Tracing Martine Roussel’s independent streak from Africa to the National Academy of Sciences

Martine Roussel, PhD, has blazed an independent streak across three continents. Before she isolated new oncogenes as a graduate student in France and before her discoveries related to pediatric brain tumors at St. Jude, the teenaged future scientist enjoyed hiking in the Central African jungle—preferably alone.

Preparing new scientists for new challenges

The people who were probably the least surprised by Roussel's election to the NAS are the many postdoctoral fellows and graduate students who participated in Roussel's ongoing explorations in the Roussel-Sherr Lab. Under her guidance and example, Roussel's trainees have developed the skills and confidence to make their own translational discoveries.

This emphasis on mentorship was part of Roussel's plan.

Her graduate school mentor withheld career support when Roussel decided to pursue a postdoc fellowship in the United States rather than in his laboratory in France. As a University of Lille PhD student, in a first-author 1979 Nature paper, Roussel had identified and named three new avian retroviral oncogenes (genes that can transform a cell into a tumor cell).

"I thought it was unfair," Roussel said. "Because of this experience, I do the complete opposite and help as many junior investigators and postdoctoral fellows as I can. When people leave my laboratory, they can usually take whatever they want. We discuss what they are planning to do, and we try not to compete with each other."

In 2017, Roussel was named St. Jude Faculty Mentor of the Year. The recognition reflected her postdoctoral fellows' accounts of her emphasis on life-work balance and understanding how researchers can follow diverse post-postdoc career paths. She mentors each postdoc so they are more competitive when they reach their destination, whether that is in academia, industry or government.

Un personnage dual

Roussel lives and works in Memphis, which was once part of the French Empire. France gave up its North American territories long ago, but keeps track of notable French expatriates. In 2011, when Roussel was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the French consulate in Atlanta published an interview with her and attributed her success to her contrasting strengths:

"Martine Roussel has a dual personality, peaceful and energetic, scientific with an artist's touch, French and American. This duality unites and comes to life in Martine Roussel to form a happy woman of character, committed to fighting against cancer, for children and for science."