By Noura Choudhury
He made his debut on the dance floor by winning the first ever Dancing with the Profs competition. Rumors fill the campus that he can run a marathon faster than the time of a final exam. In Sidney Frank Hall, his massive potted plants, enlarged versions of his leafy office decor, adorn a corridor and breathe life into the Life Sciences building. Though he may tango at night and blend in with students on bikes in the morning, Gary Wessel is best known at Brown as a popular professor in the Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry Department and principal investigator of the Providence Institute of Molecular Oogenesis (PRIMO) that researches the mechanisms of development. Almost every aspect of Gary Wessel, from his silver shoulder-length locks to his journey into academia, has a story behind it that reveals his dynamic nature as a scientist, father, outdoorsman and sports aficionado rolled into one convenient package.
A Life of Nodes
“The way I got here was following my nose,” Wessel explains, “I’m one of those people that feels you just have to follow what’s fun for you, what’s exciting.”
Emphatically denying ever having a “grand plan” to pursue biology, Wessel describes his journey into science as one guided fundamentally by experience. He graduated from the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1978 with a degree in Biology and Environmental Sciences and recalls his hands-on excursions in college–including two summer internships at a field station and marine lab–as the sparks for his later career and research.
Originally interested in ecology and environmental science, Wessel’s divergence into developmental biology began at a summer internship at a marine lab run by Duke University after his junior year. After both his first and second choice tracks for the summer were cancelled, the program placed Wessel in Invertebrate Developmental Biology. Though Wessel was initially unenthusiastic at the prospect of taking his third choice, the experience eventually opened the doors to Wessel’s lifelong research interests. He ultimately pursued his graduate studies with his mentor from that summer and went on to earn a PhD from Duke University in Developmental Biology.
Wessel remembers that seemingly fated summer experience as one of the “nodes” in his life, the transformative experiences that redirected his life path. As Wessel recalls, his father losing his job was perhaps one of the earliest nodes that propelled him on his road to science. Seeking new opportunities, his family relocated from their native Wisconsin to Virginia, and Wessel credits this change of environment as the primer for his later achievements. “The friends whom I was with in Milwaukee are now driving beer trucks or UPS trucks so I know for a fact that if my father had not lost his job or found another one in that area, that I’d be driving a truck for somebody now,” Wessel explains.
Self-describing himself as a “late-bloomer,” Wessel said he admires students with great motivation, even if that motivation does not always translate into actual performance. “I have a great respect for students here who are either in athletics, work a lot or are involved in a lot of activities, or the person who seems to have the drive but for some reason it doesn’t always come out in a test,” Wessel mused. “I always look for those types of people because I feel they represent more of who I am.”
Guided as he was by chance, Wessel urges students to allow their own experiences to actively shape their goals rather than remain bound to a predetermined life plan–in short, to recognize a node when it comes around. “There’s so many opportunities here for being able to get involved, to get immersed to see if something’s what you really want to do and also to have fun while you’re doing it–that’s the opportunity,” Wessel said.
A Lifelong Learner
Wessel’s approach to teaching and research reflect his lifelong passion for exploration. A former instructor of BIOL0500: Cell and Molecular Biology, Wessel has always enjoyed learning alongside his students. Brown senior Julia Kim ’10, who took the course in 2008, easily noticed Wessel’s open attitude of continual learning, “The enthusiasm with which he treated the course made it seem like he was experiencing the wonders of cell and molecular biology for the first time as opposed to reteaching an old course,” said Kim.
Wessel’s instruction to students extends beyond the classroom; he is also the faculty advisor to the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) team at Brown. Though Wessel describes the goal of iGEM as completely opposite to his own scientific training, he remains enchanted by the opportunity to explore new horizons of biology with students. The team participates every year at the annual MIT jamboree by presenting a project in synthetic biology, an emerging field that combines science and engineering to synthesize new functions in the cell or organism, of its own design. Members of the 2009 iGEM team, such as Michael Chang ’11, appreciated the partnership afforded by Wessel’s willingness to teach as a guide. “Similar to his attitude in the classroom, he taught us the basic lab techniques and theories, but then left the rest up to us in an effort to develop our creativity and critical thinking skills,” Chang elaborated. “He did not detach us completely but really loosened the leash.”
Even in large courses such as BIOL0500 Wessel found ways to stimulate his students both inside and outside the classroom. His tactics included administering group “pop quizzes” that required students to interact with one another, as well as adding a paper to the course’s curriculum, which allowed students to investigate a topic of interest. His creativity extended even to exams, which on occasion featured crossword puzzles to both the delight and chagrin of students. Nevertheless, one of Wessel’s most pervasive techniques revolved around infusing the art of story telling into his teaching, “If it comes across as a story, it becomes a bit more digestable. I like the concept of dialogue” Wessel thoughtfully explained. “It also allows you as the faculty member to continue to be the student.”
Wessel at Work
In his lab, also fondly known as the PRIMO, Wessel’s research uses sea urchin and starfish models to examine “the very beginning of life:” oogenesis, the molecular mechanism of fertilization, and the specification of germ cells during development. Wessel is most enthusiastic about a conceptual breakthrough in his lab that established a two-step model of germline development common to most organisms. Many labs work with Drosophila melanogaster, a popular model organism of study that study that sets aside a group of cells very early in embryonic development to develop into the germline. However, Wessel explained, Drosophila are among the few species that differentiate the germline at the onset of development. Most organisms instead first establish a population of multipotent stem cells that can give rise to many different types of tissue. From the pool of multipotent stem cells, some cells differentiate into the germline, or the cells that carry the genetic information and develop into eggs and sperm.
“So the conceptual breakthrough is evolutionarily how important that first decision to become a multipotent cell is,” Wessel summarized, “Now we look at these cells very differently. Some of the molecular mechanisms that these cells use are the very same genes we use to decide upon our germline in development.”
Wessel credits Celina Juliano, who recently earned her PhD working under Wessel, for catalyzing the research behind this breakthrough. Juliano in turn praises Wessel’s personalized attention to students, “Gary is willing to sit and talk about any and all ideas for as long as we both can stand it,” she recalled. “We will often sit and discuss the potential outcomes of all experiments and what they might mean for hours. In addition, he often puts me in situations that force me to better develop my ideas.”
The PRIMO lab also delves into human applications of fertilization and development. Working in collaboration with Peter Klatsky, a Research Fellow in Obstetrics and Gynecology, the lab seeks to use the genetic information in the polar body, a product of meiosis that degenerates during oogenesis. Wessel and Klatsky study the messenger RNA of starfish polar bodies to determine whether it reflects or parallels the health of the developing oocyte. Eventually, the lab hopes to use the polar body as the metric for in vitro fertilization. Since doctors cannot perform extensive tests on the embryos that are to be implanted into the female, the genetic information of the polar body can help analyze which embryos have the greatest potential for development. Such technology could potentially increase the success of in vitro fertilization and prevent multiple births by implanting only the few embryos with the greatest opportunity for development rather than numerous embryos.
The Stories behind the Professor
In addition to his success as a scientist, Wessel cultivates a vibrant life outside of the classroom and laboratory. He not only bikes with his daughter to the Nathan Bishop school every day but also helps recruit Brown students to Science Olympiad, an after school program that promotes hands-on science education. Wessel has been an active participant in athletics since childhood and continues to run every morning and take the time to improve his swimming. In addition to the friendly plants that he adorns Sidney Frank Hall, he contributed his cacti to the greenhouse when they outgrew the height of his office.
Nevertheless, to discover the depth of Wessel’s generosity and spirit one needs to look no farther than his shoulder-length locks. After his daughters donated their hair to Locks of Love, Wessel decided to grow out his own hair for donation to cancer patients. Faithful to his promise, he has been striving for the magic ten inches required for donation since May 2008. Anxious to return to simpler hair days, Wessel hopes that he may soon reach his goal and the next time he is spotted surreptitiously watering his green collections, it may be sans his enviable silvery waves. Until then, he will not let his hair get in the way of his growing research, attentive teaching and loving family life.