When leaving home in the morning, Jeffrey Brodsky is careful about his words.
“I don’t usually say ‘I’m going to work,’” the researcher told the Chronicle. Instead, Brodsky says, “I’m going to the lab. I’m going to this place that is just part of who I am.”
That place — an Oakland hub — is where Brodsky, 61, has spent decades focusing on a natural phenomenon.
There’s a “fundamental problem in biology,” he said, “which is that various molecules that make up your cells have specific shapes.”
The shapes are determined by genetic information. When genes mutate, however, cells may produce altered proteins and give rise to disease.
After years of research, Brodsky, the Avinoff professor of biological sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, and those in his lab realized that, “Our cells can see misshapen proteins and are able to detect there’s something wrong about them,” he said. “The cell then tries to fix the error, and if it can’t fix the error, it destroys the product, or protein.”
The significance of Brodsky’s discovery is “underscored by the fact that more than 70 human diseases, including several cancers,” are associated with this course of action, according to UPMC’s Hillman Cancer Center.
Studying the destruction process in genes has led to improved outcomes.
By partnering with chemists, and pharmaceutical and biotech companies, he also has attempted to “fix some of these problems, or at least understand ways that the problems might be fixed,” Brodsky said. “The success story so far is cystic fibrosis.”
Decades ago, cystic fibrosis was “pretty much a death sentence for most kids,” he continued.
“Now, the life expectancy for most patients is beyond 60, thanks to drugs that have been developed to detect the misshapen protein.”
In April, Brodsky was recognized for his scientific contributions with election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Established in 1780 by John Adams, John Hancock and other founding fathers, the society boasts more than 250 Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners.
Brodsky called inclusion in the academy a “wonderful surprise” and said the “real honor” was “knowing that people of a certain stature view your work to be in the category of what might be considered worthy for membership.”
The cell biologist and member of Rodef Shalom Congregation said that his success builds on predecessors’ advancements.
“It’s never escaped me that so much science in my field and other fields has been driven by discoveries by people who are Jewish,” Brodsky said. “My dad, who was a physicist, was very proud of that. He was the child of immigrants, and no one in his family had ever even gone to college. He faced some doors that were shut, growing up, with regards to where he could go to school. So I take nothing for granted.”
“I got to see his laboratory as a kid,” Brodsky continued. “I didn’t really understand what he did, but I knew that when he would explain what he was doing he was excited by it.”
In his late teens Brodsky began appreciating his own sentiments toward science.
“I realized that science makes me think deeply and creatively about ideas, and I guess I have a skill for that,” he said.
After graduating from the University of Illinois, Brodsky received his PhD from Harvard University before completing post-doctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, as an American Cancer Society Research Fellow.
Brodsky joined Pitt’s faculty in 1994 and has called Pittsburgh home ever since.
“I was fortunate that we moved to a place in which Judaism is an important part of the community,” he said. “There’s a strong Jewish presence here. Our kids feel very connected to the Jewish community in Pittsburgh, and that’s something that’s meaningful to me.”
As time passes, and scientific understandings evolve, the researcher recognizes his place in the process.
“I’m still writing papers, and mentoring people, and graduating PhDs from the lab, and teaching and getting grant money,” he said. “Will it go on forever? I doubt it. But we don’t do this for the fame. We do this because it’s part of our fabric. I think it really is a lifestyle.”
As for any advice for neophytes or established minds, “the most important thing in any profession, but especially in this one, is you really have to be passionate,” he said. “There’s always going to be so many hurdles and struggles and long days and rejection.”
Whether one is a scientist, a writer or any other professional, achievements don’t always happen “in a week or a year, necessarily,” he continued. “Every time I accept a new graduate student into the lab, I’m making a five-to-six-year commitment that I think this person can become a working scientist.”
Investing in others and remaining curious are key, he said: “Pay it forward and be passionate about what you do. That’s how we make the world a better place.” PJC
Adam Reinherz can be reached at areinherz@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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