BGE Pulse Podcast: Gareth Francis (G’26), Tumor Biology Alumnus and Biology Ph.D. Student

On this episode of BGE Pulse, Digital Communications Assistant Benjamin Nochimson (G’27) speaks with Gareth Francis (G’26). Gareth retraces his journey into biological research, starting with undergraduate lab work in host-microbe symbioses and through by his time in Georgetown’s M.S. in Tumor Biology Program. Gareth talks about the evolution of his drive to make an impact through science, his interest in science communications, and the current stage of his career as a Biology Ph.D. student.

Benjamin Nochimson: Hello and welcome to BGE Pulse, the show where we find out more about members of Georgetown’s biomedical graduate education community. This episode, we’re talking to Gareth Francis. Gareth just earned his M.S. in Tumor Biology, graduating in 2026, and is starting his Ph.D. in Biology program in Fall of 2026. Please enjoy our conversation.

Intro Music

Why don’t we start with you, explaining sort of your journey in biology. I know you went to Penn State undergrad, and let’s talk about what you studied there and what brought you ultimately to Georgetown.

Gareth Francis: Yeah, that’s pretty easy for me to talk about. I went to Penn State originally as a biochemistry and molecular biology major because of a unit in high school AP Biology about biochemistry. And figured that’s, you know, as sensible, of a decision as any 17, 18-year-old can make. And started off in college thinking about med school, as most people do, and then quickly learned that that wasn’t for me.

At the end of my first year of college, I was invited to apply to a couple of different research labs on campus. Joined one the beginning of my sophomore year. I never looked back. It was a ton of intellectual stimulation for me, which I really, really enjoyed. In that lab, I studied host-microbe symbioses with a more simplified model using actually squid and bacteria.

And I thought that was really cool. And at the same time, I knew that that really wasn’t for me. Also at Penn State, they have, a very famous program called THON, which is a student-run philanthropy that raises money for pediatric cancer treatment. And so when I left Penn State, I knew that I wanted to continue in research, but I also wanted to find research that had a much bigger impact outside of the lab than what I was originally studying.

So I actually came to Georgetown originally, as a research technician in the Department of Chemistry, and we studied how RNAs move in certain kinds of cancer cells. And then after a year working there, I knew that I had stumbled onto a field that I was very motivated to continue studying in. So I actually, concurrently with my work, matriculated into the BGE master’s program in Tumor Biology, because I had no cancer information from my undergrad.

Never took any cancer classes, didn’t know anything about it. And I was struggling learning everything about it alone, like through primary research articles and that kind of stuff. That one-year program was super, super helpful for me, just giving me the foundations that I needed, where the field is currently at, all the subdivisions of the field, and gave me a lay of the land.

And since then I’ve decided to pursue my doctorate in biology, specifically, host-microbe symbioses in cancers. So BGE was almost instrumental for me in understanding what developing research fields were out there, where my current knowledge was, and where my gaps were. And also filling those gaps so that I could be a more productive scientist going into a doctoral program.

Benjamin Nochimson: That’s excellent. Well, thank you for, you know, getting into that, can we delve a little more into the, the yearlong M.S. program? I want to know what you got up to during the year and also what kind of connections and support you were able to find at Georgetown that sort of enabled you?

Gareth Francis: Yeah. So, I joined the program, it was August 2025. And I had not worked with the medical school before at all. So the faculty over there and the systems over there were very new to me. I quickly met a lot of the faculty who are actually also very involved in the hospital. And I had lecturers who were also physicians, which was new to me.

So not only was I getting the theoretical knowledge of what we know about the disease, but I was getting firsthand accounts of physicians and oncologists treating different forms of the disease and what they were seeing in the clinic and why. Especially a lot of them had been there working in oncology or specific subgroups of cancer for easily 20 or 30 years.

So you got whole stories of where the field has evolved and why, and what’s promising moving forward. I also picked up, through various classes, lots of techniques that I was not exposed to previously. The big one, especially nowadays, are the informatic classes, ones where you’re taught, bioinformatics skills, statistical skills, and modeling skills, which is really, really important in the field, especially moving forward.

I also got some exposure into more ethical based discussions. You know, where’s the limit on treatment versus what the patients are looking for in quality of life? What are we, as scientists, trying to shy away from ethically? You know, where’s the limit of what we should be allowed to do versus what we’re actually able to do?

Overall, the whole field was very new to me. And getting perspectives from faculty members on not only where the field is now, where it evolved from, but also what’s promising in the future, and where people are actively looking for information or solutions.

I also got a lot of support from BGE, not directly in my program. So, for example, the career services was really helpful for me, especially early on. You have to apply for doctoral programs as early as October, November. So even a couple months into this master’s degree, I was already applying for Ph.D. programs and getting a lot of support and connections through their career office on crafting my application, crafting my resume, putting me in touch with people who just went through the process, walking me through when the interviews occur and what to prepare in an interview. All of that made the mystery behind the application kind of dissolve.

Benjamin Nochimson: That’s great. I’m glad that, the program was able to provide that level of support. Just to follow up on the bioinformatics piece. Just for personal interest. What is so important about bioinformatics in, like in science going forward? Why is it such a flashpoint right now?

Gareth Francis: That’s a difficult question for me to put succinctly. With more and more technology being available, you can get more and more data quickly. And it can be really, really hard to sort through a lot of that data. The big focuses, especially today, are like DNA sequencing information, RNA sequencing information, even protein and metabolite identity information.

These are once you perform the experiments in the lab, they generate vast quantities of data that if you don’t know what you’re doing, you have no idea how to sort through. But computers now can do a lot of that, if you know what you’re doing, which I did not. I did not know what I was doing at all before a lot of this.

But now, I know very … I wouldn’t say basic, but I would say I have a very intermediate knowledge of how to analyze things like RNA sequencing information, DNA sequencing information, and even something like mass spec for metabolite identification or even protein identification. That’s really big, especially moving into a heavier machine learning and AI modeling kind of world with like, molecular simulations, protein folding simulations and things like that. Things that can inform, future experiments and studies to be conducted in the laboratory.

Benjamin Nochimson: Nice. Well, it’s actually…hearing you explain it sounds like….I think I’m starting to get it a little bit, which makes sense, because I know that you have experience as, like, a science communicator. So this is something that is like, maybe comes natural to you. Being able to explain, you know, science in an understandable and still semi-succinct kind of way.

Gareth Francis: Yeah. I would not say that it comes natural whatsoever. It all started like, with me trying to explain my undergrad research to some of my peers and getting these really, really confused looks, like I sprouted a third eye or something. And that actually made me seek out some opportunities in my undergraduate career, trying to figure out how best to explain things that I think are much more basic because I’ve spent my career studying them to people outside primary science or molecular biology.

I worked a year and a bit in the Office of Research as an undergrad, doing science communication work. And then since leaving Penn State, I’ve tried to work a lot with science communication, such as, Three Minute Thesis or Clarity in Science, or even just writing about science to friends, family, or other peers.

Even today, I get lots of feedback about things that I say or write where I thought it would make perfect sense, or it was at a much more digestible scale, and people are like, ‘Oh, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ So this is a skill that I’ve tried to hone over multiple years, but I still have a very, very long way to go.

Benjamin Nochimson: Yeah. Well, I think you’re doing great personally, but, what, what is the role of science communications in, like, actually performing, like science as you, you know, performing science … in, like, doing lab work. Like you’ve done?

Gareth Francis: Yeah. The thing about science, especially the science that I work in, which is a lot more like preclinical medical science: It means absolutely nothing if the people who can make change about it don’t know what’s going on. So the end of the day, the people who are developing or marketing technologies such as new treatments or especially marketing or implementing, are generally people who don’t have a ton of experience in the preclinical science that I work in.

If they don’t understand what’s going on, then they can’t implement it, they can’t talk about it, and then no one knows what’s being discovered or how it can help anyone. So the actual communication part is essential for taking everything we know from laboratory settings and actually applying it to the real world.

Benjamin Nochimson: Gotcha. Well, in the course of your studies at Georgetown, you know, you earned the M.S. and are going to continue on for your Ph.D. What kind of work primarily have you done? Like, I guess in the classroom setting, but also your own research. Like what have been your areas of focus? I know maybe the communication part is not exactly what we teach at Georgetown, but, I’m interested just to know, I guess, what, you know, what you specifically have gotten up to.

Gareth Francis: Yeah. So for the two years that I’ve been here, and one of them was during my master’s degree, I’ve worked in Doctor Esther Braselmann’s lab in the Department of Chemistry, where we study RNAs in living cells. It’s actually really tricky to study RNAs in living cells because you can’t actually see them. A single RNA molecule, even like a short one, is smaller than the wavelength of most visible light, so you can’t physically see them.

So we have to come up with other ways to actually see where they’re going inside of living cells. And so we work on building out and developing some technology that allows us to do so. Specifically, what I was doing was putting this technology directly into the chromosome of living cells, which means that in the type of research that we do where we grow cells in a dish, we can have a population of cells that have these tags that let us see certain RNAs.

And from there, we’re able to monitor where they go, what they interact with, how they react in response to external stimuli, such as things like chemotherapies or other targeted immunotherapeutic drugs. But unfortunately, I am leaving the lab in like two and a half weeks, so trying to put the final touches on what I’ve been working on and, and kind of pass it off to the next person.

Benjamin Nochimson: Nice. Can we run through some of just the highlights, I guess, from your M.S. year? Because I did a little snooping on the LinkedIn page and saw that you have a pretty impressive array of things that you got up to during the year, including publications, conferences, presentations and stuff. What if you had to name maybe top like, I don’t know, 2 or 3 experiences that you had in the M.S. year?

Gareth Francis: Okay. Actually, BGE was pretty instrumental in one of them. I was accepted to give a talk at the Biophysical Society’s annual meeting back in February. This is one of the biggest science conferences for people in molecular biology and biophysics. I think it’s somewhere on the order of five or six thousand scientists go and and meet there every year.

And I was accepted to give a talk there. But it was in San Francisco, which is the other side of the country from Washington, D.C., so I applied for travel funds from BGE, specifically the, it was the BGE Career Development Fund, I think. And got accepted for that. And they gave me the money to not only travel there and stay in a hotel, but they gave me money for food and my poster printing and that allowed me to go to San Francisco and give a talk about the work that I’ve been working on over the last couple of years.

Benjamin Nochimson: That’s awesome.

Gareth Francis: This was really exciting for me because, in my experience, people give talks, you know, mid to late stage of their doctoral programs. And I was able to give a talk before even starting a doctoral program. So that was definitely one of the highlights.

Benjamin Nochimson: Nice.

Gareth Francis: Another one of the highlights was the program director, Doctor Shajahan-Haq, invited a whole bunch of Tumor Biology students to apply for a Clarity in Science award, which is .a competition to see who can communicate their science most clearly to a lay audience, and actually put us in front of the breast cancer advocacy board for Georgetown, to give – it was initially a written submission, and then an invited talk afterward. And that allowed me to really distill my research down into like a five-minute talk and get feedback, very constructive, detailed feedback from the panel about what went right and what went wrong in my talk.

That was extremely helpful in understanding where the gaps in my logic might have been, but also where I was losing audiences and failing to get them back once they were lost.

Benjamin Nochimson: Yeah, that does sound like a cool program.

Gareth Francis: Definitely the two most memorable experiences of my M.S. year.

Benjamin Nochimson: Nice. Well, what what do you think is, in the future, what’s in the pipeline for you? What’s coming next?

Gareth Francis: Oh, man. You know, doctoral programs are, I think, the biology department here, average time to graduate is 5.5 years.

Benjamin Nochimson: Wow.

Gareth Francis: So, you know, my future is research, which is very exciting for me, intellectually stimulating for me. And I am very excited about the project that I’m going to be working on. But I also think that, you know, your life isn’t just school at the end of the day. So I’m also excited to really continue seeking out more communication work. Where are the places that I can, keep on trying to refine the skill, get constructive feedback, talk to people where it really matters, and get what’s happening in the lab outside to a more common audience.

Benjamin Nochimson: Definitely. I am interested in knowing more about the project that you’re going to be working on, but I guess – yeah, let’s let’s talk about that first, if that’s okay.

Gareth Francis: Yeah. It’s, it’s really difficult to say, especially because I haven’t technically started yet. But I have been working with my future advisor to kind of flush out the bare bones of the types of questions that we’re going to be asking. So, to put it simply, starting around ten years ago, there’s been an increasing amount of evidence that different kinds of microbes live inside of tumors, inside of real patients.

And further evidence has come out suggesting that these microbes impact how the tumor progresses in response to treatment, both positive and negative. So some microbes have been implicated in certain types of tumors to promote things like more metastatic events, which is where the tumor breaks off and colonizes other areas of your body, and are also causing some tumors to become more resistant to certain kinds of drugs.

There’s also evidence on the other side that shows some types of microbes allow the tumors to be more susceptible to treatments like chemotherapies or immunotherapies. But the bottom line is that we as a scientific community don’t know a ton about how these interactions are happening. What’s going on? How are the the microbes in the tumors communicating or interacting with each other? Really almost anything about what’s going on between those at all.

And I think that’s really important to study, because understanding a lot of how these interactions work can give us a lot of information as to how to better treat tumors in real patients. So I’m hoping to do some work that identifies how these microbes are communicating with the tumors, how they’re interacting, and maybe even some vulnerabilities of how we can target these interactions.

Benjamin Nochimson: Well, that’s fascinating and sounds like it has the potential to be highly impactful. So yeah.

Gareth Francis: Yeah, that’s every scientist’s dream, right? I hope it’s impactful. But yeah, the work will … we’ll see what it what it actually is.

Benjamin Nochimson: I mean, it sounds really interesting. So, yeah, kudos to you for delving into that. And best of luck. I guess I do want to ask, I know, well, since you mentioned sort of the like importance of, you know, life outside school and the lab also. I was wondering if you have any advice for current students, future students, about how to navigate, I guess, the balancing act of investing enough time in scholastic and academic activities, but also having kind of a balance in your life.

Gareth Francis: That can be difficult to talk about, especially in science, because in science, especially biochemistry and molecular biology, you’re expected to spend a lot of time in the lab. For me, I work a lot with mammalian cells in a dish. So I run on cell time, which is whenever the cells are ready for the experiment, that’s when I have to be ready for an experiment.

The good news is, is that you can plan around that a lot of the times. So there can be some mornings where I know my cells won’t be ready for an experiment, where I can spend the morning going to the gym, something as simple as that. But, you know, some sacrifices have to be made, and there have been long, long, late nights in the lab as well.

I think all of this is pretty normal in science. As long as you’re able to plan ahead and anticipate, when you have to be available to do the work that you want to do. The good news for me is that a lot of what I do is very interesting to me, and I’m always eager to see the results of my experiments.

So it’s not hard to drag me out of bed and into the lab, which makes everything easier as a result of that.

Benjamin Nochimson: Yeah. So you have to have to actually have the passion for what you’re doing if you’re going to.

Gareth Francis: I would say so. That’s similar for any career, right? If your drive underlying isn’t there, it’s really hard to, you know, be motivated to go to work.

Benjamin Nochimson: Definitely. I agree with that.

Well I really appreciate your time, Gareth. And it’s been really nice to talk to you and, get to learn about you and what you’ve been working on. It sounds like you have a really cool, you know, trajectory ahead of you.

Gareth Francis: Awesome. Thank you so much, Benjamin.

Benjamin Nochimson: Yeah. Take it easy, Gareth.

Gareth Francis: All right. You have a good one.

Benjamin Nochimson: You too. Bye bye.

Gareth Francis: Bye.

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