Dhayana Dallmeier is the Director of the Research Unit on Aging at the AGAPLESION Bethesda Clinic in Ulm and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health. Originally from Venezuela, she graduated from medical school at the Ruprecht-Karls University in Heidelberg, Germany. She trained in Internal Medicine at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia and was an academic fellow in General Internal Medicine at Boston University Medical Center in the USA. She holds a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the Boston University School of Public Health and is also a fellow of the European Academy of Medicine of Ageing (EAMA).

Her main research interest lies in the epidemiology of aging, with a focus on getting a better understanding of how to address and consider the heterogeneity of older adults in different research questions like the determination of biomarkers reference values for the elderly population as well as the treatment of medical conditions such as arterial hypertension. Relevant research questions also include the role of diverse biomarkers such as high sensitive Troponins, Brain Natriuretic Peptides, GDF-15, and Cystatin C, as risk predictors for cardiovascular events, aging-related comorbidities like falls, fractures, and cognitive dysfunction, as well as for frailty and mortality, and the possible presence of effect modifiers for these associations. In addition, she is actively involved in evaluating strategies to prevent sedentary behavior and the onset of delirium in older adults in the settings of clinical trials. Additionally, she has been cooperating with the City Ulm, to gain insight into the topic of digitalization in thegeriatric population. She is one of the principal investigators in the German Collaborative Research Center 1506 “Aging at Interfaces”. As part of this consortium, she focuses on the concepts of biological age and frailty, and how to contrast it. The project is designed to develop a suitable model for determining biological age, integrate in a unique way data that encompass blood-based biomarkers, relevant clinical and functional parameters, and epigenetic clocks – age-related epigenetic changes – based on the analysis of DNA methylation profiles. The work exploits human blood and tissue samples, including those from the ActiFE-Ulm study platform – a comprehensive cohort of around 1500 older adults. She is a member of the Society of Epidemiologic Research, the German Society of Epidemiology, the German Society of Internal Medicine, and the German and European Geriatrics Society.

Keywords: internal medicine, epidemiology, translational medicine, translational research, biomarkers. 

Ulm – September 29th, 2023

How did you (decide to) become a scientist?

I’m originally from Venezuela. I came to Germany with a scholarship to study medicine at the Ruprecht- Karls University of Heidelberg when I was eighteen. My love for science started when I was living in Venezuela. When I was a child, I was strong influenced by my parents, who taught me to observe what is going on by taking different perspectives. In these, the common word was curiosity – you are always observing and trying to understand what happens and to explain it. When I was in Venezuela it was funny because I was attending a private school just for girls, and it was one of the teachers, a nun, who supported me to participate in the Mathematics Olympics in Venezuela, so I thought “Why not?”. I participated, and I actually won the national Olympics in Mathematics and also the Chemistry Olympics.

This marked a turning point in my life because I was able to broaden my horizons and connect with people outside the school. I got in touch with several University professors during the Olympics, and it was in a very enriching environment. I was in 9th grade and I can clearly remember being the only woman among the winners of the mathematics competition. They called all the winners from the 9th and 11th grades and when I entered the room I saw all these boys sitting there. I remember the boy sitting next to me asking “Who is your brother here? With whom are you coming?” and I said, “I’m coming myself”. I realized for the first time that being among them was not easy. It was the beginning of a nice journey. I love numbers, and I have always loved science. I have always been fond of Medicine. My passion began at a very early age, and my dream was to study medicine and go from there into research. It was a great opportunity for me to receive this scholarship and come to study in Germany.

What is your drive and excitement in science and in doing what you do now? I completed medical school in Germany, and I began my residency in Cardiovascular Surgery. Initially, I worked in experimental research, but I soon realized that while surgery is fascinating and amazing because it allowed me to help people in acute emergencies, I was missing the whole picture. We performed surgeries, patients survived, and we discharged them, but we didn’t know what happened to them afterward. For my colleagues it was ok, they felt like heroes, but I found it somehow frustrating. That’s when I decided that perhaps I wanted to change to Internal Medicine.

I also realized that for me it’s very important to have a well-structured program when I’m learning something. I believe that if you want to be good, doing by yourself is not enough. To be able to do it by myself, I need first a solid basis and structure. Therefore, I decided to pursue my training in Internal Medicine in the USA, because I was missing the structure in the German system. In Germany, the residency (postgraduate training) is not so well-structured and varies depending on the hospital you’re in. So, I applied to programs in the USA, successfully passed the American exams, and relocated to the USA, where I completed a three-year residency in Internal Medicine in Philadelphia. Being a medical training, in the USA the focus is on clinical practice rather than research.

Afterward, I explored the possibilities for further specialization, and I discovered these fantastic pograms, known as Academic fellowship, and I went for the Academic fellowship in Internal Medicine. It means that you get trained to be a faculty member, to be a clinician, to do teaching, and to do research. So, I applied for this three-year post-degree program. It’s funny because when I started the master’s in Epidemiology as a requirement of the fellowship, I realized that it was exactly what I loved. In Epidemiology, I could combine all my different backgrounds and skills in mathematics and medical knowledge in a beautiful way. I had three mentors, and they were all females. This was so important for me because my educational pathway had not been so linear compared to other people. I was already thirty-four and I had a baby. At this stage, when you are in science, you might think, “My time is over”.

However, it was my mentor Emilia Benjamin who encouraged me and gave me the advice to follow my passion and go for a PhD in Epidemiology. With her support, I made the transition from my master’s program to the Ph.D. program. It took one year longer and more classes. It was undoubtedly hard, but it provided the knowledge I needed in a structured way. That’s how I landed in medical research. I realized that this path represented the perfect combination of medical and biological understanding and epidemiology. Few people have a deep knowledge of both fields. It has indeed been a long way, but very rewarding. Also, for me, having these three female mentors, Jane Liebschutz, Emilia Benjamin, Sherri Stuver†, was invaluable. At the age of thirty-nine, I had my first publication as a first author, and I was raising two babies. They always encourage me by saying “Don’t worry, don’t give up, it’s worth to keep going”. I was challenging the norms of German culture, and having these three female role models in my life was a great support.

Would you have one word to give as a gift to other women and more in general to young aspiring scientists, women or men?

There are more messages that I would like to give. The mentorship issue is crucial. You need to spend time finding the right person whom you can identify as a mentor. In Germany, mentorship programs are not well established yet. You must look for someone who truly understands what it means to be a mentor, but when you find the right person, it’s invaluable. In the USA it was a great experience. They gave me three months to find a mentor. The mentorship program is very structured. They provide you with a list of faculty members, and then you are encouraged to start scheduling interviews with them, asking questions, and seeing whether there’s chemistry and common ground. It was a little bit scary in the beginning, but this process helps you identify the persons you’d like to work with. Mentors don’t necessarily have to be in your field. It was really interesting to connect with various faculty members and get to know each other. The mentorship is structured through a formal agreement. You agree on the frequency of meetings and area of focus. They asked me, “What do you want me to mentor in… in your thesis, or concerning professional issues, or perhaps in life matters such as how you can cope with your kids and with classes?”. In the USA, when professors apply for promotion, they must provide the names of their mentees and what they are doing. This is very important also for them. The achievements of mentees are also a sign that they are fulfilling their role as mentors. I always referred to my mentors as my “umbilical cord” when I came back to Germany. As I was still writing my Ph.D. thesis, we were having conversations every four to eight weeks for support and to have some fun. By coming back to the German system, one can sometimes feel lost, and it was nice to have this support.

When thinking about the core message for the younger generations, some key pieces of advice are evident: curiosity, courage, and humility. Then, I’ve come to realize that the question itself is the answer because it’s all about finding what you can add on. What can you contribute with your research, and what can you do differently? It’s not about doing the same that everybody does. It’s about approaching a research question from a different perspective. I would say it’s the combination of asking yourself the question “What can I add on?” and having the courage to do it. Because there is a risk, that thing could go wrong, your ideas might not work or maybe the community is not willing to readily accept them. But you need to be courageous, to believe in what you think is your add-on, your unique contribution to the research question. If you see that you are not truly adding something new, consider changing the research question, because what is the point of doing the same as everyone else? You find a lot of publications, where everybody  isdoing the same things. When I review articles, I often challenge the authors to find the implications of their work. Always think a little bit ahead, envision the consequences of your study, what is happening, and what kind of study should be done to demonstrate your findings.Think deeply about what you are adding to the research field.

The second advice it’s not to let others decide on your behalf. If you are on a path and someone offers you an opportunity that doesn’t fit into what you want to achieve, you don’t need to feel obligated to accept it. You can appreciate their offering and thank them for it, but you should trust yourself and what you want to achieve. It’s perfectly fine to say, “No thank you, I appreciate the opportunity, but it doesn’t lead me to what I want to achieve“. Then you keep going and you’ll find that other doors are going to open.

The third piece of advice is: “Always talk with passion about your research with everyone”. That’s really a good advice that I’ve got in the US. Because you never know who is the person next to you and how this person could support and help you, get interested in what you are doing, and connect you to other people. You never know, so always talk about what you do with enthusiasm because that’s what you love to talk about, even without particular purposes. It’s very surprising what you get in life when you just open yourself.