From seeing the world as a collection of atoms and molecules to discovering that human connection is the true foundation of science, Quinn Pauli shares how embracing heart and humanity led her to rare disease advocacy.
Quinn Pauli, PhD, is a physicist-turned-neuroscientist who is driving progress toward treatments and cures for GRI Disorders as CureGRIN Foundation's Scientific Director. After years of studying how memories are formed and forgotten in the brain, Quinn transitioned into rare disease advocacy where she now works to align scientific discoveries with the needs of the GRI community through accessible communication and collaboration. She also loves reading, writing, making art, traveling and spending time with friends and family.
Transcript
When I was 18, I had it all figured out. I was learning about biology and chemistry and physics in school, and realizing that everything could actually just be broken down into molecules and atoms. I thought it was beautiful how the colors we see are actually just wavelengths of light.
How the moon's gravity pulls on the oceans to create tides. I felt like I was just beginning to really understand how the world works. Finally. So I decided to do my undergraduate degree in physics.
I learned about space time and the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, how the world can behave in such mysterious ways, ways that we can't even see with our own eyes, like particles can behave as particles or as waves, depending on whether or not they're being watched.
In the same way, time, as we experience it and think about it on a daily basis is so much more complex. It can speed up, it can slow down. And it's deeply interwoven with the physical world. Learning about these things was, frankly, a humbling experience, but also awe inspiring.
Equally as complex is the human brain. Near the end of my undergraduate degree, I started taking some psychology courses just on the side for fun. And I was learning about mirror neurons, how there are these specific neurons in the brain that fire and respond to the exact same way, whether you're doing something or just watching someone else do that same thing, like dancing.
I learned how incredibly malleable the brain is that thought patterns and experiences literally rewire our brains and change what we notice in our environments and how we interpret things around us. Even the languages we speak, they affect how we see the world.
So the perception of color, for example, is subjective. It depends on the labels and categories that are used in different cultures. I was starting to get the sense that the brain kind of went beyond the limits of the physics and chemistry that I had learned about.
Now, in case it's not already obvious, I've always been a curious person. I've always loved learning. I was that kid who would pick out an encyclopedia on bats at the library and attend archaeology camp to dig up artifacts.
And I used that term very loosely from a sandbox and probably annoy all of the adults in my life with constant and in hindsight, impossible Why questions? Why is the sky blue? Why do ladybugs have spots? Why? But at the end of my undergrad degree, I felt like I had learned so much about the physical world and also learned how much we still don't know about it. But I couldn't stop thinking about the brain, so I needed to keep learning.
Doing my PhD in neuroscience. It wasn't just about reading textbooks and listening to lectures. I actually had the chance to discover something. I would get my PhD, and then I'd really, truly understand the world, not only how it works in a physical sense, but why we feel, how we think and how we connect to each other as human beings.
Relationships and connection have always been important to me. When I was 13. My first job was actually as a lifeguard and there's a few children from that time that I'll never forget. I remember watching kids who refused to even get into the water on week one, end up dunking their heads and doing belly floats confidently by the last week of swimming lessons.
And I always felt so proud of these kids that I taught watching them be brave as I held their hands and they looked up at me with all of the trust in the world before holding their breath and dunking their heads underwater for the very first time, or doing a full lap all by themselves.
And I've carried this love of mentoring throughout my entire life. As much as I was learning about molecules and atoms, I kept gravitating towards people. I watched 18 year olds settle into their shoebox sized university dorms and then hug their cheerful parents goodbye.
I helped students solve math problems on their own for the first time, and helped them realize it wasn't that scary after all. And I saw kids eyes light up when I told them about the number of stars in the galaxy. To this day, I still have drawings that kids made for me that show the squiggly waves of the pool and highly artistic stick figures.
Renditions of me, of course. Standing by the pool, teaching them swimming lessons. I chose to do my PhD specifically in the field of memory. These memories, they shape us, our identity, how we see the world and understand each other. How we build relationships.
I wanted to understand the biology of that of such a profound human and non-human experience, and it really was fascinating. I remember sitting in the dark room where all the microscopes are kept hearing the whirring of the fans and the soft clicks of the machines, and just staring at the screen in front of me in awe. All I could think was that the fluorescent proteins that I was looking at in the brain slice under the microscope that I had spent days preparing, actually looked exactly like a sky full of stars. I was overwhelmed by a feeling of childlike wonder, that rare feeling.
And I could really see the beauty of science so clearly in those moments. But I'll admit, grad school it wasn't without its challenges. One of the main techniques that I actually used during my PhD, um, it's called electrophysiology, and it relies on this piece of equipment that looks like it's straight out of a science fiction movie with tons of wires and metal parts, blinking lights, and it's used to measure electrical signals in neurons. So I would place a brain slice in this machine, this rig, and watch these little blips come up on the computer screen in real time.
So it kind of looks a bit like a heart monitor, which was actually the neurons talking to each other at that exact moment. And that never ceased to amaze me that we could use this technique to understand how neurons strengthen their connections, how they talk to each other, and how that results in a memory in the brain.
At the same time, I'll never forget the first time I watched a dissection to prepare that brain slice for recording. I remember holding the mouse's tiny body after it was anaesthetized, watching its full body breaths and its tiny heartbeat, and just thinking that it was so light in my hands, but it weighed so heavy in my heart and that never left.
It was a privilege to learn a little bit more about what it means to be human throughout my PhD, to understand how these neurons talk to each other in a lab, but also to realize the weight that memories carry, the way other people teach us about ourselves and what we're actually capable of.
As I was finishing my PhD, I started reflecting on my life, on all the relationships that I had formed. That one friend who invited me into her home on the very first day of my co-op term abroad in Denmark for dinner, knowing that she would have wanted someone to do the same for her.
And then only two months later, we found ourselves exploring museums and sharing music and Danish treats with each other, laughing at ourselves until we had tears in our eyes. And I didn't feel alone anymore. And then there's my friends family who I lived with during another co-op term that invited me in with open arms and nothing but warmth, who I shared meals with, celebrated my birthday with, and who honestly became a second family.
All my lab mates who listened to me talk on and on and on about my failed experiments. Who taught me how to play volleyball, and reminded me of what was important in life and to take breaks, who cheered me on and lifted me up throughout my entire degree. The warmth I feel when I'm with my family, watching my little cousins sprint back and forth in the house while the familiar smell of my grandma's, and then my aunts and my cousins cooking wafts in through the kitchen.
The feeling of safety. And then there's the friend I made during the Covid 19 pandemic, who has taught me so much about life and love, and how she sees the world now that she's in her 80s. I was thinking maybe it wasn't all about breaking down the biology after all, teasing it apart in a lab until we've understood every tiny component of the brain. One of my projects, actually during my PhD, was focused on understanding the effects of a particular genetic variant or mutation Within a grin gene that encodes receptors critical for learning and memory.
And this project was really different. It was driven by the family of someone who had that exact same genetic variant. And here I was holding a mouse that was unique to them. It was a different way of doing research, and it exposed me to a more human side of research.
So as I was nearing the end of my PhD, I was thinking a lot about what was next. I had learned about the world, not only just atoms and molecules, but also the brain. But there was always something more. There was something human that just can't be taken out of the equation when we're thinking about things like memories and relationships.
I thought about how much I love the science, but also sharing that science with other people through all of the science communication work and the teaching that I had done, how much I cared about and advocated for science, being accessible and inclusive to everyone to make sure everyone felt safe in research spaces. I knew, as I always have, that I needed to be doing something meaningful. In the final few months of my degree.
That rig that I was talking about, the one with all the wires and the blinking lights broke. It felt like I was so close yet so far, and there were so many components to this piece of equipment, some that are literally held together with sticky tack and duct tape, and so much that could go wrong.
I was feeling anxious about whether I was going to get that last data set that I needed. And spoiler alert, I thankfully did. But I was frustrated. It was happening right at the end. And I'm not a superstitious person, but you best believe no one was allowed to touch the plushie I kept beside the rig just in case.
Anyways, I had called on a colleague who had worked with me throughout my PhD they were in another lab, but they had helped me set up the rig when I first started five years earlier, and he was incredibly generous and sat with me, watching these little blips on the screen come up and we would zap the brain slice with electricity and watch how the neurons responded, and then tweak one tiny thing and wait another ten minutes to see if it made a difference in what we were seeing, and then do it again.
And while we were sitting there together in that full circle moment, similar to when I was setting up this rig as a brand new grad student, he asked what I wanted to do next. I told him about the jobs that I had been applying for, how I knew that I was meant to be doing something where I was talking about the science and breaking it down, making it accessible, and also talking to people and coordinating research, thinking big picture.
I wanted to be involved in the science still. But most importantly, doing something impactful. And he then told me about the science director position with Cure Grin Foundation that he had heard about. And honestly, everything just clicked. It was everything that I had been looking for. I felt so hopeful and excited and honestly a little scared because of how much I cared and how well this fit with who I am. It was almost too good to be true, but my colleague encouraged me to go for it.
And yes, the rig did heal itself and I finished my PhD. And so after studying grin disorders and the receptors encoded by three genes in mice, I found a place to land that not only fulfils that science part of me, but also all of the other parts of me. And I now have the privilege of working directly with families who are affected by grief disorders and finding treatments and cures, connecting the science with the people who are actually impacted by it.
I'm so grateful that I've found something that so closely aligns with who I am at my core. Science, I think, is often thought of as objective and procedural, and in some ways it is, but it's also beautiful. And it's powerful when it's connected with stories and heart.
Thank you.