Like many kids of first-generation immigrants, Oscar Molina grew up feeling like he had two profession selections: physician or lawyer. He appeared destined for the previous as he excelled in highschool and deliberate to main in biochemistry on the College of California at Los Angeles, however as an undergraduate, he fell in love with analysis.
“I used to be fascinated by discovery. As I did it extra in faculty, I noticed I didn’t need to be a health care provider,” he says. “As soon as I noticed that I might make an impression and be on the forefront of remedy with biotech, I knew I needed to try this.”
If the subsequent couple of years go as deliberate, his dad and mom will certainly see their son turn into a health care provider — simply not precisely the best way they could have guessed. He’s coming into the fifth 12 months of his PhD program in biology at MIT and is presently working within the lab of Professor Ronald Raines, researching the potential of proteins to kill most cancers cells.
Molina, who’s the primary in his household to attend faculty, additionally works to assist his fellow college students via outreach and community-building efforts. In numerous roles, together with as a Graduate Neighborhood Fellow in MIT’s Workplace of Graduate Schooling, he sought to attach and encourage college students from underrepresented backgrounds as they pursued their very own graduate research.
“I had quite a lot of alternatives introduced to me that made me ask, ‘Why me?’” he says. “I acknowledge that they have been tremendous precious, and that’s why I ought to ship that again to different folks.”
Unlocking protein development chemically
The spirit of giving again isn’t simply restricted to Molina’s work outdoors of the lab. He selected chemical biology and the pursuit of recent most cancers therapies as his analysis focus partly as a result of his grandfather has been coping with the illness for the final 10 years. The last word objective guiding his analysis is to make all protein-based most cancers therapies simpler.
He and different collaborators within the Raines Lab printed a paper in June that takes an necessary step in that course, suggesting a solution to make fusion proteins with higher customization and improved efficiency. They found {that a} chemical known as 3-bromo-5-methylene pyrrolone can be utilized to mix three proteins effectively and with excessive ranges of management and modularity, a big advance given many of the methods for protein conjugation are solely capable of mix two at a time in a single spot.
“Now, we will have chemical management of the place we embody various things, the place we will form of plug-and-play,” he says.
Researchers can now regulate a number of traits on the identical time — for instance, rising the protein’s half-life or bettering its capacity to focus on most cancers cells — whereas nonetheless reaching a homogenous finish product. They’re additionally related to immune cell redirection therapies, which require multimeric protein chimeras to activate immune clearance of most cancers cells.
“That’s probably the most fascinating factor to me,” he says. “How will we give a biologic remedy one of the best alternative to be energetic and efficacious?”
His upcoming thesis will focus on that query because it pertains to chemotherapies primarily based on ribonuclease 1, an enzyme that’s best-known for cleaving RNA.
Paying it again and paying it ahead
Whereas that thesis will doubtless demand extra of Molina than another venture he’s labored on prior to now, he’s no stranger to exhausting work. After his mom and father left their respective houses of Guatemala and El Salvador within the Nineties, they devoted their lives to giving their kids futures that they themselves didn’t have entry to.
Witnessing their efforts impressed two beliefs into Molina’s worldview: the worth of schooling and the significance of assist. Amongst his household, he’s the primary to graduate from a U.S. highschool, the primary to attend a four-year faculty, and the primary to attend graduate faculty. These “firsts” can weigh closely, and as he started his research at MIT, he knew how tough it may be to hold that burden alone.
“I noticed the necessity and needed to assist different folks be the primary of their household to do issues like go to varsity,” he says. “I additionally needed to assist folks with related backgrounds to mine, like being an underrepresented minority or a first-generation faculty scholar.”
That need led Molina to hitch MIT’s Workplace of Graduate Schooling as a Graduate Neighborhood Fellow in January 2022, the place he labored on supporting numerous affinity teams throughout the Institute. This included serving to teams out with logistics, funding purposes, neighborhood outreach and cross-group collaborations. He additionally spent a part of final summer time as a pod chief for the MIT Summer time Analysis Program, which works to arrange underrepresented college students for graduate schooling and analysis.
He’s additionally leveraged his private pursuits to volunteer with numerous neighborhood organizations in Cambridge and Boston. Regardless of his quite a few commitments, he’s an avid marathon runner, and ran the 2022 Boston Marathon whereas elevating almost $8000 for Boston Scores, a program that gives academic and athletic alternatives for college kids within the Boston Public Colleges system.
After commencement, Molina plans on becoming a member of a startup in Boston’s biotech scene whereas studying extra concerning the enterprise capital corporations that fund their analysis. Wherever he finally ends up, he plans on persevering with to use the core truths that introduced him the place he’s now.
“I need to be on the forefront of making therapies. I actually like science. I actually like serving to others. I actually like the flexibility to create issues which are impactful,” he says. “Now it’s time to take that and discover my solution to what’s subsequent.”
