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Dr. Alexis “Lekki” Wood is Associate Professor at USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center in the Division of Pediatrics-Nutrition at Baylor College of Medicine. She received her BSc with honors in Psychology and from the University of Warwick. Afterwards, she completed her Postgraduate Certificate in Education at the University of Cambridge. Lekki enrolled in graduate school at King’s College London where she earned her MSc in social, genetic, and developmental psychiatry and her PhD in statistical genetics. Next, she conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Alabama focusing on statistical genetics and epidemiology. Lekki served on the faculty at The University of Texas, Health Sciences Center for about two years before joining the faculty at Baylor College of Medicine where she is today. Lekki has received a variety of awards and honors for her work, including the Young Investigator Award from the International Congress on ADHD and the Young Investigator Award from the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. In addition, she has received the Scott Grundy Award for Excellence in Metabolism Research and the Mark Bieber Award for Excellence in Nutrition Research, both from the American Heart Association. She was also named a Fellow of the American Heart Association in 2015. In our interview, she shares more about her life and science.
People Behind the Science Podcast Show Notes
Life Outside of Science (3:18)
In her free time, you can find Lekki working out at the gym and spending quality time with her two children and their German shepherd. She is also a Lego builder and a competitive Pokémon card player along with her son.
The Scientific Side (4:35)
Research in Lekki’s lab aims to better understand how food influences our health. She examines the full chain of changes that occur from the moment food is put into our mouths, through digestion and absorption of particular molecules, to where those molecules go and how they affect our organs. Lekki is interested in differences both within and between people. For example certain people may absorb more of a particular molecule when they eat a certain food than other people, and absorption may differ depending on the time of day.
A Dose of Motivation (6:45)
Lekki is a team scientist, both in terms of how she approaches work within her lab, as well as fostering collaborations and team science between her lab and others. Sometimes having a team can help you put one foot in front of the other and get started. Team work makes the dream work.
What Got You Hooked on Science? (11:43)
Growing up, Lekki was an exceptionally curious kid. At the age of about three years old, her parents had to put a limit on the number of ‘why’ questions she could ask per day because she asked so many. Initially, she wanted to be an actress, but then she settled on pursuing a career as a corporate lawyer. She prepared for this planned profession through undergraduate, but then when she began thinking about the standard questions in her applications for law school, Lekki realized that this wasn’t really what she wanted to do. Lekki wanted to be more connected with people, so she pivoted her career path towards cognitive psychology. In her early career, she was a cognitive psychologist working with children with traumatic brain injury, and then she became a teacher for children with disabilities. Lekki loved teaching, but through interactions with clinicians working in this realm, she realized that there were still so many unanswered questions, and in many cases, the information she got didn’t match what she saw with children in her classroom. She decided to switch to a career in research to generate more knowledge to answer some of these questions.
The Low Points: Failures and Challenges (24:37)
During her PhD, Lekki worked with her supervisor to better understand how genes are linked to cognitive patterns in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She was fascinated by this research and wanted to apply a similar approach to studying cognition and obesity during her postdoctoral fellowship. Unfortunately, her planned postdoc position fell through, and she ended up working in a different research area. Once she launched her own lab, Lekki was excited to use this approach to study nutrition and chronic disease. The first thing she tried was lipidomics, looking at all of the relevant lipids like fats and cholesterols. After three years, it became clear that lipidomics was unlikely to be adopted in clinical settings due to cost and other limitations. Lekki tried other -omics approaches, including genomics, to try to find her niche in the field, but she just wasn’t satisfied with the kinds of questions she could answer or the answers she was getting. There was a point in 2020 where Lekki began to feel like she couldn’t do science anymore. She considered whether she should leave academia and try to apply her mathematics and modeling skills in finance or other sectors. At the same time, Lekki was struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic and a very difficult divorce that impacted her productivity and her ability to focus on science. This was a tough time, and she was feeling lost. When a colleague asked her if she wanted to pursue a similar line of questioning in metabolomics, she agreed, and after more hard work, this research really took off.
A Shining Success! (30:48)
While Lekki doesn’t do much teaching at the medical school where she works, she really enjoys teaching and seeks out opportunities to lecture at other schools nearby. This is a huge win. It is really rewarding to have people chat with her about her work after a lecture or to receive an email from a student interested in her research. Lekki also really enjoys seeing students start to apply science and think critically about what they are seeing in their everyday lives. In addition, she gets great satisfaction from seeing people take steps and follow paths that make them happy.
Book Recommendations (32:47)
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
Most Treasured Travel (34:17)
In 2016, Lekki had an opportunity to travel to Brisbane, Australia, for a six-day scientific conference, and it was an unforgettable adventure. She brought her two children who were only eight months and three years old at the time. This introduced some challenges, but they made some amazing family memories together. The city of Brisbane was fantastic, and there was a lot to see. Lekki and her family particularly enjoyed visiting the kangaroos, hanging out on the incredible beaches, and touring a local winery.
Quirky Traditions and Funny Memories (36:03)
Not all scientists look and act the same. Rather than the stereotypical white lab coat or professor’s jacket with elbow patches, Lekki prefers to dress informally and in vivid colors. For example, she has a fun pair of colorful boots featuring characters from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas. Lekki also has a very low tolerance for people taking other people’s ideas and not giving proper credit. People are sometimes surprised when she unabashedly corrects people when this occurs.
Advice For Us All (42:16)
Reach for the stars while keeping your feet on the ground. It is important to push yourself and work towards big goals while also remaining grounded and working methodically towards your goals. Also, you’re doing a lot better than you think, so don’t put undue pressure on yourself.
Guest Bio
Alexis (Lekki) is considered a leading researcher in the area of precision nutrition that utilizes multi-omic data to understand relationships between diet and health for a range of chronic diseases in both children and adults. Most recently Lekki’s work at the USDA/ARS Children’s Nutrition Research Center at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital has been looking at metabolite data as it connects to red meat intake and inflammation as well as looking at biomarkers of overall dietary patterns and their role in protecting against type 2 diabetes. Outside of work, Lekki spends her time engaging in a variety of hobbies from weightlifting, building LEGOs for a makeshift town that encompasses her entire garage, and playing competitive Pokemon TCG. She has two children (ages 8 and 11) and a partner who works in science communication and who may, or may not, have helped her compose this bio.
Support for this episode of People Behind the Science was provided by New England Biolabs, Inc.