@article{62cce09ac8c24f92be45df623b866cbb,
title = "'The success of the mentee is the mentor's ultimate reward': An interview with Dr. Michael L. Steer",
abstract = "In this interview, Dr. Michael Steer shares his life experience in pancreatic research, discusses the importance of mentorship and gives advice to young investigators starting in this field. Dr. Michael Steer is a world-renown investigator who has made an extraordinary contribution to the understanding of pancreatic physiology. His achievements in the field of acute pancreatitis were the foundation for the characterization of the cellular basis for this disease.",
author = "Fernandez-Zapico, {Martin E.}",
note = "Funding Information: When I initially returned to Boston, I continued that line of research by focusing my laboratory{\textquoteright}s efforts on mechanisms responsible for adrenergic regulation of adenylate cyclase activity in human platelets and turkey erythrocytes. My clinical practice, however, was heavily weighted towards gastrointestinal and pancreatic surgery and my research efforts on adenylate cyclase seemed to have no relationship to my clinical work. I realized that I badly needed to simplify and consolidate. Recalling my earlier mentor{\textquoteright}s comment about pancreatitis, I decided to combine my research interests in biological chemistry with my clinical interests in pancreatic surgery by re-directing my laboratory effort towards studies dealing with the biochemical and enzymatic mechanisms that might be responsible for pancreatitis. As it happened, two new and non-invasive models of acute pancreatitis had just been described – the diet model and the caerulein model. They seemed to offer significant advantages over the widely used but poorly controlled duct injection models and, in a grant application submitted to the NIH, I proposed studies using those non-invasive models to examine the cell biological events that occur during the earliest stages of pancreatitis. Fortunately, for me, the grant was funded and, as they say, {\textquoteleft}all the rest is history.{\textquoteright} Ironically, in the end I combined a career spent in pancreatitis research and a clinical specialty in pancreatic surgery with a personal experience with pancreatic disease. Copyright: Copyright 2017 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.",
year = "2007",
month = mar,
doi = "10.1159/000096123",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "6",
pages = "507--509",
journal = "Pancreatology",
issn = "1424-3903",
publisher = "S. Karger AG",
number = "6",
}