Growing Up In Science (GUIS) is a series dedicated to sharing the personal narratives of scientists, with a focus on the hidden challenges of becoming and being a scientist throughout all stages of one’s career.
Please join us on Thursday, April 25 to hear Ream Al-Hasani share her story. This will be an in-person event.
Full schedule, Growing Up In Science
If you have questions or are interested in getting involved, please contact Julia Pai.
Official story:
Ream Al-Hasani is an Associate Professor in the Center for Clinical Pharmacology and Department of Anesthesiology at Washington University in St. Louis. She earned her BS(Hons) in Pharmacology from the University of Portsmouth. Dr. Al-Hasani focused her interests on addiction by pursuing a PhD in Neuropharmacology at the University of Surrey with Ian Kitchen and Susanna Hourani where she studied the involvement of adenosine A2A receptors in in vivo models of morphine and cocaine addiction.
Dr. Al-Hasani completed her post-doctoral training in the Department of Anesthesiology at Washington University with Michael Bruchas where she used basic research models to dissect the role of the opioid circuitry in motivated behaviors. Dr. Al-Hasani identified two distinct subpopulations of dynorphinergic neurons within the nucleus accumbens that drive aversive and reward-related behaviors. She also uncovered a novel role for GABAergic projection neurons from the ventral tegmental area to the ventral nucleus accumbens in reward reinforcement. This work was the basis for her Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Dr. Al-Hasani’s current research focuses on better understanding opioid peptide release dynamics and function in mouse models of natural rewards and threats, during drug withdrawal and following in utero exposure to opioids. Dr. Al-Hasani has also discovered a role for the kappa opioid system in cold hypersensitivity. Dr. Al-Hasani received the Cutting Edge Basic Research Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Young Investigator Award from the International Narcotics Research Conference and the Brain and Behavior Foundation Young Investigator Research Award. Dr. Al-Hasani is an elected Associate Member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and was most recently elected to the serve on the Scientific Advisory Board for the International Society for Monitoring Molecules in Neuroscience.
Unoffical story:
I did not grow up always wanting to be an academic scientist. I thought that I would maybe be a school teacher, as I really enjoyed working with and supporting my peers from an early age. I found learning about the human body and how drugs are designed to target specific systems in body for treatment fascinating. I later learnt that this is in fact Pharmacology! I’ll come back to this after I give you a little more background on how I got to where I am today literally and figuratively, I was born in Canterbury in Kent but grew up in a town called Guildford in the County of Surrey in the United Kingdom. Before I was born my father moved to the United Kingdom from Iraq, essentially overnight, to begin his graduate studies as a Medical Physicist. His move was expedited to avoid serving in the imminent Iran-Iraq War and risk losing the opportunity to pursue his studies. Soon after, my mother followed him and they began what they thought would be a short stint in the United Kingdom before returning back home to Iraq. Multiple wars and an economic sanction on Iraq resulted in them settling permanently in the United Kingdom. Fortunately for me and my siblings that meant a life filled with safety and opportunity rather than the warfare my cousins endured, something I regularly think about, I’m so grateful for, and feel guilty for, and shapes who I am today.
I loved going to school and liked to be involved in sport, music and theatre. At a young age I found my love for singing and was always part of a choir singing, somewhere. I was also academically inclined and enjoyed most subjects. A key moment for me, looking back, was some feedback from my science teacher in grade 7 encouraging me to not hold back when discussing key experimental findings and drawing conclusions. The idea of just making your own interpretations and suggestions on what to do next felt exciting but also scary. I can’t help but wonder if this was the point that started my journey to the scientist I am today.
I stuck to my passion and decided to apply to study Pharmacology as my undergraduate degree, despite many advising me to ‘just do Pharmacy, it’s the same thing’….it is not the same thing but I won’t go into that! During my degree I decided that I wanted to do an internship in a pharmaceutical company as a way to help me decide what I wanted to do in the future. My program didn’t have a formal way to do this though my professors were very supportive so I just went online and searched for opportunities. I did not expect to get one of these competitive spots but the Neurology Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery at GlaxoSimthKline took a chance on me! I deferred my degree and went off to learn more in one year in industry than during my entire degree. It was this experience that made me decide to do a PhD and keep learning and discovering.
I did my PhD back in my home county of Surrey, where I received a competitive scholarship to study opioid receptors and addiction. To be honest I was excited to study anything related to neuroscience and pharmacology. I really enjoyed in vivo work and this PhD offered the chance to learn more behavioral pharmacology so why not! PhD programs in the UK and Europe are shorter than in the US so I knew I wanted to spend more time doing research but I also wanted to expand my research horizons, which felt limited in the UK. I decided I would think about my options while blowing all the money I saved by living at home to travel the world for a year. During this year I ended up applying to postdocs and even interviewing from telephone boxes in remote villages in South America. I decided to take a postdoc position with a new Assistant Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at WashU, still studying opioid receptors but expanding my skillset to include circuit neuroscience and a new approach called ‘optogenetics’! Note: I had no idea where WashU or St. Louis were in the US, I went in blind knowing I would make the best of this opportunity for a couple of years and then return to the UK.
This experience was quite transformational on a professional and personnel level. My postdoctoral work uncovered distinct roles for the opioid peptide dynorphin in reward-related behavior, which formed the foundation of my labs work. Fast forward to 2024, I stayed in St. Louis and didn’t go back to the UK ‘after a couple of years’. I have been married to the lab mate I met during my postdoc for 10 years, you may know him, Jordan McCall. We now have 4 children and two labs. In this last year my first graduate student defended her thesis and I have had the privilege of seeing so many undergraduate trainees start in the lab and go on to graduate school and medical school. Almost 7 years in and I have loved being in academia and seeing my lab go in research directions I would never have predicted. Hands down my favorite part is getting to be a small part of so many people’s training and seeing the growth in confidence and excitement. One thing I never really considered or imagined is that I might serve as a role model for other middle eastern trainees trying to pursue an academic career. It is so humbling and I consider it an honor. My advice through all this; 1) If you want to do something you are the only one that can make it happen, and 2) have faith in the unknown, who knows where it might lead you!