Dialogues

May 10, 2024, 00:51

OncoDaily Walk and Talk with Marina Konopleva, hosted by Tatev Margaryan

OncoDaily Walk and Talk is a series of interviews done by Tatev Margaryan, a public health practitioner from Armenia, with various oncologists worldwide. These interviews differ in their presentation.

The name itself, “Walk and Talk,” talks for itself. The host and the guest take a nice walk while chatting about everything and anything. Interview questions are not typical for doctors, making these series quite interesting to watch.
“Walk and Talk” aims to show the world that even world-renowned medical professionals have simple and surprising sides to them. We strive to show that these people are not just great professionals but also humans, which they sometimes forget.

Marina Konopleva

Marina Konopleva is a Professor of Oncology and Molecular Pharmacology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she serves as the Director of the Leukemia Program and Co-Director of the Blood Cancer Institute. Her clinical expertise is in the treatment of patients with hematologic malignancies, specifically acute myeloid and acute lymphoblastic leukemia, as well as high-risk myelodysplastic syndrome and chronic myeloid leukemia.

Dr. Konopleva’s laboratory research focuses on activating cell death, metabolic inhibitors, and immune-oncology in AML. Her research has led to key contributions, including the identification of the dependence of AML cells on the anti-apoptotic protein BCL-2 and the FDA approval of the BCL-2 inhibitor venetoclax in combination with low-intensity chemotherapy for elderly patients unfit for standard chemotherapy.

Dr. Konopleva’s research has greatly benefited leukemia research, clinical research, and the lives of patients.

Tatev Margaryan

Tatev Margaryan is the coordinator of the Blood Bank of Armenia at the Yeolyan Hematology and Oncology Center. Currently, she is the project manager of OncoDaily and a patient advocate at the Institute of Cancer and Crisis.

Tatev has completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the Yerevan State University and a master’s degree in global public health from the Queen Mary University of London. She has previously worked as a psycho-oncologist at the National Center of Oncology of Armenia. She has also completed a program in the Management of Depression Disorders from Harvard Medical School.

Tatev is also an active young leader representing Armenia in many international communities, such as the Young European Ambassadors and the Global Shapers.

00:00 Introduction
01:05 What legacy you hope to left behind?
3:56 Favorite meal from different culture
5:20 Advice for young Prof.Konopleva
8:00 How Prof.Konopleva want to be remembered by the people?
10:03 Motivation source
11:32 Switch the profession
13:03 Fear that had been overcome

The Transcript of OncoDaily Walk and Talk with Tatev Margaryan and Marina Konopleva

Tatev Margaryan: Hello everyone and welcome back to Walk and Talk on OncoDaily. My name is Tatev Margaryan, and I am your host for today. And we have our guest here, Dr. Marina Konopleva. For today, Dr. Konopleva, can you introduce yourself?

Marina Konopleva: Hi, I’m Marina Konopleva. I’m a professor of medicine at Albert Einstein Montefiore Cancer Center in Bronx, New York. I used to work for a long time at MD Anderson Cancer Center, but I moved a couple of years ago. I’m a director of leukemia there, and I’m a physician-scientist. I have a lab, and I’m doing clinical trials.

Tatev Margaryan: Bravo! Dr. K, so we’re going to take a little walk, and I’m going to ask you a couple of interesting and deep questions. If you don’t mind?

Marina Konopleva: Sounds good. Let’s get started then.

Tatev Margaryan: So the first question, what legacy do you hope to leave behind? Starting with some serious, deep questions.

Marina Konopleva: I think because I’m a physician-scientist, so my dream was always to find out something in the lab that will help people, our patients, in clinic. And I was very fortunate to work with this drug that is now called the venetoclax. I don’t think it was really like my invention, or it was just luck that I had a chance to work with it. It was, in part, because of my mentor who gave me this project, his name is Michael Andreeff. I worked in his lab when I came to this country.

Our initial studies actually showed that the drug is quite effective, and then it went into the clinic, and now it’s used throughout the world. So, you know, I never expected that it will go that big, and, you know, I don’t take credit for that, but I feel very fortunate that this happened to me and that this actually helped some people, you know, to get better, to live normal lives. So, I feel like, you know, in some ways, like, I feel like this will be my legacy, probably.

I’m not sure I can come up with something as good anymore, but certainly like, we keep trying doing research and, you know, trying to find new therapies. So, I think if any of those will make it to clinic and will be successful, I think that will be, you know, that’s what I can wish for: success for the patients, really, for their well-being, for the health.

Tatev Margaryan: Yeah, I think you underestimate yourself a little bit. I do think you will get there.

Marina Konopleva: Thank you

Tatev Margaryan: And thank you for all the work that you’ve done in this field. Maybe I’m talking from the voices of your patients. So, thank you.

Marina Konopleva: No, I did get a very nice email recently. I don’t really know who sent me that email, but the person thanked me for his mother.

So, his mother was taking this treatment, and I really don’t know these people. I haven’t treated her, I never met them, but he sent me a long email thanking me for my research and what we have done. And that was really gratifying. So, sometimes when you hear things like that, you feel that you actually have done something meaningful in your life, you made a change for someone.

Tatev Margaryan: Yeah, that’s so nice. Okay, then let’s get moving. Can you describe a meal or a dish from a different culture than your own that has made a lasting impression on you?

Marina Konopleva: Well, today we had a very nice lunch, and we had an Ajarian khachapuri, which is essentially bread with egg and cheese. And, you know, I was born in the country of Georgia where this is like national food, but I haven’t been there for over 25 years. And this was kind of going back home in some ways, and I also enjoy the food.

Tatev Margaryan: That was really nice.

Marina Konopleva: Yeah, that was like the latest impactful dish that I had. And I’ll come back and tell my mom that I had a khachapuri. And I’m sure she will really be happy because she loves the country and she still has friends there, so she wants me to stay connected, which I have done. But I think that was like a nice little connection that we made today.

Tatev Margaryan: I’m glad I was a part of it.

Marina Konopleva: Thank you for making this happen.

Tatev Margaryan: I’m very welcome. Thank you for making this happen. I’m very, uh, I like that answer, to say the least.

Marina Konopleva: That’s perfect.

Tatev Margaryan: Okay. If you could meet your younger self, if you could give your younger self advice, what would you say? What would you give her?

Marina Konopleva: You mean to myself when I was younger?

Tatev Margaryan: Mm-hmm.

Marina Konopleva: Let me think about that. I think that’s a hard question. I think, and it kind of comes to the limitations and what I’m not as good at perhaps. I was always very shy and reserved and really not connecting to people. It took me a long time to understand how important that is.

And in fact, when I came to America, my mentor, who was my boss in the lab, he told me that I cannot just be in my own shell, I cannot just work in the lab 24 hours and think that I’m going to make it. Because you have to connect to people, you have to know people, you have to share, you have to learn from people.

And so, I learned that, fortunately. But I think if I knew that in the beginning, I would probably make more effort. Obviously, I’m very shy, so it would actually take effort to do that. So, it’s not so easy, natural, like for other people. But I think that’s one advice that I would have told myself: to get to early, to be more open, to be more social, to connect to people, and to really learn how to do that. I think it’s a skill. It’s again, for some people, like you, it’s natural thing.

Tatev Margaryan: Thank you.

Marina Konopleva: But for some people like me, it’s a skill that you have to learn and master and cultivate. And it does require effort because it kind of goes against what you want to do or what you don’t want to do. But it’s really important.

Tatev Margaryan: I think everything requires some learning.

Marina Konopleva: Yeah, but you have to understand that this is something that you really need to do because before, I was always thinking, “Oh, I’m going to study hard, I’ll work hard, you know, I don’t need people.” But it’s not. It’s really not. So, that was something that it took me a while to understand.

Tatev Margaryan: I’m really glad that you came to it at some point. Okay. So, we talked about Legacy and other stuff. How would you want to be remembered by the people?

Marina Konopleva: I think it’s hard. Legacies are more for people who really make huge impacts. But it doesn’t really have to be something. I think I want to be remembered as, you know, again, as a physician-scientist who tried to develop new therapies for patients with deadly diseases, and, you know, who was somewhat successful, let’s put it this way.

And, yeah, but, again, it’s a nice word that people use. I’m not sure I really feel that I deserve the legacy, you know, and that I don’t think I will be remembered for a long time. But that’s okay. I think, you know, I’m good about it.

Tatev Margaryan: I got that.

Marina Konopleva: But I think, you know, yeah, that’s kind of maybe not a great answer.

Tatev Margaryan: Okay, I got that. But I will have to repeat myself. Is that to underestimate yourself? Because I don’t think that way. But we all view ourselves quite differently, don’t we? Let’s stop it right there.

Marina Konopleva: Yeah. Okay. My mentor always told me that I underestimate myself.

Tatev Margaryan: But I’m not the only one, I’m sure.

Marina Konopleva: But he also said that this was always like a driver for me to move forward because I always don’t think that I’m where I should be. So, I always want to go to the next step. And that’s why, you know, I’m always driven to do more because I feel that I’m not good. So, what I’m doing is not good enough, have to do more, more, and more.

Tatev Margaryan: And to keep in the topic, I have a question that’s perfect for this topic. What motivates you?

Marina Konopleva: What motivates me? Well, as far as science, I just love science. So, I’m curious about it, I love the discovery of it, you know, novelty, like that you actually can do something totally different. But I think like really, like, motivation, you know, when I go to clinic and when I meet patients who are, you know, sometimes they’re so grateful for something you just do as part of your job, and they tell you all these nice things and they thank you for actually changing their lives. I feel that this is like the biggest motivation.

But you know, at the same time, like I know there are people that work just in the lab and they don’t have that kind of access to the patients, right? They’re still motivated. So, sometimes, like, I’m trying to share the stories and what these patients actually go through so that they can understand that this is not like just a job, you know, just like changing people’s lives, but you’re actually doing something meaningful. So, I think that’s my biggest motivation, probably, you know, patients who I treat.

Tatev Margaryan: That’s so deep, that’s beautiful.

Marina Konopleva: Thank you.

Tatev Margaryan: Okay, moving on. We talked about your profession and career, all in all, and I would like to ask you if you could switch professions overnight and be just as successful and just as good at it as you are right now for your current profession, what would you choose?

Marina Konopleva: I’m not sure I can be successful, but when I was young, I really liked literature and I liked writing. So again, I was not as talented in that, but you know, I could see myself as like writing books and kind of inventive that way. So, I think that’s probably what, you know, I would like to do.

Tatev Margaryan: What would you write about?

Marina Konopleva: I don’t know, I haven’t thought that much. No, it’s just like I actually like the process of like writing and like putting yourself like expressing yourselves with writing on the paper, you know, the beauty of the language and like how you like put the language together. So, I actually like the process. I haven’t really thought about the topics, but I’m sure I would come, I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t have any particular story to write about.

Tatev Margaryan: Let’s wait for a bestseller.

Marina Konopleva: Maybe in the future, someday.

Tatev Margaryan: Another question. So, you talked a little bit about your insecurities, right? About what you were afraid of, maybe somewhat when you were younger. And this question is, what’s one fear you have faced in your life and you’ve overcome it? How did you do it?

Marina Konopleva: You talked a little bit about that because I was really afraid to talk to people. I was afraid of people, and you know, that I actually had to like speak with somebody. And I don’t think like I fully overcome that 100% because I still have that like barrier sometimes. That, you know, for example, right coming to this meeting, I, you know, I know Dr. Tan for a long time, I know him really well, I know how welcoming he is, but I’m always a little bit stressed because I know I’m going to meet people whom I never met and that I have to connect to them.

So, I have to like get over that, but usually like these days, it just goes very quickly. So, like I can actually, I learned how to connect pretty quickly. But it’s still like, you know, not fully. I still have to work on that, anxious, right about, yeah, a little bit like anxiety. Like yesterday, I knew I was going to meet Dr. Sagheer. He’s also like world-famous, he’s like a famous researcher and clinician, and I met him at other meetings, but we never really talked. It was really a good opportunity for that. So, like, how I’m going to connect to him, right? Maybe he’s like, you know, like very, like think like a god about himself.

I didn’t really think that way, but I knew that I had to like make this happen. So, it was like a little bit like hesitation on my part, um, like some anxiety going in. And it just happens at any meeting I go to. Like, before I get there, I’m like anxious and a little stressed out.

Tatev Margaryan: How do you feel right now then?

Marina Konopleva: Right now, I feel perfectly relaxed and very happy.

Tatev Margaryan: I’m really good that we helped you in overcoming a little bit of your anxiety.

Marina Konopleva: Thank you.

Tatev Margaryan: Yeah, really, really glad that we came to do that. And I’m really, really thankful for you for agreeing to do this interview with me. I think it was fun.

Marina Konopleva: Yeah, it was really fun, yeah. Actually, thinking about yourself, that you don’t do that frequently, that’s really fun and sharing it with.

Tatev Margaryan: Try to do it one more time someday. But it’s it for today. Thank you, everyone, for watching. My name is Tatev Margaryan. I was your host for today, and this was Dr. Marina Konopleva, our guest. See you soon. Bye!