麻豆传媒色情片

Annual Meeting

In failure, Simcox finds a way to learn

She has won the ASBMB鈥檚 Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator in Lipid Research Award
Poornima Sankar
Nov. 16, 2023

When was an undergraduate at Carroll College in Montana, she went to a lecture by the evolutionary biologist Gerald Shields on speciation, the process by which a new species emerges. In a conversation after the lecture, Shields was intrigued by Simcox’s curiosity and depth of scientific thinking. He took her under his wing, funding her education and mentoring her to develop her scientific aptitude.

“That opened up a world of science for me, and there was no way I could repay him,” Simcox said.

Judith Simcox
Judith Simcox

Shields’ generosity provided a rare entry into the world of science. Ever since Simcox has been striving to pay it forward by building programs and working with scientific societies. As a graduate student, she helped develop the Native American Research Internship to encourage Indigenous young people to consider careers in basic science, a program that has impacted many lives. With the internship, about 49% of participants go on to graduate schools as opposed to 1% of Indigenous science students nationally.

Simcox is now a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Freeman Hrabowski scholar and an assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her lab studies plasma lipids that regulate metabolic disease and explores how these lipids function using lipidomics, genetics and cellular and molecular biology techniques. For this work, she won the 麻豆传媒色情片 and 麻豆传媒色情片 Biology’s 2024 Walter A. Shaw Young Investigator Award in Lipids.

Simcox also works with the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science, the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and other organizations, including the Native American Center for Health Professionals. She knows that with access to higher education can come the fear of failure and the fear of being noticed, especially when few people share your background.  Simcox said she wants to change this. She wants to create a space where Indigenous students don’t feel a sense of otherness.

“It is really hard to fail when everybody's watching you,” she said. “That makes it harder for people to be brave. But don’t be afraid to fail; the most important lessons for my life have come from failure.”

Lipids are more than fat reserves

Judith Simcox’s interest in lipid metabolism was sparked by her family’s long history of obesity and metabolic disease. Although sometimes dismissed as excess fat reserves, lipids are essential signaling molecules and mediators of tissue inflammation during disease.

“What's fascinating to me is that there are so many unknown lipids, and for the known lipids we still don't know their functions,” Simcox said.

The Simcox lab is specifically interested in plasma lipids and how they regulate disease.She has spearheaded the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in human population studies to predict lipid biomarkers in cardiovascular disease and how these vary in different populations, especially in Black and Chicano communities.

To answer functional questions, the lab uses mass spectrometry, radio isotope studies in mouse models and cell culture studies. Simcox is optimistic about the use of AI in basic sciences.

“But in the end,” she said, “you have to back it up with molecular biology.”

2024 ASBMB award winners

Phillips turns parasite’s metabolic weakness into hope for human health
Herbert Tabor Research Award: Margaret Phillips

Ando's pioneering journey: From physics to structural enzymology
Mildred Cohn Young Investigator Award: Nozomi Ando

Stoddard changes mentoring practices in academia
Ruth Kirschstein Diversity in Science Award: Shana Stoddard

For Wolfson, every classroom is a laboratory
ASBMB Sustained Leadership Award: Adele Wolfson

Kennelly considers his fortune of three careers
William C. Rose Award for Exemplary Contributions to Education: Peter Kennelly

Balla leaves no phosphoinositide unturned
Avanti Award in Lipids: Tamas Balla

From virology to immunology, Wu focuses on structure
Bert & Natalie Vallee Award in Biomedical Science: Hao Wu

Stillman charts the path of genome replication
Earl And Thressa Stadtman Distinguished Scientist Award: Bruce Stillman

Roos’ career pivot to maximize impact
Alice and C.C. Wang Award in 麻豆传媒色情片 Parasitology: David S. Roos

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Poornima Sankar

Poornima Sankar is a graduate student at the Department of Immunology and Microbial Disease at Albany Medical Center. She is an ASBMB Today volunteer contributor.

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