“My first real experience in science came after my freshman year in college,” shares Patrick McCarter, postdoctoral fellow in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (UNC). “I worked as a summer student researcher in nuclear and particle physics at The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. I enjoyed the collegial environment of the national lab and watching the different units working together to tackle a huge project.” He went on to receive his bachelor of science degree in physics at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, and then continued there as he earned a master’s of science in computational science and engineering.
This was a challenging journey, but he approached it with rigor. “I had no real idea of what biophysics was when I started college, but the idea of combining biology and physics to solve challenging problems in human health was really appealing to me, so I set out on a journey to become a biophysicist. My challenge was that because my physics department did not have a biophysicist, there was no roadmap for me to follow,” he says. To achieve his goal, McCarter pictured who he thought an “ideal” biophysicist would be, and then created a plan to become as much like them as possible. “This required an uncomfortable amount of introspection, where I determined that I just was not good enough at math to reach my goal. So I decided to first intently focus on learning math through physics, which came more naturally to me, and then once comfortable, apply that knowledge to biological problems,” he shares. “It was difficult to stick with physics while struggling with math at first, but I was encouraged by my family and physics department, and also inspired by Richard Feynman’s idea, which paraphrased says that, ‘My attitude towards mathematics could be slightly disrespectful, in that I only needed to borrow enough math to do the physics…’ After a couple years of undergraduate physics, I became much better at math. By the time I finished the first year of my masters, I was confident that I could use my physics background to investigate the biological problems that interested me.”
As he was completing his master’s degree, he was still not quite sure that he wanted to commit to a PhD program. “I asked my thesis advisor if I could take time ‘mostly-off’ from my thesis research to attend the Biophysical Society’s 2010 Summer Program in Biophysics,” he says. “It turned out to be a really great decision for me. I trained in the lab of Dr. Max Berkowitz using computational biophysics to investigate peptide induced membrane permeabilization. The experience solidified my desire to pursue a PhD in biophysics, and because I was working directly with PhD students and postdocs, I returned to my master’s program a better scientist.”
Additionally, the connections he made during the summer program have been crucial in the years following his participation. “My summer course cohort is always available for support,” he says, “and over the years I’ve developed a strong relationship with the greater Biophysical Society. I feel like I belong here.”
McCarter earned his PhD from UNC in bioinformatics and computational biology with a certificate in molecular and cellular biophysics and immediately began his current position and a postdoc in the Eshelman School of Pharmacy at UNC-Chapel Hill. “The goals of my current research are to identify mechanisms of resistance to anti-cancer therapies, and to develop strategies to overcome these mechanisms,” he shares. “To accomplish these goals, I am using quantitative systems pharmacology to investigate intracellular, intercellular, and in vivo mechanisms of therapy resistance.”
“Our lab specializes in using mathematical models to understand targeted therapies, such as Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor inhibitors (anti-EGFR), and the impact of these targeted therapies on the body— a field called pharmacodynamics (PD). Our research is typically even more specialized in that we use a physiology-based pharmacokinetics/pharmacodynamics (PBPK/PD) modeling approach to explicitly consider the impact of physiology on the efficacy of the targeted therapies,” McCarter explains. “My interest in this type of research stems from a desire to make therapy more efficacious. Some patients respond well to anti-EGFR therapies, however the majority of patients either do not respond at all or quickly acquire resistance to the therapies. My research couples PBPK/PD models of anti-EGFR therapies with in vitro and in vivo experiments to identify intracellular mechanisms that lead to discrepancies in responses to these therapies. The ultimate goal is to develop strategies that enhance therapeutic efficacy for as many patients as possible.”
Communicating with people outside of the scientific community about his research is the most challenging and rewarding aspect of McCarter’s work as a biophysicist. “I think we all have a responsibility to share what we have learned with everyone. How do we who study disease bring comfort to those who are suffering from the disease?” he asks. “To me it is without a doubt the most challenging part of cancer research. No matter where you are or with whom you are speaking, there is almost always a person currently being impacted by a cancer with a personal follow-up story. And given that you may be the only scientist who they know or have a somewhat personal relationship with outside of the clinic, what you say will often either encourage or devastate them.”
He plans to continue down his current path of health-related research as he moves forward in his career. “I think at this point I have a responsibility to keep going as far as I can. My family through their relentless encouragement, and the country through the external fellowships I received as a PhD student, have invested a lot in my training. My goal is to do everything possible to give them a generous return on their investments,” he says. “For biophysics, I hope that people will look at my experience and give more people a chance to be successful. I don’t have a scientific pedigree, but I do have a desire to help people through science. I think that that should be enough to be given a fighting chance.”
McCarter and his wife recently welcomed their first child, so he is quite busy these days between work and family. “I spend as much time around my family as possible…I will be trying to enjoy every minute of being a parent for next lifetime,” he says.
As he continues to move forward in his career, he encourages those young biophysicists coming up behind him, “Be committed toward pursuing your goals. When it gets hard, don’t quit: just keep going. Find the people who will help you, and hold on to them. And when you’ve reached your goal, extend a hand to help someone reaching out to you.”