Lessons Learned - March 2025

My name is Terren Niethamer, and I am a Stadtman Tenure-Track Investigator at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH)*. I started my independent position at NCI almost exactly a year ago in January 2024. My lab is called the Regenerative Plasticity and Signaling Section and is part of the Cancer and Developmental Biology Laboratory (CDBL). CDBL is a department, but here at NCI, they like to confuse us by calling the lab a “Section” and the department a “Laboratory.” As a federal employee, it is worth noting that the views in this letter are my own and not those of the United States government.

Throughout my career as a scientist-in-training, I have been fascinated by the relationship between structure and function. After a brief experience with organic synthesis as an undergraduate and a postbaccalaureate fellowship in human genetics at the National Human Genome Research Institute, I received my Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco. There, I studied how signaling drives cell self-organization and tissue morphogenesis in craniofacial development in the lab of Dr. Jeffrey Bush. I trained as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Edward Morrisey, where I studied the role of endothelial cell heterogeneity in lung regeneration. My current research builds on these experiences to investigate the role of endothelial cell signaling in development and regeneration of the lung alveolus, the functional unit of gas exchange.

I am grateful to the NAVBO Education Committee for this opportunity to share what I have learned on the journey from postdoctoral fellow to independent investigator. Thank you to my previous mentors for their guidance and support in this transition. I am also thankful for my department chair (here at NCI, we call him a “Lab Chief”), who has been incredibly supportive during my first year on the job. Below are just a few of the lessons I have learned during my first year as a tenure-track investigator running a laboratory at NIH.

Communicate and collaborate to advance your research. As a trainee, my mentors encouraged me to share my results with others through departmental seminars and international conferences. Their openness and willingness to share benefitted me greatly. This is something that I have continued to prioritize in my own lab. At a time when funding is difficult to obtain, and competition for positions, grants, and the next impactful discovery can be fierce, I understand the inclination to keep your lab’s work private. Although this approach may protect you from being scooped, it also reduces the likelihood of receiving valuable advice and insight from peers and potential collaborators. I would always rather risk the former than miss out on the latter. Many new and established PIs in our field are excited to collaborate and help each other succeed, and I look forward to working with you if our research directions coincide!

Find your people. Many past Lessons Learned columns have also covered this, probably because it is so important. As you are searching for a job, make sure your future colleagues are people you want to spend time with. This includes science – there will be plenty of departmental seminars, faculty meetings, and joint lab meetings together – as well as other aspects of life. I have loved talking with my new colleagues about food we are cooking, concerts we have been to, TV series we are loving, and books we are reading. This has made my new department feel like a place I’m excited to spend time, both professionally and personally. It is also helpful to expand your network of new investigators, whether you find them in your new or previous departments, at a Vascular Biology meeting, or even on New PI Slack. It helps to have someone to talk to about the ups and downs of starting a lab. If you are wondering why email suddenly takes up so much time, or why it is so hard to order things at a new institution, you will find that you are not the only one feeling this way.  

Everything takes longer than you think it should. As a trainee, you knew the details of your project fully, and you could complete experiments quickly, sometimes before finishing your first cup of coffee (just kidding, no one would do that). It’s tempting to carry these expectations for yourself into your new lab – and to project them onto your new lab members! Whether you change institutions or not, it takes time to learn your new role, and starting up a lab will be slow. My lab’s animal strains had to be rederived, some experiments didn’t work as expected in a new environment, and we spent a lot of time troubleshooting. Remember that this is normal, and try to be patient with your team members and with yourself. I have learned to set more realistic expectations, and I know that even then, things won’t always go to plan. This change of pace can be frustrating, but ultimately it makes that first successful experiment even better!

Expand your skill set. As a postdoc, I managed my own projects and, at times, another trainee in my mentor’s lab. As a PI, the number of trainees to mentor and projects to track expands dramatically. Being a PI also requires wearing additional “hats”: financial manager, chief writer and editor, and speaker, to name a few. Dr. Guy Tanentzapf refers to these jobs as “PI Superpowers”: writing grants, writing papers, recruiting trainees, organization, giving talks, inspiring and motivating others, and teaching. He writes that a single PI rarely excels at all of them – each PI has different strengths. This year, I’ve learned to self-reflect and to identify my strengths and lean on them. More importantly, I’ve learned to seek mentorship and training in areas where I need more development. One resource that I have particularly loved is the Raising a Resilient Scientist series from NIH’s Office of Intramural Training and Education (this is open to both extramural and intramural scientists and is a great time investment). The next series will start later in 2025: https://www.training.nih.gov/raising-a-resilient-scientist/. There is a similar series for trainees called “Becoming a Resilient Scientist” that has recorded sessions available on YouTube https://www.training.nih.gov/wellbeing/join-webinars-and-lectures/brs/.

Running a research lab at NIH. Many academic research institutions are funded by grants from NIH’s Extramural Research Program. My research at NIH is funded by the Intramural Research Program. The first thing most people say when I tell them I work at NIH is, “You don’t have to write grants!” While this is (sort of) true, we have a related review process called a Site Visit, with extramural scientists as reviewers, similar to a study section. We write a site visit document, which has some similarities to a grant proposal, and give a short presentation to the reviewers. Their reviews determine if our research funding should continue. If anyone is interested in hearing more about research at NIH, I would be happy to chat!

In conclusion, while I’ve learned a lot during the past year, I am sure I have a lot left to learn. Part of what I love about this job is that I learn new things almost every day, whether that is from our experimental data, from a mentorship course, or from the brilliant trainees and colleagues surrounding me. Thank you again for the opportunity to share my perspectives, and I hope to see you all at the next Vascular Biology meeting!

Sincerely,

Terren Niethamer

*At the time of submission of this Lessons Learned piece, my lab and I have been affected by the recent mass termination of federal employees still in their probationary periods, which has nothing to do with performance and rather indicates how long it has been since someone started their job (for a tenure-track investigator like me, the probationary period lasts two years). I have appealed this decision – if I am reinstated, my work can continue at NIH, but if not, I will have to continue my research elsewhere. This time of great upheaval for science in our country has taught me another lesson I would like to add, which is that we as scientists must effectively communicate the importance of our work to the public. Outside of our community, there may be many people who have not heard of NIH, or who know about it but do not understand what its budget funds: scientific research at each institute, but also research conducted at universities across the country and many science-adjacent jobs in states both large and small. The NIH budget also funds the training of many scientists who will go on to work in academia, industry, or government. In combination, their work will lead to important discoveries that will result in new treatments for disease, from rare genetic diseases to more common illnesses that many people face. As scientists, we are smart, resilient, and strong – and we should tell the world how our work benefits everyone!