Lena Ho takes a pragmatic long view of her research into the effects of microproteins on mitochondrial dysfunction. “What is the goal to achieve in 25 years? What are the tools I need to build in the next five years to get there?” she says. “Maybe as a lab the right person has not come along, or the field just needs more technological improvements. We will wait for that technology to become available. We know it is going to happen. Itis just a matter of time.”
Ho has no doubt she is on the right research path, saying that over the past eight years of running her own lab she keeps coming back to this same question at every turn. “How can we use microproteins to improve metabolism?” she asks. “I feel overall that metabolic dysfunction is the root cause of most of the aging and of the chronic diseases that we face.”
It is an approach she passes on to new students. “It is very important to find a goal that really keeps you interested,” she says. “Science is not just a job. It is really a way of life and you have to be ready to make sacrifices and to keep asking yourself ‘what are the big important questions that I want to spend my life on?’”
Ho received a national scholarship to study in the United States and then returned as part of national efforts to improve Singapore’s national research infrastructure. “It is a lot more mature now compared to 15 years ago,” she says. “Singapore is now scientifically on par with any medium to top tier institute in the US.”
She was awarded an EMBO Young Investigator award in 2020. “Singapore is very geographically isolated, and the EMBO award has enabled me to access communities that I would not otherwise,” she says, noting in particular how EMBO opportunities helped open doors when approaching more experienced researchers for collaborations or to visit Singapore.
“EMBO is incredibly generous and even after your tenure as a Young Investigator you continue to be welcomed and stay as part of the network forever,” Ho says. “I am hoping that at some point I might have a chance to become an EMBO Associate Member!”
