Dr. Michael Beattie On How Science Is Better When We Work Together
Dr. Michael Beattie, PhD, has recently completed his term on the Praxis Board of Directors, where he also served as the Chair of Praxis Advisory Committee (PAC) while also working as the Director of research for Brain and Spinal Injury Center at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and a professor at Department of Neurological Surgery. As he begins his retirement and starts a new chapter with his life with his wife and research partner, Dr. Jacqueline Bresnahan, we thank him for his important contributions to Praxis.
Dr. Michael Beattie understands the power of teamwork.
With an academic CV that includes being the founding chair of the Department of Neuroscience for Ohio State University, working as the Co-Director and Director of Research for the Brain and Spinal Injury Center in the Weill Institute for Neurosciences and Department of Neurological Surgery at UCSF, and authoring more than 140 peer-reviewed publications, he’s lived it.
“Science is at its best when people work together, sharing knowledge for the betterment of humanity,” he says.
Throughout the course of his 50+ year career, Dr. Beattie has experienced this firsthand several times, even having the opportunity to work in partnership with his brother (Dr. Eric Beattie), wife (Dr. Jacqueline Bresnahan), and many other esteemed researchers and scientists.
“I met Jacque in the lab, and we have been together ever since,” he says. “We were Ohio people for many years, working our way up the ranks of Ohio State University, which was one of the first places to have a spinal cord injury research program funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH). It was a really a specific effort to get spinal cord injury recognized as an important research area by NIH, and something we are incredibly proud of.”
Dr. Beattie’s initial research focused on recovery of function from cognitive brain damage. While at Ohio State, this work involved research around how different molecules could potentially regulate the immune response to spinal cord injury (SCI). One aspect of this involved investigating TNF alpha, a natural immune system molecule that mediates inflammation Coincidentally, his younger brother was doing a postdoc at Stanford University on synaptic transmission and cultures of hippocampal neurons at the time.
“We decided to try to share notes and work together,” Dr. Beattie says. “The result was radical, and we discovered that TNF alpha altered the way that the neurons communicate.”
This discovery led to research that was published in a white paper entitled, “Control of synaptic strength by glial TNFa” and appeared in the journal Science in 2002 (E. Beattie et al, vol 295, no. 5563, pp 2282-2285). It also initiated a new avenue of research focused on how immune molecules change the body’s internal response to injury.
“My brother’s research supported a “repair” theme that Jacque and I had been focused on,” says Dr. Beattie. “The only way you can make real change in science is by sharing learnings and insights. This sometimes involves compromising, and giving up your ego, but the reward of improved health outcomes is worth it.”
In 2006, Drs Beattie and Bresnahan had an opportunity to relocate to San Francisco to join a group called the Brain and Spinal Injury Center at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), which boasts one of the nation’s premier trauma centers. This center is known for its clinical research in both SCI and traumatic brain injury (TBI), and runs parallel programs called TRACK-SCI and TRACK-TBI. Thousands of car crash, sports injury and other patients with spinal cord injuries are directed to the SFGH trauma center because of the specialization it offers. The opportunity to take basic biology and work towards benefits that could be translated into human spinal cord injury practice appealed to the husband-and-wife team, so they moved to start a new exciting chapter of work, which led to Dr. Beattie becoming the principal investigator on TRACK-SCI.
When it comes to spinal cord injury, initial care can set the stage for recovery. Ironically, it is the body’s own attempt to heal itself that can worsen a spinal cord injury by impeding signals between the nerves and brain. At SFGH, Drs Beattie and Bresnahan’s goal was to discover ways to save some nerve function, limiting paralysis, and considerably improving the quality of life as a result. This work led them to become the recipients of the 2012 Reeve-Irvine Research medal for excellence in SCI research.
Excellence in science has been defined as making discoveries, publishing them in important journals and receiving prestigious recognitions. Dr. Beattie expands this definition by adding effective collaboration, attributing his work as a board member for Praxis Spinal Cord Institute to increasing his understanding of how powerful true collaboration can be.