Scot Matkovich: Keep on Keeping on.

Abstract

Scot Matkovich grew up close to the city of Melbourne where, as a university student, he first became fascinated with the heart. This fascination eventually took Matkovich across the globe to New York City, where in 2000, he took up a postdoctoral role at Columbia University. After two further laboratory moves—once to the University of Cincinnati and then to Washington University in St. Louis—and more than a decade of research into cardiac pathologies,1–6 Matkovich became what so many young scientists dream of: a tenure track assistant professor. But in 2016, his funding, his beloved research, and his dreams all came to an end. Scot Matkovich OK, not really. Sure, losing funding was a blow to the ego initially, Matkovich tells Circulation Research , but he was not the type to give up. And Matkovich is continuing to carve out a research career filled with rewarding collaborations, valuable discoveries, and, despite no longer running his own laboratory, considerable autonomy. Through it all, he said, he realized that you do not necessarily need to be running the show in order to make big impacts and enjoy performing on the scientific stage. Indeed, Matkovich argues, young scientists working their way up the ranks should be advised of the difficulties of becoming a group leader but not necessarily driven away from scientific research because of that. Matkovich is currently a research-track faculty member in the laboratory of Douglas Mann at Washington University in St. Louis, where he studies, among other things, heart failure and remodeling7 and the role of the cardiac innate immune system. I was a shy, nerdy sort of kid. I was always strong academically. I was good at math and really enjoyed chemistry. I devoured books of all kinds, but I was also drawn to music from …