Ivan Woo (right) and Dr. Lea Starita: 'Countless things have to work for each of us to be alive.'
Ivan Woo is committed to educating, training, and mentoring the next generation of scientists. He plans far into the future; Woo is only 22 years old.
“Pursuing a career in academia is a lot of work, but I find it interesting,” he said. “I love doing research and teaching. And training the next generation.”
There are many interesting aspects to Woo, who last spring completed his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry at the University of Washington. Consider:
- He became fascinated with math at age 3 playing with his parents’ calculator.
- In elementary school, his curiosity with bacteria was piqued, leading a friend to give him microscope for his birthday.
- He is an accomplished pianist and violinist, producing – and, sometimes, performing in – quarterly concerts with the UW Music for Charity program, benefitting local non-profit organizations.
One of Woo’s earliest memories involved “messing around” with a calculator.
“My parents had offset work schedules, so I kept myself busy pushing the buttons to see what would happen,” he said. “I had no idea about addition, or subtraction. It took a little bit of luck, but I figured out the plus and minus signs are opposite, and similarly, I figured out the multiplication and division are opposite. I thought, ‘Wow this is great!’”
“Great” is likely an understatement to describe Woo’s response when, a few years later in 6th grade, he received that first microscope.
“It came with a few slides,” he said. “Looking at them under the microscopy was fun, but I wanted more. I bought more slides and went around the house, looking for random things to put under the microscope.”
One of those things was a swab from his cheek.
“Wow!” he called saying. “That’s me!”
That “wow factor” with science increased significantly in high school as Woo studied biology and learned more about life sciences and especially proteins. While he applied to several universities, he chose the UW, both for its strong academic reputation, as well as its proximity to his parents’ home in Kent, Washington.
“When I came to the UW, I was especially intrigued protein chemistry and chemical biology,” he said. “I wanted to know more about how these biologic systems function.“
That intrigue is the foundation of Woo’s character: a fascination with how – and why – everything works.
“Countless things have to work for each of us to be alive,” Woo said. “We are made up of tiny molecules It’s kind of magical. It’s amazing how all of this works. I want to learn more about how it all comes together.”
Probably more than in any class or textbook, Woo is learning how “it all comes together” in the lab of BBI’s Lea Starita, Ph.D., where he has worked as a Research Assistant since February of 2022. His family has a history of breast cancer; Starita’s lab has conducted research on the BRCA1 gene, whose mutations cause breast and ovarian cancer.
Most student research assistants spend a few months in a lab, then move on to another with a different focus. What has kept Woo interested in Starita’s research for more than three and a half years?
“Lea's work on BRCA1 gene was a key factor driving my interest in her lab,” he said. “Moreover, I have been able to work on my own project involving the BARD1 gene, which attaches to BRCA1. It’s a perfect marriage with my interest in breast cancer. Looking back, I see how perfectly all the dominoes fell into place, because I am working on a protein that interacts a lot with the thing that originally got me interested in genetic variants.”
BARD1 plays a role in DNA repair and tumor suppression and mutations can increase the risk of developing breast or ovarian cancer. Woo is devoting the next few months to collaborating with others in the lab to analyze data and to drafting a paper on their findings.
Once the paper is submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, Woo intends to begin applying to graduate schools, particularly those with interdisciplinary programs involving cell and molecular biology.
Starita believes Woo is destined for successful and rewarding career in science.
“Ivan is smart and motivated, as well as a pleasure to work with,” Starita said. “He’s also a team player, and that makes working with him in my lab all the better. He certainly has a bright future ahead of him.”
