FNR ATTRACT FELLOWS: Emma Schymanski THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE SCIENCE

How did you end up working in cheminformatics?

“I was always interested in chemistry. But in Western Australia at least with just a chemistry degree, you're effectively stuck in a lab for the rest of your life and I didn’t want that. When one of the professors suggested I could study both chemistry and engineering, it felt right and helped integrate more computation and the outdoors into my studies.

“When I worked as a consultant, I saw the effects of the contamination on the environment. I was at a high-profile public site, where the samples were highly contaminated and the public were very concerned that it wasn't safe. But, according to the regulations, it was.

"Dealing with this conflict made it clear how quickly we can destroy the environment and resources that we have. To this day, this remains a major motivating factor for my work.”

What are the challenges of trying to find traces of chemicals in our environment?

“The largest chemical databases currently have over 180 million chemicals in them, the largest open ones over 110 million chemicals. Of these, about 350,000 are in high use, which means they're being used in tonnage amounts.

"We do not know much about the majority of even the 350,000 in high use. An added challenge is that the chemicals can transform in the environment, which makes it even harder for us to find them."

"We cannot put a number on how many chemicals we're dealing with. Thus, one of the biggest parts of my work is prioritising, since there's no way we can investigate 180 million chemicals and come up with reduction technologies for them all.”

Your research group Environmental Cheminformatics has 12 members, how is your group composed?

“From the ATTRACT grant we fund two PhDs, two postdocs, and me. Together with other funding sources we have two more PhD students, another postdoc (shared), three Research and Development Specialists to help with data processing and computational maintenance, plus two support staff (centrally funded).”

How do you go about looking for unknown chemicals?

“Mass spectrometry gives us the puzzle pieces and fingerprints that we can use to search the databases. If we know, for example, that we are interested in pesticides, we can look in a pesticide database and see if there are any matches. If any ‘fingerprints’ match, then we have an answer. If not, then we go to a larger database, such as PubChem, and see how many chemicals match the mass, where we can get 1000s of matching chemicals. Then we look for information about how or where these chemicals are used, whether the chemical can transform and so on.”

Traditionally, your focus has been on water samples. You are now also looking at blood and feces, what has this expansion been like?

“Adding the biomedical aspect to my research was a big reason I came here to the LCSB - it is a very different field and scientifically, you speak completely different languages. We know what happens from the environmental point of view, other LCSB researchers from the medical point of view – but to understand the influence of chemicals in the environment on our bodies, we need to work together."

"Genetics alone only explains about 10% of diseases – we need to find out what role chemicals play.”

One of the diseases you are applying your expertise to is Parkinson’s: Your group is for example involved in the PRIDE DTU ‘Microbiomes in One Health’ (MICROH), where the focus of your group is, roughly, on the influence of the environment on the development of this disease via the microbiome. Why this disease?

“Parkinson's is a big focus of the LCSB, we have much expertise in house, and while there is evidently a genetic component, there's also clearly an environmental component to this disease. There are known chemicals that can induce the state, but also genes clearly associated with developing Parkinson’s. This makes it an ideal case study for combining biomedical and environmental factors.”

What are the challenges in finding out a chemical’s potential link to disease?

“For Parkinson’s, a focus for us is on extracting all the chemicals associated with the disease (e.g. via text mining), then to find out if the association with the chemical is positive or negative, or whether it’s a mismatch. Then there is the added complication of time.

"If we have samples from a patient who has Parkinson's, it could be that the exposure to a particular chemical was 50 years ago and it is no longer present in their body, but may still have caused the disease.”

It is difficult to wrap one’s head around the sheer – innumerable as you said – number of chemicals in everything around us, let alone the impact they have on us and our environment. In an ideal world, how would you put the information about the impact of different chemicals to use? Can we even eliminate the ones proven to be harmful?

“We cannot maintain our lifestyle with all these chemicals. Replacements for chemicals often create the same problems – so-called “regrettable substitution”. There is a saying ‘dilution is the solution to pollution’. But as my colleague Hans Peter Arp pointed out recently, there is no dilution to solve persistent pollution."

"Once those chemicals are there, all around the globe, there is no dilution anymore. It is time to come up with alternative strategies”

What needs to change so the knowledge scientists are gaining about the effect of chemicals can be put to efficient use in the future?

“A lot of the environmental pollution is caused e.g. when waste is just released into the environment. In most cases, even if problems are visible, we may not even know what these chemicals are, or how they interact with the environment once released. But the regulation is such that you can't act on pollution unless you know exactly what chemical is present, even if you can identify the source."

"We need information about these chemicals openly available and a totally different mind-set to tackle the sheer numbers of chemicals now."

Do you ever feel you are facing an insurmountable challenge?

“It is not an easy task. Even if we cut the number of chemicals in half, we are still talking about tens of millions. There is also a huge public health debate that can come out of weighing the benefits of certain drugs for health versus their negative impact on the environment. Even once we have more knowledge on the unknown chemicals, many aspects may need to be considered before regulation can be introduced."

“Still, I'm fascinated by both the informatics and chemistry side of helping to solve these challenges.”

You are all about open science. Why is it important to you?

“So much of the information that we need is closed up – behind paywalls, stuck in regulatory offices, or as confidential business information and so on. Much of our time invested in our detective work is because of this, and this really frustrates me."

"Since we are paid by taxpayers, I strongly feel we should be able to give the information we have gathered back to society. But it goes beyond this. The challenges we are tackling are immense, so it is also about the chemical information we are collecting. It needs to be out there, so that the community can collectively work to solve these issues together."

"The open science resources like the open chemical database PubChem we collaborate with have revolutionised everything – it’s not only the team but also the 860+ contributing data sources (including us) that help make it what it is.”

This has been your first time setting up your own research group. How was that experience?

“I've learned so much about people management. Through the coaching and training courses that came with the ATTRACT grant, I have learnt that all groups go through different phases and stages, good and bad, and that this is part of the process for every PI."

"I have a collaborator who is also a great mentor and has taught me a lot. I am very grateful for all these opportunities to learn.”

What is your leadership style – hands-on or hands-off?

“I'm very hands off, I give a lot of freedom. But this also depends on the people – some have a lot of freedom and still want more; some prefer more guidance than I would have originally given.

"Since I tend to be very focused when I work, I generally prefer to schedule meetings to give people time one to one, which allows me to prepare and give the topic my full attention, rather than dealing with spontaneous interruptions. It helps me give much higher quality feedback.”

This is the first research group you have created. What is something you have found challenging?

“Oftentimes, it's difficult for team members to see your ideas in the same way. I think what we as young principal investigators find challenging is to communicate the idea that's in our head to our group members and build their enthusiasm to work on it collectively. But while it can be difficult, it can also be fascinating to ‘let go’ of your idea and see it develop in a different direction.”

You're a woman in STEM, not a field where the majority are females. Is that something that you've ever noticed? Have you ever felt like you've had to prove yourself maybe more than other counterparts? What has the experience been like?

“It's been interesting. As an engineer, I've been the only female on site where I was ‘one of the team’ and it was never an issue."

"But other times I have been to conferences as an invited speaker and was ‘assumed’ to be an early career scientist rather than a PI, because most PIs are still men. It depends a lot on the field and conference – I personally prefer to attend events and work with people where it doesn’t matter – i.e. you don’t even notice who (or what) you are.”

What are your thoughts on mentoring for women in science?

“Women in science are vital role models, but it is important to also include men that are more senior but ’sympathetic to the cause’, rather than only overloading the few women at this senior level.

"I've learned a lot from both sides, and men bring in different perspectives. They navigate the same system and also learn the strategies and how to deal with challenges.

"I’ve been extremely lucky to share my floor with two other amazing female PIs, with the added benefit of a male mentor and a husband to share these experiences, so I’ve profited greatly from these different perspectives.”

You and your husband Stan Schymanski have not only managed to live in the same country for your scientific careers, but you are also both FNR ATTRACT Fellows!

“We always looked for locations where we could both find interesting positions and we are happy to be Luxembourg’s most ‘ATTRACTive’ couple! When you're both in science it is difficult to move and ensure that both have fulfilling careers in the same place, which was critical for us, especially once we had our son.”

“It's been challenging to look for the right positions, find the right contacts and to make it work for both of us. We have a good balance, we have been together for a long time now (>20 years), so we know what our priorities are, and where we are willing to compromise. Stan has always been extremely supportive, and is also very good at making sure I don't overwork myself (or at least trying!).”

Since moving to Luxembourg in 2017, you’ve joined the Bieleser Musek band as trombone player, crossed paths with Jean-Claude Juncker and played for the Grand Duke. Would you say you have settled in well?

“These are experiences that you don’t get as quickly in a bigger country! I had missed playing music in Switzerland and really enjoy this part of Luxembourgish culture. I also had lunch at the University with the finance minister already, this would never have happened in the countries where I lived before, it’s been great.”