875: Investigating How Disruptions in the Gut Microbiome Impact Intestinal Epithelial Cells and Lead to Disease - Dr. Mariana Byndloss

0:00Thanks for joining me today for episode 875 of People Behind the Science. I'm Dr. Marie McNeely, and this week I'm excited to reshare our interview with our guest, Dr. Mariana Bindloss. Listeners, Mariana studies how the bacteria that live inside our gut can affect our health. She's interested in how things like diet, antibiotics, or infection can change how our body behaves, and how this in turn can change how the bacteria in our gut behave and lead to disease. In our conversation, Mariana shares some fantastic stories about her life in science.

0:33So get ready to meet another one of our brilliant people behind the science. Every day, discoveries are made that will change our understanding of the world around us. Dr. Marie McNeely is here to bring you the brilliant minds who are making these discoveries so they can share their incredible stories and take you on an amazing journey. Welcome to People Behind the Science.

0:58Hello, everyone, and welcome to People Behind the Science. Today, I am thrilled to be speaking with our guest scientist, Dr. Mariana Bindloss. So welcome to our show, Mariana. How are you? I'm great. Thank you for having me. Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing your time with us today to talk about yourself, your work, and your life. So let's start by first telling our listeners a little bit about who you are and what you do. So listeners, Mariana is Assistant Professor of Pathology, Microbiology,

1:32and Immunology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She earned her Doctors of Veterinary Medicine, Master's in Veterinary Pathology, and PhD in Veterinary Sciences from UFMG in Brazil. She was awarded the Brazilian National Prize for Best PhD Thesis in Veterinary Medicine for her work. Afterwards, Mariana conducted postdoctoral research at the University of California, Davis, before joining the faculty there at Vanderbilt University. And in our interview today, Mariana, we're excited to learn more about your scientific side, but also more about your

2:02life outside the lab. So can you start by telling us what you like to do when you're not at work? So I'm a veterinarian by training, and it turns out I love animals. So one of my favorite things to do is actually to spend time with my dog, actually two dogs, because I'm just getting a puppy soon. So that's exciting for us. But I actually spent a lot of time training my dog. He's a German short hair pointer. So he's trained for hunting and to compete in AKC or American Kennel Club events. So we actually

2:34do a lot of dog competition, which is like very different from what most scientists do. And it helps keep my mind a little bit away from all the science that we deal with every day. Other than that, I spend a lot of time with my husband and my son. And since we live in Nashville, which is a music city, we go to a lot of live music and a lot of good restaurants. We do enjoy good food. That is fantastic. And I must say, I'm quite impressed with this dog training. I can not really get my dog reliably to sit even. So what is the coolest trick your dog can do?

3:08We do what's called dog diving, which is very interesting. So we go to this place, there's a swimming pool and a dock and the dog has to run and jump and they measure the distance that the dog jumps before it hits the water. So that's one of the cool things we do. The other thing that he does, we do pheasant hunting. So he's trained to find a bird to point the bird for you. And then after the person shoots the bird, he's supposed to go pick it up and bring it back to

3:38your hand. So he's like multifunctional, I guess. It sounds very talented. Well, great to hear a little bit more about your life outside the lab. You mentioned spending time with your dog, your family out there listening to live music. It all sounds wonderful, but what occupies you in the lab? How do you describe your science to people who aren't familiar with it? I think the main question that we're interested in the lab is how the microbes or the bacteria that live inside your gut, inside your intestines can affect your health. And what we're

4:10interested in really is understanding how things that we do in our everyday life, such as changing diet or taking antibiotics or getting infected by some kind of bad bacteria. So we work with salmonella type in here, how those things are changing, how our body behaves. And as a consequence of that, it changes how the bacteria that live inside our gut behave, and that can lead to disease. So what we're trying to really understand is how all of this is functioning with the hope that by

4:42understanding that one day we'll prevent some of those diseases. Certainly. Well, Mariana, I think this area of research is so cool. So I cannot wait to dive in in a little bit more detail. But I'd love to talk a little bit about motivation and inspiration, because I think me and our listeners can always use a little pick me up. So do you have a favorite quote or a saying that really resonates with you and maybe inspires you? One of my favorite quotes is, be the change you want to see in the world. And the reason behind it is that I think it's important to act to make things better, and to really drive other people by

5:16example, and showing how you feel like the world can be better or science can be better. And the easiest way I think to show people that is by acting the right way. So that's one of the reasons why this quote really drives me, both in normal life and inside the lab. Certainly. Well, I love this quote myself. So a great little piece to share with me and our listeners today. And I'd love to talk next about some of the people who might have had a big impact or inspired you during your career. So when you think back, Mariana, are there particular role models or mentors,

5:50or just people you looked up to who had an influence on you? For sure. Without good mentors, it's hard to move on. So the most impactful person in my life, in my scientific career, was my first advisor while I was still a veterinary student in Brazil. So I'm originally from Brazil. I did my initial training in Brazil. And the reason why I decided to go to veterinary school was because I've always loved biology since high school, but I wasn't really sure exactly what I wanted to do. I was actually going into biology, but my middle sister was in vet school.

6:25She was studying to be a veterinarian. And she was the one that told me, you should just go to vet school instead, because you can still learn a lot about biology, but you have a clinical degree that may be useful in the future. So because of her, I decided to do vet school instead of a flat-out biology degree. And it turns out when I got into vet school, I really wanted to have the experience of doing research. And in Brazil, the easiest way to do that is to apply for the laboratories. Like

6:56they have something that's called scientific initiation, which they give you like very little money for you to spend a lot of time in the lab doing work. It sounds intimidating too. It's very interesting. I mean, it gives you a lot of opportunity. And I was actually doing veterinary pathology. That was my class, was my first class learning animal anatomy and animal pathology. And there was this professor that was looking for students for this particular scientific initiation. And his name was Renato de Lima Santos. And I ended up joining his lab and he

7:26became my mentor through my undergrad, my master's and most of my PhD. And he is a very talented veterinary pathologist and a very talented researcher. And he was the one that gave me the initial opportunity to do science. And he was extremely motivating because he was the first one to offer me to write my first manuscript while I was still an undergrad veterinary student. He had amazing scientific ideas in a research environment that's not the most productive. In Brazil, it's really hard

7:59to do science. And he was still very successful. And he spent a lot of time discussing ideas. And he was the reason why I came to the US to continue my training because he was like, as much as I would like for you to stay in Brazil, I feel like you need to go overseas to improve your science and to become a better scientist. So I really want you to spend some time in the US to learn how to be a better researcher. And he was the one that opened all the doors for me to leave Brazil and to continue training in the US. So he is the main

8:32reason why I am where I am now, because he was the first person to believe that I could do science. Oh, that is phenomenal, Marianna. I love this story. And you mentioned at the beginning here that already in high school, you had this interest in biology. How far back did that go? Or do you remember when you first started getting interested in science? It's interesting because the school system in Brazil is a little bit different than in the US. You can't really choose if you're going to do sciences or not. So you have to take physics, chemistry, and biology throughout your high school. So you're really much exposed to

9:08science as much earlier. And I think the first time that I did decide that I wanted to do anything related to biology was when we started talking about evolution early in high school and the difference between reptiles and mammals and all the animals. And that was very interesting to me and like anything related to genetics. And I also had a physics professor that was really, really nice. And that was really good at explaining everything. So I think the combination of these two things was what drove me to science even before college.

9:43Oh, that is phenomenal. And you talked about this mentor and how that was such a huge impact on your career. Are there other key moments that you can point to along your career path that really helped you get to where you are today? I think one of the main moments for me is when I first came to the US as a PhD student. It was a very interesting moment because, I mean, you know English and you know what to expect of the US, but it's definitely a very different environment. And I remember I actually had my first immunology class. And I just remember sitting in that class with this new professor teaching me hardcore

10:19immunology in a completely different language. And that was just a moment that like I'm really here with one of the best immunologists in the world, which changed a lot. And I think arriving in the labs in the US and seeing all the possibilities in terms of supplies and of resources and of everything that I could do made me appreciate science a lot more and realize how much I could do given the right resources. So that was like a very interesting moment, I think, in my life. Definitely. So was it difficult to make that transition? You mentioned language can be a

10:52barrier, particularly when you're talking about complex scientific topics. What really helped you make that transition? I came into a lab that was very diverse in terms of nationality too, and with very supportive PIs. And one of them is Andreas Balmer, which was my postdoc advisor. He's German. And Renee Solis, which is my PhD advisor. She is American, but she lived overseas. And at that time, their lab was very diverse. Like there are people from Asia, there are people from Europe. So there were a lot of international people that I could relate to that like understood what it was to leave

11:28everything behind in your country and move to a new country, move to the US to do science. So that was very helpful to me to have other people that although they're not from Brazil, there was also international people and they could definitely relate to what I was going to experience at that time. Well, thank you so much for talking about this big transition for you in your career. And then you did your postdoc there at UC Davis. What was that experience like kind of once you got acclimated to the environment? It was great. So the plan was for me to spend two years in the US doing two years of my PhD.

12:02And it turns out I've never went back to Brazil, which was totally unexpected. And then for family reasons, I had to stay in the Bay Area for a postdoc. So I decided to do my postdoc with Andreas Balmor at UC Davis. And it was a great experience. It was not a conventional one because usually people move institutions for a postdoc. And in my case, I stayed, but I worked in a very different system and was beneficial because I knew the environment already. So it was easy to just jump straight into

12:35the postdoc. And I knew my mentor very well. So that was very helpful. And by that time, I was already acclimated to the US and to doing research here. So it was definitely like a very productive part of my career because of that. I was already very used to the whole environment. Certainly. So can you talk a little bit then about what brought you all the way to Vanderbilt? Yeah. So that is the typical step as a scientist that wants to stay in academia, right? You do your PhD, you do your postdoc, and then it comes the time that you have to apply for a faculty position.

13:10And for me, again, it was very interesting because my family and my husband was born and raised in the West Coast of the US. So we thought we wanted to stay there. But then I decided to apply everywhere in the country, mostly in the country. And then we ended up at Vanderbilt. And the main reason why I ended up here or in a faculty position is because I've always wanted to be an academic. I've always really liked how stimulating the environment is. It's like doing diagnostics every day. And that's how it was as when my initial training as a veterinary

13:43pathologist was like a lot of diagnostics. And I feel like being an academic and being in science is still the same way. You're always asking new questions and you're always trying to find new things. So that was one of the main reasons why I wanted to stay in academia. And moving to Vanderbilt was really interesting to me because it's an environment in which I could use my basic science together with a lot of the clinical background. This is a medical center. So it was very easy to start to merge the basic science and the clinical science field in a more translational way,

14:16which was very interesting. And it was something that I wanted to do with my career. And I feel like here we have that possibility. Certainly. And I know you are asking some really fascinating questions in your lab today, Mariana. So is there one in particular, a research project that you have ongoing that you want to dive into in a little bit more detail and tell us more about? We definitely have some new stories coming out that we're very interested in. So in my postdoc, one of the key things that we found is that the bacteria that live in your gut, your microbiota is really talking to the intestinal epithelial cells to help them behave the right

14:51way to promote human health. And what we found is one of the things that really disrupt that interaction is use of antibiotics. And we think that another thing that really disrupts this interaction is changes in diet and this move towards a Western diet or this high fat, high carb diet. So one of the things that I wanted to study when I started my lab is to understand how this interacts. So how this exposure to antibiotics and to Western style diet may be affecting the physiology of the intestinal epithelial cells through changes in the microbiota. And we're

15:24very interested in particular in what happens when this disruption happens during early age. So in young individuals, because we know that the more you have detrimental environmental factors happening to you in early life, the higher is your risk of developing diseases such as obesity, obesity related complications, like colorectal cancer or intestinal inflammation. So one of the studies that we're doing now that I'm very interested in is we're using animal mouse models. So we're using very young mice or like three week old mice, and we're exposing them to what

15:58I call like detrimental environmental factors, which is like a Western style diet or antibiotics or a combination of those. And we're looking at how that affects the microbiota, how that affects the intestinal epithelial cell physiology, and how that changes in those two factors, both microbiota and intestinal epithelial can cause obesity. And just one very interesting thing is that the animals that are exposed to both a Western diet and antibiotics at the same time, they seem to gain weight much

16:28faster than the other animals. So we're really trying to understand why this is happening. Certainly. Well, this is really interesting. And I'm curious about this exposure, because I think many of us have had, we'll call it a cheat meal once or twice in our life. When you're talking about exposures, this long term exposure, are these acute changes? What's the timescale? So what we're doing right now, we're doing chronic exposure. So for our experiments, they might have been kept in this Western style high fat diet from three weeks to eight weeks of age, because we wanted to mimic from like when they're really young or like right after weaning to the

17:01time they become sexually mature. So we do a period of five weeks and we're doing two things. One of them is doing like a low dose, exposure to low doses of antibiotics, which has been done before in the literature, like Martin Blaser's group has published some of this work. So we're doing either exposure to low dose antibiotics, like a subclinical dose, or we're doing pulses of antibiotics while the animals are in a bad diet. So we're doing like five day exposure during that same period to see how that affects the intestinal microbiota, how that is affecting how the intestinal epithelial

17:37cells are behaving and how the animals are actually gaining weight faster under those conditions. Very, very cool. So I'm curious if you then revert them back. So for example, you're probably seeing detrimental effects of this change in diet. If you put them back on, we'll call it a healthy diet, does the epithelial cells go back? We haven't done that yet. What we have done, we've stopped the antibiotics after those eight weeks and we just kept animals on the diet. And the animals that had the exposure to antibiotics, they still gain weight faster even after you stopped

18:12it. Interesting. So it does really seem that changes in the microbiota early in life is where it's driving the phenotype. What we want to do next is see how we can revert this, right? If we can prevent this somehow. One of the ways would be to put them back in a healthy diet. Another way is to try to understand really the mechanism. What is the signaling pathway or what is really happening? So maybe we can use a drug or something that can prevent the disruption of this pathway and see if that will revert or prevent the weight gain. Very cool. Well, Mariana, this is a phenomenal project. Thank you so much for giving us a little

18:46bit more detail. And I know along with very cool research comes a lot of challenge, a lot of problems and a lot of struggles in many cases. So we love talking about the difficult times as well, because I think these stories don't often get to see the light of day. So when you think back on your own experiments, your own projects, your own career, are there particular challenges or failures that you've had that you can tell us about today? Yeah. I joke with my people here that there is something happening every day. Every day there is a challenge or there's something that doesn't work the way you would want to. But

19:18one of the things I do remember a lot. So when I did my PhD on chronic bacterial pathogen, which is called Drusilla abortus, which causes chronic infection in humans. And Drusilla is actually a BSL-3 level agent. So you have to work in a BSL-3 and is a selective agent. So CDC comes and inspects the lab. And when I first came for my PhD, I was super excited about working and everything. And it turns out that if it's a BSL-3 lab, it has to be shut down every year

19:48for decontamination and for cleaning, right? Before people can go in and check if everything is okay. And in my first couple of years, the lab was shut down maybe three months. Oh, wow. And Brusilla is a very slow growing bacteria. So every cloning step, for example, takes a week to happen. And it takes like three days for the bacteria to grow in culture. So that was like starting a PhD and having a very short time to finish and not being able to work at all for like three, four months was maddening.

20:18Definitely. So how did you keep yourself occupied during those three to four months where you really wanted to go in the lab but couldn't? We started an alternative project. It turns out that the lab that I worked was right next door to a salmonella lab, which is the lab that I ended up going for my postdoc. So we decided to try some projects trying to see if we could do something in E. coli or salmonella that would help with the other project. I started like a LPS project trying to make mutants and modifications and LPS and stuff. Just have something on the side while we really couldn't work with a BSL-3. So that was very

20:51interesting. It sounds like it's perhaps disruptive to your experiments if you didn't plan properly in advance. Yeah, for sure. The good thing about it is that we knew for the most part what was going to happen, but it's definitely not very nice when you really want to generate data. Right, right. That final year of your PhD when you're trying to wrap everything up, right? Well, Mariana, thank you for talking about one of these challenges because I think it helps our listeners appreciate some of the difficult situations that they may not expect would come up in the life of a scientist. Like for example, the lab having to be shut down for cleaning decontamination

21:21and checking by the CDC. So I love that you shared that story. And we don't just want to talk about the difficult times though. I'd love to talk about some of your successes as well. So Mariana, do you have a favorite success story, whether it was a big win or just a small victory that was particularly meaningful that you'd like to share? I think since I started my lab not too long ago, right? It's been like a year, a little bit over a year. There are a couple of stories that help when you're starting and you're still a little bit maybe further away from the big victories of your own. One story was actually very interesting. It's like

21:54my first PhD student. She had never really done much animal work before. And here we do a lot of work collecting fecal samples from mice to check what's happening with the microbiota and everything. And I was in my office one day and she had just her animal experiment. And then she comes and she runs by my office. And the first thing she's like, I booked mice for the first time. I was so excited that she was able to collect. I think to see your trainees be happy about what they're doing is a big victory to me.

22:25And it turns out that now after being here for just maybe last than a year, she just had a review published and she just won a poster award at a local meeting here within the same week. So that to me was very rewarding. I like to see my first trainee and my first PhD student starting to see the success of her work. Oh, that's so cool. So do you have a particular way that you like to celebrate these successes in the lab? We usually have lab happy hours or lab parties. We usually go to my house and then I cook something.

23:00Since I'm from Brazil, we like to cook and we like to eat. And then everyone gets together and celebrate those things. That was a tradition that happened in my postdoc lab. My PhD in postdoc advisors, they did a very similar thing. Like every victory that we had, we would just get together and celebrate with a party or with eating or something like that. Definitely. Food always brings people together. It definitely does. So do you have particular favorite dishes that you like to cook for the group? I have a confession to make. The cook in my house is my husband. Cooks for us more than I do.

23:36We usually like to barbecue. I usually get some meat from our local butcher that is some Brazilian meat. So what you'd usually have in a Brazilian steakhouse. So we do that at home. And then I do make black beans and rice because that's what he usually goes with in Brazil. So most of the times we do some kind of resilient food for them. Oh, that sounds amazing. You're making me hungry. I know. Well, Mariana, it's been wonderful to hear about how your lab celebrates success. And I know it's easy to get caught up in the everyday grind of being a scientist, going back to the drawing board

24:10after every experiment and starting something new. So it's important, I think, to take a moment to celebrate these successes. But I know you spend quite a bit of time immersed in the literature, reading everything you can about your field. So I'd love to talk about what you read for fun for a moment to take a break from the literature work. So do you have a book recommendation, something that you've read and really enjoyed, whether it's related to science or not, that you can recommend for me and our listeners today? One book that is related to science that I enjoy and I think helps with the work that we do is a

24:40book called Let Them Eat Dirt, which talks about how we should let our kids experience the world and the microbes are not bad all the time and how that actually helps them be healthy. And then there's another book that is not related to science that I actually read a long time ago. And I have to check if it's available in English, but it's written by Amir Klink. So he's a Brazilian sailor. What he did, he would sail by himself in this little boat all over the world.

25:11And he wrote books about his adventures or about how his experience is traveling around the world. And I like his books because one of the things that he says in this book is that saying that how we need to travel. So he says a man needs to travel, but not on books, but actually in real life. So we can go outside and experience hardship and experience like being away from home and being away from comfort. So we can go back and start to understand that we should face the world as learners of what we don't know instead of doctors of the things that everyone already knows.

25:48So I see myself a lot in those quotes and in that book in particular. Oh, wonderful. Excellent recommendations. I will add these to our reading list on our website and a perfect segue because we love talking about travel on our show as well. So when you think about all the places that you've been for science, whether it was going to conferences, meeting with colleagues for training, whatever the case may be, what is your most memorable travel moment? My favorite moment was a couple of years ago. We went to a conference in Germany and it was a conference on salmonella pathogenesis.

26:21And it was really nice because I was able to meet a lot of my colleagues from Europe, not just from the U.S. And it was also special because my husband and my son were able to come with me and my son was very little at the time. And both of them was their first time in Europe. So it was really good to combine a very nice conference with seeing my family experience the world together with me. And then we ended up after the conference going to Prague to the Czech Republic and visiting Prague, which is a really nice city, too.

26:52And we had a great time. So overall, that was like one of my favorite experiences. Oh, that sounds amazing. So was this your first time in Germany on this trip? It was my first time in Germany, too. It was really nice. Oh, that's phenomenal. So what was maybe one of the most memorable things that you saw or did in Germany? Definitely visiting Berlin. I mean, I come from a new world country like Brazil and a country that hasn't experienced a lot of war. We're very like peace and love in general. So I think going to Germany and seeing everything that has happened in World War II and being able to go to the museums and actually see how the country had somehow embraced a really bad part of their culture and exposed it to everyone else, maybe to help.

27:38So this doesn't happen again. I think for me, it was a very memorable experience. I think that sense of history that you get over there is just amazing. Yeah, for sure. And you mentioned you went to Prague as well. Was there a standout moment in Prague that you can tell us about? In Prague, it was funny because we had just gone to Vegas not too long before that trip. We walked around the hotels in Vegas and everything's so grandiose, but so fake. And then we went to Prague and everything is from the medieval times and all those big churches and everything is real.

28:14I think that was like a very cool moment for me to be able to see history and to see the original infrastructure, the original buildings. Right. But that was very real. And I think for me, coming from Brazil, it's always very shocking in a good way to really see that the history was really there, that we just don't have that where I come from. So like Prague was another moment of that, to see all those beauties and all that structure, for sure. Oh, definitely. Just kind of taking in all the art and architecture. I love it. Well, it sounds like you've had some wonderful experiences to see the world for your science.

28:47And I know as a scientist, there are often stereotypes about what your career is like, what the everyday is like, but also what scientists are like as people. And we try to break some of those stereotypes on our show by showcasing some of these things that go contrary to them, the opportunities for travel, the amazing people you're able to work with. Because I think so many of the scientists I've spoken to are just these creative, funny, multidimensional people. And that's not often how we're portrayed, unfortunately. So, Mariana, do you have an example of your own or a story of your own that really showcases the human side of science?

29:18Maybe the funny traditions, the quirky moments that you share with colleagues or just the sense of humor? Yeah, that happens all the time. And I think it's great that we get to talk about that. Some moments that were really nice is when we get together and we just sit around and have something very simple. I would like coffee and just talk about life. That alone is really nice. And I was thinking about one of the memories that we had once we rented a boat to celebrate. So, like, we lived in California.

29:49There's a lake called Lake Berryessa. And we just decided that the whole lab wanted to go and rent a boat and spend a day barbecuing and swimming and just hanging out together. So that was really nice. Or we would rent a house at the mountains and just go skiing together and spend that time. So we do like to do fun things together, too, for sure. Absolutely. And I think it's great to form that camaraderie within the lab because I think that helps everybody work together better in the lab as well as outside the lab. So do you have any current traditions in your lab at present?

30:21We go for lunches together a lot, especially if it's been a hard day for everyone. Sometimes we just stop. And our lab is really close to Main Street that has a lot of restaurants. So some days we just go get burritos together or we do like happy hour together. We do an annual lab hike. The spring in Nashville is really, really nice. So we choose a trail and we go together and have a hike. And then at the end of it, each person brings something to share and then we do a picnic together.

30:54And we're planning on a lab retreat soon. We're actually looking for houses and stuff to do, like a weekend of not just science, but talking and hanging out together. So that should happen hopefully by the end of the spring. Oh, that sounds amazing. And I know that getting out of the lab and kind of clearing your mind a bit, taking a step back can be really helpful for stimulating creativity and new ideas, particularly when you are addressing such wonderful questions in the laboratory. Because I know there are a lot of things that stand in the way for scientists to keep them from

31:24answering these dream questions that they'd really love to answer with their work. So, Marianne, if we gave you all of the resources you could possibly dream up and took away all of the barriers you typically have to contend with on a daily basis, what is the one question that you would most want to tackle? One question I'm really interested is to understand why people are getting some diseases earlier in life. Some diseases that would usually thought to be a disease of aging, they're happening early in life.

31:54And I'm particularly interested in this association between development of cancer and colorectal cancer in particular in younger adults, especially in the millennial generations and the generations before. So, we really want to understand why this is happening, why the newer generations are at higher risk of developing colorectal cancer. And we have some ideas of what that may be, but that would be a really cool question to answer. Certainly. So, what are some of the biggest barriers you face in trying to answer this question? It's always money. I mean, it's always funding, right?

32:27Because we want to use a lot of animal models and a lot of technology. Like, we use germ-free mice. So, mice that don't have any microbiota, we want to use knockout mouse models. We want to use organoids or colonoids. Organs in a dish and all of that require resources. And also, trained people to be able to do all the techniques that we would want to do, to be able to bring all these trained people to help you answer those questions. I think that and funding are the two major barriers.

32:59Well, thank you so much for dreaming big with us, Mariana. We love hearing about these dream research questions that scientists still have on their plate to tackle. So, we appreciate you sharing your insights with us today. And I'd love to end by talking about advice. So, when you think back on your life and career, Mariana, is there a particular piece of advice that you received at some point that really helped you that you can share with me and our listeners today? One of my favorite advice was a day spent in the library can save you months in the lab.

33:30So, really spending the time to understand the literature and read about things can save you a lot of time and a lot of failed experiments. So, did you find this advice particularly helpful in a situation you were in? Oh, yeah, for sure. I always spend a lot of time when I have a question to try to see what has been published on this or what people have done already to try to tailor my experiments, to tailor my questions to what is already known. And I tell that to my people too, that it's important to keep up with the literature

34:00and it's definitely important to read a lot about your research topic. So, you can really understand, not only know what has been done already, but also to help you understand your results and predict why things may not work the way that you think they would. That saves a lot of time for sure. Oh, definitely. And I think reading papers where people have tried certain things and it hasn't worked, that's also very helpful. So, you're like, okay, don't do that. Yeah, and recently we had something happen.

34:30Turns out some of our mice were behaving differently and it took us a while and we found one paper after looking a lot that had seen the exact same thing that we did, which is good to confirm that has happened before. But I was like, I wish I would have ran into this paper. Right. Where was this? Well, Mariana, wonderful advice for our listeners. Is there any other last piece of advice you'd like to share or a last message you'd like to leave everyone with today? There are three things that I think a lot about. Keep working and try not to give up in the face of failure

35:03because that's one of the things that we deal a lot in science is with everyday failures and everyday maybe disappointments. And I think that the moment that you start to see failure as something positive and be able to grow from it instead of letting the frustration take over that makes you definitely a better scientist because then you can actually start to understand that failure may be driving you in the right direction and you can use that to keep moving forward and become a better scientist.

35:35Definitely. It's all about perspective when it comes to failure. I love it. Well, great advice, Mariana. And thank you again for all your insights today. If our listeners want to learn more about you and the excellent science you're doing, where should they go or how should they get in touch? So I'm on Twitter and my Twitter handle is at Mary, M-A-R-I, underline, binloss, or they can just Google me and my lab website should pop up. And there they will find my email and they're welcome to send me an email or to find me on Twitter to keep up with what we're doing in the lab.

36:08Fantastic. Well, listeners, definitely check out that lab website. Get connected with Mariana on Twitter or via email if you have questions. And Mariana, it's been such a pleasure to chat with you today. Thank you again for sharing a piece of your story with all of us. Oh, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having me here. Absolutely. And listeners, thank you for joining us as well. We'll see you next time on another episode of People Behind the Science.