Even though her appointment is in chemistry and biochemistry, Rommie Amaro considers herself a biophysicist, because she loves, in her own words, “proteins, molecular machines, and trying to understand how all the molecular pieces come together to create the emergent phenomena that are responsible for life.”
Amaro did not always know she wanted to become a scientist. Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, she attributes her success in school primarily to her parents, who were both school teachers. Her father taught math and her mother taught English, but both worked extensively with Dr. Amaro and her sister from a very young age and instilled in them a deep love of learning as well as a strong work ethic. Amaro’s first real exposure to science did not come until her freshman year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She fell in love with chemistry because of two talented instructors, Steven Zumdahl and Don DeCoste. “He was probably one of the most engaged and exciting chemistry instructors a student could ever ask for,” Amaro says of Zumdahl.
Later, Amaro discovered that even more than chemistry, she loved biophysics, “that quantitative intersection of physics with biology,” she says. When her thermodynamics professor shared a publication authored by Martin Gruebele in which he described proteins that fold in microseconds and apparently in the absence of an energy barrier, “I was hooked” says Amaro. Soon thereafter, she started undergraduate research in the computational realm of protein structure prediction with Professor Zaida (Zan) Luthey-Schulten. “I knew that something was wrong with me,” she jokes, “when I could not wait until Saturday morning; everyone else was looking forward to tailgating at the football game and I just wanted to get into the lab!”
After graduating with her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering, Amaro spent two years working for Kraft as a research engineer on Philadelphia Cream Cheese. In 2001, she returned to Illinois to pursue her PhD in chemistry with Zaida Luthey-Schulten, this time working to understand the structure and function of the enzyme imidazole glycerol phosphate (IGP) synthase. Amaro was able to determine how IGP catalyzed two reactions and used computational methods to accurately predict how the second reaction could be halted, essentially by making a mutation that would poke a hole in the enzyme, causing it to lose hold of the crucial ammonia molecule produced in the first reaction.
Amaro’s work at Illinois involved collaborations and conversations with many other scientists who ended up becoming her mentors and friends; in addition to her advisor, Zan Luthey-Schulten, this included Klaus Schulten, Peter Wolynes, Martin Grubele, and James Lisy. According to Gruebele, Amaro is an accomplished triathlete and worthy training partner, “I fondly remember the bicycle rides with her and Jim Lisy, where we would discuss science between the more intense efforts!” he says.
Amaro speaks fondly of all her mentors, but especially Lisy. Because of her close relationship with the Lisy family, she was able to see how a successful researcher could also be a great parent, a great spouse, and a great teacher, all in one person: “I’m not sure I realized it at the time,” she says, “but these were things that somehow were important to me as I came to a consciousness about who I would become and how.” Lisy was similarly inspired by Amaro, saying, “All the time that I’ve known her, there was never any ‘quit’ in Rommie. She was undaunted, determined, but never grim. Simply upbeat and positive. She is one of the most amazing individuals that I have ever met.”
After Illinois, Amaro won an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Andy McCammon at the University of California, San Diego. There she began her work in drug discovery, focusing on neglected tropical diseases. Amaro was able to identify several inhibitors to an RNA-editing ligase essential to the survival of the parasite responsible for a devastating disease in Sub-Saharan Africa known as African Sleeping Sickness. This groundbreaking work won her a tenure-track faculty position at the University of California, Irvine where she expanded her scope to include diseases such as pandemic avian flu and cancer. Amaro also developed new multi-scale methods that allowed her to more accurately simulate the molecules involved in these diseases. Later Amaro moved to the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) where she is now an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Director of the National Biomedical Computation Resource, and Co-Director of the Drug Design Data Resource. Less than a decade after receiving her PhD, Amaro has already become an internationally recognized leader in computational biophysics and drug design and has mentored over 40 students and postdocs, including several high school students. One of these high school students won the Google, Siemens, and Intel prizes in 2014 for his research with Amaro. No stranger to awards herself, Amaro has received countless accolades including the 2010 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the 2013 ACS Division of Computers in Chemistry OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, and the 2015 San Diego 78th District Woman of the Year.
As a faculty member Amaro finds one of the most exciting and surprising aspects of her job to be the “constant exercise in pushing yourself to be better from every aspect.” She continues to find mentors who help pass on their wisdom, especially in how to excel in the hypercompetitive world of obtaining funding. One important mentor has been neuroscientist and colleague at UCSD, Mark Ellisman, who has helped her, “achieve greater, bigger versions of myself, far beyond which I thought was possible,” she says.
Amaro enjoys working with the next generation of scientists and seeing their impact as they go out into the world. She also enjoys the process of being part of a team, of combining individual contributions of a diverse and talented group into an end result far greater than the sum of its parts. She feels that finding the optimal solutions to tough problems is simply not possible without engagement from diverse perspectives. This is why she believes so strongly that the more students that can get drawn into science, the better our world will be. When speaking to young people considering their options, she emphasizes that science careers can lead to a great life, with a high standard of living, but can also be incredibly rewarding and fun. “Once you find your passion,” she says, “pretty much everything else clicks into place. When your job is doing what you love, every paycheck is a bonus.” The most important part of what makes science rewarding for Amaro is the unparalleled feeling of new discovery, especially when that discovery can lead to meaningful change in the world.