What’s In a Name?
Marsilea: there are approximately 65 species of green, aquatic fern belonging to the Marsileaceae family, so named in honor of Italian naturalist Luigi Ferdinando Marsili. They are unique amongst ferns, clover-like in appearance and sometimes submerged in waterways or peeking out from their banks. Although, they are indeed not a clover, found variably in many parts of Australia. I mention all this because our subject, Nutromics Senior Scientist Dr. Marsilea Booth (married name Harrison), provided it to me as a nominal origin: we call her Mars. She has been working at Nutromics for just over three years.
“So, Marsilea or Mars?” I inquired one midmorning.
“I say Mars. It’s much easier, like the god of war or the chocolate bar — depends on my mood! It's short for Marsilea, a type of water plant,” she explained with a cup of coffee cradled and her legs curled up on the pistachio-pale couch. “My parents’ doing. They’re botanists.”
Mars comes from a big New Zealand family of biologists. She initially detracted from that lineage and pursued her PhD in Chemistry which led to a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Imperial College in London. She eventually helped on a project with MIT before arriving in Melbourne.
“I tried to buck the trend, be a bit of a black sheep and study chemistry, but over time I found myself drawn back to biology, with a bit of medicine.” It must be in the blood, as some may say. For her master’s she studied something a bit unusual: forensic science.
“I was really interested in the application of science, trying to see how things can be used in the field and everyday life, how they can help people in ways you can immediately see.”
Mars works primarily with electrochemistry in the Sensors! team (I’ve been assured the ! is necessary), working also the clinical and engineering teams. She was first drawn to Nutromics by the work of her now mentor, Kevin Plaxco. She had contacted him for something else but the technology— sensors working in complex situations—fascinated her. “It's relatively easy to make sensors work on the bench in ideal conditions. Having them work in real samples like blood and plasma and continue to work over time is much harder!” Kevin eventually introduced her to the leadership team, and they presented her with an opportunity to work in industry.
Science Alive and Well
“Working at Nutromics, have you been able to satisfy that itch for scientific application, then?”
“Well, coming from Academia, it’s hard to actually get anything into translation,” she warned. “It’s a hard ask.” She looked at me with the battle-hardened gaze of an academic. “You have the freedom to explore lots of ideas but there are lots of hurdles because you are often changing grants or you have a limited timeframe and you have other areas of focus as well. But you’re often on your own. One of the advantages of industry and coming to Nutromics is we’re all working toward a shared goal.” Mars works with a team of 15 on the Sensors! team, whose goals are aligned in conjunction with everyone else in Nutromics. “I am a scientist; I’m mostly in the lab and I’m analyzing data. I don’t necessarily have to worry about other things like how we apply for grants or… PR.” She said this with a grin. I grinned back. “It’s more of a team effort,” she elaborated. “It’s not so much a focus on MY goal as a small portion I’m going to publish. There’s a bigger goal we are all working towards.”
I thought about how so many of the different teams, each in their own ways, contribute to the goal at Nutromics, how technology doesn’t exist in some vacuum or appear out of thin air. It’s like a grand ecosystem where the various engineering and chemistry and medical know-how harmonize like many a flora and fauna. At each and every step there is a mind at work who needs to bring something to life and, therein, theory becomes tangible. Since starting here, Mars has helped contribute to Nutromics’s first clinical studies with robust chemistry, prototype devices, and has helped identify and understand differences between measuring on the bench and in the body.
“Have you found satisfaction here, then?” I add. “Or rather, when you look back three years ago after starting here, do you see a different scientist looking back?”
Mars paused and looked up briefly, as if for inspiration. A spark of life. Eureka! “I think I’ve come into my role more. I think I enjoy even more the communication and discussion. I’m starting to realize my strengths. It’s important to me that I like where I work, and that curiosity is still there. You can solve more problems—find more challenges. It is really cool to be in that position like we are at Nutromics where we’ve identified the next challenge and have come so far with it that we can actually keep finding other ones.”
It is really cool, Mars, I said back to her. She took another sip of coffee and kindly reminded me that she needed to hurry off soon; there was a meeting coming up in lab that she was excited to attend. Of course. “What advice would you give to the next inquisitive mind who finds Nutromics and wants to help solve these kinds of problems?”
She grinned again and said, “Let your passion shine through. If you care about helping people, this is a real chance to do it.”