Now that we’re 15 episodes deep into this series, and because life is forever changing, we thought we’d take a moment to reflect on where we are, how we got here, and talk about what’s to come. Witness the evolution of the series!
When you have a good thing going you often want it to last forever, but we know that can never happen. Life and the world around us are fluid, dynamic, and we’re always finding the balance of fighting or harnessing entropy and inevitable change.
As we encounter unexpected changes, we see them as chances to evaluate the foundations of our podcast's success while finding opportunities to evolve it and make it even better.
Join us for a reflection of where we are, how we got here, and a sneak preview at what’s to come. We’re here to assure you, evolution is a good thing!
Jordan Ruggieri00:13
Welcome to a unique episode of Absolute Gene-ius. I'm your host, Jordan Ruggieri. For today's episode, we want to reflect on where we are as a series and tell you about some upcoming changes as well.
I want to start by recognizing where we are and how we got there. First and foremost, I want to thank our almost 20 guests to date. These amazingly intelligent, even Gene-ius, guests are what make this series what it is. It's then their groundbreaking research and their personal stories that give this series so much character and draw. I really appreciate all of our past guests for sharing their time and digital PCR insights.
I next want to thank you, our listeners, for helping drive the continued success of this Absolute Gene-ius series. We absolutely love the conversations we share with our guests. But in the end, they only really matter if you like them and find value in them. Thank you for listening, subscribing, sharing reviews and telling colleagues about this series. We really appreciate your time and are committed to continuing to deliver for you.
Last, I want to thank my co-host Cassie, she's been my partner in crime for this project and a superb co-host. We make each other laugh every time we talk, as I'm sure you can tell, which brings me to a change for the series. My co-host and great friend Cassie has moved on from Thermo Fisher Scientific. While she will be missed on many levels. We want to congratulate Cassie on her new role and tell her how excited we are to be witnessing her career evolution. We know she'll do great things in her new role. And wish her all the luck in the world. This does mean, you guessed it, we need a new co-host. You didn't think I was going to try to pull this off on my own, did you? I want to introduce you all to my new co-host Christina Bouwens. I know you're going to love her. She's super knowledgeable and a great conversationalist. I am really excited to have Christina joining me for future episodes.
Jordan Ruggieri02:09
Christina, why don't you introduce yourself to our audience and tell them a bit more about yourself?
Christina Bouwens 02:13
Yeah, thanks Jordan. So, I'm really excited to become a part of this. I've been listening for the past few seasons. And I really love what you and Cassie have built here. I'm thrilled to be a part of the project and get to meet and interact with all the exciting guests that we have lined up for the rest of this season and for future seasons. For a little bit of background about myself, I am the current global market development manager here for Thermo Fisher, I cover all things digital PCR from the global marketing perspective.
Jordan Ruggieri02:39
Awesome. Christina, you are a digital PCR wizard. Can you tell us a little bit about your education and research experience background?
Christina Bouwens 02:50
Yeah, definitely. So my love for digital PCR actually started after my undergraduate degree. So, my undergraduate degree I got from Santa Clara University. I have a degree in molecular and cellular biology. But right after that I joined a research lab at Stanford University. Started as a research tech and then I quickly got a project on digital PCR, where I was designing and optimizing assays to look at metastatic cancer research over time. So, I was designing all of those assays and I just really got hooked so I worked there for six years, and I absolutely loved it.
Jordan Ruggieri03:20
Amazing. And can you talk a little bit about your professional career, maybe leading up to Thermo Fisher? Did that love for digital PCR continue as you join the industry?
Christina Bouwens 03:32
Yeah, so um, that lab itself was a really tech focused lab. It was a really innovation focused lab. It was a mix of bioinformatics and, and wet bench molecular biology. So, I had a lot of exposure to new technologies all the time. We worked with lots of new novel technologies. And so I think that's really where it sparked my interest for innovation. I was giving a talk at a conference, and I met this startup doing a very cool digital PCR, or what I called novel technology. I thought it was the I thought it was the coolest thing. I've been turned out to actually be the Absolute Q. And so after noodling for a little bit on, you know, what to do next I was I decided to take a risk. And so I left Stanford and I joined, I joined the startup, which turned out to be the precursor to Absolute Q. We're a very small startup, we're only 11 people, I'm working really hard to build this really innovative digital PCR system, Absolute Q. And, and yeah, the rest is history. That job was really fun. I was an, I was kind of a mix between the field application scientist and an internal R&D scientist. So, I worked really closely with customers with our sales team of one to make sure that you know, we were finding the right applications for the right customers. Really making sure that that our technology was suited for the right people designing and testing experiments. I did a lot of kitchen demos over video because of, because all the closures. Um, it was really unique, lots of hats, but um, but it was really cool because you just got a lot of exposure to see where digital PCR can be useful. A lot of education into, you know, the real world of where digital PCR is used across a variety of application spaces. You know, when you're working in a really small company are really trying to find value in trying to try to help your customers find value. And that was a really great experience.
Jordan Ruggieri05:14
What does your current role at Thermo Fisher look like? And what do you do relative to digital PCR now?
Christina Bouwens 05:19
Yes, so I mentioned I'm the global market development manager. So, I work really closely with Jordan here, a lot, on developing all kinds of marketing content for digital PCR. I think this has been a really interesting career pivot. For me, I think I've had a pretty unique career path, or at least very different from what I expected to follow in my career. But I think it's been, at the same time, very natural. I love talking about science. I think that's why the podcast has been such an exciting opportunity for me to join you here and continue to do exactly what I loved at the startup, which was those intro calls, they were my favorite part of my day, I loved just talking to customers to see what they're doing and seeing where digital PCR fits and designing those experiments and thinking about, you know, innovative ways to use cool technologies. And I think that's really the heart of where we're. What I love about marketing intersects with that it's really communicating about the value of where digital PCR fits. And so that's been just an incredible challenge here to see you know, how to take my passion for digital PCR and turn that into something that is approachable, not too technical, you know, it gets it gets really easy as a scientist to get really in the weeds really fast. So, that's been definitely a challenge for me. But I absolutely love it. I love communicating about it. So, it's been it’s been a fun path and journey and I love it. Love what I'm doing.
Jordan Ruggieri06:33
Excellent. I'll tell I'll tell our audience as well. I've learned a lot from Christina. She is an expert in digital PCR but also really good at making it simple and easy to understand even for scientists. So great to have you on board, Christina. And maybe, how about outside of work? What do you do? What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
Christina Bouwens 06:54
I've got a lot of a lot of little hobbies outside of work here I like. Everybody who's not from California has to cover their ears… we have good weather, and most of the time, so I love gardening. It's my favorite thing. Although this year in California it was very soupy and rainy, so it's been a little bit hard. Harder right now, but I love being outside, it's my favorite thing to do. When there's no crazy wildfires or floods happening. I love camping. I love gardening. I love cycling - getting back to that, I have two little kids so it's a little hard to strap them into those little carriers at the moment when they're a little bit more able to just sit up on their own or ride their bikes, we're going to get back to that soon.
Jordan Ruggieri07:31
Awesome Christina thanks for sharing with everyone. Are you willing to do a bit of a rapid-fire Q and A with me to dig even deeper?
Christina Bouwens 07:39
Absolutely.
Jordan Ruggieri07:41
All right let's start this easy. Analog or digital?
Christina Bouwens 07:47
Absolutely digital.
Jordan Ruggieri07:50
Favorite element or molecule?
Christina Bouwens 07:53
Has to be caffeine. I am a caffeine fiend.
Jordan Ruggieri07:57
I am right there with you too. I have my mug of coffee right here. What is your favorite Absolute Gene-ius podcast episode?
Christina Bouwens 08:05
Do you know this is very hard because I have a lot of them and I was actually listening to the most recent one, the “Junk” RNA one, last night so, which I really loved, so it's hard for me not to pick that one. But I did really like the one with Patrick talking about monitoring wastewater for parasites. I think it's really cool because I'm coming from a really like translational research background I was like digital PCR for health and the health you think of is very focused on like, on just like medical health and then with the you know, with the closures and everything that all the stuff that happened in 2020, you can really see how far behind so many different base research areas were just in terms of like technology innovation and so it's so cool to see how many different areas were brought up to speed with cool technologies like digital PCR. So, I think it's like I know it's not completely related like wastewater surveillance, but like wastewater surveillance is something that I never would have thought wouldn't have access to real time PCR let alone digital PCR. So, I thought that was really cool. And so the monitoring for wastewater or for water parasites was just such a cool thing that I've never even thought of before. Um, so I thought that was a really cool episode. I really enjoyed the whole conversation, but I love all of them.
Jordan Ruggieri09:23
100% agree Christina. Your go to dad joke?
Christina Bouwens 09:28
Okay. It's a good one. Are you ready? Are you buckled in? What's the difference between a hippo and a Zippo?
Jordan Ruggieri09:36
Oh, I don't know. What's the difference?
Christina Bouwens 09:39
One is very heavy, and the other is a little lighter!
Jordan Ruggieri09:41
Hahahaha. Oh, you're going to fit right in. Yeah. All right. I could do this all day. But let's get back to business and tell our listeners what's coming in future episodes.
Christina Bouwens 09:56
So we're just getting started with new interviews, but I can tell you this we've had some really cool and unique digital PCR applications coming up. And as you've heard today, I am always excited to learn about all of the diverse applications where digital PCR can provide unique and valuable insight. So, I know that our upcoming episodes are not going to disappoint.
Jordan Ruggieri10:14
I can also confirm that the guests themselves are as interesting as their work. I'm always eager to shine light on all the people doing the work as much as we do the science. With me taking over the Career Corner aspect of the show, I can confirm that this will continue to be a focus for future interviews.
Christina Bouwens 10:31
All right, I think it's time we wrap this up, Jordan.
Jordan Ruggieri10:33
All right. With that we wrap Thank you, Christina, and thank you for your time loyal listeners. On behalf of all of us at Absolute Gene-ius, we look forward to being in your stream with new episodes very soon. Until then, stay curious. The Applied Biosystems™ QuantStudio™ Absolute Q™ dPCR system is for Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.