Trimble ’80 Revisits Campus

“Raise your hand if you know someone who had the polio virus. Now, raise your hand if you know someone who had cancer,” Dr. Cornelia Liu Trimble ’80, a Johns Hopkins professor, said. An overwhelming majority of the student body raised its hands in response to her second request. Last Friday in Assembly, Trimble shared her story and her progress in developing vaccines that use existing cells in the human body to destroy cancer cells.Trimble attended Princeton University, completing a double major in civil engineering and international relations. Trimble then earned her medical degree at Vanderbilt University. Subsequently, she took a year to earn a master’s degree in English. Growing up, she did not intend on becoming a physician and cancer researcher. “When I began researching in developing cervical cancer vaccines, I didn’t have an extensive knowledge in the topic. I wasn’t afraid to ask the simple questions,” she said.

“She didn’t pick something in high school and stick with it and end up trapped.”

Math instructor Joseph Wolfson and religion instructor Peter Vorkink introduced Trimble. Wolfson had known Trimble before she attended Exeter and recognized her as an exceptional student. “I noted her joyousness and her willingness to tackle tough problems and to crack them, which she is still doing,” he said. “She’s deeply human.” Trimble was the first babysitter of Vorkink’s son in Soule Hall. Forty years later, the two still remain close. Vorkink viewed Trimble as a wonderful role model for students interested in a career in science. “She never imagined she would become a doctor—as she said in Assembly—but once going that route, she used her Harkness training of always asking questions to get to where she is today, one of the country’s leading cervical cancer vaccine researchers,” he said.Science instructor Christopher Matlack believed that Trimble did an effective job designing her research, especially because she did not go into it with preconceived notions. “The other thing I think it’s important to know is that she thought that sitting around the Harkness table here at Exeter got her in that frame of mind to just question and talk, you know, ‘What if?’ and ‘Let’s try this.’ Some people are more, ‘This is the way it is, and these cells do this...’ and they don’t necessarily have sort of an open mind,” he said.Science instructor Richard Aaronian also found her assembly engaging because of her personal enthusiasm towards her research. During her presentation, he singled out the moment during which Trimble grew excited while watching the video of the killer T-cells attacking the cancer cell. “To me, [that was] the best part of the assembly,” he said.Matlack thought that Trimble gave students valuable advice about career paths. “So here’s what I think you guys could take out of this: a career path isn’t what you think you need to do to get somewhere… You don’t really know your path until you turn around and look behind you,” he said.Vorkink echoed Matlack’s sentiments. “For it was at our Harkness tables where Dr. Trimble found her voice, a voice which served her well in her scientific research when others took views contrary to hers,” he said.Relay for Life co-chair and upper Nada Zohayr found the balance between science and humanity of Trimble’s presentation engaging. “I thought it was really amazing, the kind of work she’s doing,” she said. “I was wonderstruck by what she was telling us—having a therapeutic vaccine is something that I found remarkable.”Despite knowing very little about the technical aspects of biology, lower Julia Goydan found her story truly inspiring, as Trimble highlighted that she put in lots of hardwork and effort to succeed. “It was inspiring to meet someone who is very accomplished yet still working towards a goal larger than herself,” she said.Vorkink also recognized the connection between Trimble’s research and her passion for helping people. Although she is a researcher, Trimble sees patients once a week, allowing her to view the human side of her research.With this interaction, Trimble witnesses how her patients with cancer can benefit from her work. Her success as a researcher is a combination of her passion for helping others and her own personal curiosity. “Science is all about asking questions of your data and never assuming a previous interpretation of those data is correct; that skill of continuous inquiry she learned here, and it has served her well her whole life,” Vorkink said.After her assembly, Trimble conversed with students at a lunch in the Latin Study. Upper Julia Friberg admired Trimble’s genuine and relatable personality. “I enjoyed her lunch talk where she described her super crazy path through medical school,” Friberg said.“She didn’t pick something in high school and stick with it and end up trapped,” Friberg continued. “She didn’t sound like she was stressed about her future when she was at Exeter, contrary to students today.”Relay for Life co-chair and upper Claire Dauge-Roth believed that Trimble’s assembly succeeded in bringing more awareness of cancer research onto campus. “The fact that her treatment method was natural was very impressive, especially because the effects of radiation and other forms of treatment are damaging,” she said.At the end of her presentation, Trimble received a standing ovation from the student body. “It’s very hard to get a standing ovation in that hall, and it didn’t take long for our students to stand up,” Aaronian said. “And I think it was well deserved.”