A life in the day: the great outdoors
Dr Chi-Wang Ma is a Croucher fellow who is carrying out his research on microbial infection at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Croucher News spoke to him recently to find out more about his life there.
When he is able, Chi Wang Ma likes to cycle to his lab at MIT. When the weather’s not right for that, there’s always Cambridge’s venerable metro system, the MBTA.
“I'm living off campus, but the place I live is one station away from MIT. The house I live in is a classic red-brick 150-year-old building that blends well into the historic look of Cambridge. The metro system, though it doesn’t have all the modern features of Hong Kong’s MTR, is still a convenient alternative to driving. And the city is great for cycling; it has bikes you can pick up and drop off for an annual monthly fee and plenty of dedicated cycle lanes in the city. Cambridge is basically low-rise, so it looks very different from Hong Kong.”
Ma’s destination on his brief commute is the lab. Two labs, in fact. One is for chemistry, and the other is for biology, both in the same building. “To perform synthesis, which is basically like creating tools—think of making a wrench—I go to the lab on the fourth floor. On the fifth floor is the biology lab, where, to continue my analogy, I test the wrenches I create in the chemistry lab.”
Actually, there’s a third lab a few blocks away, which Ma needs to use when he works with pathogenic bacteria like the one he is working on, Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). “It’s a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) lab, and to go in there, I need to dress up a bit like a spaceman, wearing personal protective equipment,” he said. “It’s where the more dangerous bacteria are kept for research, and you have to treat them very carefully.”
Ma generally finds the atmosphere at MIT pretty relaxed, and he was pleased to find that many of the researchers were keen on sports and outdoor activities.
“For example, the whole chemistry building has a volleyball tournament in the summer. Each lab will form a team, and we will play two or three times a week. I remember a few months after I joined the lab, there was a biking camp. Many of us, about a third of the whole lab, went on the road for three days and two nights, and we camped on our way to the famous landscapes of Cape Cod. And in the winter, the whole lab also goes ice skating outdoors.”
It’s not just about the sport, though. “I can feel that the networking and the interaction between people are very strong here. There are different events, such as seminars, and they encourage people to communicate a lot. And every Friday, we have a relaxed kind of research seminar. The organiser, usually a research student, will bring in doughnuts and coffee, so people will just sit and eat and chat about their research,” Ma told us.
“And once a month, there’s a joint group meeting. Beer and pizza are provided; food is also at the core of these events. It always draws people in, and we just chat about our research. That's how many ideas are initiated and collaborations start.”
Ma finds this kind of networking a strength of the system here. “People seem very good at it. It’s the kind of soft skill I find I have to work at. I think the hardest part is not the chemistry, not the science, but the skills for collaboration and networking, which are the most difficult parts for me.”
He enjoys life in the US and has visited stunning sites like Antelope Canyon in Arizona. But he misses Hong Kong, the people, and the food. “In Hong Kong, you can arrange to meet people for dinner after work very easily since the place is so compact. But here everything is spread out, and friends could live in different cities or states, so you might not meet them very often,” Ma told us.
Ma started his journey in science as a chemist at University of Hong Kong (HKU). His subsequent move towards biomedicine and diagnostics came from a general desire to “improve the quality of people’s lives." And his interest in Mtb was aroused by the case of a fellow researcher who caught the disease but wasn’t able to get a diagnosis for some time. The treatment for it was a six-month course of antibiotics, far longer than for most conditions and beyond the reach of many people in the world. “Mtb replicates very slowly compared with other bacteria,” he explained, “which makes it very difficult to pick up at first.”
Mtb is still a major killer and was responsible for 1.3 million deaths in 2022, the second leading infectious killer after COVID-19. “So there’s the chance to make a big impact if we can find better ways to detect and stop it,” he said. “The reason it’s so tricky to deal with is also because it can live and replicate within white blood cells, which are the cells that normally help eradicate harmful bacteria from our bodies. How it does this is not yet clear, and in my research, I’m looking into this at the basic chemical level.”
The fellowship from Croucher has been crucial in giving Ma not only the chance to focus on this vital area of work but also to follow where his insights and instincts take him. “The generosity of Croucher in giving the funding fits with my philosophy of life, which leads me to dedicate myself to the common good and relieve people’s suffering through better treatment one day.”