Michelle Moyal, DVM (Host): Welcome to the Cornell Veterinary Podcast where we deep dive into the discovery, care and learning that happens at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine. I am your most fabulous host, Dr. Michelle Moyal, visiting assistant clinical professor. Your, I'd like to think, favorite Purina veterinarian and wearer of this most awesome T-shirt. It says, "Cats rule." Don't come at me, dog lovers. This is from the Cornell Feline Health Center. Yes. And so, now the ball is in your court, Riney Canine Health Center, for some cool swag. I'm not opposed to the large animal swag either, Cornell Equine and Nemo Farm Animal Hospital. Okay. But I digress, just me getting swag is not the topic of today's conversation.

Today's conversation, again, has me super excited. So, I'm so very excited to welcome you here, Dr. David Lin. Dr. Lin is an Associate Professor and Director of Neurobiology.

David Lin, PhD: Woohoo.

Host: That doesn't even sound that hard. What? I'm totally kidding, everyone. He's in the Department of Biological Sciences. In addition to his work as a neurobiologist, he has been a foundational leader in the Graduate Program at the veterinary college and has received numerous awards for his teaching-- woo-hoo!-- and mentoring, which I love, and we will get to. Welcome to the Cornell Veterinary Podcast, Dr. Lin!

David Lin, PhD: Oh, it's such a pleasure to be here, Michelle. Thank you so much for that nice introduction.

Host: Oh my gosh, absolutely. And maybe next time we will work on getting you a cat T-shirt as well, because--

David Lin, PhD: My dogs will not be happy, but I will be thrilled.

Host: You know, and I could see dogs, I mean, dogs giving you a little bit of guilt, but the cats really--

David Lin, PhD: Shih tzus are really good at that.

Host: I believe that 100%. Awesome. It is so awesome to have you here. And just as I mentioned, you've been a leader at the college in the graduate degree program. And I really would like people to know more about this, because we talk about the veterinary school a lot. So, this program is formally known as the Biomedical-- she looks down because she doesn't want to mess it up-- Biomedical and Biological Sciences or BBS PhD Program. So, can you just tell our listeners a little bit about it? Because sometimes I think a lot of our listeners don't even understand that the College of Veterinary Medicine may have like a different program, a graduate degree program. They tend to think of us as just someone or an institution that's conferring degrees of Veterinary Medicine.

David Lin, PhD: So, one of the great things about Cornell and the Cornell Vet Program-- Obviously, I'm completely biased-- is, you know, Cornell is--

Host: It's true. We are, we are.

David Lin, PhD: And I own that. But, you know, Cornell's one of the top biology veterinary colleges, obviously, in the world. And one of the things that it emphasizes in terms of what it values is research in addition to the clinical services that it provides. And so, the Vet College has been home to multiple graduate programs for the past 30 plus years, and you may not know this, but there are over a hundred graduate students in the BBS program at any one time right now, all doing research, not just at the vet college, but across campus as well.

So, some of them are doing clinical research, some of them are doing translational research, some of them are doing basic research, and it has been my true privilege to help guide this program for 12 years or so from 2011 to 2023, and it's been an amazing journey for me to interact with students and faculty at all levels in this college. Truly an honor.

Host: Oh, that's awesome. And. I mean, interacting with students and some of our future researchers and our scientists truly is one of the best and most joyful experiences. Can you quickly share-- so, clinical research versus basic research versus translational research, will you just explain that just like a sentence on each, for our listeners, in case they don't know?

David Lin, PhD: So, maybe I can give an-- Yes, I'll give an example for you.

Host: Examples are great. We love that here.

David Lin, PhD: So, for example, there are people working in Heidi Reesink's lab and Michelle Delco's group who are interested in, say, the knee and osteoarthritis components and cartilage function with that. And so, they will look at horses to see whether or not they can come up with mechanisms or tools that better understand how arthritis develops. And so, these are not treatments alone, but they are looking at how arthritis develops. There are people here who are working in mouse models and dog models to examine cancer biology mechanisms to try and understand how cancer crosses between mice and dogs, for example. And I know Praveen was on this podcast before, and he's an example of somebody who's working on that component of that, right?

And then, there are the clinical researchers as well who are interested in, for example, there are epidemiology side of it, people who study some of the statistics that underlie some of the components of, say, antibiotic resistance that exists. And there are other people who are working with clinicians, looking at different drugs that they can use to treat animals to try and improve their outcome. So, it spans the gamut, and that's my favorite part about working in BBS is how diverse the whole program is, how many faculty involved, what kind of research people do. It really is quite impressive.

Host: BBS not to be confused with BBL. If you know, you know. Just as a side note, you're telling me we have over a hundred programs that will cover kind of the foundations of disease, understanding the foundations of progressions of disease, how diseases develop, how they affect some animals and not others. And then, we also go into how we could treat them for someone like me who's a clinician. So, that is incredible.

David Lin, PhD: That is right. So, I'll give you another example, right? You know, for example, like, we work with people who work on sciatic nerve regeneration. How do you regenerate nerves? And then, there are other folks here--

Host: The sciatic nerve is like a giant nerve, people. If it gets damaged, you have, unfortunately, pretty severe problems. So, we have people that are working on regeneration of this nerve.

David Lin, PhD: Yeah, and that's actually a project in our lab. Shout out to Camille Holmes who's working with horses. And she managed to help us start to look at sciatic nerves in horses and the differences that exist between those and mice and in other animals. So, it's wonderful to be able to be at a college where you can look at so many different kinds of model organisms, work with so many clinicians and people who are interested in understanding the biology at different levels.

Host: So everyone listening, I want you to understand, I think that sometimes when I talk to these brilliant people and people talk to me, I get to talk about being a veterinarian. But the College of Veterinary Medicine does so much more. We have these people that don't have to be veterinarians, they can be scientists, just like you said, across the gamut. They can cover all sorts of research. So, you can find-- if you're a science buff like the majority of us are-- you can find your place here, for sure, which is fantastic.

And so, okay. Ugh, this is too much, this is too much for me because I'm very excited. But I have read that you've "implemented practices to improve recruitment and retention of underrepresented minority students into the BBS program." For me, this is incredibly important. I'm a first generation American. And anything that-- I've used this term before-- increases kind of what I call the diversity of thought in science, super important to me. So, what you've done has contributed to a fourfold increase into the number of applications, which is outstanding because we want all of these people with different mindsets to come here and do their research and apply it broadly. "Increased the applications from our underrepresented minority students during a seven-year period." That is a lot, and I'm very excited about that. So, could you tell me more about, well, one, why did you decide to implement efforts to help this? Because I think that that's just as important as what you did, although I'll ask about that too. So, why did you feel this was important?

David Lin, PhD: You know, you've touched on something that's very near and dear to me. And so, the two founding pillars that I tried to build BBS around is diversity and community. Those are the two things that I think that any strong graduate program should be able to handle. But you also asked me about why I chose to do this.

So when I was a graduate student, one of the things that I was very much into, even though I was doing science during the day, there was an enormous controversy. And I was at UC Berkeley at this time about Asian admissions, and whether or not there were differences in admissions policies for undergraduates versus different populations. And so, I got really involved with understanding the admissions process, but I really wanted to try and do something to try and see what I could contribute to the discussion.

And so, one of the fun things was, as a graduate student, I was a student representative on a university-wide committee designed to revamp UC Berkeley undergraduate admissions at that point. And this particular report was an enormous amount of fun for me to be part of. I was fortunate enough to be part of this committee, and it laid out some of the founding principles that UC Berkeley admissions would follow. And these included obviously a commitment to excellence, a desire to serve the entire population of California, but it laid out on, as a fundamental principle, the importance of diversity, of people, of backgrounds, of thought, in terms of promoting the educational experience, because that's part of what college is all about.

Host: Yes, 100%. But I would like everyone to take note. This person, who was a student at UC Berkeley, adds additional work on through a committee involving admission, and says it was tons of fun. This person should be leading up a graduate program and should be a scientist, because that's a whole heck of a lot of work.

And what I want people to understand is I am not here and I'm not asking you this to send a political message. I am here because I think that people from different backgrounds also think differently, and their solutions and approaches to scientific questions might be the way we uncover huge discoveries, huge discoveries that benefit humanity, that benefit all of the animals we treat. So, I very much appreciate that you also brought in excellence, because that doesn't go away because we want diversity of thought. Academic excellence is very important, but community. So, for you here, what part does community play?

David Lin, PhD: From our standpoint, right? So, I will completely echo your train of thought. And for me, the diversity argument went so well with BBS because we had. Originally, it was pulled together from five different fields. So, we had people interested in Cancer Biology and Neurobiology, in Immunology and Microbiology and Epidemiology. We had students who just graduated from college and joined graduate school right out of undergrad. But we also have a very strong combined degree DVM PhD program where we could attract students who wanted to do the seven-year track that we had originally set up to get both degrees.

And also, most interestingly for me, we also had a DVM-seeking PhD group, which were people who had gone out into the clinical world and had done that and then said, "You know what? I want to do more in terms of understanding the research behind it. And they would come back and get a PhD degree. So, for me, diversity spans all sorts of things, right? We wanted people from different research backgrounds, different life experiences, different socioeconomic statuses, different racial backgrounds, different ethnic backgrounds, anything we could find that I strongly believe what made our program into a stronger program.

Host: Yeah. Oh, that's so cool.

David Lin, PhD: And if you've done research, then you know that the way I think about it as a neurobiologist is not the way an electrical engineer thinks about it, is not the way a clinician thinks about it, is not the way a statistician thinks about it. And it's so much fun for me here to be able to collaborate with all these different groups, and they all bring their different perspectives and that hopefully will make the research and everything else that we interact with stronger.

Host: Yes, 100%. I'm not talking to you statisticians because I don't understand that brain. But I love that. And the other thing I want to point out is-- so, things you mentioned, right? So, we actually have some students that come in that want to be veterinarians, but also know that they want to use that veterinary degree maybe not necessarily in clinical practice, but to be in an academic setting and do research. So, maybe they'll do a combined degree program, which he mentioned was quite a few years. But it's pretty cool here in Ithaca, so just start researching, everyone. And they can do both. It's what I like to refer to as the double doctor.

And then, we have what I talk about a lot, which I think sometimes people don't think about, is the person who pivots. And that's someone like me who maybe was in clinical practice, but found they had a lot of questions coming up, questions that maybe had no answers, and they were inspired to go back to a program like this and try to answer those questions. But now, they have a clinical background. Like someone like you may say, "Well, from a neurobiological point of view, this is what we see in this animal model." And someone can say, "Well, in cats, when I saw this condition all the time, I saw this." That is so neat. That is so cool. And I really, really appreciate that because brains really do think differently. They're not linear paths. And so, if we all collaborate, then you're right, hopefully, we get this like really strong answer approach.

David Lin, PhD: And my favorite part about what you just said is the returning students are incredibly committed, right? They know this is what they want. So, Eric was in private practice for six or seven years, I want to say, in Syracuse, and he came back and he really wanted to do biochemistry. Ellie, you know who I'm on her committee right now, she was a DVM in the UK. And she decided that she wanted to understand using biomedical engineering to try and understand new devices to analyze pain, for example, as one possibility in order to detect odorants. And so, the commitment that the DVM-seeking PhDs have to their research, I find very inspiring.

Host: I agree. And this is not to say that people who choose to stay in clinical practice or people who go right into research are any less. It's just a very cool thing to talk about that so many people have different paths. And again, collaboration and diversity of thought can really help research thrive, right? You can find those answers. Like, maybe somebody who was in clinical practice might ask a question you didn't even think of. That is really exciting. And so, what do you think you did that was the key to really increasing these application numbers? Because that's seems pretty impressive.

David Lin, PhD: So, it goes right back to your other question about community, right? It doesn't matter if you have a diverse group. If there's no opportunity for them to interact, if they don't feel like they have friends in their population, in their cohort, if they don't feel like they have the support of administration or people who are in charge of their graduate program, you have to build community. And that's often an easier buzzword said than to actually be able to do.

And so, the first things we did was we tried to build community. So, I'll give you an example. We had years past where we had underrepresented minorities, for example, apply to our particular program. We would admit them. But in one year, I want to say in the early 2013, something like that, none of them decided to come to Cornell. And they didn't want to come whatsoever. And the proportion of students here, as you know, everything takes a certain amount of momentum. Everything takes a certain group to be able to get things going with that.

So, the way I decided that we would start this was to try and build community by developing, say, a joint class. So, one simple way of doing this was when you were a graduate student before 2011 or so, you would come into a program at the vet college, and you would not see more than two or three other people that might have been admitted in your class with you. You'd have very few classes in common. There'd be no seminars in common. There'd be no real social events that would allow you to explore the incredible number of students that were present at Cornell. So, the vet students, right? There are 120 vet students in the entering class. Everyone comes in, everyone takes the same class as you well know. You still have a hundred some odd people that you can interact with. But when you go from your undergraduate class size to an entering, coming to Cornell BBS before the 2010s, where you might have two students or three students that you would actually know, that is a big difference in your worldview, and it's a big difference in your opportunity to be able to meet people.

So, we started to move all the groups together so that each class would have at least 20 students or so that could interact. And as I said, this would allow DVM-seeking PhDs to interact with the baccalaureate, to interact with the combined degree students. We put together joint classes, joint seminar series. We increase the number of social events that occurred, and we tried to demonstrate to students, "Hey. We want you to thrive here at Cornell. We know graduate school can be very difficult. But if you do your part and you put in the effort, we will do our part and we will support you as best we can to make sure your journey in science is as healthy and productive as we can make it."

Host: That sounds awesome. So, you're not just combining these students that are just getting graduate degrees. You said undergraduates, they're all kind of-- again, by the way, this also builds diversity of thought still, right? Because you have all of these different groups meshing. But the thing I kind of want to highlight, sometimes it's very isolating to be in a very difficult program. And when you're in a vacuum, when you feel it's just you and maybe someone else, maybe you won't share your difficulties or you won't share your struggles or you won't share your successes or your imposter syndrome-- we've touched upon that here-- is flaring up, because a lot of us-- I was going to say in this field, but a lot of us in general have it. So, how nice that you can surround yourself with a bunch of different people and maybe share in those victories and share in those tough times, and that builds more community.

David Lin, PhD: That is exactly the thing that we also try to build with to build mechanisms of support, right? Because as a director, maybe a student isn't comfortable talking to me. So, we tried to build in new mechanisms. So, we put together a peer support network of older graduate students who would mentor first year graduate students as they come in to show them the ropes and see how things go.

Host: Very cool.

David Lin, PhD: I don't know if you remember EARS on campus, the empathy service that was run by undergraduates. We had them come in and train faculty so that we could have a faculty EARS support session that would be able to work. We started BBS graduate student groups where I was a faculty advisor for this one, where they would promote events and do interactions. So, we wanted to make sure that students knew that they had multiple opportunities and avenues, not just to share their successes, but if they had imposter syndrome, who would you talk to about that? We had sessions on what imposter syndrome was, sessions on how you could thrive in graduate school, trying to help students become the best version of themselves in graduate school and give them the opportunity to speak up. And if you're not comfortable talking to me, I get it. I can be kind of imposing on that level. But there are other students that you can talk to that can help you, because they've gone on the same path and they can point you in the right direction.

Host: Yeah. Sometimes it's hard to talk to someone who's the head of your program or like, you know, up-high leadership, but it's a little less scary to talk to someone who's been in that spot. And I want to make sure everyone understands that when you get to be the best version of yourself, as someone with anxiety, who went to Cornell for vet school and I had a lot of it and I tried to push it down and kind of hide it, if you can kind of address these struggles head on, it will make you a better scientist and then you get to thrive. So, you get to thrive across the board. So, I really appreciate your efforts for this. Because I think long-term, it will always benefit our students and our scientists. And so, we've kind of talked about your role in helping build community here, but there's something else that's really cool. And I talk about how veterinarians and exposing young people to veterinary medicine typically does have to happen at a young age, because we want them to see that it's attainable.

For everybody listening, and if you're in middle school or high school, I want you to understand, you can do this, right? If you're in college and you changed your mind and you wanted to do human medicine, now you think you want to do veterinary medicine, you could do it. But exposure to young age is super important also. And so, you founded the Fall Into Science Program. This is very cool because you are bringing graduate students into like kindergarten through 12th grade classrooms. And so, I would love to know more about this program and where it came from, because I'm all about introducing what we do in all aspects of science to our newest generations.

David Lin, PhD: And you know the fun part about this is that you ask where this came from. And even though I was working with students, helping them, guiding them as much as I could through graduate school, what I really got out of this was this came from the students. So in the class that I taught for first year students on survival skills in graduate school, one of the things that kept coming up over and over again was how much outreach all of the undergraduates had done before they came to graduate school. And Jordan Moore, for example, who went to Elmira College, right? You know, he started a science fair that way. Karla Martinez did a huge amount when she was an undergraduate as well.

Host: shout outs are real. If you're getting a shout out from him, like, I hope you're like, "Yes! Awesome!"

David Lin, PhD: I hope so, because I was impressed. People like Annika Diaz, you know, they've done a tremendous amount of outreach when they were an undergrad on top of a ridiculously amazing amount of research during their academic career. So, these people were able to multitask effectively and reach people to inspire them to do science.

Host: I say this all the time, I'm lucky I showered in school and went to school, and these people do research, have coursework to do, and then they're rising above and doing all of this outreach.

David Lin, PhD: It was super impressive to me. There were opportunities for outreach at the graduate school here at Cornell, but we wanted to come up with something that would allow students to come and go as they wish and do this. And so, what we did was I started Fall Into Science. And the way I view it is I do all the administrative stuff right? I contact all the teachers, I set up all the stuff.

Host: Yes! Oh, sorry.

David Lin, PhD: But we have the students come up with the activities that we do. We have the students run every single activity. I just make sure that I'm there to take pictures and make sure everything's gone okay with this one. And so, like you said, we have activities that we do with fourth graders, which hopefully, if you don't mind, I'll show you a little bit about what we do with this one.

Host: Oh, yeah. No, I don't mind.

David Lin, PhD: Yeah. Okay. And then, we have work with Expanding Your Horizons, which is an amazing graduate student-run activity program here at Cornell that attracts up to 500 local students in the central New York area. We help with them quite a bit, working on different aspects. We work with the Courtland High School, ninth grade high school group. We used to work with Groton Elementary School. And we also do a lot of work with Ithaca High School as well, having students come work in labs for the summer and visit. And so, it's a lot of fun.

Host: What great experience for them too, if they're are looking to do something science-based in their future.

David Lin, PhD: Yeah, I know.

Host: I wish I had something like that.

David Lin, PhD: Most of them, the fun part is we've done this since 2013, something like that. And the students that we started off with in fourth grade moved on, they joined our seventh grade activities, they joined our ninth and tenth grade activities, and they joined our 12th grade activities. And several of them have gone into research because they're, like, we really, really enjoy the opportunity to do this.

Host: And remember, and this is for everyone, sometimes you say you want to be a scientist and you may not know exactly what that means when you're young, but you know you love it. And then, when you get to go into an environment and see yourself in someone else, oh, how cool is that? Makes it so attainable.

Okay, wait. So, I'm here to be your fourth grader though. I'm here. I am very qualified to be a fourth grader right now in this moment with my cat T-shirt on.

David Lin, PhD: So, this particular activity was developed by Ezen Choo, who was a graduate student in 2013, in a Taste Lab down at Cornell. And this is a project that's very near and dear to my heart. So, we were trying to come up with an activity for fourth graders. And the activity is essentially what it is, is an activity on taste and smell. What we would do is I would tell the students, "Okay, teaching fourth graders is very different from working with seventh graders and working with high school students." And so, you know, everyone does the clap to make sure students pay attention, right? Right? Just to make sure that you can get the students' attention, and we give them instructions on how to interact with the students and the teachers.

Host: To all, like, fourth grade teachers out there, just thank you.

David Lin, PhD: Yes.

Host: I just want to say thank you right now.

David Lin, PhD: My oldest daughter is actually a high school biology teacher in New York City, and I am amazed at what teachers have to run through to be able to teach students these days. Yeah.

Host: They're phenomenal and they have so much patience. But okay, I digress. We're back. We're back.

David Lin, PhD: So, this is essentially a taste and smell activity. So, here we go. right. So, we would ask the students, "Do you know what the five senses are? And the five senses are?"

Host: Oh, do I have to answer this?

David Lin, PhD: Yes, you're a fourth grader.

Host: Okay. There's smell, there's like taste.

David Lin, PhD: Oh. You have to raise your hand first. Raise your hand before you answer. Sorry, Michelle. I don't mean that.

Host: Cornell Veterinary Podcast, this was not planned. Okay. I'm raising my hand, everyone listening to this.

David Lin, PhD: Yes, you with a wonderful cat shirt.

Host: That's right. It is a wonderful cat shirt. Okay. So, we have sight. We're smelling it, we're tasting it, we're touching it, and we're hearing it.

David Lin, PhD: That's exactly right.

Host: Two

David Lin, PhD: gonna Thumbs up is right. Nice job. So, what we were going to do today is focus on taste. And so, we would talk about the different types of taste. So, we'd say, "Okay, what are the types of tastes that people can get?" And people will often say, "Sweet and sour and salty, bitter."

Host: But did they raise their hand like I did?

David Lin, PhD: That's exactly right. And since I'm teacher, I can just shout it out.

Host: Right.

David Lin, PhD: And of course, umami. So, we would say, for example, for those of you at home, I will hold up a Skittle. And in this case, this is an orange Skittle. Okay? And I say to the class, "Okay," the graduate students, "Well, what flavor is this Skittle?" And the students would say?

Host: Orange.

David Lin, PhD: And I say, "That's right. How do you know this is orange? How do you know it's not tangerine, maybe? Or how do you know it's not some other orangey flavor?"

Host: Right. That's a great question. I know because it's orange colored and I've tasted orange Skittles and it's orange.

David Lin, PhD: So, we're going to mess with your sight and smell for just a little bit, because it only looks orange. And when you taste this, it tastes orange too. But let's see if we can separate this. So, I know you have a piece of chocolate nearby, so if you wouldn't mind grabbing a piece of chocolate?

Host: Listening audience, I sure do have Reese's Peanut Butter Cups right next to me. It's fine.

David Lin, PhD: And I have to say, I have way too many snacks around me as well. And if you could unwrap that for a second, that would awesome.

Host: Sure could. Sure could unwrap it.

David Lin, PhD: It's time for a little sugar break.

Host: Right. Everyone, this is why I go to the gym. Thank you, Palace Fitness. Okay.

David Lin, PhD: So, what we would ask the students to do is we would have them work in pairs and have one student pick out a color skittle and have the other student close their eyes and hold their nose so that they can't breathe out of it. And you at home, even if you're listening, can try this yourself. So, hold your nose.

Host: People, I'm going to hold my nose here, okay?

David Lin, PhD: And blow a little bit so you can't breathe out of it, okay?

Host: Yep, we're good.

David Lin, PhD: Close your eyes. And then, put it in your mouth. And then, what you're going to do is you're going to take a couple chews while holding your nose. Don't let go. Okay. And what do you taste? And now, let go of your nose. And do you notice a difference?

Host: I couldn't taste anything before.

David Lin, PhD: Exactly right. And what do you taste after?

Host: Now, just taste delicious Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

David Lin, PhD: We give this as an example of--

Host: I'm going to finish this.

David Lin, PhD: Yes, please do. And we tell students it's because most of what you think you taste is actually smell, and this is something called retronasal olfaction. But basically, when you swallow something, there's a nasal passage that goes down your throat. And you know, whenever if you're a little kid and milk has ever come out of your nose, then you know that there's a connection somewhere along the way.

Host: Got it.

David Lin, PhD: So basically, we would show them that this is an example of how taste and smell interact with one another. And we'd spend some time talking about taste buds, receptors, how the brain interprets this. And then, we'd play around with their sense of taste with something called a miracle berry that would block the sense of sour. And so, all sorts of fun stuff to get kids excited about differences.

Host: This is cool. Yeah, that's so neat. And again, it helps establish, you know, sometimes when we're younger, we don't make the connections that things are connected, right? So when you're sick, things don't taste as good-- unless it's pizza, that always tastes great-- you know, probably because you're stuffed up or something. But for a kid, it's probably hard to recognize that. So, that's really neat.

David Lin, PhD: And it's fun because when you change their sense of taste with a miracle berry, and you know you can do this with potato chips, you can do this with anything that somebody might have at home. Try it sometime, right? Hold your nose, take a few chews, and all you can tell is maybe something sweet or salty.

Host: I could taste like sugar, that made sense. Like, a little bit of sweet. This is my next party trick. You're welcome, everyone. We're going to do this together.

David Lin, PhD: Well, you're welcome to come to our next fourth grade activity and join in.

Host: I'm in.

David Lin, PhD: What's fun about this is that we try and target the activities to the age group that they're designed to do. And so, for the older students, you know, the experiments are a little bit more involved. But what I love about this is the creativity of the graduate students that come up with this. I mean, this was actually part of the student's project and lab. And they were working on aspects of taste and they said, "You know, there's a really easy taste lab that we can do." And so, we just put it into play. We had another student who was a microbiology student. We did the five-second rule when you drop something you can count to five and, you know, you're okay to eat it.

Host: Oh, tell the audience. Is it okay? Tell us, is it okay?

David Lin, PhD: Well, if you drop it into a of cocoa powder and powdered sugar to represent dirt and count to five as a group. One, two, three, four, five. You can see how much dirt and germs are present on your food when you do that.

Host: Damn. Okay, everyone, you heard it here. Five-second rule, maybe no. And we actually talked about this. This is funny that you mentioned this. I was just at a meeting and was listening to a behaviorist from Purina, who's amazing. And she was talking about taste and smell in relation to cats, right? So, a lot of these are very much intertwined. So as a veterinarian, this is very intriguing to me as well.

And so, oh gosh, okay. I can go down this road all day, but I want to be mindful of time. So on top of all of this, on top of developing these programs and supporting our graduate students that are helping our youth on top of teaching and mentoring, you're also doing research. And this is cool research, so I want to make sure we talk about this. And I am a creeper and I was on your lab page, which has very cool pictures, by the way. Just as an aside for everyone. I don't know what everything means, but they're very cool. And according to your page, your team uses genetic, genomic, and in vitro approaches to the study of development and regeneration of the nervous system. Can you tell me what the heck that means? Can you just tell us what that means?

David Lin, PhD: Sure.

Host: Great.

David Lin, PhD: This is a type of rabbit hole I'll be careful not to go to because I can talk about this for a long time.

Host: Thank you for that.

David Lin, PhD: But basically, that's why the olfactory stuff was near and dear to my heart because one of the things that we study is the olfactory system, the sense of smell, right? You know, how do neurons connect with one another? Your brain is sitting inside your skull. It has no information about what's going on in the outside world, except for what neurons and hormones and other molecules bring to the brain itself. But how does a neuron that's born know where to go? How does a neuron in your spinal cord or near your spinal cord know to grow all the way out to your fingertips and hit the right fingertip? And what happens when that gets destroyed, right? If you're in an unfortunate accident where you damage something in your shoulder, well, the neurons can regrow, but very poorly and very slowly, right? So, what's different? How could they do it when you are being born during development, but they can't do you're an adult?

Host: And quite fast, right? I'm assuming because-- Like, this is-- Yeah.

David Lin, PhD: Exactly. And during adulthood, the process is incredibly slow. And then, when you look at degenerative diseases in the brain, like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, what is it that you can do?

Host: So, meaning diseases where like you're losing neurons or losing their ability to work effectively, yes?

David Lin, PhD: And even though there's a tremendous amount of information on all these subjects, honestly, it's very poorly understood how any of these things work. And more importantly, also, how can we repair any of these aspects. So, we work on the olfactory system as an example of this, the sense of smell, which is why, you know, I really like the Taste Lab that Ezen developed, it's because the sense of smell regenerates constantly throughout life. So, neurons in your nose are exposed to the outside world to various toxins. Oxygen is incredibly toxic to neurons, for example.

Host: What?

David Lin, PhD: Oh, believe it or not. And when they die, the neurons have to be replaced. And when they're replaced every 30 days or so, they have to regrow back to your brain, and you never forget what the scent of a rose is like. You don't forget what the scent of lemon is like. And it's because these neurons regrow with incredible fidelity and ability.

So, why is it that the olfactory system can do this, but very few other places in the nervous system can in the adult? And so, one of the things that we want to try and study is what are the tools that allow the olfactory system to regrow so well, and can we take advantage of those information and say maybe promote sciatic nerve regrowth? If somebody damages a sciatic nerve in their lower limb, can we help them regrow those neurons and can we develop new drugs and tools that will let them do that?

Host: What a challenge. Because when I think about the olfactory, so I'm assuming the nerves in the nose are quite small. And then, we have the sciatic nerve, which can be quite large, especially when you mentioned like horses before. But this must be something very challenging to study too, because I am assuming, just like in myself, you mentioned like the scent of a rose, I was walking yesterday and smelled honeysuckle down the road, but it's attached to memory.

David Lin, PhD: Yes.

Host: And so for humans, I would think that this gets complicated. He's like, "Yeah, just a little."

David Lin, PhD: And also, for animals as well, right? You know, different animals have extraordinary spatial recognition of things based on scent. And dogs in particular have been really well-studied in this area. So yeah, you're right. It's not just what's entering into your nose. It's what parts of the brain, the neurons in the nose are connecting to, how does that connect with parts of your brain that interact with memory and revulsion, for example, you know, when things like that occur. And so, all these things are incredibly complicated, and we're hoping to be able to study what genes and proteins are important for driving this regrowth. And maybe, just maybe in the future, we can do something about it to treat other areas of the nervous system that have so much trouble regrowing when they're damaged.

Host: That's so neat. And I don't know, I'm thinking about olfactories and your senses and like we have dogs that can smell diseases. It's just incredible. So, thinking about there are so many diseases and conditions that are basically contingent on the fact that the nerves don't work well, and then they could affect the muscles of breathing. They can affect muscles of ambulation, like walking. Wow, that's really incredible. So, this is very, very far reaching.

So, we just talked about a lot and I'm bringing up all these random things because Cornell just lets me do a stream of consciousness thing here and just talk, but if you could answer any question, right? So, you're in this research, you're doing it every day., What's the question you most want to answer?

David Lin, PhD: One of the things that's exciting to me is that when people have spinal cord injury, right? You know, anything that occurs in the central nervous system never gets repaired, right? Or very rarely gets repaired. But one of the super exciting things that has happened over the last 15, 20 years is people have transplanted olfactory cells into spinal cords of mice, of dogs, of birds, and of people in more than 200 clinical trials because they said to themselves, you know, "The olfactory system regenerates, maybe it'll help regrow the central nervous system spinal cords as well." And it has been amazing to me to find. And in fact, it's gotten enough success that dogs for example, dachshunds, which have chronic spine injury with this one.

Host: Yes. To the point where there paralyzed, people listening. This can be very serious, dogs just with like a very long back, right? It's a very common thing.

David Lin, PhD: So, this is a chronic injury where these dogs were recruited to a UK study, 25 dogs of them, and they pulled out olfactory cells from the noses of these dogs, grew them in a Petri dish, transplanted them into the spinal cord of all of these hind limb-paralyzed dachshunds. And at least one of them was able to recover almost full motor function in his hind limbs and go home to its owners without a sling or any sort of prosthetic.

Host: What?!

David Lin, PhD: I couldn't believe it. It was so cool to be able to see.

Host: That is so cool. You know, people think about, talk about stem cells and things like that and they're, you know, basically these cells that can become anything, right? For people listening. But you are telling me they're taking something that might be a little bit, I don't know, is it easier to obtain these cells or these nerves?

David Lin, PhD: They basically stick a needle up the nose of these animals and suck off a little tissue, and then they grow it in a Petri plate from the animal's own cells.

Host: Which is great because then we have almost like a patient-specific stem cell.

David Lin, PhD: And so, it was amazing to me that the dog could walk without assistance, could go home. You know, it wasn't perfect. You know, the dog still had issues with bowel movement and so forth and control, and not all the dogs showed recovery the same way this one did. And the results in people have been much less positive, but still progressing in the right direction. But it says to me, you know, maybe we're on the right track. You know, there are things we can learn from different parts of the body that we can hopefully use to repair things for people that have tremendous emotional and financial costs associated with a split-second accident that might have occurred to them.

Host: Yeah. To that family, it may not matter that it's perfect. I would tell you it wouldn't matter if it's perfect to me. You know, going from a dog who couldn't walk, that dog's quality of life is drastically changed by the fact that now they can walk a little bit, right? Or a lot, depending on the case. But this has to be hard because there are so many individual factors in each animal. That changes things, but I love that. You're like, "Hey listen, I know we're on the right path." So, the key now is how do we figure out where to go and where to go next? That's incredible.

And so, I love that we're just talking about all of these things you're doing, because we talked about your research, which again is really awesome. And now, I'm seeing-- She checks her notes. She checks her notes and sees that you're also the coordinator for City University, the Hong Kong, the joint PhD program. Could you just tell me a little bit, just like a brief synopsis on that, because I want to make sure we mention it before we just kind of go onto your journey. Because I think, again, these are things that people don't know that are happening, things they don't know.

David Lin, PhD: Yes. So, I came into this relatively late, but Cornell Veterinary College, because of its reputation in the world, was approached in part by City University in Hong Kong when they wanted to start a brand new veterinary college in Asia and they wanted to develop an accredited veterinary college in Asia, which didn't exist. And so, they wanted to learn how Cornell does things, how does the model at Cornell may be adapted to what they did at City U. And so, many, many people were involved in setting up how do we put together a program for the veterinary students that are enrolling in this? How do we recruit faculty? What areas should the faculty be in? Many, many people were involved with this. But as part of that, they wanted also to develop a PhD program similar to what was present at the vet college here, and an expansion of the PhD program at City U. And so, they wanted, as part of that, the connection with the Cornell Vet College PhD program. And so, my job in this case, after taking over for Maureen Linder, who did this for 10 years and built a tremendous program here is to basically interact with faculty at Cornell and at City U, have them identify students that they can mentor together. The City U student will work on the PhD for several years at City U, and then they will come to Cornell and do an internship in the lab of the Cornell mentor here.

And what I really like about this, because I had a student like this myself, is the student gains a lot of experience in learning what it's like to be not only in a different culture, but also, you know, in a different lab environment and work with other people. For the students who are here, they get to see how graduate school works at other colleges. You get to build up collaborations between faculty that may or may not have ever interacted with one another. The international component of it is fun.

Host: And could impact your future work if you make a collaboration now.

David Lin, PhD: Yes. The learning that occurs between different-- again, this goes back to your concept of diversity of thought, which I find it completely consistent with that, learning how other people with different perspectives, have gone through their career, and learning about how different groups can interact to make things go forward from a scientific perspective as well as from a personal and interactive perspective, can be beneficial to everybody. It only helps everyone grow, both as a person and as a scientist.

Host: Yes, 100%. I like that you mentioned that as a person. For those of you listening, veterinary schools, people can decide that we could build a new veterinary school someplace, especially if there's need there. But they can't just build a veterinary school and be like, "Here we are, students. Come on." There is a process by which a governing body gives them accreditation, right? That says, "Hey, this school is doing things correctly." I do not know the accreditation process. I'm just mentioning this all to you because it's important to know, right? So, that's really important that we got to help this school, who by the way, was like, "We want to do things correctly. We would like to be accredited. We have a model in mind. Cornell is it. Can you come help us?" So, what a fun way to start. Like they're benefiting everyone in Hong Kong. They're benefiting people who have animals. They're benefiting the scientific community in Hong Kong. And then, we have this collaborative effort. That's so cool.

David Lin, PhD: It really is amazing because they were recently accredited, I think, a couple years ago. And having done that the very first time after such a short period of time, I mean, kudos to the City U group for being able to pull that off. It is tremendous, and it'll be resource for Asia, I think.

Host: Yes. See, doing good things for the world, I always talk about Cornell and doing the greatest good. And it's so nice to be able to help other communities in that way. And so, you have this, you are doing fabulous things, and it's why I am so excited to be talking to you. So, how did you get here? Like, what was your journey? Did you always want to be a scientist?

David Lin, PhD: You, know, it's kind of funny. I've been thinking about that a lot lately, because I've been helping my mom write her memoir and you know, she's 90 years old.

Host: A what? His mom is writing a memoir!

David Lin, PhD: You know, it's interesting. So, she grew up in China and she went through three wars. So, there's a Sino-Japanese war. There was, you know, world War II, and then there was a Chinese Civil War. And so, the number of stories she was telling me about what she went through, what situation was like at the time was pretty amazing. And then, as I was reading about this and my dad passed away a little while ago, I was also reading about how they came to the United States. And, you know, it was during a time when only 105 Chinese people around the entire world could come to the United States. And for them to be able to come and succeed here when there were so few Chinese folks in the United States really made me reassess and be incredibly proud of my immigrant family, of their background, what they work through to come here and do. And I've gained a much better appreciation of where I'm from and what I'm trying to do. And it might well explain why I have a real soft spot for international students and you know why I understand some of the concerns that they may have when they come here. And so, I really, really enjoy that aspect.

So, they being, you know, classed at that time, the Chinese folks that were allowed into the United States were predominantly academics. So, they were both here on academic scholarships. And like them, I said, "Well, that's where I will go." So, I grew up in Iowa in Iowa City during that time, and then thought I would do something different. But it's, as you said, an experience in college as an undergraduate science research assistant.

Host: It just takes one. It just takes one moment.

David Lin, PhD: Right, exactly. It's like when you know you want to be a veterinarian or you know you want to do this aspect. Whatever job it is, when you know that, then that's where you go and that's what I wanted

Host: It's very cool to know. That's so cool. I appreciate you sharing that. I think about that a lot too, especially now that I'm older. I think when I was younger, I didn't need to know the struggles of my parents. I was like, "I just have my own struggles. I want to go to school, I want to do this." And now, kind of the acknowledgement of what they went through to get us here and to allow for our success. And so, that's really lovely. And seeing yourself in our students that are coming up, I am the same way. And so, it's part of what makes teaching and advising and mentoring really important.

So, I know I mentioned that. And again, I just want to quickly revisit that because I think mentorship is so, so important. So, so important. Is there any advice you could give to some of our students who are seeking mentorship? Because we've talked about that a lot on this podcast. I always talk about it being a two-way street, and I always talk about-- just so you don't repeat my sage words of advice, everyone-- and I tell people not to be afraid to approach someone, even if they don't know them, if there's a faculty member that they see or they've heard of someone, just start a communication with them. Just see. Is there any advice that you can give about mentorship or what they can do that you think is really important for them to know?

David Lin, PhD: I guess it comes from both directions. So, I'll expand upon your idea. I always tell students, right? Mentoring comes from a circle of people that can support you, and it doesn't have to be just your PI or just one teacher. You find support where you feel most comfortable.

Host: PI, meaning?

David Lin, PhD: Sorry, principal investigator, your boss, when you are in a lab as a graduate student.

Host: I actually knew what that meant.

David Lin, PhD: That's right.

Host: Just so everybody knows. Okay.

David Lin, PhD: But I tell people, when I talk to PIs, I said, mentoring is not one-size-fits-all Everything has to be tailored to the particular student, and this requires the person doing the mentoring understand what the student or person asking for support wants or needs. It's not what you want for them. You are not telling them what you did, and that's what they should do.

Host: Or just teaching them. This is not just teaching them technique. This is not what that is.

David Lin, PhD: No, you need to understand as best you can, and this is hard for faculty members because we love to tell people what we think they should do.

Host: We sure do. We walked uphill in the snow both ways, back and forth home.

David Lin, PhD: But everybody is different, and you have to know where it is that the student is asking for help, and it's not you telling them what they need to do. It's you understanding first off what they need to do and then working with them to try and understand what's the best way to accomplish that. And you give them suggestions, right? You know, you should never tell people what it is that they have to do. You give them options. And the way for a person to grow is for them to evaluate their options and decide where it is that's best for them in their particular point in their life. And then, you check in on them and see how that journey is going for them and see how things are working out. And if it's not working out, we'll then talk about it and try and readjust and see where things go.

Host: Because it is okay to readjust if something's not working. That's another thing I want to mention. If you have a mentor, if something's not quite working for you, holding it in helps no one. Talking it through is a good thing and might help both of you in this mentoring relationship. And so, yeah, I really appreciate that. So, when you are not doing the thousand things we just talked about that you do all the time, because there was a lot, how do you spend your time.

David Lin, PhD: So, one of into in college and graduate school was, I was a DJ on the weekend.

Host: What?

David Lin, PhD: Through the admissions interests that I had, I met Jeff Chang, who is actually amazing person and anyways, but he was also a dj. And so, we joined, we made a DJ group. And every weekend in graduate school, after I was done putting the flies away or whatever it was that I was doing, we'd go do a party on Friday, a party on Saturday. And I've never lost my love of music at that point. And so, on weekends now, I'm still making mixes and still doing DJing and putting together different genres.

Host: What? That's it. We need to have some mixes attached to this. Cornell, I'm talking to you. Let's make this happen. This is incredible. Okay. So actually, I've asked this question a lot, but since you are musically inclined, when you are working in your lab, is music always playing?

David Lin, PhD: If you asked my graduate school lab, it was always Black Box and Dreamland. Absolutely. If we were talking in my postdoc lab, probably a little bit more New Order oriented on that line, or '90s hip-hop, so more along the way on that level.

Host: That's my lab right there. I found my people, my '90s hip-hop people are right there.

David Lin, PhD: There you go. That's absolutely right. You know, from EPMD to Eric B. & Rakim, you know, Notorious BIG, all these people, it was fun to be able listen to that.

Host: Yes, yes. East Coast, with my cat with my-- he said BIG, and then I had the crown on my cat t-shirt and it was like--

David Lin, PhD: So, it's fun. But these days in lab, as you know, most people wear their headphones and music is diverse, right? You know, some people like some stuff. Some people like everything else. And more power to them, so it works out well.

Host: Favorite go-to snack?

David Lin, PhD: Oh, I would have to say, I got it. Cadbury's Dark Chocolate Easter eggs, I have to say, only released April during Easter, but definitely one of my favorites.

Host: The candy-coated ones?

David Lin, PhD: Yes, I am afraid so.

Host: They come in dark chocolate?

David Lin, PhD: Oh, no, they're the best ones..

Host: That-- I mean, she says as she has Reese's Peanut Butter Cups next to her. Okay. And my final question to you we leave is Star Wars or Star Trek?

David Lin, PhD: Oh my gosh. I hope you say Star Trek because it to be Star Trek. No question.

Host: What is up? Listeners, as a Star Wars fan, I have had multiple Trekkies here. What is happening? What is happening? Andrew Miller, who also was on this podcast, gave me like a talking to about this as well. I respect your Star Trek love. But I, alas, am a Star Wars lover.

David Lin, PhD: I appreciate the fact that you enjoy the prequels and the sequels.

Host: Thank you. Thank you for that. Andor-- I'm looking at you-- that series is chef's kiss.

David Lin, PhD: Andor, Mandalorian.

Host: All good, yup.

That's right. Thank you. Dr. David Lin, thank you so much for joining me and joining us on the Cornell Veterinary Podcast. It has been just wonderful talking to you and I'm just in awe of everything you're doing, both in research and for our younger scientists or budding scientists, and beyond. Thank you again for joining us. Thank you everyone for listening. Like and subscribe on your favorite platform, and we will talk to you soon. Bye.

David Lin, PhD: Thank you, Michelle. been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Host: Thanks.