Who is Martin Farias?
Fisherman, Scientist, Volunteer, Activist
In Memoriam: Dr. Martin Farias, III (1973 - 2008)
Martin Farias III was born in Brownsville, TX, a
small border town and the second southern-most city in the United States.
He is a second-generation Mexican-American.
Figuring Out How Things Work
Martin was always curious of how things worked. Some
of his most memorable experiences were as a boy fishing in the lagunas and
local resacas (small lakes) in South Padre Island and Brownsville. Martin
was amazed at his grandfather’s fishing skills. His grandfather always
knew what to do when they were fishing. Martin wanted to emulate him and
be the best fisherman possible. So he did a lot of thinking and
experimenting while fishing. For example, he wondered how the fish knew
what was on his hook. So he tried different baits to see what would work.
After catching a fish, he would mark it on the head with his knife to see
if he could catch it again. Fishing was not the only thing that caught his
scientific interest. Martin would also dissect small worms in his back
yard to see how the tiny creature worked. He also built clubhouses. He
experimented with different designs and materials. When he was 8 years
old, he and his brother built a two-story clubhouse. In general, he was
always interested in how things worked. He was so interested, in fact,
that it was a borderline obsession. He would get very frustrated and
confused if he could not figure out something or if someone could not
definitively tell him how something worked.
School
Martin studied science because everything else was
boring to him. Biology was where it was at. He did experiments in class
and learned about the body and the natural world. But he soon discovered
that the book did not have all the answers. That’s when he quickly learned
the value of research. His interest in science led him to study biology in
college. He chose to go to Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio,
TX. He received his Bachelors degree in 1996 and decided to go on for a
Masters degree. He moved back home to go to the University of Texas at
Brownsville and continue his studies in biology. After finishing there in
1998, he focused on physiology research as a career. He decided on the
University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth for his
graduate studies.
It was in graduate school that he saw what his career
path would be. He knew then that he wanted to explore certain aspects of
cardiovascular physiology, as well as teach what he would learn. The
cardiovascular system is amazing because it is the source of life for all
organs and tissues. All the intricacies of cardiac function were so
interesting that he found himself reading a tremendous amount of material
on the subject. It was early in his graduate student years that he heard a
talk by Dr. James Caffrey concerning the regulation of heart rate by
opioids. It was fascinating how these opiods affected pacemaker rhythm.
Shortly after that talk, Martin was offered a position in Dr. Caffrey’s
laboratory as part of the “Bridge the Gap” minority science program in
conjunction with the University of Texas at Brownsville and the University
of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth.
Deciding on a Career
While finishing up his graduate work, Martin began
exploring postdoctoral opportunities. He received more than one offer,
which meant he had to decide on his future research focus. One offer was
from Dr. Gabriel Navar, a well-know renal physiologist and a past
president of the APS, not to mention an extremely nice and sincere person.
As Martin was considering that offer, Dr. Jonathan Tune came into the lab
one day and asked him “Do you want to go to Seattle?”. Martin responded,
“for what” and he said “to do a Postdoc”. Dr. Eric Feigl, who is an expert
in coronary blood flow physiology, had a position available. In the end it
was Martin’s love for cardiovascular physiology that made him decide to
work with Dr. Feigl instead of Dr. Navar. But Martin thanks Dr. Navar to
this day for even considering him for a postdoctoral position.
Dr. Farias became a Senior Postdoctoral Fellow in
the Physiology and Biophysics Department at the University of Washington
School of Medicine. In his position, it is his responsibility to learn and
practice all the attributes of a principal investigator. This means that he
must take charge of every aspect of the experimental process from developing
research questions and ideas, designing experiments, troubleshooting,
analyzing data, writing manuscripts to presenting the data at meetings. His
main goal is to become an independent scientist and contribute to the
cardiovascular knowledge base. He just recently moved to the Department
of Physiology at the Louisiana State University Health Science Center where
he is a Senior Fellow.
Blood Flow and the Heart
Dr. Farias’ research deals with how coronary blood
flow is controlled. Blood flow to the heart is regulated by tiny arteries
that feed its tissue. The muscles in the artery relax when tissues need
blood and close, to a degree, when tissues need less blood. It seems so
very simple: open when oxygen is needed, close when it isn’t. However, it
is still unclear what substance in the tissues or blood controls coronary
blood flow. It is his job to examine the effects of different biological
substances (produced in the heart and blood) on coronary blood flow.
Science for Everyone
Aside from his research endeavors, Martin wants to
create more science programs for minority persons. Being a product of one
of these programs (Bridge the Gap Program), he knows how valuable they are
and has vowed to do his best to help others succeed in science as well. He
truly feels that the future of science depends on the youth of tomorrow.
Hopefully these programs will get more people involved in science and
basically abolish the minority label. It is only when everybody gets a
chance at science that the scientific community will truly prosper.
Having Fun
Dr. Farias loves sports, music, poetry, creative
writing, photography, and FOOD! On any given weekend you can find him
playing soccer, football, or basketball with friends. You could also find
him writing poetry or stories about things he finds interesting or playing
his guitar and writing songs. He also likes to walk around Seattle and the
surrounding Washington areas and take pictures of interesting things. Food
is also very big. He loves to cook and create things and see the
expression on people’s faces when they taste his creations.
He also loves doing volunteer work and he does it at
all levels. At the moment he is helping out his community by serving as a
soccer coach for one of the local teams in the Seattle area. He also helps
scientific organizations, like the APS, with many of their science
educational programs for students at all levels. At his former university
he was very active within the school by serving on committees and outside
the school by participating in Adopt-a-school programs, doing recruiting
trips to convince students to attend that school, judging science fairs,
and doing public speaking at the elementary through college level.
He was also cofounder of SALSA, which is the Society
for the Advancement of Latino Scholars in Academia.
The group’s main goal is to help minorities succeed in graduate school as
well as serve the local community. He enjoys being able to participate in
the community at the local, state, and national level. It is very exciting
and rewarding.
Advice to Graduate Students
Do all you can to be independent. Do not try to rely
on anyone else. Do every part of the experimental process yourself. Take
the initiative and aggressively pursue your work. After all, one day you
will be on your own so you must function on your own! You must also
NETWORK!!!! The more people you know the better; that is how I got my
current position. Networking is probably the least scientific thing about
science but it is one of the most important because it leads to jobs,
collaborations and new contacts.
See also a recent article by Dr. Farias at Science
Nextwave entitled "Take
Charge of Your PhD Training" (free access to APS members through the
Members Only site).
Recent Publications
Farias, M., K. Jackson,
D. Yoshishige, and J.L. Caffrey. Cardiac enkephalins interrupt vagal
bradycardia via d-2 opioid receptors in the sinoatrial Node.
Am. J. Physiol. Heart Circ. Physiol. 284:H1693-H1701, 2003.Farias, M., K. Jackson, D. Yoshishige, and J.L.
Caffrey. Bimodal delta opioid receptors regulate vagal bradycardia in the
canine sinoatrial (SA) node.
Am. J. Physiol. Heart Circ. Physiol. 285: H1332-H1339, 2003.
Farias, M., K. Jackson, M. Johnson, and J.L. Caffrey. Cardiac
enkephalins attenuate vagal bradycardia: interactions with the NOS-1-cGMP
system in the canine sinoatrial node
Am. J. Physiol. Heart Circ. Physiol. 285:H2001-H2012, 2003.
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