Paul E. Turner, PhD (MSU 1995), Rachel Carson Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale University, and Microbiology Professor at Yale School of Medicine, studies viruses.
In recent years, Dr. Turner's team isolated viruses that attack bacteria by targeting cell-surface receptors that the bacteria use to become resistant to antibiotics. These viruses are being used successfully to treat patients with otherwise untreatable multi-drug resistant infections. Dr. Turner is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.
Tell us a bit about your research. What are the implications of your research on the evolution of viruses for understanding what’s happening in the world today?
My research program kind of has three flavors to it. The first is what I originally started doing when I was trained by Rich Lenski at MSU and that is using microbes, but in my case especially viruses, to grapple with difficult biological problems using very powerful systems to test them. A second is studying the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases to get closer to disease-relevant questions like how does virulence evolve? The third aspect of what we do is more in the realm of evolutionary medicine, that is bringing evolutionary thinking to disease understanding and therapy. We are working a lot on virotherapy, and especially phage therapy, and asking how we can use viruses to solve problems.
A pandemic is such an awesome issue to be dealing with for biomedicine. As humans walking the planet, we will get through it. But sadly, there are other kinds of crises looming in the background that aren’t going away. The antibiotic resistance crisis is a big one. Only a couple decades from now, antibiotic resistance of bacterial infections could be a leading cause of death, so we better start finding alternatives now. That’s where we’re hoping to take the phage therapy.
We’re already doing personalized medicine for individuals who have run out of options, and treating them with experimental phage therapy in a safe and effective way. To date here at Yale New Haven Hospital, we have treated maybe 18 or 19 people. We’ve also consulted on a lot of cases around the country and overseas, and it’s working very well. The first clinical trial will look at the ability of phages to protect the human lung in cystic fibrosis patients who are vulnerable to Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections that have multi-drug or pan-drug resistance. We’re trying to use phages to prevent that specific bacterium from causing chronic infections in patients.
You mentioned Rich Lenski (Macarthur Genius Fellow, 1996). Can you tell us a little about what it was like to work with him and perhaps shed light on the role of the student–advisor/mentor relationship in graduate student success?
It was a tremendous amount of fun working with Rich. I started working with him before he moved to MSU. He was a young faculty member who started his career at UC Irvine and I was in his lab when he got the job at MSU. I felt so strongly that this person is not only fun but a tremendously creative person to work with. I realized early on that this was a very supportive mentor and that it’s a no brainer that I should follow him as he moves the lab. It was a difficult thing and I sort of disrupted my personal relationship with my girlfriend as the time – who is now my wife, so we made it through!
Anecdotally, Rich is just tremendously balanced in his appreciation for being a rigorous scientist and being a family person. I saw that and I try to emulate that today because you have to be careful in science to avoid burnout. One way to do that is to make sure to give time to those around you who you love; devote some of your time and energy to something other than your deep appreciation and belief in moving science forward! I think it’s just about balance in your life. He instilled a sense of just the right way to go about being a professional scientist.
You graduated with your Bachelors in 1988, when an African American had yet to earn a PhD in your field. Could you talk a bit about the experience of charting new territory in deciding to pursue graduate education?
It was quite obvious all through my education, especially as I hit college, that I might be the only African American in the classroom. I guess I grew up in a household where my parents told me, “You’re going to have to work 150% as hard in order to be equated with somebody working 100%,” so I embraced it as a challenge. As many times as people said “Nah, you don’t belong here,” I just got my courage up and had the confidence in myself to keep going. With everything that we do as scientists who are under-represented in our fields, it seems again and again we’re pioneers, and I’m quite proud of that. It hasn’t been easy, and I like to mentor or at least discuss these issues with other scientists who care about or face the problem themselves. I’m quite honored that they would reach out to me.
I had many fantastic mentors who didn’t always look like me and didn’t always share my background, but they shared a belief in me. This is what mentors can do for you. They can listen in times of hardship, prop you up when you deserve it; they are people who care about your future. Between Rich Lenski and other scientists who trained me along the way to be the person I am today, to my parents, to scientists who weren’t doing work like me but happened to be scientists of similar background to me, I am eternally grateful. They cared and supported me when I needed it. I like to turn that around and provide that for others as well.
Your professorship at Yale is named for the environmentalist and author of ‘Silent Spring.’ Could you say something about how your work speaks to her legacy?
Rachel Carson is definitely one of my scientific heroes. When she put forward her controversial ideas about the impact of humans on the rest of the biodiversity on this planet, they flew in the face of convention, especially at that time. I think it’s profoundly awesome that people understand the importance of her work. I tie into this is in a weird but relevant way.
I grew up fascinated by biodiversity. As it turns out, I went down a path toward studying the most invisible biodiversity on this planet – you can’t even see it with an ordinary microscope. Viruses are the most abundant things on this planet, biologically, and that means something. It’s estimated that at any one time on this planet about 10 to the 31st power virus particles are present. So, I always considered myself a champion for the appreciation of virus biodiversity and try to remind people that the vast majority of viruses aren’t bad! In fact, a lot of them have zippo to do with humans at all. Of course, we pay attention to the ones that are horrible and do harm to humans and agricultural systems, and we should. But they can be used to solve problems too, which is part of the work I do.
In closing, would you like to share any anecdotes about your experience at MSU?
I had a lot of fun as a graduate student at MSU. At the time I got there, there was the Center for Microbial Ecology funded by the National Science Foundation. It was just an amazingly vibrant community of researchers. I was interacting with a lot of people who thought deeply about microbes and how they function. It resonated with me because of my lifelong – from childhood and continuing to this day – interest in biological systems in natural areas.
Also, this may sound a little strange, but I remember walking and thinking. I feel like, scientists, we put our head down and we work a lot so I appreciate the times where I can get outside and try to be in green, open spaces because it’s going to help me think more openly about some challenges I’m faced with. Before MSU, I was at UC Irvine – kind of a big campus, and before that University of Rochester – a decent sized campus, but nothing compared to the size of MSU. I have distinct memories of long walks across the campus. Sometimes it would be just me, and I would take these long walks in deep reflection and think about my work. That’s something I’ll always remember about my MSU experience.
This interview was conducted in November 2020 by Connie Rojas, a PhD candidate at Michigan State University pursuing a dual degree in Integrative Biology, and Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior (EEB).
