Member Spotlight: Brian Aguado, PhD

Brian Aguado, PhD
University of California, San Diego, USA

Hometown
Colorado Springs, CO

Current Residence
La Jolla, CA

Graduate Degree
PhD in Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University

Postdoc Work
Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Colorado Boulder 

Current Position
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, University of California San Diego & Faculty Member, Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine 

• What interested you in the Lawrence Goldstein Science Policy Fellowship Program?

  I enthusiastically applied for the Lawrence Goldstein Science Policy Fellowship to continue my advocacy work and help enact policy to fully incorporate sex as a biological variable in stem cell research, from basic scientific discovery to clinical trial.

• How do you hope to benefit from the policy fellowship program?

  As a Fellow, I seek to learn best practices for developing realistic and executable science policy plans and interfacing effectively with local, state, and federal legislators. I look forward to working with the ISSCR Public Policy Committee to learn different skillsets (e.g., oral and written communication strategies) for effectively delivering pitches to advocate for funding initiatives. I also look forward to writing op-eds on considering sex as a biological variable in stem cell studies and expanding my current experience in writing perspectives and science blog posts.

• What is the current focus of your research, and what do you find most rewarding about your work?

  My lab investigates biological mechanisms that regulate sex differences in cardiovascular disorders. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in both men and women, yet our mechanistic knowledge of the sex-specific molecular and cellular mechanisms that guide cardiovascular disease progression, particularly in women, remain poorly characterized. Studies evaluating disease mechanisms rarely state the sex of cells used for in vitro studies or are performed primarily in male animal models, causing our wide gap in knowledge. My lab uses biomaterials as in vitro and in vivo tools to dissect mechanisms that contribute to sexual differences in cardiovascular diseases, specifically aortic valve stenosis and cardiac remodeling after a heart attack.

• How would you explain the significance of this work to a lay audience?

  Our goal is to help achieve sex and gender equity in medicine and use our skills as bioengineers to provide unique perspectives on how we approach research questions in the sex differences field. Sex and gender disparities in cardiovascular disease are rampant. For example, women are less likely than men to be prescribed cardiovascular medications despite guideline recommendations, and transgender individuals have higher rates of heart attacks than cisgender folks. Our work takes one more step toward achieving equity in developing medical therapeutics for cardiovascular disease by engineering sex-specific models of disease and identifying more effective paths to treatment based on biological sex.

• What led you to become involved with science policy?

  After the 2016 election, I felt frustrated, confused, and nervous about how my country had become so remarkably divided. I quickly grew weary of “slacktivism” on social media, with friends sharing their opinions with each other, but rarely sharing with the elected officials who needed to get the message. I felt compelled to use my skills as a scientist to bridge our political divides. Scientists are uniquely suited to rationally think through problems and use concrete evidence to make challenging decisions. I’m excited to use my role as a scientist to advocate for policy decisions that support funding research focused on sex as a biological variable.

• What guidance would you share in talking with trainees interested in pursuing science policy?

  Start by searching for organizations at your institutions that actively seek to connect scientists with legislators. For example, during my postdoctoral fellowship, I was a member of the Executive Board for Project Bridge Colorado, an organization dedicated to communication science to the public and Colorado state legislators. One of our landmark events was organizing a public poster session at the Colorado State Capitol with the goal of disseminating research conducted in Colorado to key law makers. Our event was bipartisan; we communicated the importance of our research to legislators and how it impacts CO constituents. We engaged the University of Colorado’s Office of Government Relations to facilitate our event and secured the endorsements of 71/100 of our state legislators. To commemorate our hard work, Former Governor John Hickenlooper proclaimed January 19 as “Early Career Scientist Day” in Colorado. Opportunities like these are a great way to “dip your toes” in science policy.

• Do you have any mentors or individuals who have inspired you in your policy work?

  During my graduate training at Northwestern, one of my mentors, Prof. Teresa Woodruff, spearheaded the initiative for the National Institutes of Health to enact policy that sex as a biological variable be considered in research design for biomedical grant proposals. I witnessed firsthand the influence that academics can wield to enact science policy, and I learned the critical importance of communicating science to a wide variety of audiences. As a Fellow, I will continue advocating for sex inclusion and health disparities in biomedical research, given the critical need to achieve equity in medical practice.

• How do you spend your free time?

  I’m super active and enjoy the outdoors, which was a draw for starting my faculty position in San Diego. I enjoy hiking, Olympic weightlifting, skiing, and I recently started to surf. I’m also a proud son, brother, and uncle – I love spending time with my family and enjoying new experiences with them.

• What is something your peers would be surprised to learn about you?

  I am a first generation Colombian American – my parents and brother moved from Bogota, Colombia to Albuquerque, NM, where I was born. I’m proud of my Colombian heritage, and one of my proudest achievements as an academic has been co-founding our social media organization, LatinXinBME (Aguado and Porras, Nature Reviews Materials, 2020). Our mission at LatinXinBME is to build a diverse and inclusive community of Latinx biomedical engineers and scientists and support each other personally and professionally as we pursue our careers. We launched LatinXinBME on Twitter and Slack, where our community members have active conversation threads about career transitions (e.g., “undergrad to grad”, “postdoc to PI”), work-life balance, advocacy issues, and career highs-and-lows. We have a community of 300+ academics at all career stages, from undergraduates to tenured department chairs, representing 13 Latin American nationalities. Our online platform allows us to build community despite geographic distance through virtual programs, which helps our community members at all levels feel part of a like-minded network and feel supported through their careers.