ASTCT Women’s History Month Spotlight: Sung-Yun Pai, MD

In celebration of Women’s History Month, ASTCT is proud to highlight the inspiring journeys of women making a profound impact in transplantation and cellular therapy. This spotlight features Dr. Sung-Yun Pai, Senior Investigator and Medical Director of the NIH Transplant and Cell Therapy Clinical Program at the National Cancer Institute.

From an unexpected introduction to transplant immunology to spearheading groundbreaking research in SCID, Dr. Pai’s career reflects resilience, leadership and an unwavering commitment to advancing the field. In this Q&A, she shares her journey, inspirations and the lessons she’s learned along the way.
 

1. What inspired you to enter the transplantation and cellular therapy field?

I entered the transplant and cellular therapy (TCT) field kind of by chance. As a medical student, my then-fiancé was doing his PhD thesis with Dr. Barbara Bierer, an adult hematologist-oncologist and stem cell transplant physician-scientist. Noting that I needed to take a year off so that he and I would graduate medical school together, she said, “Why don’t you work in my lab?”

 I have no idea why she thought I would be any good, since I was an East Asian languages and civilizations major in college and had basically zero lab experience. I decided to take her up on it and spent a fantastic year in her lab learning cellular immunology, doing calcineurin phosphatase assays and showing that calcineurin was inhibited in patients who were treated with cyclosporine A on the transplant ward at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In the end, I left the lab having gained a love of transplant and transplant immunology — while shedding the fiancé (another really good decision). Barbara was the perfect role model, and I followed in her footsteps.

2. How do you inspire others?

I try to inspire by emulating those who inspired me. I believe in “leading from among,” meaning that I directly experience what others are experiencing in the clinic and the lab. At the same time, I believe “the buck stops with me,” meaning I make the hard decisions when they need to be made.

I freely share my knowledge, but more importantly my enthusiasm — I will nerd out about busulfan pharmacokinetics and immune reconstitution and mixed chimerism any chance I get. I strongly believe that people at every stage of training and from every discipline have contributions to make. I remember how much it fueled my confidence as a student, fellow or junior attending to be acknowledged, so I strive to do the same.

Finally, I work to build trust by separating my personal relationships from the medicine, science, data or analysis at hand. This means publicly acknowledging every time someone I don’t personally like is right about something and also every time I don’t agree with my friend or close colleague. With trust, we can do so much more together than we would as individuals.

3. What does it mean to be a woman in this field?

I am acutely aware that I, as a woman in medicine, in science and in this field, have benefited greatly from the experiences of women from a time when there were fewer of us pursuing this kind of career.

My personal challenges relate not only to being a woman, but being a short Korean American woman raised in the Northeast in the ‘70s and ‘80s. I have learned to assert myself to move beyond the frequent first impressions people have of me, disabusing some people quickly of the notion that I am quiet, a hard worker but not creative, not confident in the English language or that my efforts are drained by family obligations. I also strive to overcome my own biases toward others and to be a role model for both women and men.

4. Who are your heroes in real life?

My mother is my biggest hero and support. She graduated medical school in 1964 in Seoul Korea — one of only six women in her medical school class — then moved halfway across the world to do residency in the United States. She began in radiology, then had to change fields due to unexplained pancytopenia, ultimately completing pediatrics residency at Long Island Jewish Hospital and marrying my father, her medical school classmate.

After being a full-time housewife and mother for more than 20 years, she changed fields and convinced the director of the psychiatry residency at the University of Connecticut to accept her. At age 52, she was taking overnight call as a psychiatry resident while I was taking call in Boston as a third-year medical student. She then passed the psychiatry written and oral boards and practiced at Capitol Region Mental Health Center in Hartford, Connecticut, until she retired at age 79 in 2018.

Whenever I have doubted myself or felt alone or isolated, I remember that my mother left her whole family and did not one residency but two, in her second language. That gives me the courage and confidence to do whatever I set my mind to.

5. What is your greatest achievement?

I would say my greatest achievement was establishing myself in the field of transplant for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID). The field was hard to break into and dominated by one or two institutions, with no multi-institutional or prospective studies. Each institution had their way of transplanting SCID patients and each was sure only their way — either without conditioning or with full conditioning — was right.

I was fortunate to be invited to participate in the Primary Immunodeficiency Treatment Consortium (PIDTC), a U54-funded effort founded in 2009, and together with the Pediatric Transplant and Cell Therapy Consortium (PTCTC), I designed and launched a randomized study of different busulfan-based conditioning regimens for SCID, convincing 50 institutions to open the trial.

I am especially proud of having applied for the funding for this trial while single parenting two children, as my husband was deployed with the Army in Afghanistan. This simply would not have been possible without the support of the PIDTC, PTCTC and my personal village. We anticipate completing enrollment in 2027.

6. What advice would you give your younger self?

I would tell my high school self to be grateful for the all-girls education at Miss Porter’s School, which gave me a foundation and confidence in expressing myself that I doubt I would have gained in a co-ed environment.

Learn to be the best communicator in all modes — conversation, email, manuscripts, presentations. I don’t think I realized that how well you communicate your ideas is even more important than the ideas themselves. Acknowledging your strengths is not arrogant and being overly self-critical inhibits you from achieving your maximal potential.

And finally, be grateful for the privilege of finding a field you love, so that work doesn’t feel like work.