Dr. Valder Arruda began his career in Sao Paulo, Brazil as a clinician specializing in hematology and hemotherapy. His first job was to organize a hemophilia treatment center at the University of Campinas to attract and treat a greater number of patients. After almost a decade of clinical training, he received his Ph.D. in molecular biology studying the molecular basis of factor VIII deficiencies, which are responsible for 80% of hemophilia A cases. At the time, sequencing evidence had identified a number of novel factor VIII mutations in hemophilic patients. Dr. Arruda came to the realization that if you wanted to cure a factor VIII deficiency molecularly, you would need to replace the gene. While at a hemophilia conference, he noticed a section on gene therapy and says, “I became very attracted to the idea. I thought it was something that I’d like to learn a little bit more about. That’s when I came to work in Dr. Kathy High’s lab as a postdoc.”
What was originally supposed to be two years in the United States turned into an invitation to join the Penn faculty. “I struggled with the decision to stay at Penn or return to Brazil, but came to the conclusion that as a clinician performing research in gene therapy, there are very few times you see things migrate from the bench into humans. It spoke very highly about the institution for me, and if it wasn’t for that I wouldn’t have stayed.”
Dr. Arruda recently succeeded Dr. Dave Weiner as the Program Chair for GTV. He had been involved in the program for many years when he was asked to be Vice Chair in 2015. This gave him time to observe an admission season before becoming nominated and elected to the Chair position in 2016. His responsibilities include organizing GTV faculty committees to oversee the program’s activities, such as the student seminar series and the invited speaker seminar series, and managing the required student courses. He and his support team try to make these classes accessible to faculty that want to teach and provide feedback to the directors of the course. In his own words, “I facilitate conversations with people. This way everybody contributes a bit to who they think should be invited to speak or how to reorganize some of the aspects students don’t seem to like about a course. It’s a very dynamic thing.”
When asked what his best advice is for students progressing through the program, he exclaims without hesitation, “Abuse all the resources Penn has! Take advantage of them! In a small geographic area there are a lot of opportunities within your reach. The nature of Penn is to collaborate.” His hope for this year is greater attendance at the GTV student and invited speaker seminar series. “These talks are intended to open your mind a bit, even if the research being discussed isn’t applicable to your own. As you progress in your career, you find yourself having to learn about many different areas. Even a basic understanding of a subject can aid you in conversing with someone that is an expert so you can better understand what it is you want to accomplish and how you want to do it.”