Dr. Phillip Newmark Joins the JCC Board of Scientific Advisors
Dr. Phillip Newmark has joined the Jane Coffin Childs Fund for Medical Research Board of Scientific Advisors. Dr. Newmark is an HHMI Investigator, the Burnell R. Roberts Chair in Regenerative Biology at the Morgridge Institute for Research, and a Professor of Integrative Biology at the University of Wisconsin.
Scientific Training
Newmark did his PhD research in Dr. Robert Boswell’s lab at the University of Colorado where he focused on the genetic determinants of cellular polarity during the development of Drosophila melanogaster.
A developmental biologist at heart, Newmark switched organisms during his postdoc to study planarians. Newmark was drawn to the remarkable ability of these flatworms to regenerate from any part of their dissected body. At that time, no lab in the United States specialized in planarians so he went to the University of Barcelona to work with Dr. Jaume Baguñá on these unique organisms.
After learning planarian biology in Spain, Newmark finished his postdoc in Dr. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado’s lab at the Department of Embryology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. There they developed tools to identify the regenerative stem cells of planarians, and to examine the genes that are functionally important for regeneration.
Independent Career
Newmark started his independent career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His lab continued to make important discoveries in planarian regeneration and also leveraged their knowledge to study related parasitic flatworms, including schistosomes and tapeworms. Schistosomes are blood flukes that live in the vasculature of their hosts, including humans, for decades. Newmark’s lab applied developmental approaches to study schistosomes and made key insights into how stem cells similar to those from planarians drive their longevity and complex life cycle. They have also found that similar stem cells drive the life-long regeneration of tapeworms.
In 2016 Newmark moved his lab to the Morgridge Institute at the University of Wisconsin. Newmark was drawn by the flexibility and support for high-risk research that being at the Morgridge Institute allows, while also remaining deeply engaged in undergraduate teaching and mentoring at the University of Wisconsin. Serving on the Morgridge Scientific Advisory Board for several years gave him an insider’s look into the Institute’s support for fundamental, curiosity-driven research and its focus on evaluating scientists based on what they learn about the world, rather than on metrics of dollars awarded and numbers of papers published.
Advice for JCC Fellows
Newmark is excited to join JCC’s Scientific Board and support current and future JCC Fellows. He sees JCC Fellows at the leading edge of research, and looks forward to supporting scientists who are taking informed and reasonable risks to push the scientific frontier onward.
In thinking about advice for JCC Fellows, Newmark reflected on how much his outlook as a scientist is shaped by his postdoc at Carnegie’s Department of Embryology. In the words of former Carnegie Science President Dr. Maxine Singer, Newmark encourages JCC Fellows to “establish the questions for the future: To open scientific stories, not to close them: To attend to the first line of the story … ‘Once upon a time’, not the last when the prince kisses the sleeping princess and they live happily ever after.” And in the words of Dr. Donald Brown, former Chair of the Department of Embryology, Newmark presses JCC Fellows to “focus on your best, most original ideas.” Pursuing his best ideas, and looking where other scientists were not, has helped Newmark forge new pathways in scientific research.