To teach and inspire the students in his lab, Sameek Roychowdhury, MD, PhD, utilizes the words and wisdom of legendary basketball coach John Wooden, as well as a lesson learned from Star Trek. “My goal is to help each individual in my lab be the best they can be,” he said. This episode features Roychowdhury and two of the promising graduate students in his lab: Emily Hoskins and Raven Vella. “I remember my first meeting in Sameek’s lab and him sharing the John Wooden quote,” said Hoskins, an OSU PhD student in biomedical sciences. The quote – and video – were about how to “take satisfaction from doing your very best and don’t compare yourself with others,” she said, adding she’d never heard of Wooden, but has taken this message to heart. Vella – who is working on a combined PhD and MD program - compared working in the Roychowdhury lab to The Goonies movie. “I like the idea that we all have different backgrounds, but we all mesh together to solve problems,” she said, adding she compares herself to the Chunk and Data characters. The three also discuss where new ideas and innovation comes from, overcoming adversity and ideas that don’t quite work, how to create lots of little ah-ha moments of discovery, and the importance of teamwork in a cancer lab. “It’s learning how to keep an open mind and not be influenced by tradition and entrenchment,” Roychowdhury said. “It’s cultivating new ways of thinking and aligning them together with a common goal.”