Name: Thomas Shroka
Hometown: Cleveland, OH
Hobbies: Running, relaxing, outdoors, camping, beach, friends, reading
Lab: Tracy Handel, UCSD, School of Pharmacy, Pharmacology
Lab website: The Handel Lab at UCSD
What do you study? I study chemokine receptors, which are best known for their role in the immune system and driving immune cells to sites of inflammation or injury. We try to determine the exact mechanisms that allow the receptors to function the way that they do. Those mechanisms involve complex pathways and many other interacting proteins that ultimately allow the receptors to control cell movement.
Why is it important? As you can imagine, being part of the immune response, they are involved in a lot of different diseases, including cardiovascular disease, HIV, diabetes, cancer, and so many more. And although the family of receptors that chemokine receptors belong to are very commonly targeted by drugs, it is difficult to develop drugs towards chemokine receptors. Studying the receptors lets us have much better understanding of how they work, and that lets us better design drugs to help treat the diseases that they are involved it.
What piqued your interest in science? The hands-on problem solving that you get to do in the lab piqued my interest during my undergrad. Before then, most subjects or problems are solved in your head, on paper, or on a computer, but science lets you actually solve problems using living organisms and the physical world.
What do you like about being a scientist? I like the ability to ask and answer really interesting questions that have never been asked or tested before. I enjoy knowing that the work I do in the lab contributes to human knowledge and hopefully towards helping cure diseases. I also like the work is constantly changing, by no means is it a monotonous job. And finally, the freedom that is inherent to scientific work is nice, being able to choose my hours and working flexibly is great.
What are 5 general vocabulary terms someone should know going into your field of science?
protein, receptor, ligand, signaling, cell migration
What are 5 specific vocabulary terms someone should know about your research?
G protein coupled receptor, chemokine, endosome, desensitization, β-arrestin
Teaser: Here’s a video of neutrophil chasing a bacterium, by David Rogers of Vanderbilt University.