Rose Grymes - chat 1/7/97

We are scheduled to chat with Rose Grymes today at 9:00a.m. You are
welcome to join us then.
Rose Grymes is here now and we are ready to begin. Welcome Rose !

Good morning--be gentle with me, this is my first real chat. I was
scheduled to do one earlier, but technical problems interfered, so I'm
re-learning a lot of what Tish taught me of web etiquette back
then.

In your biography, you said you work as a research scientist about 20% of
the time. What do you do the other 80% of the time?

The biography is unfortunately a bit out of date. I'm now working 100%
time as Program Manager of Outreach for Life Sciences.

Ms.Grymes - What is your cell culture research about?

When I was in the laboratory, my cell culture research centered on
exploring how mechanical forces act on cells. In the human body, for
example, cells lining the blood vessels stretch and contract as
blood flows past. Bone cells participate in architectures that resist the
force of gravity; holding up our weight. Muscle cells contract and relax
to move us around. I was testing how forces applied to cultured skin cells
could affect their normal responses.

Can you tell us more about the Space Station Biological REsearch Project. 

OK, first thing I guess I have to re-remember is to sign my messages, this
is Rose. I joined NASA about 5 years ago, and spent my first several years
here creating a cell and molecular biology laboratory at NASA-ARC. One of
my first questions is about cell culture research, and I'll get to the
specifics in my next message. Another question here is about the Space
Station Biological Research Project, and I'll answer that question from my
experience in my current job, which I've held for
the\last two years. That's Program Manager for Life Sciences Outreach.
After my experience in the lab, as a working scientist, I've moved into
the realm of communicating science to the public--to teachers, students,
and absolutely everybody else. Sometimes I do that directly, as this
morning, but most of the time I manage and coordinate a variety of large
and small projects nationwide that seek to bring NASA Life Sciences to the
world of people and interests outside NASA. Now, I'll collect my thoughts
on those two questions.

The SSBRP in located here at Ames Research Center. It is a group of
individual but interlinkedprojects that are developing the hardware that
will be needed to support biological investigations onthe International
Space Station (another acronym, ISS). There are teams working on aquatic
habitats, rodent habitats, cell culture facilities, insect housing, etc.
The teams contain both scientistsand engineers, because they interact with
the research community to determine what conditions the hardware must
support for good science, and how to build it to work properly in the
microgravity environment of the ISS.

When will the ISS be used?

The ISS will be contructed using Shuttle flights over the next 5 or so
years, and is planned to become available with some facilities for
biological experiments in, I think, '99 and thereafter.

Why do we need to know what happens to cultured skin cells? 

Why do we need to know about skin cells. Lab investigators commonly use
model systems to explore new ideas. With a system that has many aspects
you understand, you can test responses to variables that you introduce,
and have some confidence that, depsite the complex interplay of multiple
mechanisms in a living cell, you can tease out of the results an answer
that relates to the scientific question. So, in my particular case, I was
looking at a type of skin cell that responds to a growth factor ( a
protein produced by stimulated cells which in turn stimulates other cells
to grow) in a particular way--when stimulated by added Platelet Derived
Growth Factor (PDGF) the cells produced high levels of collagenase (an
enzyme that breaks down collagen, one of the building
blocks of connective tissue and bone). That gave me a response that I
could analyze and a stimulus that I could apply. Then I looked at how that
response was affected by growing the cells in an environment where I could
supply and control mechanical stretch (growing them on a specially treated
flexible sheet). Since skin cells are commonly exposed to stretching, it
was reasonable to expect that they would be able to demonstrate a
detectable response to it.

Does this have to do with living inspace?

How does my research relate to living in space, then I'll go back to my
education and homelife/worklife. All biological, chemical, physical
systems on Earth have developed in an environment of gravity--in fact we
define that gravity as 1G, unit gravity. As we move away from Earth, to
explore and develop space, we have to understand where gravity is
essential for the functioning and developent of living systems, and where
its optional, and where life is adaptable. That's where all cell and
animal and human research in gravitational biology is going. My research
was one section of that much larger question. Since gravity is a force,
studying the reactions of cells to forces can provide answers about the
reaction of cells to gravity (and microgravity).

What do you mean by mechanical forces reacting on cells?

I applied mechanical forces TO the cells, and they reacted. I grew the
cells as a single layer, one cell deep and forming a continuous sheet
cell-to-cell. I grew them on a flexible membrane, then when I stretched
the membrane, the cells (which attach themselves very securely, forming a
connection with the membrane very similar to the one that skin cells on
YOU form to connect them with YOUR underlying tissues), the cells get
stretched.

What is your skin cell research used for?

What is my skin cell research used for, and there was an earlier question
about how my research\related to living in space. Actually, my skin cell
research has turned out to be useful in the area of understanding how our
cells age. I had chosen to study normal skin cells and cells obtained from
patients with an aging disease called Werner's syndrom. I found that the
Werner's syndrome cells were able to re-create a normal response to PDGF
when I stretched them. So, they were able to
'sense' the force (the stretch) and that sensation was able to cause
changes within the cell that I could detect. Since then, others working on
the same cells, Werner's syndrome cells, have found that the reason
patients with this disease age more rapidly has to do with an enzyme
involved in DNA replication. So, that's kinda how science makes progress.
Lots of people are curious, they're curious about different things, but as
we collect information, we put it together and begin to
understand bigger and bigger slices of the total picture. 

Have you used any information from the latest shuttle with Shannon Lucid
in space for so long for your research. How was her skin cells affected
being in space?

Could you address the skin aging questions?

On skin aging- There are pharmaceutical and genetic engineering companies
who are very interested in the specifics of how skin cells age, and how to
affect the appearance of aging. It's a big cosmetic
market, but also goes beyond cosmetic considerations. Lots of skin cancers
result from exposure to the sun, and their development may have a lot to
do with repeat exposure and with normal aging in the exposed cells. Some
of those cancers, if undetected or untreated, can be life threatening.

How do you coordinate with the scientists on the shuttle?

A few questions ago, someone asked how we communicate with the scientists
on the shuttle. Investigations that get carried out on-board the shuttle
are selected years in advance, usually, and extensively prepared. They are
performed by the Shuttle crew, who are trained by the original researcher.
Some require that the scientist on the ground be in close and real-time
contact with the crew. Some don't--the researcher gets data and samples
back and analyzes them.

It sounds like your research could be used to find out how skin ages and
how we can treat it. Do companies or doctors every need your research to
help people?

My work didn't have a real direct application to skin in space, although I
search a lot of trext and reports looking for what observations had been
made that related to effects of microgravity on skin and connective
tissue. In space, in microgravity, the crew's skin is a real live part of
a fully functioning physiological system (and they pretty reluctant to
give you samples of themselves--they're good about iut when necessary, but
think about how it would be for them to give multiple skin biopsies, or
bone biopsies; mostly they give blood samples).

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What are some of your hobbies? What do you do in your spare time, if you
have any?

Reading is a hobby, I LOVE to read, I devour books. Training the family
dog is something else I spend spare time on--she's a Norwegian elkhound
that we got from the animal shelter, and she likes to eat beepers and
cellular phones.

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When did you start working for NASA? How did you become interested in it?

I am still curious about your education. What type of education did you
need to do what you do now for the outreach part of your job and what type
did you need for your cell work?

I did my Ph.D. at Stanford in Cancer Biology, working on viruses that
cause cancer--specifically a virus that could be found in mice and caused
a lymphoma. Before Stanford, I completed a B.S. at the University of
California, Davis in Bacteriology. I got interested in microbiology
(bacteria and viruses) during a year I spent at the University of
Manchester in England, sort of as an exchange student.

A while back I participated in a panel about alternative careers for Ph.D.
students. Traditionally most want to go on to do independent research, but
these days it's not easy]to find those jobs, either in industrial or
university research. In thinking about what I could tell them about how I
got to what I'm doing from my education, here's what I thought. In my
home, we had very little money for extras when I was growing up. We almost
never bought books, but made a weekly trip to the
library and I always took out my limit. But my father DID by a few books,
and they were always science fiction. He was an engineer. And my mother
DID by a few books, and they were about teaching and theories of learning.
She was a teacher. So, I guess that's what became important to
me, too. Space and learning.

**********

What kind of books did you like to read growing up?

I liked historical fiction and science fiction and books about King\
Arthur; I also got interested in the history of witchcraft. Now I like spy
novels, mysteries, and still science fiction. I'd like to make it
science fact! Let's put a woman on Mars!

Is the a certain type of book you like to read? A series or anything?

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Do you have any pets? Kids? Married?

Yes, I'm married and have one daughter, who's 12.

Your daughter is 12. How old are you?
I'm 40.

How many children do you have and how old are they?

I have one child, she's 12. I stayed at home with her for about five
years, looking for work again while she was in nursery school and finally
returning to work (as a post-doctoral student atStanford University) when
she was in kindergarten.

How much time did you take off and how long were you out of the work force
to raise children? Was this a problem?

Earlier there were questions about what's it's like to be a working
mother. There's a temptation to get up on my soapbox on that one, because
for three of the past four years I've been a Chair of the
Advisory Committee for Women here at NASA-Ames. Just the other day on the
radio I heard that women have been closing the pay gap at work, but still
make only 79 cents for what a man gets paid a dollar to do. That pay gap,
and promotions gaps (the glass ceiling) combined with scarcities of child
care, create significant problems for most working women.

Could you go back and adress the issue of leaving work and raising
children and how that affects you in the work force?

I asked a question a while back about how hard is it to be out of the work
force to raise kids and then get back in.

It was really hard for me to leave the workforce and then go back. I
didn't appreciate how hard it would be. I think I circulated my resume for
about nine months before I had any real bites for a job, and then I had
three at once. I had just got to the point of frustration when a friend,
meaning to be helpful, said to me that maybe it wouldn't be so terrible if
I didn't go back to work. At that moment, a little voice inside my head
said, I WILL go back, and from then on I was determined.

The motivator for timing on going back to work was kind of funny. I had no
particular time schedule, and the decision wasn't based on family
economics. One day the kids in my daughter's nursery school class drew
pictures of their mommies. Probably for Mother's Day. And my daughter drew
one of my standing at a sink washing dishes, and it showed my from behind.
No fact, just the back of me standing at the sink. I decided then that I
needed to give her a different picture of what women's work meant.

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Have you ever dreamed/wanted to go up in space?

I love to dream about being in space, but my being there fantasies are
more of the Star Trek variety. Actually going there right now is still a
risky business. It takes people with the 'right stuff'--a unique mix of
the bravery and technical expertise of pilots who test new high
performance aircraft and the curiosity of scientists who investigate new
questions, to make an astronaut. Also, I have a
bad back.

Is there anything that you personaly would like for NASA to accomplish in
the near future? Anything you would like to accomplish for NASA ?

I would love to work as a researcher at NASA, but would also love to
encounter space. How likely/possible is it that a person in a position
like yours can get chosen as a mission specialist?

I'd like to see NASA put a team on Mars. We put a man on the moon, let's
put a woman on Mars.

That's right! A man was first on the moon, so why can't we put a woman
first on Mars?

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Thank you for answering our questions. We really enjoyed it.

That is so inspirational what you said about how your daughter viewed you.

We're a brave new world of working women. Not the first in the workforce,
but we keep moving the horizon to better things.