My
paper was cited again. The same
scientific research article that my mentor professor told me that no one will read or care about my research. My paper has been cited by other scientific researchers seven times in their articles, worldwide. So much for saying my science is worthless.
What gets me is I could have been the scientist to discover the developments that have been published since my first paper. I could have been the researcher to make an impact on science. I could have been if I could have let go of stupid, ignorant, white privileged microaggressions made to me by people that I prized, looked up to and hoped to be my mentors. Instead, the University of Washington in Seattle told me I'm nothing more than an "affirmative action" baby that has no ideas of my own or contributions to make to human disease or science.
That shit I've been hearing since I joined the Joint Doctoral program at San Diego State University and University of California, San Diego.
By my professors. By my colleagues and by my students I taught. Fucking white boys club to derail from science to tear down a Black woman. I was isolated and alone, only my clueless family who tireless got me through the program.
Everything started looking up when I transitioned to my first Post Doctoral program at the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center. Then all the stress, the anger, the rage and the lack of medical care caused by the mental anguish of racism, crashed down on me. Part of it was my fault. I was a fiend for science. I did not eat, I did not rest. I did not take care of myself, physically. I had no friends. I stopped trying. Then, BOOM! I wake up off the floor. I fainted. I may have had a seizure. I may have had a stroke. I don't know?
Either way, I had to get out of there.
Then I met my husband who lived in Seattle, WA and I got a job in this laboratory that studied DNA damage. Six months in, I beg for this tiny project. 2 years later, I emerge with a tiny paper. And that was when I was told, my research is meaningless.
I thought to myself, "Self, my research counts!" So I move to this high pressure lab and it was the biggest failure of my life. I evacuated that calm before the storm. My new professor was psychotic and he hated women and he called me the "N-word"!
My husband said he didn't want me working for that lab anymore. I agreed. I left.
Then in 2008, I had a brief stent in another lab that ended my career with animal research. I got laid off as an "at will" employee. The Black people I spoke to, gave me ZERO support. I was alone. I felt abandoned.
So, in life, I changed my life and left science. It was because of bigotry, racism and sexism. I want nothing to do with science. I still had a scientific mind, but active research was gone. I took me 4 years with many tears and therapy to come to the conclusion that I would be fine without science.
Why try to prove oneself to people who would never give you a chance despite all the work, tears, successes you'd do? Especially me, a bipolar person?
You know the crazy man's lab tried to label me dangerous? ASSHOLES! Typical for them.
Then in 2011, I get an email notice in my "Google Scholar's Alert" that my 2008 paper was cited. The paper no one would read.
Then it started trickling from there.
This
latest citation shows interesting results about the mutated protein in mice that has DNA damage, and changes in lipids. The only discrepancy is, there is physiology that corresponds to diabetes, whereas, my research does show that in animals with no protein.
Either way, I want to say, "thank you" to Dr. Lebel for citing my research. I do not care if he shows my research is wrong, the fact is he read my paper and cited it. His citation is important to me.
Per his research: He indicated that he sees an organellular dysfunction of his protein that transverses the cytosome into various structures, like peroxisomes. Though he only has immunofluorescence to support his claims, and he would need EM to fully prove his claims, the idea is intriguing based on his fatty acid and precursor data that is increased in his animals.
A tidbit of data we never published was the pancreatic beta-cell islets were hypertrophied in our animals compared to wildtype animals fed a similar high-fat, high-sugar diet. The wildtype animals had enlarged beta-cell islets, for a diet-induced diabetes, but the beta-cell islets from Wrn knockout animals exploded. The Wrn knockout animals had the beta-cell hypertrophy months earlier.
The issue with diabetes is insulin cannot be released from the beta-cell. It was not clear to me how insulin was clogged in the pancreas, called secretagogue secretion and there are many diabetic drugs that unclog the secretagogue, but that was a cytosomal organelle unassociated with peroxisomes directly.
With this paper's implication, peroxisomes may serve some role in the secretion of insulin and other secretagogues in high-lipid moieties: pancreas, liver, and macrophages.
I believe that if these authors were to feed the diet to their animals, then look at the beta-cell islets at some point, they will find the implications for diabetes in the Werner Aging disease. Diabetes in aging is a peroxisome disorder that starts with DNA damage. I have no proof, but based on all the literature I've read and remember, it was my working hypotheses. Of course I was going the other way, how proteins go into the cell.
I could not get funded for that. No support.
Anyhow, you can support me by purchasing a book from Amazon