Janos Nadas, PhD

On October 26th, the Shattuck-St. Mary’s BioScience students had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Janos Nadas as their guest for “Dinner with a Doc.”  Dr. Nadas is a post-doctoral student currently conducting research at the Hormel Cancer Institute in Austin, MN.  Not only did he give our students details about his job and his research, but he also chatted frankly about life as a research scientist – especially from the viewpoint of someone who is at the very beginning of his career.

Several days after the BioScience students met with Dr. Nadas, they visited the Hormel Cancer Institute with Dr. Nadas as their guide (see “Field Trips” for more information).

Here are some of the BioScience students’ comments about their dinner with Dr. Nadas:

“[Dr.] Nadas was a wonderful guest! I really liked that he wasn’t afraid to talk and share his experiences and thoughts. He also had witty stories that really drove home his love for his job. He was very inclined to answer our questions and engage in conversation with us about whatever we felt like asking. While his profession was sort of over my head, I hope that one day I find a profession that makes me as happy as Janos’s makes him.”

“Dr. Nadas was awesome! [He] did not seem like a person who would sit down and [do] research … all day long. However … he says researching is not actually [a] lonely or isolating job but researchers talk more often than most people would think. Dr.Nadas seemed like a person who was very enthusiastic about what he was working on! The cancer [research] he had been working on also sounded intriguing and meaningful. I wished more people like Dr.Nadas, very ardent and zealous, would work on the cancer treatment …”

“Dr. Nadas had a … relatable attitude toward medicine… [he] explained more about what he actually did at his job than what his job was about. He explained the benefits of beginning research in the first year of college and about the complexities of his field.”