Rasmus Pihl from Aarhus University works in a New York badly hit by Covid-19

Rasmus Pihl has a 20-minute walk from the laboratory to his small apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

After work at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he carries out biomedical research, he goes straight home and, as far as possible, remains there for the rest of the day. The 31-year-old researcher has just received the first jab of the vaccine against Covid-19, as has his girlfriend.

"We're getting the second dose next week. So right now we're not doing anything, because it would be so irritating to be infected just before we gain immunity. The day we get the second jab will be a good day," says Rasmus Pihl, who, like many other researchers in the city, is classified as an essential worker.

In New York, the pandemic is a more serious factor than it is at Aarhus University, where Rasmus Phil came to New York from. A fact that has taught him something about keeping things in proportion and patience.

He moved to New York in November 2019 together with his girlfriend, Anne Tranberg Madsen, who like him is affiliated with Aarhus University and has received a postdoc position within biomedicine in the most populous city in America.

Covid-19 exploded shortly after they arrived. The Danish research couple were stuck indoors in a three-month lockdown.

”I’m really dependent on the laboratory, and I didn’t get very far before everything was shut down,” explains Rasmus Pihl. His work focuses on epigenetics and breast cancer, and in very simple terms, the study in New York is aimed at attempting to kill cancer cells by inhibiting the enzyme DJ-1.

He has received a four year postdoc scholarship of almost DKK 4 million from the Novo Nordisk Foundation, with the first three years to be spent abroad. In the fourth year, the recipients return to Denmark with a lot of new knowledge and establish the rest of their research career.

Empty supermarkets and full freezer trucks

Although Rasmus Pihl had ambitious plans for his research during the spring, the lockdown turned things into mostly paperwork and Netflix.

"Others who were further along could begin writing articles. But I was at such an early stage that I couldn't do much from home," he says.

At the same time, the Danish researcher could observe a city that was struggling to bring the pandemic and an exploding number of deaths under control. The mortuaries in New York we completely unable to keep pace, and shocked New Yorkers began sharing videos of forklift trucks loading corpses into freezer trucks.

“Things got really bad in New York during the spring. Of course it was frustrating for my personal project, but the prevalent atmosphere in the city was concern and general panic,” he says.

Practical tasks suddenly became important. Doing the shopping became a project in itself as the couple initially lived in student housing on a small island in the East River and had to take the subway to get anywhere. Supermarket shelves were emptied by panic buying, and finding flour, peeled tomatoes or anything else that could last for a while was a victory in itself.

And it was important to get back home in the evening before the city's curfew came into force. The beginning of the summer saw unrest, violence and looting in connection with demonstrations by the Black Lives Matter movement, leading the authorities to prohibit New Yorkers from going out after 23:00.

"The number of homeless people on the street rose really quickly because people lost their jobs and health insurance during lockdown. Of course it was annoying for my project, but so many devastating things happened that I also got some perspective on things," says Rasmus Pihl.

After a period with more and more time allowed at work and shift work, he is now back to a fifty hour working week. Although there are strict rules about distancing and wearing facemasks all day long.

"We still have supply chain issues – for example, you can't get pipette tips which are in demand for tests. That’s the biggest obstacle right now, so there’s an internal bargaining and exchange economy as different laboratories trade in test tubes or various plastic parts. Everything is more of a hassle. But it’s definitely starting to look like things are becoming more normal and productive," he says, while his assessment is that his project is six months behind schedule due to Covid-19.

But he still has almost two years left in New York, and is determined to get as much out of his time there as possible. He also hopes to soon be able to expand his professional and social network beyond the eleven employees at the laboratory, who come from China, New Zealand and different parts of the United States.

Accepting the way things are

Even though the past year has played out very differently from how Rasmus Pihl and his girlfriend imagined when they decided to move to the USA, Covid-19 has nonetheless also led to positive developments.

"Your independence reaches new heights. Having long periods with so few people as possible in the laboratory places new demands on the degree to which you can solve tasks yourself," he says.

Rasmus Pihl explains that the shift work in the laboratory actually sharpens the project management tools, because you have less time to achieve something productive. He also emphasises that throughout everything it has been a privilege to work at one of the most well-respected cancer research centres.

"I'm part of biomedicine which carries out a lot of basic research. It's exciting to see how biology works when you really look at the smallest details, and to uncover how insanely smart and sophisticated the way in which we’re designed is. I get to use this understanding to work creatively and in the final analysis, help to fight diseases," he says.

"On a personal level, I’ve learned to accept the way things are and not get too stressed over things that are beyond my control."

THREE TIPS ON HOW TO CONDUCT RESEARCH ABROAD

How do you get to go abroad?

"Networking helps. When I needed to make a decision on what I wanted to focus on and where I wanted to go, I sent emails to many people who I never heard back from. The whole thing is easier if you’ve got a network you can activate.

During my Master's thesis, I spent six months at Princeton University, and my contact for that stay went through the supervisor I had then. You shouldn’t underestimate the really large network that many professors have, and you should just ask if you can make use of it.

When I was at Princeton, the person who is now my supervisor was herself a postdoc in the laboratory – and that was my way in to the New York position."

What is important in terms of preparation?

"I’m really, really pleased that I came to interviews over here before I made the decision, so I could look people in the eye and get a sense of the place.

I went to interviews in two different places, and it was clear that one of the laboratories functioned much better than the other. It’s hard to get a feel for that kind of thing when you’re far away. So take the time to visit the place – it will be time well spent."

Why should you go abroad to do research?

"I went abroad because I thought it would be fun to work abroad – but it was also a career strategy. If I want to stay at the university, I think it's more or less a requirement for me to go abroad now.

My scholarship is structured so that I have a salary for a year at home in Denmark, so I’ll use that year figuring out what I want to do. But there is no doubt that working abroad presents challenges that you learn from both personally and academically. It also gives you an invaluable network – at least when there’s no Covid-19.”

Rasmus Pihl in brief: 

Age: 31

From Hjørring in North Jutland.

Postdoc at Aarhus University. Research fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA. He is working on a study titled ”Investigating the histone-protective role of DJ-1 in breast cancer as a novel therapeutic target”.

About the study:
Breast cancer leads to more than 600,000 deaths annually worldwide. The cancer cells produce energy in a different way than healthy cells, resulting in the formation of an increased amount of toxic reactive molecules in the cell. These can react with proteins and form non-enzymatic chemical modifications (NECMs) that damage the proteins and lead to the death of the cells.

It has recently been shown that cellular proteins called histones are particularly prone to NECMs, and the level of histon NECMs is elevated in tumour samples from breast cancer patients. Similarly, an enzyme called DJ-1 is found which can protect the histones against NECMs by removing the modifications again, and the level of DJ-1 was also elevated in breast cancer cells.

Rasmus Pihl's hypothesis is that breast cancer cells over-express DJ-1 so as to limit the NECMs on histones to a level that allows the cancer cells to survive despite their abnormal energy production.
If the hypothesis is correct, it will open the possibility of specifically targeting the cancer cells by inhibiting DJ-1, as the cells will no longer be able to keep the level of NECMs in check. The study will therefore examine the potential of a therapeutic strategy which specifically attempts to kill cancer cells by inhibiting the enzymatic function of DJ-1.

Contact:

Postdoc Rasmus Pihl

Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University / Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA.

Email: pihl@biomed.au.dk

Tel.: (+45) 2834 5909