major in?
0:40: Dr. Patel- I double majored so my primary major was biology, you know what I was geared
towards, hopefully interested in medical school but it turns out that I was more interested in
research and going to the P.H.D route. Uh and that was for the practical thing, because its a
liberal arts school youre allowed to take classes in other areas, so my freshman year I took an
introduction to philosophy class and the teacher was very interesting and weird and amazing so
she encouraged me. I did very well so she encouraged me to major in another so it ended up
that I had enough to minor and just looked at the schedule and I just double majored in
philosophy and religion as well. So I have a second degree in philosophy and religion and when
I looked in my classes I had a couple extra so I minored in classical studies. In addition, so it
was a busy four years.
1:39: Gabe- Cool
1:40: Katie- What was the transition from High School to College like?
1:41: Dr. Patel- Uh it was very easy, for me I was a very good student in High School, I was a
valedictorian in my class, you know, when they had them, now I dont think that they have them
anymore because it kinda set this weird sort of hierarchy that schools were not interested in.
And so uh the transition was fairly easy and the biggest problem was not academics it was more
social, I grew up in a big family so being six hours from your support structure so that was
difficult. Uh you talk to your parents on the phone it's not the same as being with them all the
time. Its interesting in my high school class at least six of us ended up going to truman state
university so we ended up rooming together one year so that's about all we could stand of each
other but hes still a great guy so and then he became a resident advisor so i had a room to
myself and we sort of split off. It was nice to have people from the same high school at your
institution because you have people you recognize so.
2:50: Gabe- So what got you interested in biology and those other majors?
2:57: Dr. Patel-Ah so biology ive always been interested in, Ive always been interested in
science. I grew up in Chicago the northern part of chicago, and you know math and science
have always been easy to me, math particularly and I saw that most of science was applied
mathematics. So I liked to experiment on things and I did that all throughout High School, even
in college I started working in a research lab you know within a year of starting. The philosophy
and religion came after time right I took that intro class and got interested. It turns out most of
the classes I took were more religion than philosophy, you had to take five base philosophy
classes and I dont know I found ancient philosophy and things kinda boring, I liked the
post-modern kind of stuff so I took more of those classes. I took this one class called Judaism,
and I knew nothing about Judaism so I thought it would be kinda cool and it turned out the
teacher was a local pastor at the uh university and so you think right, hes a local pastor how
educated could he actually be? Turns out hes the smartest guy Ive ever met, he spoke seven
languages, he taught biblical greek, biblical hebrew, he was a theologian so he got his theology
degree in germany he was just one of these renaissance guys you could talk to about anything
and he knew everything. So because he had a day job all his classes were in the evening, one
day a week, three hour class, typically on a wednesday, around seven o'clock to about ten-ish.
He would give essentially a sermon for three hours so he would talk on topic for three hours, the
next class he would review for about half an hour and move on wherever he left off and continue
where he left off, without any notes, this guy was very bright. He just captured your attention
and gave really interesting lectures so that sort of tied me into the religion aspect so I ended up
taking philosophy classes from him. Ive probably read the bible start to finish two times,
because they were a required reading for the historical aspect. So he was just, he expected a
lot every one of his classes once a week we had about 200 to 300 pages of reading to do in
various texts and things and he was very technical. So being a biology major I was able to
-memorize things very quickly and retain them. And so his tests were always memory based,
you know read 300 pages of text and you would have multiple choice fill in kinds of answers
that, you know, came from the text so as long as you read the material youd do fine and he set
the curve based on that and that was an environment that you know I thrived in, I memorized
things very quickly and usually did very well on his tests so. So uh that was the philosophy and
religion part
6:23: Gabe- So uh would you say that professor was like on of your major influences?
6:27: Dr. Patel- yeah uh he was um you know Ive had lots of them I had a research mentor who
you know I still stay in touch with in the biology side so I had very influential mentors on all
sides. The very first person who got me interested in philosophy, she and I stayed in touch for
many years even after I left the university, the guy who taught be buddhism and hinduism I still
stay in touch with so it's you know I develop strong relationships with people and I can keep
them for a long period of time. Im still in touch with my latin teacher from high school, so, yeah
we had latin back then
7:06: Gabe- Dang, heh its like a uhm rare language now, so what exactly do you do at your
job? We know youre like a really important doctor but what EXACTLY do you do?
7:17: Dr. Patel- So when you get to my level youre spending most of your time writing so uhm,
this morning you guys came in i was working on a grant thats due this wednesday, its this
training grant that I put together as vice chair of research its to train the next generation of
physician scientists, so since we have a clinical department we have a lot of M.Ds and P.H.Ds
and the idea is to get them interested in research to then do that as a career in addition to
treating people and illnesses and thats one of the big problems with research it's that there isnt
a lot of money so its a very unforgiving profession, you have to write for your money to get
someone to fund your research you have to get someone from the outside to fund the ideas you
come up with. Whereas an M.D you put people to sleep as an anesthesiologist or you go talk to
them and you make a lot of money doing that. And so the question that were sort of asking in
this training grant is how can you entice someone that has a career where they could basically
interact with people, what they were trained to do and make a lot of money switch to do that
plus research which doesnt make them a lot of money but you know it actually gives them the
satisfaction and joy of discovering something. So thats what my job is to get young people
interested in doing research and its tough you know its not an easy road.
8:45: Gabe- So uh, have you come across any scientific breakthroughs in your career?
8:52: Dr. Patel- yeah so you guys have looked at some of the stuff that we do in the lab so we
discovered this, well we didnt discover this protein but we have worked with it for almost fifteen
years now and some of the data that we have really pushes it towards a major modifier of a
number of diseases and you know its expressed in virtually every cell of your body, and we
think it has very fundamental roles in stress adaptation so were hoping you know in the next
five, ten years to really move the therapies were thinking of, into man. So weve got things
moving into mice and larger animals and rabbits and the hope is that if theres positive effects
we could move them along into human studies so.
9:33: Katie- So what about your college years prepared you for a job like this?
9:37: Dr. Patel- Uh, you know college was a blur, I dont think I slept much i was experimenting
with sleep cycles and stuff so I, for about a year and a half I took naps, you know very short
naps and then youd work for three hours and then take naps again. Its amazing what your
body can adapt to when youre stressed. Most of the times I would get sick is when I would go
home for holiday breaks and stuff because youre not stressed anymore and your body you
know branches from that. So college I really learned to work against deadlines, Im a natural
procrastinator, I dont know if thats a good or bad thing I couldve worked on this grant six
months ago but Im barely putting it together now. Uh, I just I thrive under pressure and I think
theres this negative gratification that you get and my wife reads a lot of book about
procrastination because she is one as well. So i don't know if theres a right answer, they say
people that tend to plan to do things, they have better lives but I dont know I tend to develop
stuff after stress at a much faster and better rate. And so theres this vicious circle of ideas, well
if i do this early itll be good enough so I dont know and college sort of grained that in me that I
can do things last minute and still do well so one of the other things to sort of come away from
that is what is a procrastinators mindset? right and this idea that you have to wait until the very
end to do things, but if I think and sort of analyze and self reflect I think about things for a long
time, this grant Ive been thinking about it for almost seven months so its not like my mind
hasnt been working on it. So what I learned to do in science and my career and college what
taught me to do was to think very critically about things for a long period of time then have it
come out on paper very quickly. Im what you would call a productive procrastinator, where Im
producing all the time but the deadline I need to get it all out on paper kind of thing. I think most
procrastinators are like that I think you know they dont just put things off and avoid them
because they dont wanna do them, its because their mind is sort of processing that information
and my wife hates when I say this but Im thinking about stuff all the time like if Im watching a
movie, Im like thinking about science, like how can i be thinking about science while Im
watching a movie, you know its impossible right? Things sort of trigger in your head and you
come up with ideas and things so.
12:20: Gabe-wow, cool how long were you at college?
12:22: Dr. Patel- Uh, four years
12:24: Gabe- Oh, you didnt? I thought there was like the M.D thing where like
12:28: Dr. Patel- So my so my undergrad was four years, I went in with a very clear plan i
wanted to finish everything, i dont know I think some kids tend to take a little bit longer which is
fine but no more than five years I think is good. One of the big pressures for colleges is how
much it costs, so when I made a decision to go to a school I think a state school was very
inexpensive, i think people tend to have these glorified ideas about Ivys and other places but
theyre very expensive. So my mindset was that I had an intention to go to Cornell and chicago
state but when you look at the financial aid package when parents were middle class and we
didnt qualify for financial aid so we had to come up with $30,000 plus dollars a year which times
four is a lot of money, a lot of debt, so I went to a state school that was almost almost free they
gave me a pretty big scholarship and my parents had to pay half the tuition which was like
$2,000 a year or something like that, so it was cheap, it was a very cheap education and it was
an amazing education and I think its what you make of where you are right, you can like find
stuff to do, Uh so that was four years and then after that I worked for about six months and got
into grad school in January, I thought about applying to that school and I did, and then I realized
that was not something I wanted to do and so then I applied to P.H.D programs, uhm I had a
high enough GPA and high enough GRE scores that they actually took me off cycle, so typically
graduate schools start in the fall and they allowed me to start in january of 1999, i guess it was,
yeah. Yup uh and so then I started in january of 1999 and went through it in about three years I
got my P.H.D and then came out here, my wife and I met in High School so weve known
eachother forever. So she got her M.D at the same school I got my P.H.D and she did her
training through the navy so the navy writes you a blank check for a medical school so she
matched to the residency program in San Diego which is why we ended up here and you know
its a tough place to leave even on a rainy day.
14:51: Gabe- So how long have you been providing internship for students?
14:53: Dr. Patel- uhm well i guess Ill have to check um you guys have been the thirtieth student
from High Tech High, uhm we have so the first High Tech High students we had in 2010, so
almost seven years.
15:29: Gabe- Have those internships help you grow as a teacher?
15:32: Dr. Patel- Well, yeah most of them, I mean I think its a very short amount of time a lot of
looking back at these students, some of them came back for a full summer and those have been
helpful, you know some went off, I think one of them, let me think of his name, he went off to
UCLA, I connected him with one of my colleagues there, i think he ended up working with him
for a while. So its been you know sort of a hit and a miss but its a short amount of time, you
cant really do much in three weeks, so the ones that come back for the summer and actually
get involved with a larger project tend to help more and go further. The goal of internship is to
just expose people to research, and to get students involved at a young age, my wife and I were
asked if Im a scientist you know which is okay at their grade school, you know that elementary
asked us to take over the science fair which was a mixed bag of good and bad, working with the
PTA and everything. So the science fair is actually this Thursday, and I was putting together all
the entries that came in and one of the things we were panicked about was that wed only get
about five people interested in the science fair, turns out theres 36 projects that were submitted
around the school of about 420 students, which was pretty good and i was amazed to see that
theres TK and Kindergarten kids signed up for these projects which is a crazy number of
kindergarteners we have six TK kindergartener scientists who were presenting. I mean they
were like simple experiments, How Well Do You Wash Your hands? some kids did that
experiment and what kind of soil some worms like and dinosaur tracks and some kids wanted to
melt crayons and see which crayon is best for road trips. It was interesting how kids think and
how they develop things early on you can potentially get kids interested in STEM kinds of things
you know and I think the future of the world is STEM and we can get over politics and things but
what drives the world is engineering and science and that kind of stuff, and if you get kids
geared towards that youll have a lot of options for careers. Not to say that artists and writers
and poets arent important, its just i think thats where the future is headed, i mean we still need
people who can dream up and create literature and art but I think theres a lot of science and
math and opportunities, and I believe they could be developed. And when I looked back at my
time as a young person, this was how i was identified early, I had a big interest in these things, I
dont think Id be where I am if those ideas werent developed. I wouldve just gone about my
business and did whatever. I had strong influences throughout my career that they werent there
I wouldnt be in this path where I am today. I think people need that I think theres always this
ME culture I know what is best for me I dont know if thats necessarily true, because at a
young person, you have to listen to older people and people whove had more experience than
you, I mean you dont have to do exactly what they do, but liem follow in their certain path. I was
thinking about when I did my first science experiment I remember a lot of teacher and theres
this one teacher I had in fourth grade Mrs. Dawes, and I remember she brought in chicken legs,
you know like drumsticks that she had for dinner the previous night and she gave all of us a
chicken leg and she got us to dissect it, which i thought was the coolest thing. You could break
open the bone and you could actually see the marrow inside and thats my first recollection of
ever doing a science experiment and its crazy because it was in fourth grade and it sort of stuck
with me and I think about how that sort of launched my path to where I am today. And when you
look back in fifth grade Do I even like science? but in seventh grade eighth grade I remember
the stuff that we did so it sort of happened right, and theres some events that happen in your
life that sort of push you to the right path.
20:39: Katie- If you could go back and change something, about, you know the path to where
you are now, what would you change?
20:44: Dr. Patel- Uh I dont know if I would change anything, I think, you know Im happy where I
am and its I had a, we were working on a science fair and one of the dads was at our house
helping this weekend so our kids did this weird, well not weird, but it started off sort of grand but
we had to sort of condense it down to what we could do this weekend and so the simple
question was How does exercise change heart rate? so we had lots of screaming kids that
were at our house and we had three different exercises with two different time points you know
that we were going to do, all of them had fitbits that were looking at heart rates and stuff so they
were you know timing and reporting and stuff like that and so the dad is a jag which was a
lawyer in the navy so hes actually a judge and so we were talking about careers so I was like I
work at the University, Im a professor and so he was like So what do you teach? and I was
like Uhm I have one of these research appointments so we were talking about some of the stuff
we do in the lab, and he was like you know its amazing to find people that live in a place where
they want to live and do what they want to do and you know thats one of the things that Ive
been very fortunate with and knock on wood you know I love work, and its easy to me you know
most times and its enjoyable and to find a career where you dont stress about going to work is
a hard thing to find, its not something people have an easy time with. Youll see most scientists,
if they have funding are very happy, you know they tend to you know move things along.
22:28: Gabe- You seem really happy with where you are, but did you have any dreams besides
the biomedical field?
22:31: Dr. Patel- No, well i mean Im doing what Ive dreamt I would do and you know in seeing
where the familys ended up, a lot of M.Ds in the family Im the only one with a P.H.D and I had
sort of a thought that maybe itd be cool to have an M.D and seeing what they do Im glad I
didnt become an M.D because I hate it. And so I mean that's the other aspect you know, my
wife is a pediatrician so to have someone who has the potential to make money gave me a lot of
freedom to take risks and do things that I didnt have to worry about. I think a lot of times young
people, either theyre not married so their trying to support themselves on a single income or if
they are married they arent married to someone who is financially stable or doesnt have a job
that provides limited resources and to be married to a physician its really helpful because you
dont really have to worry about money. I think to have a career where thats not a major focus
really makes you expand right?most scientists dont go into science for money, if you do, you
shouldnt be doing science. Work at a company and make a lot of money but you know how
exciting is that? Just sit in a lab and invent stuff? Theyre not going to pay you a lot of money to
do that but you have the freedom to manage your own time and be free to think of your own
ideas and be creative with however many ideas you want so theres a lot of non tangible money
kinds of things to come, you know. Its tough with an M.D you know once you have a clinical
schedule set its tough to change. So our son was sick on Friday, so Im just like, just come to
work with me, he was on the couch the whole morning. And to have a job where you could do
that? I mean he could go to my wifes clinic and hang out but its busy and theres lots of things
that are happening, but here, he just played with a speaker all morning so
24:45: Katie- Was there like an early job? Like right after college that you disliked or anything
like that?
24:51: Dr. Patel- So thats the other fortunate thing I had, so my parents were very adamant that
my sister and I focused on academics and so we didnt really have to work, and I had an
allowance and if I burned through that allowance in a week Id have more money. I never had to
worry, I had my dads credit card until i was like 26, and it was used for emergencies and
sometimes food and other things were emergencies right? So you had this window in this sort of
net where you didnt have to worry about things you know. And so I worked my first job, I
remember I was a senior in High School I worked at a photography shop developing film and I
was really into photography when I was a kid and i was actually the photo editor for the college
which was a painful job, but you know I enjoyed taking pictures and stuff like that so that was
the first time I ever worked, In college I worked at the library, that way I could just hang out and
study, no one ever bothered you really I mean I think I got like two questions the entire night and
I worked in this record. And so that was the only college job I had and everything else has been
science related that somehow tied to my career so, I dont know I guess I never really had a job
I disliked.
26:45: Katie- UH Hmmm, so what was it like when you finally got this job? You know when you
first became the PI
26:57: Dr. Patel- Uh I guess, I dont know its not something that happens overnight, you know
its not like I woke up the next day as a PI, it was something that takes years to transition into so
I did my post doc for three years in this building I mean the other side. So then I moved from
that position into what they called a junior faculty position at the VA and we had some space
and. And the I got my big grant, thats what sort of drives the transition and so I had a big grant
for the NIA, I got a lot of money for a long period of time, five years. And thats when i sort of
made my transition to a full time, what theyd call a faculty employment, it felt great, I have one
of very few secure faculty positions in the department and they have a state funded system at
UCSD and most UC schools right and theres a set number of these things called FTEs and
they were hard money positions that are funded by the state of California and theres very few of
them, the budget has to make room for these things so I have this position which I have a lot of
security. And so then I became a faculty member and I was tenure, which basically means I
cant be fired ever, unless I do something really really bad, which I dont plan to do so, Uh but
that gives you another layer of security right? And I talk about the money aspect so now I dont
really have to worry about money, so it allows you to be creative and think outside the box and
thats what tenure was originally created to do it most institutions in the US and unfortunately
humans are inherently lazy so what happens when you have security is you slack off and you
dont do stuff. I have a pretty much type-A personality which i cant just accept that and once I
have security it gives me the insight to go beyond and ask the really out there kinds of questions
so weve been doing that and um I think that its you know I dont know, I was very happy when i
got my tenure, I remember that, we celebrated as a lab and we went out to happy hour
somewhere and then you celebrate different goals you have right, so we celebrated when I
became a full professor which is a big deal and then you just sort of go up the ladder. And I
remember those moments, the other thing is that i learned from my mentors that you had to
have goals so I had very clear goals that in my head written down somewhere so that I knew I
could sort of just refer to those and so one of the things I wanted to do was become a full
professor before I turned 40 which I did and I wanted before I turned 40 which I did and so you
have to think about those things and plan for them, theres not you have to run over someone to
do it, to scheme and be deceptive and other things you know you have to do it above board, but
you know if you dont have goals its tough to achieve anything. I make my students write down
short term/long term goals for post doc mentor Paul, he would do this every year around new
years right? When youre thinking of resolutions and stuff and looking at the year ahead and
your past, its a good thing to reflect on what your goals are you know three months versus six
months versus a year and you know he and I found that if you write something down its more
likely that its going to happen than having it just float around in your head.
31:01: Katie- Was it interesting to see the changes after the years, has there been any changes
at UCSd after you guys have worked here or?
31:09: Dr. Patel- Yeah so mostly its been the buildings right? This parking lot was here but then
theres a huge parking lot over there as well which now is not a parking lot, the school pharmacy
in this madison building which is right over there. Theres a new research building back there,
theres a residence building behind that so its mostly been you know changes in the
infrastructure, and if you can see it over there across the VA theres a huge couple of hospitals
that have gone up as well so the campus has expanded and grown quite a bit so thats been a
big change.
31:53: Katie- Has it been interesting seeing all these changes? What was it like seeing all these
changes?
31:57: Dr. Patel- yeah i mean its been good I mean you know you want to be in a place where
things are sort of building and happening. Because then you know theres money being poured
into the institution. If theres nothing building or happening you know its sort of a dead end thing
to go, which is good I mean change is a good thing.
33:01: Gabe- There are a lot of other doctors here, you have a lot of other coworkers, how is
your relationship with them?
33:05: Dr. Patel- Well thats one of the big things that we strive for in the group, tis a group
collective and we try to pick people who work well with each other, what Ive noticed throughout
the years is that the individuals who dont talk with people dont integrate with the larger group,
dont socialize, tend to not do well and one of the big things i n science is it's a collaborative
thing, weve done that as PIs as well there are a lot, its nice to have colleagues who you can
talk to and figure stuff out with. So thats one of the big things in science thats happening right
now is to get rid of ego, right? Talking about the ME ME ME kind of science, I think theres still a
place for ME ME ME, most scientists are very ego driven and you need some of that for
competition in the future forward but i think the path forward is to work as a collective, to have a
goal in mind right? You wouldnt want to cure cardiovascular disease and to have four or five
people together thinking about how to do that is going to go much further than having to do it
alone. Working on a paper is a constant battle and you know position on the paper is very
important most people when they read a paper is theyre interested in who the first person is
and who the last person is and everyone else in the middle is irrelevant. The first person is
usually the one who drove the research idea and drove the experiments and the last person is
who came up with the idea and funded most of it. So.
35:01: Katie- Is there any other questions?
35:02: Gabe- Uhm, no, you?
35:24: Dr. Patel- So were all set for friday? Or is it still in progress?
35:27: Katie- Uh no thank you very much
35:30: Gabe- yeah thank you
35:32: Dr. Patel- Alright take care have a fun last week you two.