Featured Faces of Wake Downtown Full Stories

Israel Suarez

Hometown: Winston-Salem, NC

Position: Chemistry Graduate Student in Professor John Lukesh’s Lab and Graduate Student Assistant of The Science of Winston-Salem

Background: My undergraduate experience at Catawba College was similar to Wake in that it’s a small tight-knit community. I studied Biology with a minor in Chemistry and I never thought that I’d go to graduate school for chemistry but, here I am! The whole reason I was going to college was because I wanted to be a music major and wanted to find a way to become a performer – so I went to college to major in music but I remember that when I got to my first institution, the music major was complex and it didn’t encompass what I expected so I transferred to Catawba. Because I wanted to redeem my high school science grades, I decided to major in Biology and by senior year I’d done a few internships and shadowed some people. I excelled in chemistry and I enjoyed it (organic chemistry) and I figured that it was a good idea since you should always go to graduate school for something that you enjoy not because of a lack of options. So I explored that route, knowing that I might end up in medical school in the future, I knew I would want to have spent my exploration time studying something that I enjoy. If I make a career out of it, great! Otherwise, i’m glad that I explored it.

Research Focus: My current research involves a lot of work with hydrogen sulfide, a small gasotransmitter in the family of nitric oxide and carbon monoxide, which are very transient molecules. They’re transient because they traverse membranes to reach their intracellular targets very easily so they have a lot of downstream effects. Ironically, these molecules are very toxic in high concentrations – but in low concentrations, they have the potential to elicit desirable effects. In the past 20 years (this research is relatively new), there has been a lot of research into hydrogen sulfide as a therapeutic which is again ironic since it’s a molecule that can be deadly at high concentrations. In the late 90s, it was seen to have vasorelaxant, antiapoptotic, and antioxidant effects in low concentrations so a lot of people started focusing on it in what I like to call a “gold rush” of hydrogen sulfide research just because so many people started rushing after it.

Within our lab, we work on a lot of hydrogen sulfide donating compounds but we also work on some hydrogen sulfide probing compounds that are mechanism-based fluorescent compounds – we’ve had successes on both ends in publishing where the first paper published in our lab was on a hydrogen sulfide probe that detected hydrogen sulfide incellulo but also recently we published a paper on a compound that was able to donate. It’s cool to be on both ends of this very versatile research! In order to know its therapeutic value, we have to learn it’s endogenous concentration but in order to do that, we also have to generate a probe so it’s kind of like: what came first? The chicken or the egg? In that sense it’s nice to be able to work on both ends.

In terms of my overall research interests, it’s definitely medical chemistry. I feel fulfilled knowing that the synthetic or cellular research I’m doing is applied to medicine somehow. In terms of general research internets – I’m passionate about anything that can be applied to medical or clinical advancements for therapeutics. When I was applying to graduate school, I found myself avoiding programs that focused on non-medical based research and while that work is still important, I don’t find it personally fulfilling. What first drew me to Wake Forest and further to
John Lukesh’s Lab is that the research can be carried out from synthesis through cellular studies.

Favorite Thing About Wake Downtown: Growing up in Winston-Salem and driving by here often, I always dreamed of coming here. When I didn’t get accepted for undergrad, I realized that it didn’t have to be the end – just because I couldn’t go to Wake for undergraduate didn’t mean that I can’t go at all! So that’s how I ended up here for graduate school. It wasn’t easy to decide between the graduate school programs that accepted me but what drew me most to Wake Forest was the fact that Wake Downtown was brand new and so innovative. How many schools in the country have such a new building or invest so much in their students? There is so much innovation in the Innovation Quarter and it’s just so cool to be surrounded by so many things happening in this downtown space which is very attractive! The other thing is that Wake not only takes care of their undergrads but they also invest in their graduate students through funding – I appreciate the fact that I won’t have to worry about funding within the Chemistry department in order to finish my degree. This security was really important to me.

While right now I’m focused on being a TA (teaching assistant) due to limitations on engagement, in the past, I was the Graduate Assistant of The Science of Winston-Salem. My path within community engagement in Winston-Salem has been a long road starting all the way back in high school and even back in middle school. The summer of my 7th grade year, I went to a day-camp hosted by Winston-Salem State University called SciTech where we stayed on their campus and did a lot of science experiments at Winston-Salem State’s campus – that was the first exposure I’d had to science where I remember thinking, “this is really cool.” I had taken science before, but this hands on experience was the first thing to really stick with me. This memory started my desire to “give back.” In high school, I was part of a non-profit college access program called Crosby Scholars where I got involved in the community. At one point, I was the “poster boy” for them which led me to meet a lot of people and get more heavily involved. I even worked for them for a summer after graduation but then afterwards I was asked to be on the Board for Crosby Scholars where I was able to meet even more people and essentially because of that, I engaged in a lot of networking and fundraising opportunities. Through that experience, connections were made with people who connected me with other organizations – a total domino effect of person after person after person. Eventually, I was introduced to people at the United Way and a staff member there then started working at the Boys and Girls Club so she brought me into that organization. She recognized that I’d done a lot of community engagement work behind the scenes and she suggested that I try something “in the scene” by going to the organization in person to hang out with the kids and do science experiments with them. They asked me to help them start a STEM program. At first, I was hesitant to accept since I am just one person but I decided to commit a set amount of time and start there. So that’s how that started – instead of starting an elaborate program that might be too much for one person, I chose to take baby steps and started the “Science Hours” where students came over once a week for other graduate students and I to expose them to science.

*due to Covid-19, Science Hours are now virtual and can be accessed here: The Science of Winston-Salem YouTube*

In a way, it ended up becoming a lot like what I did at SciTech in 7th grade – by the end of it, the kids were telling me that they had a lot of fun and were going to miss it. One little guy came up to me and 2 of the other grad students and said “you know, I think I want to be a scientist!” That was so cool to me – the ability to influence someone’s trajectory or expose someone to science who might have not previously had the opportunity. Through that program and Wake Up To Science (a club that Wake’s graduate school has for people interested in outreach), I met Alana James and Tiffany Newman and began doing a lot of other outreach things. The Science of Winston-Salem started here as an effort to bring together all of the different organizations and entities who were doing science outreach.

The long story short is that it’s really all about the domino effect and that one thing just led to another which has allowed me to reach out to a lot of people. It’s been quite a journey but it’s been fun. Most importantly, since I am from Winston-Salem, it’s really cool how everything has become a cycle and I’ve found myself slightly more fulfilled doing this work within my own hometown because I can really see myself as that 13 year-old kid that I once was. It’s cool to see the cycle come back around in that way.