Science Communication with Dr. Rebecca Rashid Achterman, PhD
What do scientific advocacy, fungi, and climate change all have in common? While it may not be immediately obvious, these topics are indeed connected and were recently discussed in my interview with Dr. Rebecca Rashid Achterman, of Bastyr University.
Dr. Achterman obtained her PhD in microbiology from the University of Washington and went on to study prokaryotic development at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. After returning to Washington she spent a period of time studying fungal pathogenesis focusing on dermatophytes—the fungus that causes diseases such as athlete's foot—with Dr. Ted White at Seattle BioMed (now called the Center for Infectious Disease Research). She explains that she wanted to work with a eukaryotic system as it would help make her a more well-rounded teacher and scientist. She now teaches Microbiology, Infectious Diseases, Integrated Biochemistry, and Cellular/Molecular Biology at Bastyr University. She was kind enough to sit down with me to discuss misconceptions surrounding microbiology, her dermatophyte research, and her thoughts on the role that science communication plays in complex issues such as antibiotic resistance and climate change.
Dr. Achterman remembers being interested in science from an early age. She credits her mom, as she would often set up “backyard” experiments to help her learn with. Dr. Achterman still maintains this perspective in that “developing curiosity is a great way to approach problems.” When asked how she became interested in microbiology specifically, she said, “There’s all these little things that we can’t see, but we can’t live without. I remember just being completely stunned that there are biogeochemical cycles that just don’t happen if there aren’t microbes. I think that was a big turning point for me.”
MISCONCEPTIONS
Regarding misconceptions surrounding microbiology, Dr. Achterman highlights the great point of how we “can’t really look at microbiology, or any kind of biology, in the absence of the theory of evolution.” She continues, breaking it down into two points. The first point being that many people are often resistant to the concept for personal reasons. The second point involves individuals who genuinely do try to think about it scientifically but get confused with certain aspects. Dr. Achterman emphasizes that this can happen when they “almost ascribe an intent to it [evolution], like something evolved and that means it’s better. Whereas, evolution really just means that it [the organism] changed and it wasn’t worse so it didn’t stop reproducing.” These matters are further confused when words like “evolution” enter our vocabulary and take on new meanings of their own. “So when people say ‘evolve’ it means one thing in science, but sometimes you’ll hear it mean other things in general conversation.” The second misconception that Dr. Achterman brings up is “the misconception that science is a series of unchanging facts...which, it isn’t. It’s a process.”
SCIENCE COMMUNICATION
On May 4th, 2019, the third annual March for Science took place in over 150 locations throughout the world. Movements like these are largely intended to emphasize the need for “equitable, evidence-based policy that serves all communities” (March for Science, 2019). These movements also emphasize the need for proper scientific communication between scientists, the public, and policy makers. A scientist’s work doesn’t end in the lab; they must be able to conduct their research and then explain their methods and conclusions to members outside their field so that problems can be solved and appropriate policies can be made. There are a variety of media platforms that help to make science accessible. Dr. Achterman recommends “any kind of podcast, tv show, or outreach where people who are not scientists get to interact with, or hear, people who are scientists and the way they think about things.” Specific podcasts such as Hidden Brain and Radio Lab are a great tool because they walk you through the scientific process which can help with scientific literacy.
Okay, so we know that scientific communication is important. So how can scientists become better communicators?
Dr Achterman states that, “I think that, as with anything else, we get better at things when we practice them. So including science communication in the curriculum is a really good idea. We certainly do that in the program that I’m the program director for— the integrated human biology undergraduate program. Students get practice writing and talking about science as if they’re talking to other people in the scientific field, but they also get practice on how you would explain this to someone outside of your field but still being accurate and scientific.” “I also think more broad outreach programs, like what the Pacific Science Center does, where they pull in researchers and have them, again, practice and learn how to talk about their research...programs like these are great avenues for scientists to practice, but also for the public to interact with scientists.” At the end of the day “scientists and other people just need to talk.”
DERMATOPHYTES
Next, our interview dove into Dr. Achterman’s research. I have a personal obsession with all things bacteria, so I was excited to learn a little bit more about a different biological system: fungi.
So why dermatophytes?
“At the time I was looking for a lab that would let me learn something new and would let me take on a project, and I was looking for a project that would work well for undergraduates.”
“So what I like about them [dermatophytes] is they cause an infection that everyone’s heard of. Everyone knows about athletes’ foot, everyone knows about ringworm. And it’s important enough for people to care about it but it’s not a serious disease in terms of needing biosafety level three. [In the lab] we use personal protection, we use a biosafety cabinet, but I still feel like I can work safely with students who have an undergraduate level of safety training.”
“I also liked that it was a project that I could help in a new field...they were just then sequencing the genomes of two dermatophytes...it felt like there was a lot to learn and it was an interesting time to come on board.”
Why is drug resistance so rare with dermatophytes?
We’ve all heard about the alarming rates of antibiotic resistance with bacteria, so why are the antifungal resistance rates with dermatophytes so much lower? “I don’t know, if we now exactly why. It’s a good question, they were starting to look at it in the lab when I left. I know that other lab groups have collected clinical isolates that are drug resistant. But it does seem kind of interesting that we sell so many over the counter antifungal agents...and yet [still don’t know] why aren’t there more drug resistant dermatophytes.”
Why is there a relatively low amount of research going into dermatophyte infections, given that they have such a high rate of occurrence?
Laughing, Dr. Achterman replies, “Well, I will tell you what the grant reviewers told me, which is that this is a treatable issue...people aren’t really dying from dermatophyte infections so when there are limited funds to disperse I may come around telling you ‘dermatophytes are very important,’ but someone else is saying we need a vaccine for HIV, and we need a vaccine for Malaria, and someone [the grant reviewer] has to decide what to do.” “I think that in this country we tend to think of dermatophytes as athlete's foot, and it just sounds uncomfortable and kind of annoying. You have to buy a cream or take a pill...but there are areas where if you don’t have access to that treatment it can make you miss school or work, and we don’t always think about that. It puts people behind.”
What is the relationship like between climate change and pathogenic organisms? Is there an opportunity for collaboration between climate and microbial scientists?
“I know that there are many emerging diseases where they’re really worried about climate. Some of these diseases are things that have an arthropod vector. So if you have a mosquito that carries, for example, Zika, Dengue, and Yellow Fever, and if you have a climate that is allowing for that mosquito to have a wider range of survival you are setting up good conditions to spread those emerging diseases. So there is definitely a link between climate science and microbiology, and also public health. Because if it’s an arthropod borne illness, how do you prevent against it? What are certain public health measure that you can focus on? You can think about how you want to have mosquito control, you can think about how some illnesses may have a vaccine, others may not. It really is all connected.”
How do you view the current relationship between the scientific community and socioeconomic or socioecological issues? Is there a divide or collaboration? Should scientists step outside of the lab and speak on behalf of causes? Or are we more effective for medical, scientific, and social progress when we focus on our expertise?
“There’s kind of two ways that I think of it. I think that we need a lot of data and information, and we need socioeconomic questions to drive those research questions, but we also as a society need to be willing to use that information to make decisions and make policies. I don’t necessarily believe that it’s the place of the scientist to advocate a particular policy, but to advocate for using science to drive policy would be very appropriate. You can have different opinions about what to do about something, but you shouldn’t have the whole idea that the climate isn’t changing. There is a lot of data and we should use the data to figure out what is the problem, and then we can argue about how to solve a problem, in terms of which policy choices are going to be the best choices for the things that we’ve learned.” “I think we’re in an interesting time because it seems there are more and more scientists who are willing to take an advocacy position and sometimes that position is for science itself. For example, we had that big ‘March for Science’ a few years ago...and in my lifetime that’s one of the few times I remember seeing science organized as an advocacy on its own behalf on something that relates to the public. We’ve always had lobbies, so we’ve always had the American Association for the Advancement of Science lobbying for inclusion of science in a non-partisan way in policy...but to see scientists and supporters of science joining together to support science-based policies is interesting.”
Your abstract submitted to the 24th Annual ASM (American Society for Microbiology) Conference for Undergraduate Educators discussed a discovery-based activity for undergraduate students regarding herd immunity. For students and the general public, why is a discovery-based approach more effective than a top-down approach when discussing issues such as vaccine hesitancy?
“So in this activity, they [the students] model the spread of a disease in a population with different levels of vaccination...and then the discussion questions let them consider why somebody may feel so passionate about getting people vaccinated, or not getting people vaccinated, and what are the reasons people have for feeling these ways. I just thought it would be a good way to help them learn and practice some of these conversations while also getting what I hoped would be a foundational approach and knowledge to herd immunity that was accurate. “When you’re a scientist you often think data is the answer because we like to think that we’re all open to changing our mind after hearing and seeing data, but sometimes just hearing and seeing data that is in direct conflict with your beliefs can make you hold on more to those beliefs. So I think on this topic in particular, and any topic that’s considered controversial by people who are learning about it, it’s just so important not to just throw data at them, but to really let them think about it and do that uncomfortable work.”
References
“24th Annual ASM Conference for Undergraduate Educators (ASMCUE).” Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, American Society of Microbiology, 28 July 2017, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5577969/.
March for Science, 2019. https://www.marchforscience.com/.
“Rebecca Rashid Achterman, PhD.” Bastyr University, 2019. https://bastyr.edu/people/faculty/rebecca-rashid-achterman-phd
