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Who is Caroline Sussman?  
From Dancing to Research



Caroline Sussman was born in New York, NY on December 24, 1966. She has been fascinated with animals for as long as she can remember. As a child she had numerous pets – as many as her parents would allow, including fish, hamsters, cats, and a snake. Later as a teenager, her interest in things natural was expanded when she discovered that spending time in a nature reserve near her house provided immense relief from the emotional trials and tribulations of adolescence.

Dancing Turns Into Biology
Caroline never actually liked science in high school. So when it came time to choose a college, she selected Connecticut College because of their dance program (modern and ballet). She majored in dance and decided to become a physical therapist. Majoring in physical therapy meant she was required to take General Biology, and that’s the only reason she took it. However, once she did, she was immediately fascinated with the subject. She especially remembers dissecting many different kinds of small animals (for example, worms, crayfish, sea stars, clams) and being amazed at the incredible complexity of even these small, relatively simple animals.

It was then that Caroline decided to study biology, because she is in constant awe of the beauty and intricacy of plants and animals and really enjoyed understanding how they work. Her favorite class was Cell Physiology. Dr. Stephen Loomis taught it and he did a great job of making a cell come alive. You could just picture all those busy little molecules racing around inside the cell doing their jobs that keep an animal or plant alive. She thought it was especially amazing because you would never know about all that important activity unless you looked for it with a microscope. It is like magic, you can’t see it (with the naked eye, anyway), yet it is always there and without it there is no life.

Caroline graduated from Connecticut College with a B.A. in 1988. She continued her education at the University of Connecticut and graduated with a Ph.D. in Physiology in 1997.

Research Career
Dr. Sussman is employed as a Research Associate. She obtained this position due to the research experience she gained in graduate school. Her job allows her to design and carry out experiments, write grants proposing the experiments she wants to do and justify why those experiments are important and why she should be given money to do them, write papers describing the experiments she has done and why the results are important and how they can be used, and give talks about her research at Universities and at national meetings. She chose to focus on research because of the excitement involved in discovering new information about how animals work. She is especially interested in embryonic development and how different cell types are specified, for example, how skin cells “know” to be different from muscle or bone.

Her specific research focuses on the embryonic development of the brain and spinal cord. With a few exceptions all the cells of the body have the same genetic information. Different types of cells arise because that information is used differently in different cells. Dr. Sussman is trying to determine how cells know to use their genetic information to become the three primary cell types of the brain and spinal cord: neurons, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Specifically she is working to identify genes that are critical for this process. It is her hope that her research will help contribute to treating disease and helping people.

Family and Fun
Outside of work Dr. Sussman focuses on spending time with friends and family. She is married to another physiologist (see Dr. Michael Romero) and has 3 small children who take up most of her free time. The family’s fun activities are limited for now to things they can do together, like going to the beach, zoo, playground or museum. She also likes reading and playing the guitar. As soon as the kids get big enough she hopes to resume some of her old hobbies with them, like horseback riding, hiking, camping, bicycle riding, and taking dance classes.

Advice for Undergraduate Students
Get some experience doing research while you are in college so you have an understanding of what it is like, because it is very different from anything else. You might also consider working for a year or more as a technician to get a feel for the research world.

Talk to everyone you can (graduate students, postdoctoral fellows) about their experiences. Don’t be shy; people love to talk about themselves. Careers in science are very demanding. You should understand what the pros and cons are before you become too invested.

Focus on the aspects of your college classes and research that are most interesting to you. I first started grad school in Ecology because I wanted to “save the world” even though my college physiology classes were much more interesting to me than my ecology classes. I left the program because it was just not very interesting to me and started again in Physiology.

Representative Publications
1. Sussman-Turner, C., and J.L. Renfro. Heat-shock-stimulated transepithelial daunomycin secretion by flounder renal proximal tubule primary cultures.  Am. J. Physiol. Renal Fluid Electrolyte Physiol. 268: F135-F144, 1995.

2. Sussman, C.R., and J.L. Renfro. Heat shock-induced protection and enhancement of Na+-glucose cotransport by LLC-PK1 monolayers. Am J. Physiol. Renal Fluid Electrolyte Physiol. 273: F530-F537, 1997.

3. Miller, D.S., C.R. Sussman, and J.L. Renfro. Protein kinase C regulation of p-Glycoprotein-mediated xenobiotic secretion in renal proximal tubule. Am. J. Physiol. Renal Fluid Electrolyte Physiol. 275: F785-F795, 1998.

4. Miller, R.H., J.E. Hayes, K.L. Dyer, and C.R. Sussman. Mechanisms of oligodendrocyte commitment in the vertebrate CNS. Int. J. Dev. Neurosci. 17: 753-763, 1999.

5. Sussman, C. R., K.L. Dyer, M. Marchionni, and R.H. Miller.  Local control of oligodendrocyte development in isolated dorsal mouse spinal cord. J. Neurosci. Res. 59: 413-420, 2000.

6. Sussman, C.R., J.E. Davies, and R.H. Miller. Extracellular and intracellular regulation of Oligodendrocyte development: Roles of Sonic Hedgehog and expression of E proteins. Glia 40: 55-64, 2002.