Who is Andrea Gwosdow?
From Researcher to Educator to Company President
Andrea Gwosdow was born in Queens, NY. As a child she
was always interested in animals. While she did not have many of her own,
she belonged to 4-H and was able to work with farm animals that way. She
also rode horses.
As a high school student, Andrea was always intrigued
by science experiments. She found the she liked doing experiments and
learning new information. It was during high school that a good friend of
hers, who was a DES (diethylstilbestrol)
baby, died of cancer. That made her want to do experiments
to try and understand how the body works. Consequently, she found an
opportunity that would allow her to spend a summer doing research at
Waldemar Cancer Research Center, Woodbury, NY. She spent another summer in
a biology lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel.
College Years
When it came time for choosing a college, Andrea
selected Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH.
She chose it because it was a work-study college, meaning that
students have the opportunity to live, work and
learn in real-world settings through placement in a wide variety of jobs.
She studied biology and environmental science.
After college it seemed
natural that she would think about going on to get a PhD so that she could
be a researcher with her own lab. She chose to attend the University of
Florida, Gainesville and studied endocrine regulation of the
hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis during heat stress. She graduated in
1984 with a PhD from the Department of Metabolism in the College of
Veterinary Medicine.
Out on Her Own
Dr. Gwosdow got her
first postdoctoral position at the John B. Pierce Laboratory, which is
associated with Yale University in New Haven, CT. While she was there she
worked on a number of projects that studied the effects of different
factors, such as exercise, clothing fabric, and work environment on
metabolism and temperature regulation.
In her search for that
first job, she decided to look for a position that would combine her human
and animal work in thermal physiology. She was hired by the Pediatric
Endocrine Unit at the Shriners Burns Institute in Boston, MA as a research
scientist in July 1987. She began her research program concentrating on
the endocrine regulators of inflammation during stress, with particular
attention to burn trauma. She included in her investigations the effects
of cytokines, which were new at the time and for which the potential for
application to human medicine was always present.
The Research Grant Game
In 1990 she applied for
and received a FIRST Award from NIH. However, she realized there would be
challenges associated with conducting research as a PhD in a clinical
department. She decided it would be best to move her lab to a more
research-oriented department and so she became associated with the
Endocrine Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). While in that
department, she expanded her research to include cellular, molecular
biology, and biochemical techniques. She became interested in signal
transduction and led her research in this direction.
Partway through her
FIRST Award, Dr. Gwosdow decided it was time to begin applying to NIH for
her next grant so that she would have plenty of time to submit it more
than once, if necessary. As she kept trying, she started to look for other
types of jobs that she could do besides research.
New Challenges
As is often the case,
networking paid off. A friend showed Dr. Gwosdow an article announcing
that MGH had received a large grant from the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute to support its science education partnership with a local Boston
public middle school, the Timilty Middle School. She soon discovered that
the current coordinator of the program was leaving that position. While
she had seen this program advertised, she always felt she was too busy to
get involved with it. However, she had been volunteering as a scientist to
kids through the Boston Museum of Science’s Science-By-Mail program and
found that to be a great experience. She applied for the job and soon
found herself the new Co-Director of the program. She was able to work in
that position and still work in her lab half time. It went so well in the
new job that the program won a national award and Timilty Middle School
was recognized as a National School of Excellence, leading Dr. Gwosdow on
a trip to the White House to receive the award.At this time she was
also on the APS Women in Physiology Committee. While she was on the
Committee, she helped start the Women in Physiology Mentoring Program (now
the Career Mentoring Program in Physiology and open to both women and
men). After her term on that Committee was finished, Dr. Gwosdow was
appointed to the Education Committee. It was during her service on the
Education Committee that she became very involved in outreach programs at
the K-12 level. She worked with both children and adults, putting together
science programs such as Science Career Nights and Family Science Nights.
With these activities and the success of her job, Dr. Gwosdow began
re-thinking her career and the larger goals she wanted to accomplish. She
realized that the best way to use her interests in science education and
her science background to bring science activities to a larger audience
was to start her own company. After taking a business course and doing
lots more networking, she launched Gwosdow Associates in 1997 and became
its President.
Her Own Company
Gwosdow Associates (www.gwosdow.com)
is a science consulting firm that provides medical and scientific writing
and editing and scientific support for educators, attorneys, and other
industries. Having her own company enables Dr. Gwosdow to combine her
skills as a scientist with her interest in science education. During the
time she has been in business, Dr. Gwosdow has written manuscripts, review
articles, abstracts, grants, continuing medical education programs and
meeting summaries for health professionals, medical communications
companies, medical device companies and pharmaceutical companies. She also
works with schools on science education and interprets science for the
general public and nonscientists. Because of that work, she was asked to
be the first Chair of a newly established Communications Committee for APS.
As Chair, she has helped to organize symposium at national meetings to
help scientists learn how to explain their research and concern over
funding to the general public and media people.
Dr. Gwosdow is still able to keep her academic
appointment as Clinical Assistant Professor and teaches physiology to
first-year medical students at Harvard Medical School.
Free Time
Dr. Gwosdow likes outdoor activities like hiking and
biking. In addition, she loves to read and quilt. She is also active as a
volunteer, training therapy dogs and bringing them to nursing homes to
cheer up patients.
In addition, she continues her work to bring hands-on
science activities to teachers, students and their parents in her local
school district.
Advice for Graduate Students
Pick an advisor you can learn from to receive good
training and who is connected within the research community for networking
purposes. Take the time to learn all laboratory techniques. Do quality
experiments that are complete and can be published in the best journals.
Talk at meetings to get yourself known.
Recent Publications
1. Gwosdow, A.R., E.L. Besch, and C.L. Chen.
Acclimation of rats following stepwise and direct exposure to heat.
J. Appl.
Physiol. 59:408-412, 1985.
2. Gwosdow, A.R., and E.L. Besch. Effect of thermal
history on the rat's response to varying environmental temperature.
J.
Appl. Physiol. 59:413-419, 1985.
3. Gwosdow, A.R., M.S.A. Kumar, and H.H. Bode.
Interleukin-1 stimulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis.
Am.
J. Physiol.: Endocrinol. Metab. 258:E65-E70, 1990.
4. Gwosdow, A.R., N.A. O'Connell, J.A. Spencer,
M.S.A. Kumar, R.K. Agarwal, H.H. Bode, and A.B. Abou-Samra. Interleukin-1
induced corticosterone release occurs by an adrenergic mechanism from the
rat adrenal gland.
Am.
J. Physiol.: Endocrinol. Metab. 263:E461-E466, 1992.
5. Gwosdow, A.R., N.A. O'Connell, and A.B.
Abou-Samra. Interleukin-1 increases protein kinase A activity by a cAMP-independent
mechanism in AtT-20 cells.
Am. J.
Physiol.: Endocrinol. Metab. 266:E79-E84, 1994.
6. Mendrinos, A., A. Kumar, N.A. O'Connell, R.K.
Agarwal, and A.R. Gwosdow. Interleukin-1a stimulates dopamine release by
activating type II protein kinase A in PC-12 cells.
Am. J.
Physiol.: Endocrinol. Metab. 269:E1083-E1088, 1995.
7. Carlberg, K.A., B.A. Alvin, and A.R. Gwosdow.
Exercise during pregnancy and maternal and fetal plasma corticosterone and
androstenedione in rats.
Am. J.
Physiol.: Endocrinol. Metab. 271:E896-E902, 1996.
8. Torres, B., R.F. Harris, D. Lockwood, J. Johnson,
R. Mirabal, D.T. Wells, M. Pacheco, H. Soussou, F. Robb, G.K. Weissman,
and A.R. Gwosdow. A hospital/school science fair mentoring program for
middle school students. Am. J. Physiol. 273 (Adv. Physiol. Educ.
18): S47-S54, 1997.
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