Ina Sonnen earned tenure: ‘science is like a puzzle’

When did you know you wanted to be a researcher?

“I had an excellent biology teacher at school, Frau Gebhardt, who encouraged us to not just learn things by heart but solve problems based on what we knew, just like solving a riddle. This is what got me excited about research and is still how I think of our research today. Additionally, my father was diagnosed with a brain tumor when I was nine, so I grew up with the idea of him dying of cancer. This sparked my interest in research, at that time specifically cancer research. When I was 15 years old, I did my school internship at the Max Planck Institute in Dortmund where I got the advice to study biochemistry, if I wanted to be a cancer researcher. Later, I decided to study biochemistry with a focus on molecular medicine. However, my PhD was more focused on fundamental research, working in a lab where we used human cells to study how cells duplicate. After this I applied to labs studying cellular processes within tissues and ended up at EMBL in Heidelberg working on developmental biology and microfluidics. There, I found out how cool developmental biology and signaling dynamics are.”

You started as a group leader in 2018. Can you tell us about your experience so far?

“What really drew me to the Hubrecht Institute is the fact that there is not such a strict hierarchy here, which makes collaborating much easier. This helped with setting up my lab because I could go to anyone for advice. We also set up a group of junior group leaders with people who started roughly at the same time here at the institute, at the UMCU and at the university. It really helped discussing all types of problems that came up regarding research, how to run a lab and how to apply for funding. It is great to be able to talk about challenges with others and know that you are not the only one who is going through them.”

Who or what has influenced you most in your career?

“During my postdoc I got super excited about signaling dynamics. A signal is not just on or off, but it can vary in activity over time. Like radio waves for example, they go up and down. As a concept in biology, I find this very interesting. There is still so much we don’t understand about it yet. My postdoc supervisor, Alexander Aulehla, was a great influence as he really helped me to find my way in the field but at the same time, he gave me the freedom to do what I wanted.

Someone who was also a big influence is fellow group leader at the Hubrecht Catherine Rabouille. Especially in the beginning, she really helped me to get started. She always knew what task I should focus on first or which person I should talk to and she was there to tell me to relax and take a deep breath every once in a while. She is one of many people at the institute that I could name now who have made my start easier.”

Looking back, what challenges did you face along the way, and how did you overcome them?

“During my postdoc, I spent two years troubleshooting a microfluidics setup in the microscope without results. I tried countless technical fixes, but nothing worked. Just before going on maternity leave, I tried a simple test: I took two pieces of tubing, filled them with water, closed the ends with children’s clay and put one into the incubator and the other in the microscope. The next morning the tubing in the microscope was filled with air bubbles, while the one in the normal incubator was still completely filled with water. This experiment together with some measurements showed me that low humidity in the microscope was causing the problems. After my leave, I had a humidity chamber built for the microscope, and that solved it. This experience taught me the value of stepping back and looking at the bigger picture from time to time.

From a leadership perspective, something that I struggled with when I started was people management. That is something that you are never taught, it’s something that you have to learn on the job. At times I found it very stressful, especially giving constructive feedback, but I’m fine with it now and enjoy seeing people in my lab growing. What really helps is talking to peers, as I mentioned before. Just having a drink with colleagues and asking them what they would do in my situation. It sounds cliché but sharing your problems can really double your success in a way.”

What can you tell us about your current research?

“We want to understand how cells communicate with each other to allow for proper development of the embryo and maintenance of adult tissues. What we focus on in particular is signaling dynamics. You have something called a ligand that binds to the receptor of a cell which leads to a signaling process inside the cell. That then leads to changes in for example gene activity. These signaling pathways are never just on or off, they can change in activity over time. The rate at which they turn on and off can be seen as an oscillation, like a radio wave. When the wave is at its highest, the pathway is strongly on and when the wave is at its lowest, the pathway is low or off. We and other researchers have observed this in many tissues but now the question remains: what is the function of such oscillations?

My lab studies this in the context of vertebra formation during embryonic development and in a model system of adult intestine tissues. We image these signaling pathways with fluorescence microscopy so we can visualize and quantify what happens. And then we use tools to modify the signaling activity in cells, like the microfluidic system I set up during my postdoc. This allows us to understand the function of such oscillations.

What researchers have done classically is to remove the whole signaling pathway, which shows the importance of the entire signaling pathway. But if you want to study the change of the signal over time and the function of such dynamics, you can’t remove the whole pathway. We for example want to know what happens when you make the oscillations faster or slower. Curiously, this is how I came round to finally doing a bit of cancer research. In one project we are now studying how cancer-causing mutations can change cellular oscillations and how this affects tumor formation and progression.

Do you have any advice for young researchers?

“My advice to young researchers is that it is definitely possible to combine a career in science with a family. It’s actually good to have someone at home who distracts you when you are stressed,” Ina laughs. “You are basically forced to snap out of it and deal with other, non-science things, which is sometimes very good. It gives you perspective and clears your head.”