At 5 years old, Dr. Lamousé announced to her parents that she planned to be a doctor one day. A year later, she and her family were in a car accident and needed to recuperate in a hospital, so she took the opportunity to learn.
“I had to spend many days there, but it didn’t scare me,” she recalls. “As soon as I was able to get up and walk around, I was following a student physician, asking him questions and wanting to hold stethoscopes.”
As Dr. Lamousé grew older, her parents helped her broaden her horizons and pursue opportunities to gain the knowledge and discipline needed for a STEM career. “Most of the things that enticed me were in the scientific realm, particularly in biology: how things worked, why things functioned,” she says.
Rather than deciding to become either a physician or go into medical or scientific research, Dr. Lamousé chose both, eventually earning a medical degree and a doctorate in immunology.
We want to ensure we’re building a portfolio of therapeutics for unmet need in inflammatory bowel disease that will be transformational for patients and also for the physicians who take care of those patients.
In the eight years she’s been at the company, Johnson & Johnson has emerged as a leader in treatments for immune-mediated diseases. Recent successes on behalf of people with moderate to severe ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease—types of IBD—include regulatory submissions and approvals in countries around the world for use of a therapy to treat these conditions, as well as data presentations showing the potential of another investigational therapy being studied in UC.
Her objective for continuing to research effective therapies for IBD keeps both patient and provider needs in mind. “We want to ensure that we’re building out a portfolio of therapeutics for persistent, unmet need in inflammatory bowel disease that’s going to be transformational for patients, and also for the physicians who take care of those patients,” says Dr. Lamousé.
Here, Dr. Lamousé shares the inspiration behind her work, her appreciation for the team of researchers and scientists she leads and her advice to anyone thinking about a career in science or medicine.
Q:
Did a specific experience as a student steer you to the career you have today?
A:
I was particularly into biology, and before I graduated high school, I spent a summer in the lab of an immunologist. That further solidified not only my interest but my abilities to conduct scientific experiments. By the end of that summer, I was given quite a bit of independence in the lab beyond just following a tech around with pipettes.
Q:
Which skills or talents have helped you succeed in your field?
A:
I have a tendency to be quite observant by nature, and that level of outward-facing perspective is required, both in the sciences and in medicine.
To be a scientist, you have to be open to exploring different ideas and ways of looking at problems. You have to be dogged and determined and not put off by the failures, because there will be many. As a physician, one also has to maintain a natural inquisitiveness—consistently looking around and outside of you—because patterns and connection often inform how you care for patients.
Q:
How does your team get started developing a potential new therapy?
A:
The therapy starts as a concept. It’s based on evidence that a particular pathway or target, meaning a protein or a receptor, is relevant to a disease. Then it’s the job of the really smart chemists and other drug developers on our team to figure out, “Okay, you want us to target a specific cytokine? Well, how are we going to do that?”
We help put together a blueprint to answer: What does this molecule need to achieve? What’s going to make it different or better? What types of patients will you be hoping to treat? What do the endpoints need to achieve? What will the safety profile need to look like?
Q:
Do you frequently think about the patients who may ultimately benefit from your research?
A:
Yes, patients are the center of everything. You don’t begin to develop a therapeutic if you don’t understand the population for whom it will benefit. We always start with the patient as the central focus.
Q:
As a team leader, what is one of your proudest achievements?
A:
I try to acknowledge everyone’s efforts, whether it’s celebrating an achievement that’s been extremely positive or a decision made on something that was incredibly challenging. Everything that we do is meant to leave a collective stamp, even though we may not necessarily see all the fruits of our labor.
Q:
How do you spend your free time?
A:
I love jazz music. I happen to live in a neighborhood that has a lot of musicians and artists. Saturday evenings at the corner a block and a half away from where I live, there’s usually a couple of musicians, and you can just sit outside and listen.
Going to an art museum is also a favorite activity. I’ll go to the Whitney Museum and wander through an exhibit. Often I’m like, “I do not understand.” But you know what? I don’t have to understand. I just have to experience and try to see what the artist is trying to tell me. It’s the same as for jazz music.
Q:
Is there any advice you would give to young people who want to pursue a STEM career?
A:
Maintain curiosity, not just about science but literature and music. They all share patterns and connections. Be open to engaging with people across different disciplines. Lightbulb moments can occur anywhere.
And practice resilience. None of this is easy or straightforward, but every failure helps you learn what needs to change.
