By Mikaela STONE

At-risk babies will soon have a better chance of survival thanks to Crescenta Valley High School and UCLA graduate Grace McAuley and the Kohn Lab at UCLA.

Babies affected with a mutation that causes SCID, or Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, cannot produce T cells – one of the immune system’s first defenses against infection. Most babies with SCID do not live past the age of 2.

By her senior year of UCLA, McAuley was no stranger to difficult roads to recovery. She pushed through her father’s frequent hospitalizations during her childhood and as an adult suffered stress fractures in two femurs.

While she had never met Dr. Donald Kohn, a pediatric bone marrow transplant doctor at UCLA best known for developing gene therapies, after getting her hands on one of his many articles, while at UCLA McAuley knew she needed to work with him. She cold emailed the doctor and asked to join his lab.

Someone who did not know McAuley might consider her a poor addition to a research team – she had never worked in a lab before and appeared inundated with obligations to the UCLA track and field team, her classes and multiple clubs.

Kohn decided McAuley had already spread herself too thin.

Unphased, McAuley laid out her schedule for him, asserting that track season was over and the conditioning expected of a college-level athlete would not get in the way of her studies.

Not only did her track and field dedication not interfere with her lab work, but McAuley’s endurance, coachability and ability to be a team player helped her learn quickly, balancing experimental ratios of asking for help versus independent study to keep pace with those with more lab experience. She treated experiments like a race.

“I would run through it in my head before I would actually do it,” she said. “I would run through it the night before and I would run through it the morning of.”

She would then reflect on the lessons learned and apply them.

Even after McAuley graduated, the Kohn Lab kept her on the team.

In Dr. Kohn McAuley found the coach she needed.

“[Kohn] has set the example for what I look for in a mentor,” she said.

He knew when to push McAuley to be her best self and soon became a father figure to her.

McAuley remembers “pulling [Kohn’s] sleeve” to try base gene editing, fascinated with the idea of removing stem cells, correcting broken DNA sequences, and reinserting them into the body to fix mutations – a then new approach the Kohn Lab had never tried before.

McAuley received her chance when Dr. Nicola Wright of the Alberta Children’s Hospital Research Unit approached Kohn about SCID patients.

In what McAuley calls “a brilliant example of team science,” she worked with her lab and Dr. Gloria Yiu, a member of UCLA’s Crooks Lab, which specialized in artificial organoids inside the thymus, a gland that makes and trains T cells – the very cells that SCID patients need jumpstarted. By correcting stem cells through base editing and reinserting them into the thymus, patients grow up with the elements necessary to fight diseases. With success in clinical trials, this approach will replace the far riskier bone marrow transplant as a cure for SCID.

“The goal was so clear from the get go for me,” McAuley said. “I wanted to get a safe and effective therapy to patients as fast as possible … [that] prevailed when things were rough.”

In addition to her busy lab schedule, she also found time to mentor undergraduates, who she continues to keep in touch with to this day.

“I felt like I was mentored so well it was my duty to pass it on,” she said.

This mentorship did not begin in college; McAuley also had great teachers during her time at Crescenta Valley High School. As a part of the Academy of Science and Medicine, McAuley was inspired by instructor Orenda Tuason’s knowledge. During track and field, Coach Mark Evans became a key mentor as well, as the exuberant Evans taught the endurance necessary for long distance running – and life. She still meets up with Evans when she returns to La Crescenta and looks forward to the next time she sees him. Similarly, she remains close friends with Dr. Kohn and Dr. Yiu.

As she continues down the track of life McAuley looks to her next hurdles: She is currently training for a marathon while she continues her third year at the MDPHD program at UC San Diego. She has already practiced a student medical rotation as an OBGYN as part of her MD. While she pursues many interests across the medical field, she hopes to follow Dr. Kohn’s footsteps toward becoming the head of a lab of her own.

Her advice for young people looking to persevere in their own fields is not to be afraid of emailing people they look up to, even if they are world famous and “scary.” Showing passion and excitement for what one loves will attract the right mentors, many of whom had mentors of their own when they were new to their field. Many potential mentors will want to pay the inspiration they received forward to the next generation.

Do not be afraid to take a risk!