January Fellow's Spotlight on Dr. Abigael Cheruiyot

Our first Fellows Spotlight of 2025 goes to Keystone Symposia Fellow Dr. Abigael Cheruiyot! Dr. Cheruiyot is a post-doctoral fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School (HMS) In the lab of Dr. Jean Schaffer, she studies molecular mechanisms underlying protein synthesis in pancreatic beta cells, and alterations of such mechanisms in diabetes.  

Dr. Cheruiyot was born and raised in Kenya, and came to the United States to pursue higher education. After receiving her bachelor’s degree at Colby College in Maine, she went to Washington University in Saint Louis where she was an HHMI international student fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Zhongsheng You. Studying RNA surveillance mechanisms, they identified nonsense mediated decay as a potential target for novel cancer therapies.

She is very passionate about both science and promoting equity within the research community. Dr. Cheruiyot was chair of HBPA  HMS Black Postdoc Association (HBPA) from 2022-2024, chaired the HBPA annual symposium organizing committee in 2021 and 2022. In addition, she is a part of the  HHMI Leading Edge Symposium community, to promote gender equity in the sciences.

Find out more about Dr. Cheruiyot's research, trajectory and experience as a KS Fellow below! 

Abigael Cheruiyot, PhD

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Joslin Diabetes Center/Harvard Medical School

Briefly describe your research, why it is important, and what motivates you to pursue this area?

Diabetes develops when there is insufficient regulation of blood glucose, either due to insulin resistance, or inadequate insulin production. I am interested in understanding how pancreatic beta cells are optimized to produce insulin to regulate blood glucose, and what mechanisms fail to contribute to their dysfunction or cell death, leading to diabetes pathogenesis. Pancreatic beta cells heavily rely on the process of mRNA translation- converting mRNA to proteins- to produce large amounts of insulin. My current and future studies focus on mechanisms during mRNA translation that are altered and contribute to beta-cell failure or autoimmunity during development of diabetes.

What pivotal moment sticks with you from your experience as a Keystone Symposia Fellow? How it impacted you?

I found the Keystone Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) meetings to be so welcoming. I remember meeting some faculty I have only heard about/read their papers and how welcoming they were to us Fellows to contribute to discussion during the SAB. I was very impressed that they valued our opinions. It was also very enriching to get perspectives of both professionals in the academic spaces and in industry/biotech, which is often difficult to get even in big conferences.

Getting to know other Keystone Fellows also demonstrated to me different ways of achieving success, which is inspiring as I enter the academic job search.

How has being a Keystone Symposia Fellow helped shape your career?

I was paired with a career development and scientific mentor that I needed in this particular stage of my career. I am on the faculty job market and I have received a lot of valuable advice in this area, including an invitation for a seminar! My mentor has instilled tremendous confidence in my ability to secure a faculty job of my choice.

What are your thoughts on the importance of mentorship? How has your Keystone mentor influenced you and your career? How do you act as a mentor for your community?

I am very grateful to my mentor and her generosity of time, advice, and ongoing support. I am also mentoring other students to share my experience, and I am a peer mentor to postdocs, especially at the Harvard Black Postdoc Association and the Leading Edge Community. The goal of the Harvard Medical School Black Postdoc Association (HBPA) is to promote connection and belonging across the Black scientific community, while improving their career development and outreach efforts. The Leading Edge Fellows is a community of women and non-binary scientists, founded by Dr. Kara McKinley, that supports career development of postdocs through peer mentorship. They have both been instrumental in my career development as a postdoc.

What is the most valuable thing you've learned from Fellow’s Fridays?

Getting to hear different perspectives from people in different areas is very eye-opening. It is also great to see other Fellows succeeding in what they do.

Website:

https://www.schafferlab.org/the-team

Find out more about:

Keystone Symposia Diversity in Life Sciences Program

Keystone Symposia Health Equity Initiatives

Keystone Symposia Fellows Program