Sanford Research Team Draws Scientists from Around the Globe

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — A United Airlines flight leaves Sioux Falls at 6:25 p.m. each Friday headed to Chicago. And nearly every time, Jill Weimer has a seat on it.

Weimer, 41, helps direct the Children's Health Research Center at Sanford Health, is the senior director of therapeutic development and also leads a team of scientists working to cure rare childhood diseases.

Her husband, a nuclear engineer, works in Chicago. So at the end of each week, Weimer boards a plane. She will return on a flight that arrives Monday night. She works from Illinois one week out of every six.

"My lab jokes they hate it when I work off-site because they get 100 percent of my attention versus when I'm here I'm pulled into a hundred meetings," Weimer said. "They get hundreds of emails from me."

When she's in Sioux Falls, Weimer rarely is far from the lab. She estimates she works 12-hour days, while quickly adding "but the mind of a scientist actually never turns off."

The science in her lab received international recognition earlier this year, when Weimer and others from Sanford Health presented at an international stem cell conference in Vatican City. Three patients have been enrolled in a clinical trial for one type of Batten disease, and the Children's Health Research Center also is using stem cells to pursue treatments for other rare diseases and neurological disorders.

Behind the scenes is a team of scientists with global reach. Most are scientists in their 20s and 30s who hail from places as diverse as Brazil, Kenya and Italy.

Other team members split time between Sioux Falls and New York or China.

In spite of the occasional distance to bridge, they seem to be a collaborative, collegial group. While Weimer's 12-hour shifts are not the norm for her team, they have been known to be in lab until after midnight if critical data depended on it.

"I allow them to be really invested in these projects and own them as their science," Weimer told the Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/2cSzcOx ). "And they see how they're helping people and what the potential is for leading to a therapy. They get as equally excited and passionate about it."

Zhiguang Guo has a commute much longer than even Weimer.

The researcher, who focuses on type 1 diabetes, spends about half his time in his native China. After six weeks there, he works six weeks in Sioux Falls and commutes to Minneapolis, where his family lives on weekends.

Scientist Haotian Zhou, whose wife and daughter live in New York, also is a Sanford Research super-commuter. He returns to New York every two months and spends a few weeks there before coming back to Sioux Falls.

The rest of the Children's Health Research Center team mostly works from the Sanford Research headquarters, but they bring a global reach of experience with them.

When research associate Katie White graduated from the University of Missouri at Columbia, she estimates she applied for 200 jobs nationwide.

Her resume included using pigs as models in research, which caught Weimer's eye because her lab does the same.

"So that's why she hired me," White, 24, said. "I really like it. I realize that a lot of people in my position in other labs across the country don't have the amount of responsibility I'm able to. In Jill's lab, I manage a whole slew of projects, which isn't the norm, so I appreciate the opportunity."

Daniel Kota, a staff scientist and native of Brazil, came to Sioux Falls from Texas, where he went to graduate school.

"The facility is great," he said, adding he was attracted by the chance to "start something new and exciting. The collaboration is good. There's a lot of collaboration here. We try to always bring different expertise together, which is great, and the people are very helpful."

Two weeks after graduating from Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, Gaya Shivega started at the Children's Health Research Center. Shivega, who grew up in Kenya, first saw Sanford as part of a tour when she was a sophomore in college.

Intrigued by the research being done, she applied and was hired as a research associate.

"You just move forward when a lot of people are helping you move forward," Shivega said of her experience in the lab. "We work closely with everybody in the Children's Health Center, and you learn new techniques."

Staff scientist Rosanna Beraldi also has an international history. Born in Italy, she came to the U.S. in 2006 and has been at Sanford for two years.

She had worked at Mayo Clinic and followed her husband to Sioux Falls, where he was doing his residency in internal medicine.

"I knew there was this amazing facility here and they were doing neurological diseases with pig models, and this was a great opportunity to work with pigs because they are the most similar animal model to humans, so I took the opportunity," Beraldi said. "It's going great. It's fun and a very young environment. We do very serious research in a fun way."

The nature of the lab is a good fit for Sammy Davis, 23, a research associate from Minnesota.

"I didn't have a huge background in anything neurological, but I said, 'I'll do whatever you want me to do.' I've learned a lot, and it's been a great opportunity," she said. "We have so many projects going on, but we all piggyback on each other and help."

The older members of the research team, in their 30s, recognize what they call world-class opportunities at the Sanford facility.

Peter Vitiello, 36, an associate scientist, came to Sioux Falls from New York seven years ago when the research center had two faculty. It's grown to 16 faculty and 75 employees.

"Finding an opportunity to be independent in science, do what you want to do and somebody is going to invest in your idea, was very slim for a while because of poor funding across the nation," he said.

"But a lot of people said this was essentially a place that didn't have a reputation and was career suicide. It's been an honor to be part of a group putting their name on the map and getting our work respected out there and be part of that growth."

There's something, he said, "that has created such an amenable and collegial environment, where we're just rooting for each other at all times. That's really unique in a research environment."

Associate scientist Kevin Francis, 38, came from West Virginia about a year ago. He leads a three-person lab with one team member from Sioux Falls and another who moved from Illinois.

"There are fantastic people to work with and a great living environment," he said, adding the move to Sioux Falls "can be a hard sell, mostly because it's the Midwest and not East or West Coast, California or Boston, which are considered scientific research hubs. It's more about getting Sanford's name and research out there to the community, so people will want to come here and work with us."

Recruitment depends on the level of researcher Sanford is trying to attract, said Kyle Roux, 40, the senior director of biomedical sciences for the center.

Finding faculty members isn't as difficult because there aren't many opportunities nationwide to run a lab, he said. Technicians and associates also aren't as hard because there are nearby universities with applicable training programs.

"If we're talking about requiring Ph.D.s, that's a little more difficult," he said. "We've had some great success, but given the institution is not that large and relatively new, the reputation is still growing."

It might seem counterintuitive, but when Weimer flies in potential new hires, she brings them for a visit to Sioux Falls during the winter.

"We feel that's the one downside, and they need to see that," she said. "When we interview folks, I tell them it's 50 percent smarts and 50 percent personality. They need to be able to intellectually handle what we're doing, but if they're going to have an attitude or create a rift, I don't need them working with us no matter how smart they are."

Once in Sioux Falls, the Children's Health Research Center team seems to settle in easily.

Shivega, from Kenya, calls the city a fun place to live.

"I'm definitely going to be here at least the next year," she said. "I'm applying for medical school, so we'll see how that goes, but I feel like there's still room to grow. And I'm doing some really cool projects that I want to get to a point where I feel like I've moved it forward enough."

Francis, who moved from West Virginia but said he has lived "all over," calls Sioux Falls fantastic.

"For what I would call a smallish town, there's plenty to do, and the people are friendly and nice, and it's a great place to raise my family."

Beraldi, from Italy, agreed.

"I like Sioux Falls," she said, adding she will be here for at least another few years but would like to stay longer. "It's very safe, and for me not having family here — my parents are in Italy — I like to feel safe in Sioux Falls. And I'm very, very happy with the research . because I think we can really find some therapeutics that can cure disease."

Kota, from Brazil, has noticed that in Sioux Falls "people are happy to work. You don't see that anywhere else in the country."

He said he loves the city and hopes to start his own lab in the next year or two focusing on stem cell research and translational therapies.

But unlike the international nature of his team now, Kota, 36, said he's hoping to attract local talent on his team.

"I think there's a need to demystify that you can only attract talent from talent centers," he said. "Science should be more open to more people. And if you attract local people and they succeed, that affects the community. I don't think you need to go far to attract talent. That's my goal."

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