Neuro-oncologist Dr. Adrienne Boire discusses her path to becoming a cancer researcher, and on the parallel between science and another passion — knitting.
Adrienne Boire, MD, PhD, has been a knitter almost her entire life.
In the famously frigid plains of Minnesota, where Dr. Boire grew up, knitting is taught as part of regular elementary education. It’s a way to make math fun for kids, teach concentration skills, and let them do a little experimenting.
“We all made felted mittens as our first project. We knitted them with this big, bulky yarn and these giant needles that are about the size of a Sharpie so that little hands can hold them,” Dr. Boire says. “When you’re finished, you put the mittens in hot water, and you scrub them until they get smaller and smaller. That felting process makes the mittens a little more wind-proof and warmer — and it helps hide the mistakes you make when you’re learning.”
Today, knitting is one of the primary ways Dr. Boire decompresses, resets, and clears her mind for discovery. She is the Scientific Director of the Alan and Sandra Gerry Metastasis and Tumor Ecosystems Center at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK); an Associate Attending physician in the Department of Neurology; a mentor in MSK’s Summer Clinical Oncology Research Experience Program and Human Oncology & Pathogenesis Program Summer Student Program; and an Associate Professor of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College.
“There’s something about keeping your hands busy that really helps quiet your brain,” she says. “It’s a nice way to make space to mull things over.”
The Mathematics of Knitting
Dr. Boire has knit hundreds of pieces throughout her life, with her repertoire literally ranging from head to toe. More complex items tend to be her favorites. One of the things that appeals to her most about them is the mathematics behind their creation — what needs to be done to transform a straight line into a 3D object.
“It’s a basic kind of math you use in knitting, but it can get really beautiful and complicated depending on how far you want to take it,” she says. “Many mathematicians and scientists knit for this reason, I think. We have a funny little universe of knitters who take it to a more mathematical place.”
Dr. Boire rarely uses set patterns. She prefers to make up her own “knitting algorithms” as she goes along. As in science, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
“Usually, I have a plan I want to follow using a set of rules, and I just iterate that pattern again and again, and I see where it takes me,” she says. “I have many strangely shaped shawls as a result, but I like the more experimental approach.”
Fundamentally, she says, she enjoys making things. Especially given that so much of her research involves pulling things apart to see how they work.
“A lot of biochemistry is taking a system that you’re researching and either watching it fall apart or destroying it to figure out how it’s put together. When you’re knitting, you’re building something. You’re doing the putting together,” she notes.
Finding a New Passion
Dr. Boire first became interested in cancer research when she was studying blood clotting and the cascade of protein interactions necessary to form a clot as a graduate student at Tufts University. She wrote a paper on the relationship between the expression of the thrombin receptor on the surface of platelets and cells becoming more invasive.
“I was looking at why this particular receptor might be important for metastasis and invasion and migration. I wound up finding that it was activated by matrix metalloproteinases, which are a type of molecular scissors that can cut through the network of proteins that surrounds and supports cells, and which are important in cancer cell invasion and migration,” she says.
Dr. Boire and her principal investigator (PI) wrote a paper on the discovery, and they were discussing how they might go about furthering their study if they had unlimited resources.
“My PI asked me what I would do if I had no limits, all the time in the world, and was really brave,” she says. “We came up with this plan for a big, bold study, but we agreed no one would ever actually do it — it was totally insane.”
Not long after, at a conference where she was sharing some of her research, she sat in on a presentation by Joan Massagué, PhD, Director of the Sloan Kettering Institute and MSK’s Chief Scientific Officer.
“I heard Joan present what is now a very famous paper on exactly what I had discussed with my PI. He was doing what we had thought we couldn’t possibly do because it was too big and too bold and just not feasible,” she says. “I really loved hearing him speak. I thought, I want to do that. I want to study cancer. I want to confront big problems that are really complicated in a bold and exciting way.”
She was so inspired by Dr. Massagué’s approach to research that she came to work with him at MSK. Today, Dr. Boire is a physician-scientist who treats patients with brain tumors and neurological complications as she leads research on leptomeningeal and parenchymal metastases to the central nervous system (CNS).
Metastases to the CNS are 10 times more common than primary brain tumors, but they are far less widely researched. Dr. Boire’s lab uses a variety of complementary strategies to dissect interactions between cancer cells and their local environment. The goal of her research program is to create a roadmap of vulnerabilities that may be useful in treatment by breaking everything down, piece by piece.
“It’s like knitting,” she says. “A lot of little stitches make the whole.”
Three examples of Dr. Adrienne Boire’s knitting. Images courtesy of Dr. Boire.
The Connective Yarn
Dr. Boire notes that knitting appeared independently in civilizations around the world at about the same time. But the way that different cultures developed their techniques varies widely. For example, some habitually hold their yarn in the right hand while others default to the left. These culturally specific methods are passed on as new knitters learn from their mentors, just as in science.
“You can learn to knit by yourself by reading a book, I suppose — but almost everyone learns to knit from someone else, elbow to elbow, side by side,” she says. “That’s also how we teach science. You learn techniques from your teachers and mentors, and you carry them with you.
“I love that I can read papers from others who trained with Joan Massagué, for example, and I can see the same thread running through all of our papers,” she continues. “It’s almost like we’re holding our yarn in the same hand.”